Tonight I got home from work and decided it was go-time. Time to tackle the one R2 task that struck dread and fear into my heart. And that's cutting the large circles out of the inner aluminum dome with the shiny new "Widow Maker". I've been dreading this task for months now so it finally got to the point where I just needed to get it done. And it actually ended up being fairly simple and rewarding project.
The "Widow Maker" circle cutter was just a little difficult to use. I used Chris's (artoo-detoo.net) technique of deeply scoring the circle into the aluminum while not cutting all the way through. Then I used dremmel cutoff discs to cut the inside of the circle like a pizza all the way through the aluminum to where the circle was scored. Then you just grab each slice of pizza with some long nosed pliers and wiggle it until it breaks off nice and clean. In no time you have a nice circle (After using about a million dremmel cutoff discs). I also had to wear a glove because the dremmel got pretty hot.
I made the circle just a tad smaller than it should have been so a large half round file finished the job. Then I wrapped a funnel with some course sandpaper for the final hole shaping.
I'm glad this is now done so I don't have to worry about it any longer and I can finish the dome. Still have to cut the logics areas out of the inner dome but that should be fairly easy.
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