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Sunday, July 20, 2008

Dress Rehearsal II

We had a lot of relatives and kids over yesterday ... some from out of state. One little boy in particular kept talking about how much he loved robots and couldn't wait to see them. He was really excited ... until he came onto the front porch and the bus stop robots came alive. Then he refused to come into the house and almost went into a panic on the front porch until his mom calmed him down. Once he got in the house and got used to seeing 6' robots he remembered he loved robots again. The kids had fun playing with the robots. I taught them how to make the B9 robot talk and they manipulated his speech. I told them I was going to recruit them as my assistants at megacon next year.

It's amazing what a difference a couple coats of paint makes. It really makes all the filing, sanding, and cutting worth while. I painted white today using my inexpensive Lowes white paint. I love the color and the price ($3.50 per can) but there were a few times when it sputtered so I learned to keep the nozzle clean as I was painting and it was fine. The shade is perfect ... not too antiseptic and not too creamy. To say I'm happy with how he's looking is an understatement. That robot building kick is kicking high today.

I also started getting serious about creating special motor mounts for my droid. I cut large slits in the top of my aluminum ankles and will run a long piece of aluminum up into the leg. The aluminum will protrude through the ankle to hook up with the motors. Still not sure how I'll get the feet over this but I will make it happen if I have to cut the feet and rebuild them. It's time to get this droid rolling.


5 comments:

Unknown said...

I end up using a lot of rattle can paint on game restorations, one great tip I picked up a few years ago: when you've applied a coat of paint and you're done with the spray can (even for a little while), invert it and spray it to clear the nozzle. It usually takes about 3 seconds to stop spraying paint and get to clear propellent.

That way the nozzle is clear for the next coat of paint. The cavet here is that some brands will spray even while inverted, so this trick won't work. Usually any of the red cylinder shaped small spray buttons you can clear, but the fancy large formed nozzles you can't.

I usually use Painter's Touch from Home Depot with great results, but recently they've switched to the fancy nozzles that can't be cleared.

Here's a little example of our spray can handiwork on one of my son's Pinewood Derby Cars:
http://www.members.aol.com/kilkeeslps/pwd07.3.jpg

Jim said...

Thanks for the tips Cori. Nice job on the Pinewood Derby car.

Mike D. said...

Jim, I didn't realize I was signed into Google via my Wife's account :-)

It's actually Mike!

Glad you liked the post anyway :-).

Jim said...

Mike, btw .... when are we going to be seeing a B9 build blog from you? Don't put it off too long.

Mike D. said...

I've been finishing up a few of my long suffering arcade game projects :-)

Then I'll work on the B9. Just last night I was thinking about doing a run of brains on a waterjet to help offset the cost of the project.

I'm just starting a run of circuit boards that will keep me busy until they're all shipped.