Legs: Phase 2

A couple of days ago I decided to start tackling the legs.  Because I have wooden legs, this was going to be a bigger job than if I had aluminum ones.  Aluminum needs to be sanded and washed, but then it's ready for paint.  Wooden legs, as I have found, demand a few more steps.

        I had already purchased the sandpaper and Bondo for this portion of the build.  I decided to start with the 60 grit sanding discs on my orbital sander.  At this point the legs had a lot of imperfections, glue that had squeezed out during clamping, slight variations on the cutting of each board causing valleys in places, and the holes in the construction of the actual plywood.  I made quick runs over the wood using a figure eight movement in an attempt to not take off too many corners.  The hope is to have the legs look like metal when it is over.

        After the first pass on all of the large surfaces, and getting completely dusty from the process, I kept going with the 120 and then the 220 grit paper.  The legs were super smooth when I got finished and the Droid Construction Bay was (is) completely dusted.  I had to wipe down the legs with a very slightly damp paper towel to get the fine dust off of them.

        The final sanding job was the under arm detail area.  This is a small area where a resin piece will ultimately go but still needed to be cleaned out.  I decided to do a once over with the 220 paper wrapped around a small block of wood.

        The next day my son had a friend over and while they were playing outside I thought I could get a bit done and try to figure out how to do some Bondo filling.  I have used wood fillers, silicone caulk, and thing of the like, but only once have I used an epoxy.  I painted an epoxy on the floor of my garage for easy cleanup and water issues from snow and dirt and grim.  That job was fine until I got to final can of epoxy and I mixed it up but for some reason, the job took me twice as long as the first two garage bays.  By the time I got to the end of the garage the epoxy was starting to solidify and started getting gummy.  This resulted in pieces flaking off and now I have a few spots on the floor where you can see bare concrete.  

         Using this knowledge because Bondo is an epoxy, I got busy filling the imperfections that were left after sanding.  I started with a small golf ball sized amount of the compound and some hardener.  I started filling and luckily I had read the instructions because that small amount of Bondo hardened in less than a couple of minutes.  At least it was hard enough that I couldn't spread it anymore.  I cut the amount in half for the next section and it worked a bit better, at least I used it all before it hardened.  It took me five batches to get throughout the legs, but now it is ready for final sanding.  Then comes the paint or maybe putting on the resin pieces.