There and Back Again

        This past week I found myself back in the Indianapolis area for a Boy Scout camp and I had three days by myself at home waiting for my daughter to get done with her Girl Scout horse camp.  I brought home with me the panel pieces for round two of painting.  I know, I know, they were already painted and ready to go right?  After seeing what the iodized metal cast red paint was supposed to look like on the resin pieces I compared them next to each other and the panels looked horrible.  They would have been totally outshone by the resin on the droid.  Not Cool!
        I had to purchase some more acetone after my last stripping party (not like that :)  The process took 5.5 hours to complete, annoyingly long process but I did get to watch two movies while doing it.  The dome panels were completely down to the metal again and washed.  The following day I watched the new Robocop movie (which was not half bad) in between running out to the garage to put a new coat of paint on.  They turned out awesome.  Exactly what I was hoping for the first time.  They just need two coats of the crystal clear sealant and they will be perfect.

You can't really see the metallic flecks in the paint job.

       Painting did not take the three days that I thought it would and it turned out that we were going to be at home for an extra day on top of that.  I still had a project that needed to get done before GenCon in August and that is my costume.  I decided to create my Gaffi stick, the club/spear of the Sandpeople. I took some 1.5 inch PVC tubing cut to 33", a 1 inch dowel rod, the spike off a cheap solar light, some styrene for the fins, and the "pineapple" that I bought with the rest of the costume.  It was fun putting it together too.  I got to use spray foam to fill in the PVC and use my Dremel to shape and draw some carving on it.  I had to make the end of the PVC curve at the end with the pineapple so I turned on our outside fire pit and heated up the end of the pipe.  I used a shepherd's crook to shape it a little bit and connected the pineapple.  After screwing together the ends and cutting slits for the styrene fins, I drew a simple design on the main body of the stick to carve out.  Now I just have to spray paint the body brown and the spike end silver and then wrap the hands hold with some twine and it will be done.  Here is a picture of the product so far.

Not a great picture, but I'll do a new one when it is done.

         …and Back Again.  To the Frozen North we went.  I finally got a chance to get some work done today, but no painting, it rained last night and was a bit cold all day.  I did install the utility arms into the frame.  I was also able to punch out the pieces in the skins so I can paint them as soon as the weather agrees with it.  I also figured out how to install the legs and tried them out.  I will post a complete account of the legs once I get some better pictures.  

My outdoor work space.