Today I was at the New England R2 Builder's get together in Candia, New Hampshire. I was able to take advantage of Kevin's Helmig's shop and all the great power tools.
The first issue was separating the dome from the inner dome. After all those years of wet sanding, dry sanding, polishing and such, a lot of debris had accumulated between the domes.
With some help from Tom and Ethan, we were able to pry them apart and see what a marvelous, gooey mess awaited me....
Using 80 grit sandpaper and an mouse sander, I cleaned up the inside of the outer dome. It was a little tricky due to the curvature but I just went very slow and methodical.
Next was the inner dome. This has very, very deep spin lines.
Before I went to work on that, it was time to label the dome panels and use the air-powered reciprocating saw with a very fine blade.
I labeled everything and have a dome schematic printout I also labeled as well. Why? Because you can't see the underside of the dome to check panel numbers during assembly!
Back to the inner dome...as it was, the outer dome would not fit all the way over it.
With about a 1/4 inch of gap, I either had to cut into the inner dome or see if sanding it aggressively would improve the fit.
After close to an hour of sanding on an orbital sander with 80 grit paper, the outer dome fits perfectly now. The outside of the outer dome makes contact with the bottom.
(Nice reflection, eh?)
The last thing I did was to trace out where the panels are located onto the inner dome. I used a pencil for this. This will give me a baseline reference when removing and re-fitting the domes together.
Next up...it will be time to cut up the inner dome so that the panels can be hinged.
