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PPD time.

Center, check.



Punched, check. (In retrospect, this is where I should have stopped and asked questions. A little piece of whatever the hell this is filled in with chipped off, but it was tiny. No big deal...)



Started small, 5/64 drill bit. Worked up to 7/64 and then the nightmare!

Ok ok. It's only a little chip. I have a bigger hole still needing to be drilled. No problem.



Aaahhh!! FFFFUUUUUUUHHHH....!!!!



STAAAAAAAAAAHHHHPPPPP! What the hell are you filled with?!?! The most fragile element known to man?!??



Well, at least I drilled it straight! But now I have this exploded hole.





Seriously, what in the **** is this thing filled with? Resin? It didn't drill out like my resin bumper, that's why I though that would be a snap. I tried drilling slow, backwards, fast, it just kept going wrong and more wrong and even wronger. (My word, opposite of awesomer!)

I know the tube is supposed to be blue, I just happened to have a red piece in arms length to test it.

Vinny, if you're reading this, if you can do your customers a favour and drill this SOB for people, I'm sure they'd appreciate it. That sucked. Looks like I'll be busting out the the sculpt soon.

Damn, Jay. I'm sorry that happened man. I too ruined my first PPD and just got a replacement from Vinny...like yours except...




He drilled mine out for an extra $5.00

Damn....

Certainly looks like resin, some black milliput will fix that up good as new though!

Putty. Easy fix.

Bondo will work too, although you will probably have to do a few layers to get is smooth.
There are a lot of different levels of hardness of resin out there so some of them end up being really hard and brittle
like glass, one tip for people that are worried about chipping resin when drilling is to warm it up first, most resins
will get a little more pliable when warm.

On a side note, don't leave your packs in a hot car, they may start to change shape

It was definitely brittle like glass. I have some Apoxie sculpt. Will that work? I know it's fixable, just sucks that it blew up.

Yeah it should do, according to the Aves apoxie website it adheres to resin with no problems.

Great! I'll give that a shot. I have a few little things to fix on the shell so I'll do that at the same time. Not sure if I will need to fill the entire space or somehow fill around a scrap piece of the tubing so I don't have to drill it again. I'll figure that out when I get there.

I attached the PPD again and my lamp happened to shine right in the crater, looks like the whole middle section split right in half.



But I decided to take a break, have some lunch, take the dog for a walk to the mailbox, watch an episode of the fresh prince on the netflix. Usually is still be sleeping right now.

Anyway, I did cut a length of the blue tubing and some loom from the PPD to the resistor on the ion arm. Nothing huge but still one more step forward.

Finished off the tubes on the ion arm. I have some yellow Nycoil tube from MMM which I'll cut a piece with more writing on it but I wanted to see length.



And the blue tube.

Vinny had sent me a message apologizing that he has sent the wrong injector tube bracket that was bent in the wrong place. I gave it a shot and trimmed it down so it is the same height. It doesn't have that nice rounded top anymore and looks really rough, but it doesn't stick out now.





I still have to mark out the holes to attach it to the injector tubes.

PssdffJay wrote:Vinny had sent me a message apologizing that he has sent the wrong injector tube bracket that was bent in the wrong place. I gave it a shot and trimmed it down so it is the same height. It doesn't have that nice rounded top anymore and looks really rough, but it doesn't stick out now.





I still have to mark out the holes to attach it to the injector tubes.

I had the same problem. I actually got 2 from him (both too tall) and so I used one of them to mark the arch on the other and cut it. Then used a belt sander and file to get it closer to the right profile. Just remember the screen used ones were no where near perfect, so all these laser cut parts aren't screen accurate! The worse it is, the more accurate it is!

By the way how did you get an apology message from Vinny? I didn't get anything.....

If there's anything I learned in my first build it was that modifications and cleanup are always a necessity. At the end of the day, you'll know that it isn't how you wanted it but when you see the end product it'll be hard to care about it anyways....because...well mfking proton pack.

I would trace more of a circle around the top and cut/file/sand away the excess



One comment I have looking at it though is the od of the metal is a bit too thick...
Here is the lobby hero... which looks closer to 1.5 - 2mm thick.


This part is very easy to make my picking up a small sheet of the right od metal, measuring the right length and width and quickly cutting it out with a dremel and bending it with a vise, or against a block. Then filing away until its nice and smooth.

Buuuuut this area is hidden by the ribbon cable so it's only really worth it if it bothers you!

With the ppd, id use epoxy putty, fast and easy. But id probably try and crack the rest of the top away so it's nice and clean and you are drilling into the putty instead of what you currently have.

Great progress Jay

Despite the small setback with the PPD, everything is looking great! I'm going to school on your loom and tubing work.

Thanks for all the feedback everyone!

Drjames, I'm not sure if Vinny actually said sorry, or just told me that he sent the wrong one, he just happened to be in my thread and saw and I had sent him a PM about something else and he mentioned it. I wouldn't feel bad though. We can call him names when he's not looking! I wouldn't have even know if he didn't say anything about it sticking up too far.

Julz, my bracket is 3mm. Not noticeable really but probably harder to cut than 1.5-2mm. I did mark out an arch as you suggested but at 1am, I'm sure the neighbours would appreciate it if I did that tomorrow. If I screw it up, I'll give a scratch one a go. The thickness doesn't bother me and it's helping keep my injector tubes in place, they really want to suck in towards the shell.

Hoot, thanks for the reminder, all the little things and chips and crooked holes will all disappear. Once I had all the tubing run, I took a step back and thought, damn! It IS a proton pack! Amazing what those little things added will do to the overall look!

Bishop, thank you for all your help and tips. I'm great full for all those who went before and all those currently in the build stages with me. One hand reaching up and one hand reaching down right?

Ok, so I did a bit more tonight. I did remove the PPD and started to chip out more of that resin. It really wasn't that hard. A 1/2" drill bit and a 1 second drill had 2 huge chunks fall out. Well, fly out. At my face! Then I started using my self punching centre punch. Didn't take long.



You can see the threads from the top mounting hole. That's where I stopped chipping it out.



I mixed up some Apoxie Sculpt and filled 'er up! It did start to come though the top mounting hole so all I did was take a bolt and thread it and and thread it out. Hopefully that'll keep the threads and may only need to run a quick tap to clean it up. It's going to take some sanding. And I'll have to drill that hole again dammit!



It might be too much on top but I knew I'd have to sand it anyway.

I had a small amount of the mixed sculpt left so I decided to fill in all the little chips or missed spots in the shell or where I had some bad chipping from drilling originally. I won't bore you with a dozen photos, just a couple of the good ones.





I should have filled in that little mark on the left but I forgot. It shows up in photos more than what I can see with my eye.



And I gave a little fake weld an attempt. I'll see how it goes. Still undecided on how to weld the booster tube to the ion arm.



That's about it for updates until next week. I'm off to Spokane on business tomorrow afternoon so internet access will be sporadic depending on what my hotel has and I refuse to pay their obscene prices for wifi access.

Your fake weld bead doesn't look too shabby! The one thing that really bugs me about people that make fake welds is it almost always looks like it is sitting on top of the base material. That the bead doesn't flow into the base material(s). A real weld will have that stacked dime pattern (that most fake ones achieve....or if they don't it looks like a porcupine) and the bead kind of flows into the base material on the edges. Does that make sense?

Also if you are going to attempt the booster to ion arm welds, they are kind of concave in shape. Just keep that in mind while you are doing it.

That makes sense. I was just messing around really, but I understand what you mean. I would have needed to blend the edges down to the metal more. I also wanted to test how strong of a bond it would be. I wouldn't want to attach them together just to have them break apart when I remove them from the shell. So far they are pretty solid. It says 24 hour cure time and I'm only at 12 but it feels solid already. Probably still soft in the middle.

I'll give that ugly weld a shot when I get back.

hey jay, alittle bump in the road. you have handled it well though! doing one heck of a job, stay positive my friend!

...sure have been quit Mr. jay

halliwax wrote:...sure have been quit Mr. jay

Somehow, I read that with you having a Harley Quinn voice... =P

Jays outta town for bi'ness lol

Jay just got back after being up for 21 hours and driving for 11 of those hours. He is so tired he is writing in the third person. He is very messed up. He says good night.

All work and no play makes Jay something something....

Hoot wrote:All work and no play makes Jay something something....

Go crazy? /marge

Jay needs to quit being a quitter and start being a starter.

So guess what I did today, Jay.....

Whoa! Did that happen when you were drilling the mounting holes? I think Vinny should hear about the resin breaking up.

Yep! I was doing 2 holes. The bottom one is good, but the top one busted it. Luckily, it just split in to two big pieces and I was able to put some epoxy down in there and put the top piece back in. Can't tell it was ever broken, but there is only 1 screw holding it in. Should be ok.

Twink, jay I think I may be on to something.... Hear me out

Both you guys drilled and tapped the back of the PPD and mounted it to the pack before drilling the holes down the center

I wonder if you drilled the holes down the middle first if it the resin would hold better and not split

I think the center hole grabs too much of the mounting hole, this is all in theory, if I had one and drilled it myself I would have a better idea

Jays looks like it shattered from the very top while twink looks like it broke when the drill bit got to the threaded mounting hole drilling in the back of the PPD, making me believe the threaded hole in the back weakens the resin too much

Now I'm thinking the resin gets too weak with all those holes and tends to shatter

Too bad Vince couldn't put the center hole in while casting?