User avatar
By julz
#4876606
So I finally decided to take the plunge and have a crack at converting an iona shoe polisher.

I originally acquired the electronics kit when I backed the Mighty quite a few years ago and it's been sitting in a box gathering dust ever since. I originally purchased a Shell kit from an old member which looked pretty good but the wings were crap and it put me off putting it together.

For me the biggest pain in the arse was going to be fabricating new wings to fit the electronics. A couple of months ago I was in a ah F@$k it mood and decided to start, the next thing I knew I had suddenly purchased a green iona polisher and suddenly found myself pouring over reference pictures again :walterpeck:

So... on with the pictures

Typical Pke snaps.... everyone takes those :p

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Some of the first things I attacked was filling the inside of the handle and sanding off the flange plastic. Very similar to sharpening the front of the pke, this was a pain in the ass. There is very little room for error as it's easy to take too much off and ruin it. I also removed the buffing hole from the bottom of the polisher and filled that in as well.

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Also sanded down the interior structure removing excess bit of plastic
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After looking at many reference pictures and making blueprints and measurements in illustrator I started scratch building Pke wings out of 1mm styrene plastic. I wanted them to look as close as I could to the real wings but be able to pull them apart for repairs if need be. So I made the fit together like a puzzle, the bottom part which is glued onto the circuit board slots into the top piece and is held in place with the wing screw. The seam will be hopefully hidden when assembled.

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Then had a crack at sharpening the front of the pke. This was much more stressful than the handle...

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In the end I felt like id taken too much off , so after an attack of OCD I measured the shapes I wanted out of styrene and glued them in place on the front and then blended them in.

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After looking at how the original Pke was put together I worked out a plan of attack for doing the instrument panel on the top. As the top of the shoe polisher is so curved it seemed the best way to get something box like to fit nicely was to cut a large hole and fit the panel inside. Looking at reference pictures this seemed to be what they might have done :cool:

So I made a few pen lines and measurements
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Then made a hole... probably voiding the warranty huh...
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Next I made a temp mockup and using blueprints I made

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Then made a better one and glued it together and cut out the led holes

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Using reference pictures I worked out where the wing holes were and made blueprints to cut them out

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Just a quick test fit of the wings...

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Then I sanded the front sharp lines again and this time I'm very happy with how it turned out :cool:
Also started making the rest of the shelf for the instrument panel
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Cut the hole for the rotary switch and filled in the vents
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ANNNNnnnnd done!
So there you are a few months work and you guys are up to date with where I am on this thing!
jackdoud, Kingpin, MonaLS and 1 others liked this
User avatar
By julz
#4876696
Thanks guys :)
User avatar
By julz
#4876710
Thanks mate.

After starting down this road, id encourage more people to do so as the Matty PKE is very different from the real PKE.
Lots of the details are same same but also pretty off...
User avatar
By Naptime
#4876731
Stunning work! I was finally able to get my hands on a Matty PKE, but had previously purchased an Iona shoe polisher to do what you're doing. I'll be watching this with great interest as you progress in your build! I love your attention to detail and how you constructed your instrument panel. That was one part of my build that stumped me - gonna totally steal that idea!
robandliv liked this
User avatar
By Mrdopey
#4876817
Looks good. Would you mind posting any of the blue prints or at least some measurements including the shell? I would like to build one entirely from scratch and any measurements would help.
User avatar
By julz
#4876855
Thanks guys :)

Mrdopey... When I finish the pke I might post blueprints/measurements I made of the instrument panel and the wings. But not the shoe polisher. It has too many details and curves, I'd recommend finding a cheap shoe polisher and convert it like I am rather than scratch building the body!
User avatar
By julz
#4877524
Moving onto the screen. made blueprints in illustrator and stuck them on 1.5 mm clear plastic, then scribed the lines with a craftknife. Just need to get a hold of some green film gel.

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testing the fit for the electronics behind the screen...
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User avatar
By julz
#4878113
Filling in the recess to match the other side.
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Naptime, Kingpin, jackdoud liked this
By Hammer
#4878978
I'd like to see a light kit. I could get there with arduino but it makes my brain hurt. Keep it going Julz!
User avatar
By julz
#4882621
Thanks for all the compliments guys ... blush :blush:

I've been very busy at work so progress has been slow but finally i've made my way through the bottom ribs and screw holes.
All of these things were a pain in the arse!

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Glad that parts over and done with :walterpeck:
By Randallace
#4883664
What did you make the ribs from ? Been looking around , was gonna use sintra but can seem to cut strips very well -

Screw holes look great - that's my next move on mine
User avatar
By julz
#4883702
Ok Ok Cole :cool: .... I'll post some more updates soon I promise. I've just been redoing the instrument panel due to my ocd :walterpeck:

Randallace ... they are made from .080" X .080" square plastic - I found a packet of styrene strips. I'm sure most hobby shops would sell them. If you want more details have a look at cylands pke site... that's what i've been using for my measurements
http://www.cylandprops.com/PKEmeterp1.html
Xandrew Bull liked this
User avatar
By julz
#4938151
Time to do a little dust off as I got busy doing other things and now Id like to finish this thing :walterpeck:

So since I last post I had moved on to try and finish the instrument panel.
I tried to do it by filling the gaps with epoxy

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Alot of sanding and polishing and I ended up here

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And next to my spare untouched Iona

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Cole Funstuff liked this
User avatar
By julz
#4938153
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The more and more I stared at the above image The more I fell in love with the inside look of the electronics. So I decided to figure out a way to make the electronics I had fit on the side of the pke like the real one.

First up was 3d printing a custom knob based on all the different reference pictures and vrs the size of the hole it has to fit in the main shell.

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Then I started figuring out placement, I wanted to mount the wings on the metal shelf you see in the real pke. This meant I couldn't use wing electronics that came with the kit. The connection points were very stiff and bulky so that resigned me to the idea of making my own. I also knew that in order to have the servos on the same side as the real Pke... that would mean making a little shelf to go over the main board that the servos could glue to. I also went and got better and more accurate servo arms for the wings.

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main battery in place and testing where everything would go...

At this point I embarked on making new wings. I got a fair way until Jack Doud jumped into remind me that the real wings used acrylic rod pushed into the wings instead of LEDs so I decided to solder my own leds on more accurate red wire wrap wire, based on Jacks advice I put the leds inside the wings so I could poke acrylic in later.
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I also 3d printed a large black washer to mimic the way the ball and socket connected to the wings.
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Kingpin, Cole Funstuff liked this
User avatar
By julz
#4938154
More figuring out placements and roughing in the volume knob position.
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I then made a more sturdy metal shelf for the servos
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Figured out the shelf to hold the wings and how to install it so I can take it out. I decided there was space to put the speaker under the main board which you can see near my finger.
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At this point I decided to go all in with replicating the interior and moved onto the batteries themselves... I tried to find as many ref images as I could but these nickel cadmium batteries are long extinct. So I found as many similar batteries and set out to decode what the blurry writing said on the batteries so I could make my own vinyl labels. Alex Newborn helped me out a lot here and we managed to solve the blurred puzzle.
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I then cut open some alkaline batteries so i could make fake ones
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And Voila new fake batteries
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And fitting in everything else
img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/502 ... d7f8_b.jpg[/img]
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And another look at what i'm shooting for
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And finally a test of the setup :)

Click the image below to watch the video...
Image20191231_213255 by Julz, on Flickr
Last edited by julz on August 14th, 2020, 12:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
By julz
#4938185
Here is a better view of how The servo and wing plate is attached

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This was me adding support for the power socket and the power led
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At this point when i thought I was off to the races Mikhail show me a new top down picture of the instrument panel and I decided to head to Maya to model it in 3d. To many of the pictures look different from different angles so this was a good way to get it as close as I could to the original.

Here is where I have got to and I have tried to make something others can print out and add to a brand new Iona

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and the results...

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Annnnd that's me up to now.

A few more tweaks on the instrument panel and i'll be set

Here are a few more videos of the thing in action and a test of the acrylic rods in the wings -
Click on any of the 2 images below to see the videos :)

Image20191231_213125 by Julz, on Flickr
Image20200413_145650 by Julz, on Flickr
Cole Funstuff, wralex liked this
By Cole Funstuff
#4938193
Amazing as always, the work inside the prop is unprecedented!

Are you planning to use your existing styrene faceplate or swap it out for your 3D printed one?
julz liked this

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