(06-17-2012) Working on the rockler bearing

On Father's Day, I worked on the rockler bearing.  I took all of the original ball bearings out and cleaned the races with alcohol.  The races were smooth for the most part, but there were a couple of spots where it seemed very rough.  I took some 360 grit sand paper and sanded the entire inner and outer races so that they were very smooth, then I used some mothers aluminum polish and gave them a quick smoothing and cleaning and then I reassembled everything, but this time I installed acetal ball bearings.  The bearing assembly moves much smoother, but it's also much noisier because of the lack of the heavy grease used in the bearing from the factory.  I think I will work on it more this week to get a smoother and quieter motion from the bearing.

I also worked on getting the pieces of the dome mount all assembled and tested.   I tested the rockler bearing with the A&A drive gear, the white plastic dome mount ring and an aluminum dome mounting plate (for the day when I might mount a life form scanner or periscope).  I'm still not exactly sure if I'm getting all of the pieces in the right order, so I'll keep researching until I get it right.

(06-09-2012) A small update

It's been quite a while since I've had an update on R2.  I've been getting parts as I can, the biggest change recently have been the addition of legs.  As each piece of the puzzle arrives R2 becomes more and more complete, but it's a slow process.  I have a few projects (not R2 related) going at the moment, but I hope to have some time to devote to working on R2 very soon.