Removed Dome Panels

Today I removed the dome panels. The plan has been to replace them with the newly painted panels from dome #2. More on that in a moment.

First up, I gutted the dome electronics.



The dome sure is a lot lighter now.



Back on April 7, 2006, I took extensive pictures of where I placed the 3M Very High Bond tape that I used to affix the dome panels, and I relied on these pictures to know exactly where the panels were being secured to the dome.



I used a few different sizes of wooden dowels to poke the panels out from behind. The tape puts up a pretty good fight, but in the end I was able to remove each panel.




The worst part is removing all the old tape. The tape is only 5/1000" thick , so it does not peel off, it needs to be rolled and picked off little by little. I still need to remove the tape for the locations of where a few of the pie panels used to rest.



Once all the panels were off, I test-fitted the newly painted panels from dome #2. Unfortunately, not all of them fit perfectly. The larger panels are more problematic, I guess the dome profiles for each of my R&J domes are slightly different.

The new plan is to repaint the panels I removed today. If the painting results are as good as those for the panels of dome #2, I'll just use the repainted panels from dome #1. In the meantime, I have some old paint to remove and some primer and wet-sanding to do.