Michael Wheeler's aluminum octagon ports arrived this week, and I've been wanting to replace the resin ones I have with something beefier on droid #1.
I need to trim the front corners off of these octagon ports, for reasons that you'll soon see. After marking the "cut here" lines, I used the Dremel with the cutoff wheel attachment for this task.
I cut about 1/4" deep into each corner on each octagon port frame piece.
Next, it was time to cut in the perpendicular direction, to finish the cutting of each corner.
A few minutes later, and all eight corners had been trimmed.
The reason I'm trimming the front corners off is that I want the octagon ports to fit flush up against the inner surface of the outer skin. Years ago I had cut the inner skin wider, to allow the octagon port room to fit up against the outer skin. However, I only cut enough material for the octagon shape, and these new parts have additional material for mounting screws that I won't be using.
A loose fit by hand shows that things look good for the rear octagon port. The same was the case for the front octagon port as well.
These will be mounted the same way as the resin ones were. I will use an MDF paddle that will be attached to the back of the port, that will hang down from the horizontal rib above. I still need to cut the paddle, and paint the inner perimeter of the frame pieces.
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