Drilled Horseshoes for Hydraulics & Bottom Buttons

Today I found some time to mount the shoulder hydraulics, and the bottom shoulder buttons for each shoulder. If you followed this portion of my build for droid #1, this will look pretty familiar. (And if you're paying really close attention, you'll even notice that I'm placing the hydraulics in the front of the horseshoes this time, opposite of what I did on droid #1.)

I started with the hydraulics. I placed a piece of tape across the back of the hydraulic, and poked holes where the mountings screws go, by screwing down the screws in their respective holes.



I drew alignment marks around the outside of the hydraulic pocket on the horseshoe, and similarly marked the center of the tape. I then placed the tape down into the center of the pocket, so that the alignment marks matched.



I took the horseshoe to the drill press and drilled the holes, as guided by the holes in the tape.



Looking good!



I then repeated the process for the other horseshoe.

Next, I worked on securing the bottom shoulder button for each horseshoe. No tape necessary this time, as there is only one hole to drill, smack-dab in the center of the pocket. I measure and marked the alignment lines to indicate the center of the pocket, and drilled the hole.



After the holes were drilled on both horseshoes, I went back and countersunk the backs of all the holes, so that the screws will sit flush with the back surface of the horseshoes. This keeps the screws from interfering with the shim layer that rests against the backs of the horseshoes.



I'm pretty happy with how they came out. (I haven't fully primered the right horseshoe yet, and I have more coats to do on the left horseshoe as well.)



I still need to drill the holes for the top shoulder buttons. These holes will be drilled at a 5 degree angle, as per the blueprints. The button tilts slightly inside the pocket. I'm constantly amazed by all the little nuances like that, that went into R2's design.