More dome sanding & foot progress with battery boxes

Well I am still sanding my R&J dome by hand. The spin lines are still quite present after a lot of time of 220 and 320 grit sanding. I tried using an orbital sander on a small area but that didn't work out very well. So, as others have suggested...just keep wet sanding by hand. Here's a picture of my current progress....on the left shows the progress while on the right side...the spin lines are still there. More sanding required...


My next challenge was the mounting of the JAG footdrive into the foot shells. After dealing with a lousy drill and a punch tool that wasn't quite up to the task of steel, I finally got them all mounted in. The next issue to resolve was the battery boxes. The bottom of the battery box comes in direct contact with the motor mount....

Here's another shot (below) of the battery box and motor mount bracket....

The rub is this: The steel outer feet are from a batch that had the side contours made incorectly. To overcome this in the past with the battery boxes, I just mounted them a bit higher. However this is just high enough to require a cut be made for the motor bracket to pass through.

I really hate cutting these beautiful parts, so I measured and measured over and over again. I then Dremeled out a small notch for the bracket to fit in...

And there's the end result. The battery box now fits perfectly! In a few weeks I should have enough money stashed to buy the NPC 2212 motors. Then the next big question will be if the motor fits completely in the battery box. I think it should but I know others have had to whittle the motor cap down a bit.

There's the latest update for today! Back to sanding!