At this point, I have gathered—either scratch built, or bought—almost all of the detail parts for the legs. My plan is to get the legs fully rough assembled before starting to do finish sanding, filling, priming, and painting. I’m going to attach the shoulder horseshoes by epoxy-ing some short dowels into the mounting holes left from when I cut them. Here I’ve drilled matching holes into the legs and you can see the horseshoes placed temporarily on the legs. It’s cool to see these parts come together. And it surprising how instantly recognizable it all is, even at this very rough stage. But then again, for those of us who’ve spent too much time analyzing every frame of the movies are going to have some strange sensitivities. I have also located the shoulder hydraulic units inside their pockets on the shoulders. I drilled pilot holes (carefully) into the back of the hydraulic units and matching pilot holes with counter sinks on the back side into the backs of the shoulder. Then I put some tiny screws through to hold the hydraulics in place. When it comes time to attach these permanently, I’ll probably epoxy and screw them on. I suspect that heating and cooling and getting banged around could make a lot of these little parts work their way loose if they aren’t substantially attached.
I’ve also drilled out some dowel holes in the backs of the booster covers and matching holes in the body of the legs. So the booster covers will be pegged down to the legs after painting with glue too. It took some measuring and some filing to get all the holes lined up and they are still a bit too tight, but it’s getting there. The booster covers are still a bit rough and need some filling and sanding.
The boosters that I got in resin don’t fit well inside the little angled dog house. I put the calipers on them and it looks like they are out about .05. But that’s enough to make trouble. I will probably trim the insides of the covers and sand the boosters a bit too for a good fit.
And I have attached one of the battery boxes here (the one that can't be seen in these pictures). I made key hole slots in the insides of the boxes and mount small screws in the foot shells to hold them on. That won’t be a long term solution, but it’ll hold them on there for the moment. I suspect that when I get done cutting and fitting with the motors for the feet, the attachment for the battery boxes will have to be moved and changed to something bounce proof.
