Joyce's MSE

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This is my build log for my MSE.  My plan is to build the Imperial version with greeblies but have not yet decided how screen accurate I need to be.

I've been working on this on and off since December 2016 and I've been posting on the Mouse Droid Builder FB page as well as in Astromech so much of this up to today will be copy/paste.

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I bought a Granite Earth 1:1 shell in December 2015. I bought a styrene laser cut dome from GE at the same time too, as well as quite a few other astromech parts. I have had these on a shelf for a year, but I’m finally getting around to working on these projects, starting with the MSE. 


Shell. It’s huge!

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Supplies, before finding out how to put it all together:

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From Dec. 25, 2016 - Starting building the chassis and ran into this issue with the front / steering which has been since solved: I had all these parts and was not clear on how to attach the front wheel to the steering. The diagram that comes with the kit is not clear to me and the instructions I got don't go into detail on this part. With help from the facebook group for Mouse Droid Builders I did end up with pdf instructions for the 2010 version and then the 2017 version just about the time I had worked out what I needed to do. 

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From December 26, 2016 - Progress! Wheels are on, mostly. Still need to go get a servo before I can hook up the steering, but I understand how the front wheels attach now.

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From December 27, 2016 at 9:01pm
Trying to figure out which servo horn to use. (edit: I ended up getting servo saver. Still need to finish this part.)

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From Dec 30 - Jan 3: Frame progress.

Dry fit of frame into untrimmed base. 




Then rounded the corners to make the frame fit better. 







Then glue it all together. This was a messy step and looking back I could have done this differently, but I was trying to keep glue off my crafting/sewing table which resulted in the glue seeping onto the cardboard and then drying onto the frame so I've have to scrape/sand the cardboard off the frame: 

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From Jan 3:

Trimming the shell reminded me of trimming my scout armor over a decade ago, I forgot what a pain the BLEEP that can be!



Anyway I trimmed the bottom myself, sanding the rough and uneven spots. It’s mostly done, just need the fine tuning. The top part I got help with trimming. Results of dry fitting are below:

Bottom part of shell untrimmed. That's a lot of abs to try to cut straight. I failed. Hooray for sandpaper. 





Bottom part of shell trimmed and dryfit. 

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(con't)
Top part of shell untrimmed and dryfit.








I trimmed and rough sanded the top part, but I apparently didn't take photos of it. That's were I'm at. This week I'm going to take a stab at getting the chassis and frame fully installed into the bottom part of the shell.

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In the past few days I went from feeling very frustrated about cutting out the base for the chassis to having a roughed out and mostly done area.  Super pleased with my progress too.  


I started with a rotozip tool on the dremmel which was a total failure for me. (that is what the husband gave me so what I tried.  He usually does this kind of fine detail work on our projects but I’m being fairly steadfast in wanting to do this all on my own since R2 is my next project)  Anyway the rotozip requires more hand strength and control that I have and I couldn’t cut straight.  



I got on the fb group page to ask for help and another builder told me she used the wheel on her dremel and once I switched to that I made progress.  Watching her progress on her now fully functional mouse droid has been a real fire under my project butt!

At first I was conservative in my cutting as you can see in the three stages of cuts, but by today I was cutting without fear.  I’ve done rough sanding and am at a stopping point until I get to the hardware store, but it’s -29F outside and I just don’t want to leave home today so I’ll head to the store tomorrow after work.










Done for today!



And Holy HOTH it's cold!