Kresty working on Fusion Power Generator

[kresty]

A little out of order, cutting the resized styrene bits...  The first pix has the laser shining off dust in the air, kinda cool.  Then it burns stuff on the honeycomb behind it, getting bright.  The material or something is uneven.  Sometimes it cuts fine, sometimes it *almost* cuts through, and sometimes it cuts so much it burns and smokes.

[kresty]

Well, here's the bit I could've done last spring before I fixed the too-large parts: Assemble the top.

However, I didn't really know what was wrong with the parts (at first), so I didn't want to assemble something that didn't work.  Turns out that the top plate was close enough, so I could've done it then.

I put all of the middle vanes in before assembling the segments.  Not sure if that was needed.

Kresty's Fusion Reactor
Laser Cut vane test fit

Basically I just pressed all of the segments into the top plate and made sure they fit.  The ring held the bottoms together.  My solvent was runny MEK (the parts are ABS), so I figured it'd just ooze into the cracks.  That worked pretty well.  I did one seam at a time because it seemed like it wanted to wiggle stuff around.

Kresty's Fusion Reactor

Everything fit pretty tight.  A bit of tape around the top held that in place.  Sometimes I put a weight on it to help it stay even.  Toward the end it seemed a little grumpier and I carefully used some clamps.

Kresty's Fusion Reactor

At the end it looks like it's supposed to.  After getting a couple of the seams done, then I also added the vanes to the dried seams.  I mostly used the styrene laser cut vanes, however I'd printed a couple 3D vanes (pink), so I went ahead and used that just for the fun of it.  I'm curious if you'll be able to tell after painting.  (probably not easily).

Kresty's Fusion Reactor
Kresty's Fusion Reactor Top

The top knob thing is just sitting there right now. I'm not sure if I want to glue it. Since gravity keeps it there, maybe I'll leave it loose for access? Like if I put a light for batteries in it or something?

[kresty]

Along the way I had a bad idea.

The middle section that the grill rings attach to needs to be round, however it consists of a bunch of "strong" sections where the grill slats attach, and "weak" sections in between those.  So it wants to bend in the skinny sections, and not bend so much where the slats attach.

I thought that if I could find something round, then maybe I could form the styrene to the round thing.  I found a paint can that was almost the right size.

My thinking was that if I could get it to stay there, then it'd be closer than when it was flat.  So I figured I'd use a heat gun to make the plastic reconsider it's position.  Unfortunately it started to do what you might expect styrene would do under heat:  Curl around the edges, particularly the thin bits I was worried about.  And I still couldn't get the "thick" parts to bend very well.

Fail - Kresty's Fusion Reactor

So I took it off.  I'd actually expected it to have some of the curve, just not be as consistent as I wanted.  However it really didn't keep much of the curve at all.  And you can see where it bent unevenly at the weakest spots.

Fail - Kresty's Fusion Reactor

I think the part is still usable, but I'm a bit bummed this didn't work even a little bit.  It didn't even really bend at all except in the few spots it sort of collapsed. Hopefully other people will learn from my failed idea and not bother trying that! (or doing it smarter somehow).

[savagecreature]

Very cool progress!! Very fun to see another one of these coming together. Sorry about the center cylinder, though . I'll be interested to see how it works out.

[kresty]

Very cool progress!! Very fun to see another one of these coming together.  Sorry about the center cylinder, though .  I'll be interested to see how it works out.

What did you use to glue the ring halves together?  Most of mine weren't halves so it was easy to do the bottom, but only one of my grill is a full circle.  I tried the MEK that's been working well on everything else, but there wasn't a good way to clamp it so it didn't do well.

[savagecreature]

I used Weld-on 3 for all of mine

[kresty]

Still catching up posts to what I did...

The base went together pretty smoothly.  I put the bottom supports (B) in the base, and then added the 3 rings.  Since my rings were all complete I didn't have to join them first.  Then I glued it expecting the glue to wick in.  A little tape held it tight.

After the rings were in, I added the top H1 ring halves to ring H, which was easy since they're just laminated.

Then I did the vertical bits.  They needed trimmed a little.  Lastly, the angled bit.

I followed Savage's instructions and filed the angled ring parts.  But that didn't leave a lot for them to glue with and I only have runny MEK at the moment.  There's a little flap in the completed photo, when I tried to glue that the piece flipped loose and I had to redo it.  I applied more MEK from the inside and will go look for something a bit thicker.

Here's an intermediate photo gluing the vertical bits.

And here's what it looks like mostly done.  I've only done one layer on the upper vertical band.

And here's the angled bit.  Hoping to show that it's filed.  Looks pretty good.

And the inside.  This photo doesn't show the light leaks that I had to reglue!

Now I want to apply a little filler to the little cracks.

[kresty]

I plan to add a little filler on some of the bigger gaps.  Maybe file down a couple of the bits that stick out.  Use a thickish primer.

This thing reminds me of a camp light though, and those aren't perfect.  And they've got folded seams and stuff.  And at least mine is a little muffed up.  Luke used his generator in pretty rough conditions on Dagobah, so I don't think these are typically pristine things.  Maybe for the first use...

The weathering on Lara's Rey staff worked pretty well without much effort.  The 3D printed lines added to the effect, so I'm hoping for something similar here.

[kresty]

Well, I hate to do this to Savage, but...

So I saw Savage's log about gluing the rings together. My glue was terrible so my effort didn't work for that . However I thought the fit of the grill slats was so tight, perhaps I should just alternate them.

First I was still worried about the curvature of the inner bit. I pressed it over the edge of a table. Annoying and my fingers got sore after a bit, but I managed to get the parts reasonably curved.

Then I snapped in the grill slats, going over by one on each row. Savage described the process as repetitive and boring. I probably spent 15-20 minutes on it. Granted I haven't glued it in place yet, but my MEK is really liquid, so that'll be straightforward. You can see the staggered seams in the photo because of my failed attempt to glue them with black ABS glue.

Middle "Grill" assembly of fusion generator
Unglued middle section

As you can see by the spare ring, I did get slightly stumped by the plans. Savage had laid out 20 half-rings "J" and the top ring "K" halves on the CnC PDF. So I dutifully copied parts for 10 J rings and 1 K ring. And even labeled it thusly on the parts diagram... but in real life there are only 10 slots, and the top is for the K ring Oh, well.

[kresty]

After that of course I had to do a test assembly. The top window strip L needed curvature, so I did that the same way as the grill thing below.

Fusion Generator Initial Test Assembly
Not glued completely, but showing where the main sections go!

Ignore my terrible putty attempt, that clearly didn't work. I've bought a tube of Savage's recommended Bondo 907, so I'll use that.

Still need to glue the middle slats together, bondo stuff, then sand. And of course prime and paint. The 3D Greeblies are "ready" but might need cleaned up a hair - and painted.

And I still need to figure out what to do about opening it. And electronics.

Also need to find some appropriate hose, I have wire for coils on order (from China, might be a few weeks).