Chapter 4, Part 15

The night wore on. That seemed to happen alot to Jaka and AL. Both were tired and eager to leave. And as the sun rose, neither of them heard any marching footsteps or thumping AT-AT's. Both tenderly and quietly stuck their heads out of the caves to see if all was clear. Both left the caves to continue their journeys. Jaka turned down the canyon, AL turned up. Both stared at each other for a minute. Jaka started to laugh at the irony of it all. Both had waited out the night in adjoining caves just a few steps from each other. His laugh subsided when a terrible gurgling sound rushed out of AL's cave along with the worm creature it belonged to. AL knew what it was (he spent the night with it) and rushed towards Jaka, and in the rush to hide from the creature he managed to shove Jaka back into Jaka's cave. Jaka understood what AL was feeling. It's OK, son. The creature won't get us. Neither will those troopers or Vader. AL's circuits stood on end with the mention of Vader and shuddered. He let out a small screech of terror, for he knew Vader all too well. Jaka calmed him down, hugging and petting his dome. It's OK, I've got the speeder here. We'll have to travel light. AL showed him his stuff, burlap bag and all. It wasn't exactly traveling light, but AL was simply not going to depart with any of his stuff.

Jaka quickly loaded the speeder, got AL into it somehow, and off they went back to Mos Espa. It took them two days (mostly at night) of dodging in and out of canyons, hiding from the Imperials, before they got to the edge of the desert. Problem was Mos Espa was overun with troopers. The AT-AT's had taken position at the mouth of the canyons, eager to destroy anything that came out. Fortunately for our two intrepid travelers, they didn't have enough to post at every canyon. So, once again Jaka and AL waited through the night before making their getaway.

Battery Boxes, Finally!

So, here are pics of the battery boxes and hoses as promised a few days ago. I just have to cut out large holes on the inside for the foot motors. I'm going to wait on that because I may buy a different beefier motor (AL's got lots of weight and needs something along the lines of a V-8 engine LOL). The wheels are going back in but he won't be rolling unless I can get some 5" hubs with belt gear made quickly and cheaply by a machinest (got 5" pneumatic tires with no hubs). The wheel situation has been a pain; once I get something that works then I can install the remote, motors, and batteries.

Knurled hose fittings. Beveled end goes in front, square end screws into back inside box.

Showing the outer beveled end with hoses attached. Hoses go through beveled end, front plate, and into foot shell where it is screwed into place from the inside.

Both battery boxes painted with hoses attached same way. Battery harnesses (front details) also painted same color as boxes. Harnesses are super-glued into place.

Closeup of one box and details

Closeup of harnesses.

Side view showing half moons on foot.

Other side showing paint job. Same bronze color as radar eye (influenced by Jabba's palace doors).

Until next time,

Jawa Jaka

Soldering Fool!

Today I'm posting two blogs just to catch up a bit. My brother, Len, has been showing a few people my blog (thanks, Len!), and it would be nice to show a little of my progress. I won't blog too much until September since I'm getting ready for Osfest July 23-25 in Omaha, and then the BIGGIE, Star Wars Celebration V August 12-15 in Orlando.

http://www.starwarscelebration.com

(taking a two week vacation for that one, including Disney and St. Augustine with some friends).

The first blog of the day is to show my progress in soldering techniques. As the title says, I'm a soldering fool! Either that means I'm soldering like crazy, or making really crazy solder! Either way I'm certainly not good at it at all just yet, but with lots of practice who knows...

This is a practice kit with sirens, blinking lights, and a nice speaker I may use in my droid if this works.

Off to my next blog,

Jawa Jaka

Battery boxes and hoses

Now that summer is here I really haven't had time to work on AL. However, I did get the battery boxes painted and installed, the knurled hose fittings on, and the braided hoses cut and inserted in the fittings. Azman helped me with that one, those hoses are a really tight fit into the fittings, took us all day to do just one foot! Then it took me a couple more mornings to finish the other. I also got the radar eye a little straighter, been working on straightening the dome ring (bottom ring) since my crazy ex-roomie sat on it, and trying to figure out how to make the center front vent panel since I lost mine. Found the rest of the panels except a very small front one, will be working on my back skins this weekend.

Azman has been very patient with me in teaching soldering techniques. I'm doing pretty good, but now the solder keeps forming little silver balls and not sticking to the board. It's pretty frustrating, but I'll keep plugging away. I've got two more items to solder into my practice kit, a controlled-volume speaker with blinking lights and siren sounds. If all goes well, I'm going to try and figure out how to use the speaker in my droid using the flash player.

It was decided amongst us locals for me to give up on the Degobah box. No one has touched base with me on the Degobah set. I might make a much smaller box just for me, though, maybe use my dad's ol' navy trunk, paint it up or something. Now I get creative! Just 4 more weeks before we leave for CV!

Until next time,
Jawa Jaka