Rebuilding of a mouse droid....part 2

Welcome back to the Rebuilding of a mouse droid blog series.  I'd first like to apologies for the length in between this post and the last post.  A sick bug has been rampant in my apartment and my wife and I kept handing it off.

This will be part 2 and the final in the series.  We will be doing a bit more resurfacing as well as securing the mouse droid body to our car chassis as well as doing some repainting. So lets get started.


When we ended last time, the mouse droid still looks a bit shabby.  There were a lot of rough panels and the paint was in bad shape, not to mention that if we were to drive it, as soon as we took a turn the body would have fallen off the car chassis, lol

So lets start by adding another replacement panel to the other side and a new panel on the front, both on the bottom like we did with the first one..  Take the same steps to measure carefully and cut out the shapes.  Remember this rule: measure twice, cut once.  You can't fix it once you've cut it, you'll have to start over with a new piece.  Glue those new panels on with the all purpose craft glue and then use the tape to hold them in place.  Once the glue is set, take your black paint and give them a nice coat of black.

Ok, now that we have replaced and painted the new panels, we need to work on making the mouse droid body secure to the R/C car chassis.  I took off the car so you could get a really good look inside.  As you can see, I have placed several supports inside to hold up the body, but we need a place to physically attach them together.  I took some 1/2" x 1/4" basswood square rods and cut them in to 4 4" long pieces.  I took the craft glue and glued on the first piece on each side directly underneath where the screw hold in the chassis are when it was attached to the old car body.  After they set, I used high strength epoxy to attach the next piece of wood to the first.  I used the epoxy on the second since wood to wood is fine for epoxy, but if I were to use the epoxy on the foam, it would melt the foam and we'd have a much bigger problem then.

Note: I left the underside unpainted as it makes the supports more visible

Close up of the connection point just made.

Now take the car chassis and, using some nice 3" long drywall screws (they have a large bit to hold on better), slowly screw them in to the connecting brackets we just put in the body.  Once they are in and snug, flip it over and give it a little shake test to make sure it is secure.  While doing this, I had the battery on charge for just this moment.  We're done!  We have rebuilt a mouse droid and it's lookin good.  Below are the finished pitcures and a video of me driving it around in the parking lot of my apartment.

I hope you enjoyed this blog and if you have any questions of comments, please feel free to comment and I'll reply quickly.