Dome Assembly Part 1

Putting the pieces together (PLA Welding)

After my trip to NYC to see daughter... got back into actually assembling all the pieces for the main dome structure.

Items needed for assembly:
3 1/3 pieces of the dome printed 3D
3 1/3 pieces of the under carriage or skirt printed 3D
3 1/3 pieces of the lower band between the skirt and the upper dome pieces.
#16 weld-on in tube with glue tip

The PLA Welding will require

A rotary tool (Don't bother trying to use cordless - battery goes dead in 5mins) such as a dremel or cheap rotary drill from harbor freight.
1/8" chuck mount to apply the filament to (used for PLA welding).
Extra white filament to use for welding.

Dremel with adjustable chuck.

You will cut 1-2" strips of filament (1.75mm) and straighten it to insert into the chuck of the drill.  This will rotate at high speed to basically melt and weld the plastic pieces together.  This also forms a bond that is stronger than glue and helps create a lip large enough to file down and sand.

Need solder cutter/pliers which are awesome for this purpose of trimming.

Dry fitting the pieces

First we dry fitted the pieces together to see where the prints didn't align correctly and where I would have to adjust pieces with a hobby knife.

The lower band (this piece will be made to look like silver/metal) has the pilot holes to align and connect the dome upper pieces together.  I used this to help guide the 3 pieces together above as well as overlap each piece to create a strong bond during gluing.

Applied some #16 to the bottom and placed each dome piece onto the lower bands... once completed I used screws #4-40 3/8" screws to keep them aligned while it dried.

I then went to work welding the dome slices together
You can see welding plastic examples watching these YouTube videos:

Once completed with the first try of all the seams... I then took a metal file and began filing down the seams till they were flat as the rest of the sides...  For the first try it is already looking great.  Will need to apply some more plastic to some areas where there are cracks etc... but welding definitely works!

The dome shell is assembled... needs some more welding and gap filing.

Some of the texture lines will need to be filed out but that seam which is in the middle is only noticeable due to the darker it appears in the photo.

This seam here is needing to be filed... you can see where the plastic is raised before I file it down.