Friday 15 July 2011

Fixing Drop-Pod Doors

Picture from From the Warp
Down the club last night I was helping out a guy building a Drop-Pod, and realised that I should really post what I was talking up about on the blog.  It seems the biggest problem with the kit, and one that I haven't seen this solution to anywhere else, that has a really easy solution... is getting the doors to close properly.

I've seen a lot of solutions involving magnets etc, but to get the doors to shut properly, and to remain closed when placed upright, without the faff of dealing with magnets, is a simple matter of removing a tiny amount of plastic before assembling the base.  I've helped about 10 people down the club with this and its worked every time, so I'm pretty sure this will work for everyone.

Picture from From the Warp
I've drawn a box on the image to the right to indicate the offending piece of plastic that causes all the trouble.  It is a slight protrusion at the base of the door next to the hinge, essentially a mould line as I'm pretty sure its a leftover from the moulding process.  When the Drop-Pod is assembled, this little bit of plastic presses against the base section of the Drop-Pod when you try and close the door, preventing it from closing properly.  If you shave this off with a sharp knife or file it down so that it is level with the rest of the door, it closes nice and easily and will remain closed as the doors are essentially leaning against the top section of the Drop-Pod, as you can see in the image above.

Hopefully some of you out there will find this helpful, and if its not quite clear enough, let me know in the comments section and I'll try and improve my description.  Cheers - Andy

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for the info. It's been mentally noted for when I assemble my drop pod.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for pointing this out!
    I think I ended up stumbling across this as I built mine and I hope I mentioned it in the tutorial I did as well for building them.

    Ron, From the Warp

    ReplyDelete
  3. @oni: Glad it might come in useful for you.

    @Ron: I think I also commented to the same effect on your Drop Pod post, so it should be there somewhere either way.

    Thanks both for popping by and leaving comments.

    ReplyDelete

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