Project Mars Emperor Titan - hip joint

So after the top plates were cut and sanded down, now the sides of the hip joint was cut out of 2mm plasticard.  It is easier to use a hole cutter first before trimming the sides as shown below.  Yet again a light sand is required to size the hole to 41mm so it just fits over the pipe ends.

A useful hobby tip is to use priming fluid as an all in all glue.  Most traditional glues only bond like to like plastics i.e. styrene to styrene or ABS to ABS and not different types of plastics together.  After a bit of research, the key ingredient to a popular solvent is methyl ethyl ketone.  This is commonly found in PVC priming fluid (comes in clear or red tint) and is normally used for cleaning and priming PVC pipes.  For safety, it is always good to wear gloves when using any chemicals.  I found using priming fluid to be very effective at bonding egg grate (ABS plastic) and plasticard (styrene plastic).  For a strong bond, I use quick clamps to ensure proper pressure is applied.

Once the hip section is glued it was carefully sanded to make sure all the edges were squared up.  The hip joint is effectively complete and 25mm PVC pipes were cut and join 2 x 25mm compression couplers and 2 x 32mm compression couplers together.  Note,  one side of the 32mm coupler was cut and sanded down to reduce the total width to around 32cm from end to end.