Building one item at the time...

First painting done and new acquisitions!

Hey, what do you know!

A third blog entry today! Well, I had to try out the paints I got!

I’ve got 7 cans of satin white sitting in my room, and had to venture out on the balcony to try it out a bit!

After an initial colour test on a scrap piece, I decided to paint a horseshoe!

Naturally, I made a few mistakes initially that had to be sanded and fixed, but after a few reattempts, this started to look pretty good!

I simply had to try it out with the aluminnium inside as well!

Since taking this picture, I wet sanded the last layer with some 800 grit sandpaper so it is nice and smooth. Only needs a bit of lacquer and it is finished!

What’s your suggestion, by the way: glossy or non glossy?

Lastly, I just want to show off some of the good stuff that arrived as well:

First off my aluminium shoulder hubs from England..

Second, my Ewok Zapper, also from England, but this is made in resin and PVC:

This will be mounted inside my droid at some point, but that day is far ahead! First I’ve got to get all this painting done! I made a quick run to the hardware store just before they closed and bought a foldable small work table that I can use as a base when painting the droid!

Now it’s time to sleep, or pac-man will eat me!

By |2016-12-06T00:01:08+01:00October 11th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on First painting done and new acquisitions!
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Mounting the Ankle… stuff

So, after the ankle wedge was done, it was a simple task to just slap some paint on to it.

I’ve been toying around with ideas on how to mount this, as I really want most of the things on the droid to be removable, in case of service!

Not fixed the ankle wedge per se, but I’ve fixed the ankle cylinder and the ankle half-moon (The half round part underneath the cylinder that the cylinder rests on.

I drilled a hole from inside the cylinder down into the half-moon, and went as deep as I dared (watch your thoughts, Edwardo), glued 2 long M4 screws into the holes with superglue, cut the heads off with my dremel (wear goggles people!) and finally just secured them together with two bolts.

The cylinder itself sits tight on the ankle, by pressure alone, and if I need to, I can simply add some double stick 3M tape underneath the half-moon to really fix them into place.

Just look how nice it all looks when it’s all in place.

I still haven’t decided how to fix the ankle itself though. I may use magnets, I’ve got a shipment of magnets coming in..

Please note that the leg itself is not painted, but the half-moon is painted satin white. No clear coat, though.

By |2016-12-06T00:01:09+01:00October 11th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on Mounting the Ankle… stuff
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Building an ankle wedge

Something I’ve realized over the past year where I’ve been building my R2, is that I really love scratch building things from styrene.

Styrene is very forgiving, and once you’ve learned how, making things is actually quite easy!

Today’ I set out to build a small silly piece with lots of weird angles and stuff: An ankle Wedge! (Actually I built two of them, but who’s couting… I need 4 in total, so halfway there… unless I cave in and use the two resin ones that I do have laying around…)

Anyway, back on track! The ankle wedge is a small piece that is sitting on the bottom of the legs, holding the Ankle Cylinder.

I’ve previously built my ankle cylinders out of PVC pipe and styrene, and even though they still need a bit of work, they sit good enough on my robot in order to me to make the wedges!

These are the main pieces. A big piece of styrene, with no straight angles. The short edge will be closest to the ankle, and the big end will rest on the cylinder. The sides are made up by small triangular pieces. I’ve cut out larger triangles, measure, then place a piece of extra pipe on top my 1mm styrene piece and cut around it (had to cut a few times to get the proper fit) to get the right curve.

This is really a try/test/try/test again sort of procedure in order to get these to sit snug, but after a few test tries, I did get my triangular piece to sit pretty spot on to the cylinder.

Once the triangular pieces are made (be sure to mark them properly so you know which side is which, what is in, what is out, etc) I chamfered the long edge of the flat styrene piece, to make it look good on the cylinder. Then glue time!

Two pieces of tape to hold the triangles to the large piece of styrene, and then just glue it all down!

Once the glue set, I added another piece in the center, just for stability.

Then time to use my secret instrument to make it fit really well…

No, not THAT kind of instrument. It’s not a plastic didgeridoo!

However, the PVC pipe with a piece of sand paper strapped on to it, makes for a perfect tool to sand the little wedge to remove any irregularities after glueing it all together!

Finally, let’s end this brief tutorial with taking a look at the results!

Nice and smooth! Now I just need to paint them blue and set aside as finished!

Oh yeah.. need to make another two… unless I use them old resin ones.. I kinda like these better, and they fit SO much nicer…

By |2016-12-06T00:01:09+01:00October 11th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on Building an ankle wedge
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