Building one item at the time...

Small changes…

Long time no update!

That doesn’t mean that I’ve been lazy though. Granted, I did have a vacation, and enjoyed it and have been relaxing, but building is back on the agenda.

Lately, I just have not had time to update the blog, so this will sort of add up what I’ve been doing lately!

First off, I received a pair of very nice center vents from BobC, and I’ve since assembled them, which required a bit of filing and glueing, then finally remade my center vent holder and mounted the vents inside the holder, and they are now the center peice in front of the speakers that makes R2 talk!

The blue panel still needs to be painted in the correct color, and I think I need to drill and tap for mounting a scre to make the center vents stay firmly in place, even though they are currently squeezed in, and will not go anywhere!

Since I am closing in fast on the day when I actually need to paint my droid (because there will be nothing left to do on him), I’ve started to take care of some of the little things that have been bothering me, and left for later. Parts of this build has been done while stressing to show the droid off at some event or other, so there are parts that I’m not all happy with, and that I feel needs to be touched upon.

First thing was the big door on the front of the droid. I pushed a little too hard, and the door had a very visible “rib” slightly deforming the door. This was too big to just sand and make good, but the entire door needed to be remade.

Here’s the new door, looks a LOT better!

While being at it, I decided to add a magnet inside the door, to hold up my very nice restraining bolt, that Sigge had made for me! The magnet is more than sufficient to hold the bolt, and it looks quite nice!

While being at it, I also decided to add the back door details, in case I want to open this in the future.

I’m still having issues with how to mount the JAG hinges, especially with the big, long doors, as the frame structure is right next to the door, and leaves no possibility of attaching them to the inner skin. I might have to cut the structure and hinge slightly. We’ll see.

I’ve also removed the long doors from the frame, started cleaning them up, and been looking on how to make them more “finished”. Right now, it’s just a thin layer of styrene with some structural pieces glued in on the back, to keep them curved.I got some plans here as well… =)

On the list of things that needs to be touched upon and/or modified, I’ve got:

  • Horseshoes (irregular “ribbing” on the inside)
  • Shoulder shims (fine tune mounting and add aluminum lining)
  • Battery Boxes (“ribs” shouding through skin. Possible reskinning)
  • Foot Details (Details made in 1mm styrene. They should be 3mm)
  • LDP needs back piece for more solid structure
  • Unpainted Back panel needs to be converted into door. Got something special coming in, thanks to the Hero of the Day: Sigge!

The next bit is so big, that it requires a post of it’s own…

//Micke

By |2016-12-06T00:01:27+01:00August 25th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on Small changes…

How much does an Astromech Droid weigh?

Well, since I packed my R2 to go to a family thing over the weekend, and R2 was brought along to show my young cousins, and to act like a music player for the midsummer’s eve party, I decided to actually find out how much that darn thing weighs!

So, the body i styrene, got 3 motors in it, rather heavy aluminum dome with electronics and a big motorcycle battery. I know the body is heavy, but I guess it is more cumbersome than heavy, really.

Total tally was not as bad as I first had thought/feared.

When I started out this project, my goal was to build a droid that ends up around 40-50 kilos (that’s in-between 88-110 lbs for you who don’t like metric).

At this moment, and there ‘s not a whole lot of things that will be added to the droid, more like a few things replaced here and there, and it all clocks in at 38.5 kilos. 85 pounds!

Not bad!

Still, it packs a pretty mean punch when it is driving towards you at “full” speed…

By |2016-12-06T00:01:27+01:00June 23rd, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on How much does an Astromech Droid weigh?

More tiny detail work….

Today was time to do some of the small bits I have postponed for some time.

Really, some of it was really quick temporary fixes in order to get the droid looking as complete as possible for the upcoming holidays.

I started with the legs. Just look how nice they are now =)

I started with cutting out foot strips of styrene and painted them silver. At the same time, I painted some extra pieces of styrene as well, to double up as temporary side vents and pocket vents until I have had time to cut the real vents out.

Also in the paint process were my shoulder hubs. I painted them all silvery, which works quite well. Even though I will have proper aluminum in the end, this really helps the look of the droid until that’s done =)

Another thing I added, was screwing the legs apart and inserting the ankle bracelets that I made a run for earlier. Looks a lot better!

All that’s missing on the legs now is the ankle cylinders and holders and wedges, otherwise they are pretty much finished!

Once the foot strips were done, I finally got to insert my braided hoses into the feet and battery boxes! It really helps the overall look! =)

I cheated a bit, though. I only fixed the front of the feet. No stripes on the backsides yet …

The feet really starts looking good!

Now, about my pocket vents and side vents. I have not had time to cut these out, so I really cheated on these ones!

I took a piece of 1mm styrene, painted it silver and took a blue thick marker, and my steel ruler, and simply drew lines on them!

Horrible, I know, but at least it fills up the gap in the body! =)

The front pocket vent, I tried to cut out and put a piece of styrene behind it (made blue with my marker above) and glued that together. A 5 minute job to get something that looks sort of like a pocket vent.

Side vents are even more horrid… are you ready for this?

Now, these are closeups and no legs getting in the way, but as a temporary solution, I think it will work well! I’ll get to work on these from mid july when my vacation actually starts! =)

Once that was done, I looked over my center wheel, modified the position of the caster inside the wheel, as it really needed to be moved forward from my road test earlier this week. Hopefully it will be sturdier and run a bit smoother now! =)

One last thing that I did that was actually not a temporary fix, was taking apart my holo projectors and adding felt pads inside the HP holders, which will keep the droid from rattling so much on uneven surfaces.

Now, it’s time for midsummer holiday!

By |2016-12-06T00:01:28+01:00June 21st, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on More tiny detail work….
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