construction

Fixing the rockler bearing and more body work..

Will this never end..?

Today, I have suffered from a gigantic cold, but managed to crawl out of bed around lunchtime and did some work on the droid!

First off, I took my Lee Valley Rockler Bearing, and decided to clean it up to get it to spin better. It did spin fairly ok, I thought, but never more than maximum 3/4 of a lap when I spin it around.

So, I emptied the bearing out from all metal balls, dried up the groves from grease, actually cleaned them up with dishwashing liquid before going over them with my dremel and a steel brush.

Once complete, I replaced all the metal bearing with acetal self-lubricating bearings and added a touch of silicone grease for good measure.

The result? … well … look at this!

So, after the rockler done, The rest of the day has been spent with doing a little tidbit here and there. Mostly, this has been fixing small issues, and I also continued in cleaning up the hatch edges, and gluing them in place.

I also cut up a resin power coupled and did a temporary mount of the front one, just to check..

Starting to look pretty good, I think.

I also sanded the aluminum coin return slightly, to get away from the silvery shine..

On the backside, I also played around with the aluminum tape to see if I could do something about the famed unpainted panel…

For the more observant of you, you may realize that tiny R2 is not featured in any of these images.

As it turns out, he’s really sad.

Tiny R2 needs a hug.

By |2016-12-06T00:01:48+01:00February 21st, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on Fixing the rockler bearing and more body work..
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More skin work and coin return!

Hello =)

I’m glad that YOU decided to read my blog again today =)

So, today has been one of those days where I made good progress, but mostly on small things that are not too visible.

I started off with gluing on the remaining pieces of the front outer skin, the hatches that will not open, the utility arms surrounds etc, and having these glued on really helps to bring out the texture in the front of the droid.

I also got around to glue the rear outer skins as well, including the small tidbits.

I looked over the hatch surrounds, the thin styrene pieces that is basically the outline of the hatches (even the ones that will not open) and I realized that I will need to touch up on most of them, and possibly redo one or two, so they are not added.

However, I had this amazing idea yesterday to try and make a coin slot using the aluminium tape to cover it with. The tape is not wide enough to cover the entire coin slot, but how much of a seam would be visible?

I figured that in worst case, I’ll get the fronts made for me 😉

Didn’t come off too bad, I think, and the seam is not visible if you are half a meter from the droid!

What do you think?

Of course, the back is not nearly as pretty as the front..

I used quite a few scrap pieces just to fasten everything in place, more than needed, but I didn’t want to wait for everything to set before trying it on, so I slabbed on a few extra styrene pieces 😉

Front of my droid, with small hatch covers glued on, ad the nice coin return.

Works pretty ok, doesn’t it?

I didn’t find a blueprint for it (only searched for about 3 minutes) so I estimated the angle. After all it was only a test.

I’ll get back to the construction store and see if they have slightly wider aluminium tape. I could work wonders with this!

I might as well, as on a personal note I don’t know how things will be in the near future.

My fiancée walked in on me giving a sponge bath to someone else today…

By |2016-12-06T00:01:53+01:00February 20th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on More skin work and coin return!
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Skirt, dome, feet and skin work!

So..

Looking under the skirt…

A lot of time over the weekend has been spent with just going over fine details. Sanding, tweaking, that sort of thing. I did start proper work on the skirt two days ago, but nothing to really show for it, but as of now, I guess it is about halfway done.

I’m going to add inner walls to the skirt, to make it look nicer, even though it is only for myself… This piece needs a good sanding before I continue working on it.

 

We’re Domed!

Today, I actually got around to debarring and filing the tabs off all dome panels. They have been sitting in a box for a while, and since the cut in my hand (which was way worse than the image I posted) is preventing me from doing any advanced stuff, I spent a few hours in front of the tv filing away…

Once done, I had to test fit the rear Logic Display, and it needed a little extra filing to fit, but it fits like a glove now:

I still need to sand these to get rid of some of the bigger marks from the manufacturing, but that will be at a (much) later date .. 😉

 

Footwork:

So, I had this idea of how I should attach the bolts that holds my main feet in place, and since I use foot shells that are hard to get off, and also slightly difficult to reach into, I decided to use T-nuts on one side, thus leaving plenty of room on the battery box side, and that being the only place I need to do anything on when attaching the feet!

Since the feet is such an important area, I really did not want to do something that would weaken them, but I still have 9mm of styrene on each side of the foot “trench”, so I think I should be good =) Can’t wait to try them out for real!

 

Legging it!

I just had to try … get a feel for what they will look like! horseshoes is the next area where I will start constructing after my skirt is done… I think… unless I actually make the second foot shell first. This will look so much better once I get the aluminium leg strut, that should arrive in a few days! I’m also thinking about having someone make me an aluminum version of the plate that the booster covers and leg struts rests upon.

Anyway, Since I had skinned my ankle all around, the resin tube that goes across the ankle is slightly too small, and I either need to scratch build one (easy) or dremel it up a bit. I’m leaning towards scratch building!

 

Thinking outside the Box

Yesterday, I also completed my arm boxes, and made some extra bulkheads inside the skin to stiffen up the utility arms are, and also to really hold up the LDP. I still have no idea how that will be fastened yet, but some ideas spring to mind. I may need to add something to my LDP build as well …

 

Skin Deep

The outer front skin is now glued in place, and should hopefully be taped well enough over night to fasten securely. I’ve already identified several areas where I will need to cut out more from the skin after they have set, but It’ll be fine, I’m sure.

Back outer skin will be glued tomorrow, but since I have no opening doors on the back side, I might go around a different route how to glue it in place… We’ll see =)

Me in “glue mode” .. Don’t want to get too much of them fumes… gives me a headache!

All in all, a good weekend, and I had a lot of fun just temporarily attaching the feet yesterday to get my droid on all three for the first time…

By |2016-12-06T00:01:54+01:00February 19th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on Skirt, dome, feet and skin work!
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