construction

Main ankles and shoulder hubs… and blood offering (again) ..

Hello!

So, I decided to finish off my main ankles and played around with attaching them to me legs. The ankles came out great, and I drilled and tapped for 4 x m6 screws on each ankle to fasten the ankles to the legs. When this is in place, the ankles are really secure and still =)

The legs starts to look recognizable as well!

I need to do a lot more work with the plates on top of the ankles, but I had to attach them for now, just to see what it will be like!

I took a short trip to the store since I needed to get more tape, and found this among the shelves.

I thought it looked interesting, bought a roll. I figured it would be perfect for my shoulder hubs!

About the hubs… I made two lovely, almost perfect shoulder hubs, but forgot to add the screws into it before attaching the skin around it. I had to cut it up at 4 places, fiddled to get the nuts and bolts inside, and wrapped it in a second layer of 1mm styrene. This means that my shoulder hubs are 2mm wider in diameter than official specs! How horrible! 😉 Anyway, after wrapping them in aluminium tape and fastening them, this is how they came out:

Looks great, and it is real aluminium too!

A happy builder with a fully assembled leg with hub:

So, legs assembled with shoulder hubs… Time to attach them to the droid body!

Tiny R2 looking up at its bigger brother with great interest..

So much for the plastic, but what about how it looks with the dome?

Tiny R2 thinks the new droid is HUGE …

Just look at how nice the shoulder hub looks with the aluminium tape …

I know, I have only glued up the inner skins, but I still need to sand them a bit, and also sand the outer skins to get the openings nice and smooth before attaching them.

At least now it seems like I really have a droid!

Happy day!

Finally, no build is complete without a certain amount of blood sacrifice to your droid. Today, it was time for my second blood sacrifice. Definitely the worst one yet!

I don’t know how I will survive…

//Micke

By |2016-12-06T00:01:54+01:00February 16th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on Main ankles and shoulder hubs… and blood offering (again) ..
Read More

Inner skins glued in place, center ankles just about finished!

So, apart from making the slip ring explanation, I did glue the inner skins in place.

It was a bit scary, as any mistake here can be hard to undo later on. Especially since I don’t have enough styrene to cut new skins!

Anyway, the whole procedure went well, took about 90 minutes in total with everything. I noticed that once the glue started setting, the whole construction is a LOT more solid than compared to just the frame with skins taped on.

These skins will now set overnight, and hopefully I’ll have time to add the outer skins in the next few days.

Once the skin was on, it was time to put some more focus on the main ankles. I sanded down the new layer of styrene on the beefy parts until they fit nice and snug, and glued them in to place.

I also decided to fasten the leg inside with 4 60mm long 6mm screws, countersunk from the inside. I will try and find white screws to replace these metal ones, but for the moment, these will do. It will also provide a good, solid fit for the legs inside the main ankles. As soon as my metal plates for the top of the ankles are made… or at least painted =)

As usual, tiny R2 is inspecting!

Now: time to spend some time into making the shoulder hubs!

By |2016-12-06T00:01:55+01:00February 15th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on Inner skins glued in place, center ankles just about finished!
Read More

Slip Ring explanation

I received a question about how my slip ring solution was, and I thought I’d explain it in unnecessary detail here:

 

These are the pieces I cut out and the slip ring on top. The tiny bit goes underneath the long piece with the circle in the middle on the lefthand side. It creates sort of a lip that will go down into the bottom left piece. That, together with the extra flanges on my top ring in the frame will keep this in place.

I have only one acre, that is screwed down in the bottom right piece, that is glued on the location where Dave Everett has placed his dome motor. I have tapped these to 6mm and therefor only need a screw to secure or completely remove the center bar with the slip ring.

Enough talk, pictures will explain better!

Here’s the bottom right part glued into the top ring of the frame.

Bottom left piece glued in place on the top ring. Note the extra flanges on the top ring, creating a nice trench for the center bar to run in.

Tiny piece glued on the long bar. It is glued on sticking out a bit, as it will help lock the bar into place.

Center bar with locking screw and slip ring in place. Since this is a test mount, I don’t know if I can keep the slip ring mounted on top of the bar. I may need to move it below the bar, but you get the picture =)

Close-up of the locking piece…

Slip ring on its center bar locked into place. This is steady enough and easy to remove for maintenance with only one small screw =)

By |2016-12-06T00:01:55+01:00February 15th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on Slip Ring explanation
Read More
Go to Top