Paintjob

Still #NOTBUILDINGBB8 ..

.. but if I was, there might be a few things I could have done..

First off, I would probably have added a few pictures with everything roughly put together, just to get something cool to look at:

How, there would still be a lot of work to do:

The top panel .. well .. I can start with painting that one, so I can fix it to the pie panel ring:

Some filler primer first…. then sanding almost the entire layer of paint down to nothing, then on to the proper colour: The Satin White used on R2-D2.

The pie panels need another round of rub and buff, I think..

Much better. It is still a few things visible where I was rubbing too hard, but it will still be weathered in the end, so I’ll let it be for now.

The top panel has also been fixed to the pie panel ring with my glue gun. Melt glue is perfect for this. It will hold forever.

I remembered (too late) that the top panel still isn’t clear coated, but I can easily mask off the pie panels later on for a quick spray.

I have also drilled and glued magnets all around the pie panel ring and the top of the dome, to make the pie panel and top piece removeable. Works great!

What else.. ?

Well, The dome needs filler in the seams and sanding..

A couple of coats of Tamaiya Putty, scraping with my break blade knife and sanding… and I think the dome is now one more round of putty and sanding away from being pried (with filler primer of course)..

This one will really look cool when it is all done..

The antenna pieces have also been painted flat black. I might have made the antenna a bit too long, but I can easily shorten it, if need be. Or print a new one 😉

Finally, I’ve spend some time with the holo projector, sanding all the small grooves in the rim, and smoothing the sides out. I printed this on 0.05 layer height to really make all the detail come out, and it really does. It has been sanded with 600 grit sand paper, and at the moment, I am unsure if I even have to paint it. Might still dab a few coats if black on it. It feels really smooth to the touch! Picture taken through my magnifying glass.

Next off, is painting the basic dome, but in order to do that, I need to find a decent box and get some time in the yard to do this. After that, the dome skirt needs a bit of TLS, as one part warped slightly and needs to be filled in before assembly.

That’s a project for another day, however! 😀

If i was building BB-8, that is…

By micke|2016-12-06T00:00:08+01:00September 1st, 2015|BB-8, Building|Comments Off

Ankle Work

Since the dawn of time… well.. since R2 was finished originally, that is, he’s had a pair of heavy resin bulks under the Ankle Cylinders.

The Ankle Cylinders was scratch built 3 years ago, and was basically a piece of PVC pipe with thin strips of styrene wrapped around it, with custom made end caps.

See this post for the original build: Scratch building ankle cylinders! They have done the trick up until now, but I wanted to have a set that looked a bit better.

The main reason for revisiting this, is that the original pieces have only been taped to the ankle with double stick tape that has (mostly) done the job, but they have had a tendency to fall off.

I don’t want to glue things in place here, as if I need to do any work on the cables inside, I need to be able to remove these to get to an access hole that is hiding behind them.

I had also lost a few of the ankle wedges (see Building an ankle wedge) that is supposed to sit on top of the cylinders. They were also just taped to the ankle…

The total assembly looked like this:

(Mounting the Ankle… stuff)

But now it was time to fix everything in this area. I had not been 100% happy with the aluminium tape wrapped around the pipe, even if it has done the job.

So, armed with my trusty CAD program, the avid reader know that I have been printing Ankle Cylinders in the past.

This is the parts that I drew and printed:

These were printed apart to get the grooves in the cylinder as sharp as possible.

The new ankle cylinders holders. 3D printed, hollow and extremely light. I have glued 12mm magnets inside them for holding them to the ankle later on.

Here are the new wedges. They are a lot sturdier and better than my old ones! These ones also has magnets inside them. The idea is to pin the wedge inbetween them.

Like this.

Since I can disassemble these, it makes for easy painting.

End pieces sanded and ready for painting!

I started off by painting them with a filler primer. I chose this as it fills up any imperfections after not sanding enough, or print imperfections.

A dab of the old “Satin White” ..

… and some R2 Blue…

… add a little rub and buff …

… and the assembly should be ready for mounting on the droid.

I must say I am very happy with the results. The rub and buff really looks like metal!

Next up, fixing the magnets to the droid..

All in all, a great upgrade. Next up is adding the new Ankle Details in aluminium and then weather the new pieces on the ankle.

Finale assembly:

By micke|2016-12-06T00:00:10+01:00August 30th, 2015|Building, R2-D2|Comments Off

More Data Panel..

Will this never end?

MORE on this data panel nonsense?
Yes! Indeed!

First the easy bit: I removed the 3d printed coupling once again, and superglued it in place, instead of the hot glue that was not doing its job.. but that was not the big thing!

Basically, I had done the bulk of the panel, but lacked the surrounds for it. I started by looking at the surrounds I already had on the A&A Kit I purchased some years ago and realized that’s not going to work.

So, using that as a template, I started cutting and filing and doing my thing in some 1mm styrene to come up with something like … this:

I painted that with Satin White, and drybrushed it with some old, trusty “Mithril Silver” and glued it in place..

filthied it down, just like I did the original panel.. (Using “Chaos Black” and “Flesh Wash”. Really putting these two old Citadel colours to work here)

.. before I went over it with cotton pads and a solvent to clean it up and also burn the weathering into the lacquer paint.

It really looks the part (pun intended) now, and it feels more solid.

I tested it in place, and it is ready to be fitted in place, but before I go down that route, there were a couple of other things needs to be done first.

First off, since I want this hatch to be openable, and I didn’t prepare anything for it, I realized I needed to route a hole in my top ring around the utility arm area:

I fastened an M4 screw in place and it sticks up just enough in my routered path that it works!

While doing this, I also removed the old magnet holding the door shut… and shimmied off some material that was catching when the door was closing… and this is when R2 realized that “hey, it’s been too long since a blood sacrifice was made”..

Once the bloodlust of R2 (Bet you didn’t know he had one. All builders can agree with me that he has one) was settled, I could finish off the short time of work for the evening, which was to switch two cables on the dome motor, to make R2 turn his head in the direction I want him to!

Next up is attaching a servo to the frame, and start working on getting this hatch to close… not sure how that’s going to go, to be honest….

When working in cramped areas like this I really wish I had a set of old dentist tools and drills.. it could make live SO much easier 😉

By micke|2016-12-06T00:00:21+01:00April 12th, 2015|R2-D2|Comments Off

Paintjob

Still #NOTBUILDINGBB8 ..

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Ankle Work

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More Data Panel..

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