styrene

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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He’s making a list and checking it twice..

Well.. checking it all the time, it seems.

I am of course talking about my R2-2DO list as I call it.

The list. The list of things that needs to be fixed for my droid to be considered complete, and I’m no longer building, but merely upgrading!

I do mix up things, from making things that are actually on the list, to finding things that are not, to things that I really should postpone to a much much later date, such as work for my secondary dome!

Anyway, I have done some progress, even though it is pretty small progress at that, since I don’t have that much time to build at the moment.

First off, I’ve received a couple of packages with cool things lately.

This is the aluminum data interface that you see R2 using all the time in the movies. Man, this thing is heavy! I wonder if I can actually use it in my styrene build, or if I will need to sell it to an all-aluminium junkie…

Some cables and random things for my forthcoming droid controller.. I have plenty of things that has arrived for this one, and orders for PCB’s and electronics on the way. Jameco wanted me to upgrade the shipping to an option that cost twice the value of the components inside. They claimed it would take 6-8 weeks for this to arrive. It took less than one week =) I’m glad I refused to upgrade! =)

Today, these goodies arrived! It is the battery harnesses from Guy that has arrived! I can now finally complete the battery boxes… if they were painted, that is.

I’ve had more things come in, but nothing major, yet. I will update with a few big posts about that droid controller later on!

I have actually done some work as well.. I’ve taken off all the blue panels from the head, and they are waiting for me to sand them here before I finally paint them in the proper color. The pie panels are still on the dome, however.

This box is where I keep the goodies. You can see a rubber PSI housing for my secondary dome, the paper tube that contains the data interface, some cables, both my horseshoes and other things that have been removed from the body for now.

This is interesting. While cleaning yesterday, I somehow found it appropriate to all of a sudden, out of the blue, drill holes into my secondary dome. I guess it comes down to me cleaning, found my hole saws and figured… why not =)

These have only been rough cut out of the dome. I will need to file to perfection later on. Man, sawing fibre glass really does create a LOT of dust!

So, that’s one thing off the list, but I figured I would need to do one more thing. This is really the last thing needed for the body before it is down to sanding the body down, prime it and apply bondo!

I’ve fixed my long doors for the front. When I originally made these, I just glued them in place with my melt glue gun, thinking that I’d fix this later. Well.. it is later. I pried them loose, I’ve removed the thick ribs on the back, made new, tiny ribs, sanded the back down to get all the ribs to the right size, added a back plate and glued it all together.

I’ve clamped both my doors back to back with a piece of 0.8mm aluminium in the middle in order to get them to set with the correct curve.

Well, that’s about it!

It felt good to do some styrene work again for a change. Score and snap, that’s just nice and easy!

The last thing I need to do, is to fix up my last battery box and do a bit of TLC on the body and skin, and it’s all going to be painted!

Speaking of paint, I can also mention that I’ve decided upon the main white colour, found a supplier in Sweden and placed an order for 5 cans of satin pearl white with 4 cans of primer!

Woohoo!

By |2016-12-06T00:01:15+01:00October 2nd, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off on He’s making a list and checking it twice..
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