construction

Priming the dome…

After spending two days of painting the dome panels, sanding them, painting again, and sanding again it was time to test assembly of the dome!

I bought a tape used for carpets to try out on the dome, and it seems like it will fit the bill!

Just look at how happy R2 is with all his panels attached, even though they are grey….

He definitely has a lot more personality now and looks more and more like a finished droid!

I also sanded the dome a little bit more, didn’t polish, but ended with 1200 grit paper, and used floor polish to give a clean surface on the aluminum.

I also found what I think is the perfect R2 blue today at my local car dealers, but unfortunately all they had was tiny tiny bottles to touch up on very small areas. I did get the color code, however.

“Biscaya Blue with Pearly Effect” .. makes it quite dark blue with a little sparkle to it. Not as much as a metallic paint, but just the right amount, I think.

According to them, a good car paint shop should be able to mix the color for me and place in spray cans, something I will definitely look in to!

Once the panels are sprayed, they will be clear coated as well, naturally.

I still need to redo parts of the innards, in order to fit the center vent speaker holder properly. I need to move my battery and redo my electronics board, but that is quite easy.

A little more tweaking on the shoulder horseshoes to get them perfect, some hands on touchups on the right battery box, and finish off them ankle cylinders, mounting the utility arms and this droid is nearing completion!

That is … once I get it all painted… 😉

Still .. so far, so good!

By micke|2016-12-06T00:01:30+01:00June 15th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off

Center vent speaker holder

For a while I had this idea of making the bluetooth speakers I’ve got behind my center vents more accessible.

I came up with this idea that I would make a magnet-locked box that contained the center vents and the speakers that I could just pull out when I wanted to turn the speakers on or off.

A few nights ago I couldn’t sleep, and got up in the middle of the night and drew some makeshift blueprints. I needed a box with curved front, where I’d glue a 1mm piece of styrene that holds the center vents, and another outer skin piece, that would overlap on the area where I pull the box out.

I started with building the actual box that will contain the center vents and speakers.

This fits the speakers quite well, and at the moment I’ve got some styrene holding the speakers in place, but that will be replaced by pieces of velcro that will keep the speakers in place.

Plenty of room for the speakers and power cable through USB and the connection between the speakers.

It even looks good from the front with the center vents in place. The center vents are only placed there for now as I’m waiting for BobC’s aluminum center vents. Once they have arrived in a few weeks, they will be screwed in place from the sides with countersunk screws.

Only thing this needs at the moment is the front skin piece, the blue piece. It is cut out but I will not cut out the center vent holes until I get the actual vents that will be in place, so for now, it will not hide the small gaps on the sides when this has been slid into place.

So, after finishing the box, I decided to tear open the skin and remove the center vents and the supports. Scary stuff!

After cleaning out the center vent area, I glued some support pieces in place that will guide the box so it will sit still in place.

Sliding in the box… looking good…

… and finally in place!

Apart from this, which I’m quite happy with, I’ve also managed to sand and paint the dome panels one more time… They are now primed and ready for proper painting!

Woohoo!

By micke|2016-12-06T00:01:31+01:00June 13th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off

More Coin Returns and Cutting Technology

Not a lot done in the past few days. Had busy days and also needed to spend time at home.

Anyway, After doing my first coin return, I rather quickly finished off the other two.

First off, I used the droid and old styrene bits as guide to get the proper bend into the styrene bits before cutting.

I then marked off the area to be cut off with tape, and then simply used the cutting wheel (speed click) on my dremel and cut the aluminum open.

This is the raw cut, nothing done.

As you can see, there is a lot to file and sand away!

5-6 minutes of sanding later, this looks a lot better!

Not too shabby, eh?

Even looks good from the back!

This is just after filing the aluminum to the edges, and before sanding. After sanding these are real smooth and looks pretty good!

Since I had the inner pieces already done, It was a simple matter of superglueing them in place, and add the sides (which I cut slightly large), then sealed it all up with Milliput.

Seems Tamaiya Putty is rather useless on aluminum, so I had to remove it from the first coin return and go over all joining edges with milliput. That stuff gets rock hard!

Coin returns waiting to harden…

And here’s the final trilogy, ready to be inserted!

For the moment, these are taped to the droid body, as I don’t want to fasten them permanently since I still need to paint the droid.

As a last thing, I took the rear Power Coupling, and cut away the bottom of it, since it is too big to fit inside my styrene skins.

I learned the hard way that cutting resin is something that really should be done outside. The resin that comes off is a fine grain dust and it sticks everywhere. Do it inside and you end up covered in white powder with none of the fun!

Cutting with my trusty dremel makes these fit nice and snug!

That’s all, folks!

//Micke

By micke|2016-12-06T00:01:34+01:00March 29th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off