styrene

Second foot shell..

One of the first things I did in my R2 build was one of the foot shells. It was with that I learned how to work with styrene, and also what not to do.

That is one reason why I decided to build one foot shell at the time, and the second foot shell has eluded me for almost the entire build.

Now, no longer.

I started the build on the second foot shell a few days ago, and so far, it has gone quite well!

Yes, a can of spray glue and a bottle of greek olive oil was used to skin the foot shell, to get the proper curved face. Last time, I simply did this freehand, and using these can made my life a LOT easier!

It did however cause a new, interesting problem. In order of fasten the printouts on my other styrene pieces, I had to improvise, as I had taped the can of spray glue to my foot shell already..

Here below are the detail pieces of the bottom of the foot shell.

Assembled and ready. Now on to the final pieces for the detail plate of the foot shell.

As the faithful reader you are, you may remember that I’ve already finished the half-moons a while back…

This means that it was a simple task of cutting the detail plate and the parts that goes on it –A fairly simple job!

Glued and ready…

Nice and clean when ready! =)

Next step is to glue the detail frame and plate onto the otherwise ready foot shell…

Looks pretty ok, even the curved piece looks pretty decent!

Last thing done for the day was to remove the tape and fill in the joints with Tamaiya Putty. This is done, and the foot shell is setting until tomorrow when it is time to sand most of it off, and get nice and clean seams!

Once this is sanded, only big construction thing left, is to finish off the second battery box, which in reality only means skinning it, and that’s done fairly quickly!

Then time to work on the dome for the next week and a half to get the dome presentable for the sci-fi convention in two weeks!

By micke|2016-12-06T00:01:38+01:00March 18th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off

Boxing Day!

After more bloodshed, I’ve continued my work on the battery boxes.

Firstly, I skinned the first one:

It took a little while, as I had to do it in stages. Once the styrene was wrapped around and fixed, I could cut open the openings and finalize the Battery Box:

Here’s the battery box screwed in to the main foot shell and also the motor holder. It will hold the foot shell and the box in place. The battery box will not contain any batteries, but merely serve as an extension for the motor to extend into, and also for the cables to have a bit of slack.

Note the large rim around the opening…

I dressed the lid of the battery box in 1mm styrene, and made the lid slightly larger, in order to get the box opening as smooth as possible.

Closing in the cables… The hole is tapped for M3 at the moment, and I think I will superglue a nut on the back of the inside holder in order for this to have better longevity, as styrene and M3-M4 tapping really exhausts itself quite easily.

Still needs a little bondo and sanding, but it closes pretty tight

Naturally, the screws will be countersunk as well, but I had no M3 screws with the right head for it at home!

Here’s a full view on the mounted battery box…

… and another one.

As you can see, the ribs inside the box are visible on the outside. Sanding + bondo will take that right out, and that’s a project for then it’s time to prep the box for painting!

I’ve also adjusted the position of the screws into the legs, as I realized that the legs were a tad shorter than the official measurements. They had simply slid too far into the ankle, and I placed a few styrene shims on the bottom of the ankle to fix this.

This means the legs are even! =)

As I cannot make the second battery box ready until I have the second foot shell, well .. there’s only one thing to do!

Get down to business!

While making this second foot shell, I’ve tried to avoid the mistakes I made on the first ones. So far, so good. I’ve made a whole new set of mistakes again!

Fortunately, I’ll be the only one who can spot them!

I’ve constructed this foot shell after the same model as the first one, but in a slightly different order, and it seems a lot more stable this time around.

I’ve also sealed up all seams in the foot shell with Tamaiya Putty, for stability. I’ve used a full tube of putty for this foot shell alone!

Here’s a half messy pic of the putty applied to the seams inside the foot.

Tomorrow is the job of adding the bottom details on the foot, and skin the sides. With any lucy, this foot is complete before the weekend!

However, I did spend a few hours on the dome as well.

Drilling, dremeling (and almost burning out my dremel copy, gotta get myself a proper one), sawing, bending and filing. First hole for the HP is done. It took a while!

At this moment, I cannot really say that I’m looking forward to cutting up the pie panels, the other two HP holes, the two PSI holes and the three Logic Displays.

Aluminum is a whole new material to work with, and a whole new array of mistakes to be made.

More blood has been shed…

//Micke

By micke|2016-12-06T00:01:40+01:00March 14th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off

Battery POWER!

Since I’m suffering from inflamed thumb-muscles (no, not from spending too much time in front of my PS3, but rather from over-exhausting my hands at the gym), building (and pretty much anything else that requires .. well .. thumbs) has been quite slow.

I have, however been out and got myself a proper motorcycle battery for my droid. This heavy-duty baby weighs 6.2 kg (13.7 lbs), packs 12 Volts and has a massive 20 Ah, something that should keep my droid rolling for some time, I hope.

It fits like a glove inside the droid too!

I placed the battery in the front of the robot, since otherwise, it will be a bit back-heavy due to the aluminum dome and all. This may need repositioning, but I think I need to take it out for a few test drives first. I don’t want my droid to go face-planting on me!

I build (and glued in) a holder for the battery as well. With an added buckle on top, this battery will not go anywhere! Note the dramatic close-up…

I still need to add a fuse box into the robot, and especially now, with so much power in it, I don’t dare switching it on until I have it properly fused!

As if adding a battery wasn’t enough, I also started on building the battery boxes. Contrary to the name, these will not contain any batteries, even though they could, technically. These boxes was used in the original 2-legged version of R2-D2 for Kenny Baker to have his feet in. That and the foot shells.

Since my droid will be void of short people inside, it will however be a great place for my motors to extend into, and the cabling that goes up into the legs to have a place to hook up and be alone.

The battery boxes, consists basically of a box, with some added half-pipes on the ends.

First we build the box…

The cut-out is for easy access in the future. The holes in the back will be lined up with the cable channel and main leg mounting bolt.

Add some sides and half-circles to build up the strength… cut out some materials for the motor…

A little bit of sanding, skinning and a few more details, and this baby is ready to be installed. The holes are so the hoses leading in to the battery boxes will have a little extra room behind the knurled hose fittings, which will be placed in the extensions in the ends of the battery box.

This one has been measured and cut-out to match my foot shell already, and it really fits like a glove, eh?

This leaves the droid in the state that I really NEED to start working on the second foot shell, since I cannot complete the second battery box until this is done.

Once both foot shells and battery boxes are complete, it is just a matter of detailing on the body. And painting. And sanding the dome. And paint the dome panels. And drill holes in the dome. And find a way to mount the resin parts inside the body .. and .. and .. and .

Anyways, seems like the basic shape of the droid is nearing completion! 😀

By micke|2016-12-06T00:01:41+01:00March 12th, 2012|R2-D2|Comments Off