Leg work

Its been a while since my last post but I have made some progress. I've started to clean up the sides of my center leg and drill some holes for my shoulder connections.

I think the legs are going to turn out alright. I was successful in finding the pipes for mounting the legs. Canadian Tire came through finally!

Lessons learned today - Use glazing putty OUTSIDE!

Framed

Well.. its been a while since I've posted anything. I blame it on not having downloaded my pictures from my camera.. ;-)

Since my last post I've made some progress with my frame. First I routered the grooves in my top and bottom plates.

Then I cut and added the middle ring.

Now.. where too now? You see I made a small error in how i setup the frame. There are some issues that I need to address.

Issue #1 - The Straight edges for the side of the frame are not cut.

Potential answer - Wrap the skins around the frame and trim the sides based on the skin placement.


Issue #2 - The side plate grooves have not been made.


Potential answer - Wrap the skins around the frame and make the grooves based on the measurements made when addressing Issue #1.



Issue #3 - When I lined up the skins I noticed that some of my uprights are off a little. I can see now how using the aluminum skins would have been an advantage. I could have made sure that the uprights were aligned better. I believe I shifted and twisted the skins to a point where they'll work well enough. i may have issues with building the back door but hey.. who said this would be easy?

I finished gluing my center leg and now have to cut it to length. I tried an adhesive called PL Premium which was ok but messy. I found using the LePage Carpenters glue better to work with in the basement so I'll most likely continue to use that. I may end up using the PL Premium on the frame I haven't decided yet. I like how it fills in the gaps.

Pieces

Its been a little while since my last post. I'd been having scheduling issues with getting near a table saw to cut my ribs. When I went to Kent Building Supplies and found out that each cut would only cost 25cents I jumped at it. Not having to fool around with swapping out blades for my dad's tablesaw was worth the 3$. I`m still looking forward to working with dad as I still have the side plates to cut out.

Well, I received my resin parts from Keith and I`m amazed at the quality. Don`t get me wrong the pictures on the resinparts.com website look great otherwise I wouldn`t have bought them. But when you have them in your hands and start to think about the engineering that went into these parts it boggles the mind.

You can see that my frame pieces are almost complete. The uprights have been cut to lenght and the ribs have been routered but not cut to lenght. I can barely contain the excitement that I've been feeling knowing that I'm getting closer to my goal of having R2 skinned... ew.. that sounds horrible.

I've been trying to make the foot cylinders out of an old shovel handle. I've cut it to length and have been cutting the grooves by hand. Before anyone ask YES its slow and painful.. LOL. It isnt' too bad. I've been sitting in the evenings watching TV making the grooves.

I've been stessing over mostly every step of my build. Today its been the pipe for the leg. I found a spot that sold 1in ridge conduit but its 30$ and 10 feet long. Since I don't need that much and I'm building on a budget I didn't want to be wasteful. Today while rereading posts on Astormech.net I came across a post by Victor that showed Michael McMaster's build and how he joined two pipes using a square tube. Victor if you ever read this TY for posting that link! And before I forget here is the link http://www.n2citrus.com/artoo/body4.html

Venting with a touch of colour

More progress has been made with the vents. I now have 2 pocket and 2 side vents glued. I`m getting more used to working with the styrene. In some places where I`ve ended up with gaps I`ve been able to add some additional pieces of styrene as fill. The end result is a nicely finished piece. I figured this out during my attempt at gluing my coin returns but thats a story for another day.

I took some time this week and primed some of my parts. They`re really starting to look good. The gray primer really does a great job hiding all of my messy gluing.

Base Template

Well, I've started on a base template that hopefully will allow me to router out my frame a little easier. Wish I had more to report. :-(

STEP AWAY FROM THE TOOLS!!!

To be honest there are portions of this build that scare me half to death. What if I ruin a piece that I've spent a considerable amount of time on? With the stress of that question weighing heavily on my mind I feel that I need to get back to reading.

My list of trusted links has been expanding daily. I was reading a blog last night that has given me the inspiration and courage to tackle the t-nuts and start drilling the inside leg. I'm hoping to get to that this evening. Maybe then I can start gluing some stuff together. I'll hopefully have another post tonight with some pictures of the progress.

Legs Legs Legs

Well.. This past weekend was dedicated to building legs for R2. I followed Victor Franco's tutorial for building the legs and was successful in making the last leg pieces. My leg list of "to do's" is as follows:

1. Remove the excess from the 3/4 plywood. This will make room for the wires to the foot motors.
2. Square up the routered detail portion of the 3/4 plywood.
3. Center and add t-nuts to the inside 1/2 plywood.
4. Pray I don't screw it up.

I tried to make the horseshoes for the legs. My 1/8 in plywood was easy to router.. a little too easy. The fences I had setup for making my template came loose and sent the piece flying. Actually, a number of times the router sent pieces flying. I think I need to rethink how I'll build my horseshoes. Next time i may just get a bit for my drill press to make that "evil" hole in the horseshoe.

Front Lower Vent Madness

I seem to be developing a love hate relationship with styrene. I was working on the front lower vents last night. I managed to get all of the vent inserts glued and was able to successfully attach the lower pocket. However, when I tried to dry fit the pieces everything went flying across my living room. That was when I decided to pack it in for the night.

I`m somewhat pleased with the results. I`m still new to gluing styrene so I`ve at times found myself stuck to the parts. Lets just say its a learning experience. I've tried my best to follow Alex Kung's tutorial regarding the A&A skin extras. The tutorial is great I'm just not that good at following instructions. Maybe tomorrow I'll finish off this vent.

Reviewing the "Look what I Did!" forum on astromech.net has been very informative. I've seen some great ideas on how to approach the ankles and also on the large data port.

A&A Coin Returns

Three coin returns made from the A&A skin extras.

My First Parts

These are the ankle details for my droid. I carved these out of a piece of maple. Since this picture was taken the pits in the pieces have been filled with wood filler.

Welcome to my blog

I started this blog to document the building of my R2D2 replica.

A number of years ago I found a website dedicated to building the Starwars R2D2 Astromech droid. I remember browsing the link of other peoples blogs documenting what they did. To say I was impressed is an understatement.

Fast forward to Winter 2008 when I stumbled across the old website again. Many of the links weren't working but it did peek my curiosity. I did a few searches and found a extreamly detailed blog by a gentleman named Victor Franco. His blog pointed me to a yahoo builders group that I promptly joined. Seeing the number of active members of the users group made me think that having my own R2 was possible.

I spent alot of time reading posts on the r2builders group and downloading files, blueprints, photos, anything that I thought would help me understand what needed to be done to make my own R2. It wasn`t long after this I built my first part was built.

Am I crazy.. maybe a little. But with the help and support of my wife and kids I think we`ll be able to succeed.