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.