A Leg!

And the efforts of this past weekend are starting to come together. I am still working on the other leg, and I need to get the under shoulder details attached.



oh.. and here is some more random work.

Yes that is an AC power strip. I am mounting my chargers inside my droid, and have a few other things I want to be able to plug in.. This strip will only be functional when he is in a charging situation.

progress again

From my past posts, it is probably very noticeable that I can not keep focus on one aspect of my droid at a time. This post is not unlike the rest. I have been working on things all over my droid. You name it, I worked on it.

This post represents several days work, and I will probably have another post for the stuff I get done today.

A week ago I ordered a nibbler from radio shack. My goal with this item is to complete coin returns using the tried and true method provided by Chris Lee.

Chris Lee's Coin Return Tutorial

This picture is my first steps to completing my coin returns. I will have more pictures in my next post about these.


Legs. I did some bondo work on my legs a few days ago. Although they are not 100% smooth, I am fairly satisfied with the results. Some people seem to like bondo. I will pass on it the next time I am in a situation where I can use something else.

ah.. more coin return stuff. I was apparently working on these while I was waiting for bondo to dry and or just getting out of the heat.


Legs primed. Used an old ladder and some coat hangers to suspend these while painting.

And white paint. Got 3 good coats on these and they are looking very good.


ALU horseshoes from Daniel were very easy to work with. Just ran a 600 grit sandpaper over it, cleaned it with ALU-prep, primed and painted.


This is stuff I am actually working on right now. I am doing this post while waiting for this coat to dry. This represents the bulk of the blue paint I need to get done before Dragon Con. I still need to do my 300mm dome work, but I am thinking that will wait till this fall.


OK, more tonight probably... and sorry for the delay on updating this site. My personal issues still continue. I have made contact with a lawyer and hope that I can get through this without her help.

parts and re-painting

Just trying to get started again after not productively working on my droid for more than a week. I can't say that I didn't look at him at all during that time, but anything I started ended up not working out. I have been fairly distracted for a few weeks by some ongoing personal issues...but enough about that..

Parts!

Michaels Octagon came in and they are fantastic. Just need to figure out what size screws I need.

Holo's are here. Amazing work on these.


RE-Paint:
I was not satisfied with the metallic paint I used the first time I tried to get these resin parts in shape. This time around i didn't buy the fancy can and just got the most generic rattle can of Rustoleum metallic paint and they look much better.

Short Break

This week, I didn't get much accomplished. I messed around with some bondo on the legs, and glued together a few other things. I hope to get back to it this week sometime, and will have another update with some pictures.

Things that need to be done include:
Bondo/Sand legs
Install battery chargers
Paint stuff (lots)

Spent most of this weekend messing with my cell phone. Managed to get it upgraded to windows mobile 6.
Anyway... more soon.

skins almost done

Been working on the skins on and off the past few days. This set of pictures spans from last Thursday to today. I know it doesn't look like much, but this stuff took time.

On Friday I got my panels all taped into place. I used silicone to glue everything that was going to be semi-permanent.

I did the same with the arm sections of the skins.

Saturday, I started messing around with the Robart Hinges. I tried a few different setups to see how to make these things work. Using silicone made this testing process easy to tear apart and start over.


While I was waiting for the silicone to dry, I managed to get a few things painted. I still need to paint the power couplers and coin slots.

Skins on. Dome set on top just for effect. You will notice that I have one door open. This is my problem door. I will need to solve a few problems...specifically the threaded rod that is right in the way.

All the doors open.
This is looking better, but several tweaks need to be done.

Resin Parts

Took a detour today from the work I was doing yesterday.

I ordered these parts a while back, and just kept them off to the side in the event that I didn't get an ALU replacement part. Today I followed the instructions provided on www.resinparts.com

I started by wiping each piece down with a cotton ball I then used a tooth brush with soapy water to scrub each piece.

This took a bit of time, and then there was the light sanding and cleanup work that needed to be done on each component.
I managed to get the dust coat, and a coat of primer on these parts. I will inspect each one for defects. Using superglue and sandpaper, I should be able to cleanup any pin holes or other issues fairly quickly.


Only other thing I managed today was to get the top panel glued on for the back door.

First Blues

Taking a few days off work. This first day, I wanted to make a dent in some things that have been dragging on for a while.

Frank's feet strips showed up. Good timing. This was the start of the 7th week from the time that Frank said he was shipping the parts. The must have taken the boat across the Atlantic.


I decided to get started on some Blue stuff. So I grabbed up a few of the body parts that needed to be painted, lightly sanded them, cleaned with Alu-prep, and primed.

Same steps for arms and ldp. Setup an old ladder and used some pieces of a wire coat hanger to hang these pieces.


While I waited for the primer to dry, I assembled my center foot. This will all need to be taken apart again, but I needed to make sure that my bolt/nylon spacer setup was going to function.


I must have missed taking the setup picture for this, but between trips running outside to primer and paint, I taped the back door panels on and glued them in place with silicone.


Pictures of Blue are coming... The paint still needs a few more coats. In the mean time I worked on mount the skins. I was already pretty nervous about my painting skills so it didn't take too much more stress to get the courage to drill holes in the skins.


Finally. For those wondering this is Krider method. Better pictures below.

Arms and LDP came out nice.

So there is this rule that your not supposed to work with freshly painted stuff... um.. yea sure.


I thought I had the arms all worked out, but I had actually never tested the mounting setup. This is the first guess and getting stuff lined up. Both arms are sagging quite a bit here.


Pulled the tape off the panels and the back door is starting to look much better. I will glue on the top panel tomorrow.


This is starting to look better. The bottom arm is still in trouble, but should be easy to fix.


Big day. It is a nice feeling to be able to make a bunch of progress.
(spell checker wasn't working. I'll fix stuff later)

Memorial Day weekend

Star Wars is 30 years old. There are tons of specials on TV, and the Celebration IV convention is wrapping up in LA. For me it was the same as previous holiday weekends. I anticipate being able to get tons of work on R2 accomplished... and then not find the extra time to actually get stuff done.

I taped the skins on and started to line everything up only to chicken out... drilling holes in the skin is not easy. I may get the courage tomorrow.


I again wimped out on the back door. I have seen lots of people use JB weld here, but I decided that a 4 hour cleanup process was not in my schedule. I used silicone instead and was able to get this put together in about 30 minutes. I hope it holds and will attempt to glue on the panels tomorrow.


It probably looks fine from the photo, but the clips I used put tiny marks on the surface of the door. Not sure how I am going to fix this... but I will do some research. At worst case sanding down then entire surface and repainting. That will mean that I will loose the ALU in the gaps similar to a process that several other builders have had to go through.


I got the hardware for my center foot all figured out. The stem ball casters installed.

It was only after I had been to the hardware store that I remembered Jerry had a tutorial for this stuff. I was pretty close... I am using 2" screws and nylon spacers instead of what Jerry recommends. Will see how that works out.

Just the parts stacked...Waiting on the foot.

Finished painting the foot tonight. I'll put it together tomorrow.

Back Door, Center Foot, Half moons

Last night I got the back door cut out. Most builders end up doing this step, and I am sure they had the same rush I felt when I got it completed. Very scary cut, with only about 1/8" play room on the line.


Today I started the weekend with my daughter. At one point she got into her toy box.


I got clear coats on most of the stuff I painted the other day. This was just a test fit of all the parts that are ready to be glued together. I hope to get that done tomorrow.


Center foot. This picture is actually the second attempt. I started pretty early with this foot and thought it was ready for auto body grey primer. It didn't take 5 mins after the first coat to see lots of cracks and pits starting to form in the primer. I spent the rest of the day striping and sanding the foot to get it back to this point.


I thought I might be able to finish up the center foot today, so I worked on Tom's half moons. They turned out very nice.


my predictions never come through... but tomorrow I hope to get the inner skin mounting to the frame figured out, complete the painting on the Center foot, and assemble the back door. You can see that I have my pile of clamps ready to go in the picture above.

I also have a copy of the C4 show that G4 broadcast. A link from the group website is available, or send me an email for the link.

Paint, Center Foot, and more!

I have been putting this off for a while, because I am a bit nervous about my rattle-can skills. I dove in head first today. The next few pictures were taken when I took a break to let the last coat of primer dry.




I didn't take too many other pictures while I was painting so I took this one after I had applied several coats of white. I brought the panels inside to let them finish drying. The painting process went well, but not perfect so I didn't put clear coats on anything. I am going to wait a week and make sure that this stuff looks good before I spray on the clear. There is definitely one panel that I will need to redo... it got a bug or something on in while I was painting, and in an attempt to get it off I think I touched the panel. A nice big fish eye marks the spot.



The steel center foot from Jerry Greene arrived today. Absolutely amazing. I messed around with it for a few minutes to mount the half moons that I got from Tom. They are a perfect fit.


While paint was drying, I spent some time considering how to mount the center vents. I decided to use a couple of flat bars. I will put a few holes in each bar and in the wall of each center vent using screws to secure the vents in place.


I also had time to trim the front skin for the power coupler. I plan to use another flat bar to secure this component to the frame (or skin).


lots done today, I also messed around with the arms a bit. I took some notes from Calvin and got most of the mounting components together.

If all goes well, I should be working on painting a few things blue (Krider method) sometime this week. I am also planning on taking some time off next week. I hope to take that time to make some serious progress on the legs.