More Dome Work

Last night I had a little bit of free time so I taped the dome panels I had painted and got out the rub-n-buff and got to work.

It needs a bit more work getting some of the 'bad polish' look out of it but it is definitely shinny now.

I also did a little work on the coin slots that came with the A&A skins I will post some pictures of that later.

That's all for now hopefully more will get done this weekend.

Body-Legs

Last night I didn't have very much time but I was able to put the skins on the frame and line up where the legs will attach.

Yes that is my dining room table but right now it is an R2 work bench.  It is a bit messy and I will be in trouble for showing it like that but that is how R2 looks today.

More to the point I was going to use the gas pipe method for attaching the legs, but after buying all the parts that I now get to take back, I found SteveWs method for attaching his legs via a nice template he designed which leaves all that precious space inside your droid for electronics and 6 packs of beer at the con etc etc.

Anyway that is the method I will probably go with.  I will post more on that later when I actually do it.

So again if you are reading this thank you and glad you have read my catch up posts up to this point.  But as of today, 1-15-13 this is a current blog, yay me.

Dome Paint 2

After a full week of waiting, since if you stop mid painting you have to wait an entire week before you can apply more coats, I finally got back to the shop to finish the paint on R2.


It was even colder so I had to heat the shop even longer before starting on R2, I worked on the cabinet for the bathroom that I promised my wife 4 months ago while I waited for the shop to warm up.

Having decided R2 was still a little too purple for my tastes I put one more coat of anodized blue on, which made 3 coats total, I then cleared it using Rustoleum Clear as per the Krider method.

Again because of lack of pictures you get to see only the end result.

I obviously also peeled the tape and paper off and you can see the silver needs some work yet, get rid of the over spray hit it with some rub n buff etc etc.  But I think it came out pretty good.  It is a hair darker than I would have originally hoped for but in the light it looks good.  Few minor blems on the paint job where I peeled the tape a little too soon, but I think I can fix those where its hard to tell.

All in all I am very happy.

Dome Paint

Well after a bit of foul weather and fowl weather ha ha ha, oh sorry, I got fed up and Eddie and I went to the shop fired up the heater and got to painting.

I did the modified Krider method, on my dome.  I was unable to find Rustoleum metallic purple so I had to go with Testors Purple-licous.

I might add that this stuff is PURPLE, holly cow I thought we ruined all the damned sanding and priming on some freaking purple purpleness that shot out of the can in a very big PURPLE, did I mention that it was purple?

Moving on after two light coats of purple, we sprayed on a coat of the Duplicolor anodized blue.

It really toned it down to a nice purple blue.  Deciding it was now 1 in the morning Eddie and I decided to call it a night let the paint set up and come back to it after a while.

Yeah Eddie was being very mature through the whole process, considering he was the one that actually did the painting I can't say a whole lot.

Skins

Not an important post but a, Hey I bought some cool crap over here, kind of post.

I had been playing with skin ideas, ranging from I will do my own to buy Chani's budget skins. 

After contacting Chani, and later finding out she had gotten ill, I contemplated building aluminum skins myself.  I had the plans, I can get the aluminum, cheaper than styrene I might add, but it kept nagging at me don't do it, it can only end in disapointment.

So listening to my inner wife I got a hold of R7Dude on astromech.net and picked me up a set of A&A skins.

And that's how they look, I think its pretty awesome.  They cost a bit more than say doing it myself but they are finished and I didn't mess it up by trying to cut off a limb or something.

This picture by the way they are just the inner skins temporarily attached to the frame.

Teece's Lighting

Since I could not finish painting the dome I concentrated on lighting for the dome.  I wanted to go on the cheep as much as possible but I wanted it to look good.  The electronics and R/C is really why I wanted to do this, well that and my love of Star Wars.  So look no further than Teece's lighting.

I followed the forums and ordered parts from 10 different suppliers for a million tiny LEDS, ok not a million but close enough.  Most everything was off of eBay from China, except a few components like the arduino and pcbs, which funny enough some of the stuff from China made it here before the stuff from Colorado, it was all ordered the same day within 10 minutes of one another I might add.

I also got the pleasure of not finding any flangless LEDs and had to clip the flange off of the ones I did find.   That was a mess but one I and my wife, again love you honey, endured via the vacuum after each session.

After biting my nails in anticipation waiting and fretting Christmas came and went and my parts trickled in from the various vendors over the holiday and, because I don't take pictures like I should here is the finished product.

Honestly I was only able to finish it because of Santa Mom, I was provided this nice stocking stuffer from Santa Mom:

Don't try to use a crap soldering iron just get the good one and be done with it.  I have fought with the cheap ones for years now and after having a professional Weller Iron it is awesome.  It works better, lasts longer, heats quicker, feels better in your hand, is lighter and doesn't burn up after using it for an hour straight.  Sorry if that sounds like an advertisement but I do love my new iron.

Here is a video of the finished Teece's kit, you might just kill the sound it is just background humming or whatever was on TV that night.

Sorry about some of the angles, basically it just proves I got it working and I am happy with it.

Dome Primered

After remodeling our bathroom, which is still a on going project even 4 months later, minor things like a trim board and some shelves need finished,  I was able to sand off the silver areas on the Crash dome and tape and primer the areas that will be painted blue.

Then like everything else the weather turned crappy for the first time in two years it was actually cold in Missouri in December, go figure.  So it sat for a while white, taped and sad looking.

Dome

After sitting on a wooden frame and not doing anything for a bit due to C6, which I HAD pictures of until my phone died and took the pictures with it,  I finally received my fiberglass R&J dome from Crash!

Doesn't it look good?  I thought it did sitting there all high and mighty on top of the glued wooden frame in the bedroom next to the bed where my wife specifically asked me not to keep it thanks again honey!

Anyway it would sit that way for only a few short months while we remodeled the bathroom due to the floor slowly falling in on us.

Wooden Frame

So on to the build:

It started with a wood frame made from plans off the R2 Builders yahoo group.  Credit goes to Mike Senna for the wood frame and Matt Henricks for these plans I simply turned them in to usable DXF files for the cnc program to use.

That is the begging of an R2!  Yeah doesn't look like much but I promise it will start to be one.  I also had the wooden legs cut at the same time however I never took any pictures of them.  This picture was of the frame before glue up.  I did not document my glue up mainly because I screwed up and didn't wait for the skins like I should have and got in a hurry and now I have a few blems to fix.

Introduction and Thanks

I apologize in advance as I will not be keeping this up to date as most people would like.  As it is now I am starting this builders log about 5-6 months already in to the project so a lot of the work is completed so there will be a huge number of posts then nothing for a while.

Try to keep from falling asleep on my R2D2 build.

First off I want to thank a few people that helped launch this project, without their help and support I would not be able to do this.  My wife Danielle who allowed me to do this in the first place, she is very tolerant of my 'projects' and amazingly supports this one.  Second Keith, the owner of Bredehoeft Millwork INC, that took my DXF files and turned them into a workable frame.  My Dad who is always there to lend a hand, and Eddie that likes to paint, poke fun of my projects and helps keep me distracted with various other things like cars and boobs.  And of course everyone at the Astromech.net and R2 Builders Yahoo group even if I haven't been posting I have been watching and learning.