We are rolling around at events now!

R2Q5 is Alive !.. 
So since my last update I have been fully MOT’ed and have now been cleared by the UKG.

I took the droid to Winchester  Winchester Planetarium – & Science Centre‎ for their Star Wars day. The event went well until I got the droid stuck in the lift and broke his leg off. Needless to say within a couple of weeks we had reinforced the leg and its now very strong.

Additionally “we” are taking part in a documentary about Building R2’s https://www.facebook.com/BuildingR2/

We then went along to the following events: 

The National Museum of Computing (Star Wars Day) http://www.tnmoc.org

OxCon – Oxford http://www.oxcon.xyz

LegoLand Windsor (Star Wars Day) http://www.legoland.co.uk

Paint and Prepping for the Builders Day

I think at this point there was light at the end of the tunnel. As the weather got colder it made a real challenge to paint paints. So I put up a tent in the garden, heat lamps and carried on. The skins looked awesome, the doors were cut out and glued back into place ready for servos to be added at a later date. I also painted the legs and started putting things together. This part was really the best bit of the build as I could really start to see that things were coming together. The electronics will feature in a new blog as I’m looking to change the setup totally and will explain in detail why I’m making the changes.

The Legs, Skins, and 3D Printing

Things got exciting, I might have ordered loads of bits, from arduino’s LED’s, Alu Skins, and a 3D printer.

So lets start there: 3D Printing can be very rewarding when you are building. It offers a quick(ish) light weight option to your build. Most of the files can be found online, if you have the skills to print, undercoat and then paint then its great. I went for the £300 i3 Duplicator as that is the printer of choice for many builders. I have printed a fair amount of my Astromech parts on my printer, and so far (with other prints) racked up about 80 days of solid printing time. I printed some things just to see how they would look and many parts that I will never use on my build, but it was worth it to find out whats best. The impressiveness of the printer for quality and cost is awesome. My printed parts are the Skirt (big print), the arms, vents, leg parts, and so on. If it could get stuck on with glue it did.

The legs were CNC cut by the guy that did the frame, there were a couple of small issues, but lets glide over that as its history now.

The skins came of the Astromech forum and were shipped from Germany. I was very impressed with how they came, and moved into removing the panels and merging the 4 sheets together for undercoating and painting. I was about to order another set, but my boiler blew up and I spent those funds on having that replaced. So the other project is sitting and waiting for another time.

 

Astomech Senna Frame

The Wood plans on the astromech website are pretty easy to follow. I managed to find a CNC guy online who cut 3 Ply wood frames, and then also the legs. I think it was a challenge for him as there were some cuts that I ended up having to do myself as his machine missed some. This however didn’t cause to many issues. The reason I went for a wood frame was because it was an easy material to base my R2 from. If I needed to screw or bolt something in then it was easier than some other materials. I am planning on looking at an alternative material for my frame in the future, however I am happy with the way it turned out.

How did this all start? Astro.. What!

Back in 2012 I worked with a chap who had a stormtrooper and a number of Star Wars items in his office. It was always a talking point for clients and customers. It was around that time that I started collecting 1977-1985 Kenner star wars figures. I ended up importing a fair amount from the US and buying in what I could. Following on from that and storing my figures post grading with AFA and UKG. I ran through a number of hobbies from show cars, reptiles, large parrots and marine fish keeping. All of these hobbies lasted a few years or I got bored. The key difference between those hobbies and building an astromech is vast. The community is different and the reasoning why I started doing this has changed throughout the process of the build.

There is a saying that “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” This is certainly true of my first attempts of my build, however I just wanted to test the water before going all in. After joining the R2D2 Facebook building group I was contacted by a very helpful team member, and I was lucky enough to visit him at his home to see his R5 build and see how he was working with Styrene. You’ll see that on the images above I tried the B&Q dome, but the shape was wrong. I found a so called cast from an original R2 droid on eBay (I would not suggest buying these type of part on that site) But I ended up buying two in the end one for my R2 Q5 project and one for another project which i’ll be starting once Q5 is ‘finished’ Key points to remember, so of the building process is very frustrating and like most things, some parts are more rewarding than others.

Dealing with the Dome

The dome was really my first purchase, these domes don’t really come up for sale that often, however buying this one allowed me to move on with my build at a reasonable rate. This dome is fibreglass, the mould it came from really needed extra work, so I sanded and filled all the parts that I could, and used a dremel to cut or smooth the other areas. I removed the dome pies and the side panels. I wish that I had thought this process through and I ended up spraying the dome and the panels separately. I should have cut, re inserted and sprayed. This isn’t going to matter long term as I’ve already managed to drop the dome once.. and experienced what happens when an astromech droid falls over.

The process of finishing the dome took weeks, mainly because I have never spray painted anything before, I believe I have spent several hundred pounds on just paint for this project, it might have been easier to the the whole thing to a spray shop and get them to do it for that professional finish. But.. then its someone else doing it.