Pimp my Droid

Kenny Baker's autograph

2008-04-19T11:05:00.003+02:00

Kenny recently was a guest at Steel City Con in the States. My good friend and fellow builder Oscar Banos also attended, and since I asked nicely and he's such a nice chap, he got me Kenny's autograph, which arrived the other day :)

Thanks a bunch mate!

Look how proud R2 is now:

an update long overdue

2008-04-11T12:33:00.005+02:00

Hey guys and girls!

Wow, it's been a long time since my last post - more than a month actually.
As those of you who followed the posts know, Jedi Con - my "deadline" for the new droid - has already happened. And yes, I managed to finish the droid in time!
It was a real blast - We had lots of builders, 8 droids, our own room even, and the event itself was brilliant as well.

I will keep this post short and write some more, so I can keep topics divided. Progress on the droid, an in-depth review of Jedi Con, misc. news. You get the idea... They might actually end up being dated in the past, so you'll have to check the older posts as well.

That's it for now, I'm now going to check if I have any more progress pictures of the droid!

Oh, and because I hate posts without pics, here is one of the mess in my room when I finally picked up the droid from Siegfried's workshop:

more painting done

2008-03-09T22:24:00.003+01:00

I'm back from a busy weekend! And this time it wasn't R2-busy... unfortunately. BUT I used as much time as I could to bring R2 closer to his finished state.

Just before I headed off to the youth leader workshop thingie I took part in this weekend, I painted the shoulders white - and when I got back today, I added some aluminium paint to them to finish them off - they look pretty nice now!

I might pick up the droid tomorrow or on Tuesday from the workshop and do the last remaining tasks here at home... not much to do, but not long to go 'til Jedi Con either!

r/c gone bad... but that doesn't stop me!

2008-03-06T23:44:00.002+01:00

Hi guys. I promised a video, right? Well, things didn't quite work out as I had hoped they would... R2 behaved like a drunk hooligan on a rampage, I couldn't make him to go straight (hey, just like the original prop!) and he rammed into everything he could... and eventually one of the cheapo Hong Kong speed controllers just fried. Yeah, you know, my mother always says "buy cheap, buy twice!" and she's so right...
So I just went on and bought some really damn expensive speed controllers now, which should be here in a day or two, those should do the trick, if not - well, I'm gonna be pretty upset!!! But there's still hope...

However, there's only 2 weeks left til Jedi Con, so I thought I'd better use the day to work on the droid in another way. I picked up the skins and the shoulders from the workshop and brought them here to do a little painting magic in the attic - and it worked like a treat :)

I primed all the stuff, waited a bit, painted the skins white and filled and sanded the shoulders a little more around the seams (remember I had to wrap some styrene around them cause they weren't quite big enough, due to resin shrinkage).
And I'm quite happy with the stuff now :) At least some progress - and a huge step towards a finished droid!

Two pics, one of the stuff primed up in the attic, and of the finished stuff lying in my room:

making R2 move

2008-03-02T12:56:00.002+01:00

I finally got all the components to make R2 take his first steps! I'm only missing a speed controller for the dome drive, but I'll try to install what I have next time I'm in the workshop, which should be Tuesday... so expect a video then! :)

back door, power couplers and paint!

2008-02-28T21:15:00.003+01:00

Sooo, more building fun!
Yesterday we had another semi-fine day here in Germany (it was a little windy, but that doesn't stop me!) so I painted the last missing blue pieces, the large data port and R2's utility arms. Of course I messed up the paint job on one of the utility arms and had to redo it, I wonder if I will ever learn not to be impatient... oh well ;)
Here's a pic:

Today I went to the workshop again to work on the "main" droid, and did another step towards the finish line. First I finished the back door magnet attachment, which is basically an improved rip off of what Oscar did (thanks again ;)).
As you can see on the following pic, I installed four attachment points on the frame, with round holes in which I installed screws. The holes are just big enough to take the magnets I'm using, which I glued to the back door today. The screws hold the magnets in place, and the holes make it impossible for the door to move up and down, perfect - I hope! I couldn't check yet, as the glue I used needs 12 hours to cure. I'll go there to check it out tomorrow... patience, young padawan, you must learn patience... ;)

Another thing I started working on today was attaching the power couplers I got recently. I had some scrap plexiglass left, and needed brackets for the couplers, so I took out the heat gun! and it worked extremely well... I'm not reinventing the wheel here, so just check out the picture and you'll see how I attached the couplers:

simple solution, but works pretty well :)

Here is another pic of it mounted into the droid (the belts you see are there to hold the back door in place while the glue on the magnets dries):

and here the secured backdoor, waiting for the glue to dry:

That's it for now! All I need now is my r/c receiver to arrive, 2 or 3 more building sessions in the workshop, a nice day to paint the skins and legs and we're pretty much there :)
And there are still three weeks to go 'til Jedi Con... I'm quite positive that I'll make it! :)

dome drive installed

2008-02-26T23:20:00.002+01:00

Ages ago I bought a dome drive on the club, as I knew that I'd need it one day. Well, the new droid's coming together now, and I guess there's no better place to put that dome drive than into the new R2. So that's what I did today - I screwed on the Rockler bearing and with a few tweaks I also managed to install the dome drive. I think it worked out really well :)

Next I will work on the back door attachment via magnets, got the idea from Oscar - Thanks for that!

Oh, as we had a really nice and sunny day here in Germany yesterday I thought I might just take another pic of my dome, as it looks so gorgeous in sunlight. Here it is:

more progress

2008-02-22T22:18:00.003+01:00

Hi guys. Jedi Con is coming closer, and I'm starting to feel the pressure. I got my ticket the other day and it says "R2 Builder", I guess I'd better have a droid on display ;) There's always the first droid, but I would rather present the new one...

I made good progress on him, finishing the assembly of my skins - including a back door, which I dremeled out. I first tried using scrap skin pieces as a guide for the dremel cutting wheel, but found that it was a lot easier for me doing it freehand - If you're doing it, just try it out and see what works better for you :)

I then used stock "UHU" glue to glue the skins together, probably not the strongest bond, but I wanted to have the option to be able to take them apart if I ever have to.

I also managed to finish the foot drives, and I'm now waiting for a receiver and speed controllers to finish my Vex based r/c system. Hope that will all work out, as I'm kinda new to all the r/c stuff, but I've already had a fair share of helpful mails from fellow builders, so I'm sure I'll get this sorted.

In the meantime I will try and install R2's details, and I better get the skins painted - One month to go, lots of work ahead of me... But working under pressure usually brings out the best in us, doesn't it?

Here are a few update pics:
The body - this time with all 3 feet attached and with wheels!:

The foot drive, version 1 (has been revisited since, but I don't have a new picture, so this one will have to do ;)):

On a side note, I'm taking payments for the Jedi Con shirts that have been ordered now, and will order them next week - Looking forward to those! :)

That's it for now - as Bob Ross would put it: "I wish you a happy [building], and God bless my friend"

Power couplers & scooter motors arrived

2008-02-12T22:55:00.000+01:00

Hey guys, another little update.

First my set of power couplers from McMaster arrived today, and they're awesome! I started working on the paint job right away, as in I masked the faceplates with masking tape (annoying job, but you gotta do it... or not?!)

However, I didn't really feel like masking everything on the main part, I found a great way around that though! The local car parts store where I get my R2 blue actually had a little "touch up pencil" in the same colour I used for the other parts, so I just took that and tried it out - and it worked like a treat - no masking, minor cleanup and I got that sorted :)

It's not 100% yet, but a little "touch up" should do the trick ;)

I also got two electro scooters today, which I ripped apart to get to the motors and all the other things I will use on R2.

That's it for today! Next thing I'll have to do is build some motor holders for my outer feet... and I'm actually looking forward to that! R2 building really IS fun!

progress on the droid, a new costume underway!

2008-02-10T12:25:00.000+01:00

Hi guys and girls. Been working on the droid again last week, and now I've got the resin skirt I got from Marco and the outer legs put on. I put the third leg on and placed R2 on his feet to take a mock-up picture of R2 standing, so here it is:

On a sidenote, I started working on a new costume that I might finish by Jedi Con as well.
Here's how it started:

a little fast forward and I got this:

That's it for now!

side vents finished

2008-02-03T21:12:00.000+01:00

As I didn't know what to do tonight, I finally finished filing the side vents (yeah, the ones I started in June last year). Not 100% perfect, but 100% hand filed - now that's an achievement as well, isn't it? ;)
The backing part is just a piece of styrene painted R2 blue - not quite to club spec, but it'll do for that part. Here they are:

Frame finished, skin snaps

2008-02-03T17:08:00.000+01:00

Hi guys 'n girls. Had another building session on Friday, and the frame is now completed. I also started putting in the skin snaps from Daren, which work really well - I just need to tweak the upper frame circle a bit to add the third set of snaps, but it's coming along rather nicely. I think I'll achieve my goal to finish this droid for his first outing at Jedi Con.

Another thing I did was placing the radar eye a little lower, as I wasn't all too happy with it before. I checked several reference images and realised the original R2s had it really low, so I put mine lower as well - and I like it a lot more now... here a before and after comparison:

Before:

After:

That's it for now. More building coming soon :)

a busy building day

2008-01-23T17:30:00.000+01:00

Hey guys. I had a really busy building day yesterday, where I nearly got to finish the frame for droid #2. Sadly I forgot to take my cam with me to the workshop, so no pictures... yet! Will take some soon (probably on Friday) and add them here.

I managed to dig out a picture of my wooden legs though, so here it is:

I also picked up the vent surrounds at the workshop and tried to put the louvers in there. The upper one worked like a treat, went in there right away, no problems whatsoever.
On the lower one I had to get out the file though, and "shrink" the outer angled bits a little so they'd fit into the surround. It's not a 100% ultrasmooth fit now, but it'll do (even with slight gaps at each side, oh well). As usual, a picture:

a shirt for Jedi Con 2008

2008-01-21T16:39:00.000+01:00

Last weekend I came up with a design for a Builders club t-shirt for the upcoming Jedi Con in Germany.
I'm also offering the shirt to anyone else interested, there is a post about it on the mailing list now!

Here is the design, I hope lots of people are going to buy one so I can have them printed really soon... *cough*order one now!*cough* ;)

Got my center vents internals

2008-01-21T14:44:00.000+01:00

I just got my center vent internals in the mail from Tom. Nice stuff!!
I have my surrounds lying in the workshop, so I can't check the fit there right now, but I've done a dry fit of the parts and they went together quite smoothly.

All I had to do on the lower vent inserts was file the slots on the angled parts a slight tad and then it also went together just fine :)

Here are some pics:

cpu arm arrived, finally finishing the pocket vents, and more!

2008-01-16T13:57:00.000+01:00

The last week was once again a busy R2 week. Last Wednesday I went to visit Arnd, Germany's R2 "elder". We had a great evening talking about all sorts of droid madness.
Arnd is currently working on his new R2, which should be finished until Jedi Con in March - which is also my goal!

I took some pics from his workshop and his droids, thought I'd share them with you, so here you go:

What else? I nearly finished those pocket vents I started ages ago, and they look pretty good - I just hope they'll fit my skins now ;) They should though, as they're pretty much to club spec. I only need to clean them up a bit, and then they're good to go! Here's a picture:

I also started on a new frame last Friday, but didn't get too far, and as I'm doing it in a friend's workshop and forgot the cam, I have no pics to share here. Next time!

Last, but definitely not least, I got my computer interface arm from David Shaw. Boy this thing is awesome! Huge thanks to Dave here!

Next I'll have to finish the side vents and work on that frame. There is so much more to do, and Jedi Con is getting closer... Could someone teach me how to us Force Speed? ;)

2007 - a retrospect

2008-01-07T23:07:00.000+01:00

I thought about what would be a good way to liven up things here a bit and since I haven't posted much during the past few months I figured I might just look back at what happened and sum it all up.
And actually there have been quite a lot of things happening that are worth to be mentioned here. When we go back to early 2007, like January, that’s where the serious work on my first droid was just underway. I think I finished him around March, and boy was I proud!

The building of droid no1 was also my serious “comeback” to the Star Wars fandom.
And what a comeback it was! After about 6 or 7 years as a “casual fan” I really got back into all things Star Wars, started reading lots of stuff related to the galaxy far, far away - and it felt like coming home!
I was back on track regarding the ways of the Force. And it would be the very Force guiding me deeper and deeper into the fandom madness…

I remember that one day at the local cinema, on which I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean with my band mates. In the entrance area there was a bunch of people wearing shirts that surely had no great impact on the weak-minded, but as a Force sensitive little fellow I instantly took notice of them. The back of the shirt read “Union of the Force”, with a website address.

After the movie it didn’t take me long to check out that address and I found out that it is a union of three fan dinners in my area. Well, guess what, I joined that forum, went to my first dinner in Bochum and met Arnd (Riedel), so we talked about R2 all night and had great fun. I knew instantly I found the right bunch of weirdos, and I am now regularly attending the local dinners, talking about the latest SW gossip as well as making new friends!

I met lots of members from the local 501st squad at the fan dinner as well, who helped me to get my stormie armour which I bought ages ago finally assembled, and from there it didn’t take long ‘til I could proudly announce that I’m now serving the Empire as TK 8527.

I also had my first event with those guys last October at a local shopping centre, which was just brilliant fun. The kids loved it, I was sweating like crazy, had all sorts of problems with armour parts falling off, but it was still lots of fun really! I’m definitely looking forward to more events to come :)

Lots of people from the local dinner also made the trip to FACTS Con in Belgium two weeks later, and as they offered me a seat in one of the cars I just joined them – After all the R2 builders had a stand there, so it couldn’t go wrong. And it surely didn’t! I finally managed to put faces to names, got to drive around with some droids and simply had a great time.
If you care to see, then here is a gallery of pictures I took at the con – lots of SW related pics here, but I’m biased, the con had a lot more to offer ;)

And now I’m working on a second droid, made lots of new friends through my rediscovered Star Wars madness and I have the feeling the rollercoaster ride has actually just begun, with more events coming up this year, the first one actually coming up very soon: JEDI CON, here I come!!!
… with the new droid, if I get it finished in time… better stop writing and start building ;)

Lots has happened in the past few months

2008-01-07T22:37:00.001+01:00

Hey guys. As I already said in November, I haven't been posting here that much over the past few months. But I did work on my droid. And here's the big news. I actually decided to leave droid number 1 as it is and instead of pimping the old one, I have just started all over again. So far I'm nearly finished with a new set of wooden legs and feet, and the absolutely gorgeous 300mm dome.

Speaking of which, I had some trouble with my dome, cause the first inner dome Daren sent me was a little on the long side, leaving a far too big gap between the blue dome ring and the rest. Well, I talked to Daren, tried fixing it, failed, and he got me a new one, which fits a LOT better now :) I have finished all the cutouts and assembled it temporarily (thank the Force we got duct tape!) and here's a nice little picture I took of it:

I will take some pics of the legs and other stuff over the next few days and maybe I'll finally get this blog going. I just have to push my own lazy arse a bit and post here from time to time I guess. I will! Promised!

"Do or do not... there is no try"

I'm not dead yet!

2007-11-06T12:24:00.000+01:00

Hey there. I know, I haven't been posting for quite some time, but that doesn't mean I stopped building - Not at all! I'm currently working on my new 300mm dome! Woah, what a beautiful piece of art!!!

I'll have some more updates up soon, with loads of pictures of my progress, so keep watching this space :)

Another vent update

2007-08-14T16:37:00.000+02:00

I've been working on that half finished vent from yesterday, to make it more like completely finished ;) So I used a larger U profile, some aluminium sheet and made the lower pocket. Here it is - it needs some cleaning up from the glue stains, but else I'm not too ashamed of it :)

Vent update

2007-08-14T00:07:00.000+02:00

Been working a bit on the vents today. I found an aluminium U profile at the local DIY store that seemed to be pretty much what I'd need for the pocket vents. I cut off a few parts in the right length, glued them in place and... tadaaa

working on the periscope

2007-08-07T00:51:00.000+02:00

Couldn't sleep last night, so I decided to work on the scope for my R2. I already had a finished housing flying around (from the A&A skin extras) and thought about building the rest of it.
I only used things I could find at my place, pens, a sticky tape box for the riser cap and some bits and bobs. I didn't take pics of the building process, and mind you, it's not 100% to club specs, but I think it looks close enough and it was completely free, so I won't complain!

droid ventilation!

2007-07-28T20:50:00.000+02:00

Hey guys and girls!
I thought it was time to have a first proper post in here. So here we go then:

I found nice 1mm thick aluminium sheets at the local DIY store the other day (that DIY store is right next door, which comes in VERY handy!) and thought a good way to start upgrading R2 would be to build him some new aluminium vents!

I have never worked with aluminium before, so my first attempts at cutting it were a bit trial and error, lots of errors actually! But hey, "do, or do not", right?

However, I eventually found a way that worked pretty good for me:

First I printed out drawings of the side and pocket vents in the right dimensions and glued them on the aluminium sheet using spray glue.

I used drawings that were just recently posted on the builders club mailing board, if you want them I uploaded both of them in a zip here. Just print those PDFs at 100% and you'll have properly sized templates.

Then I took out the ruler and my cutting knife to score the outer lines. I repeated those cuts about 2 times with lots of pressure to make sure I cut as deep as possible. Then I could easily break the aluminium along the scored lines and it just needed a little filing to clean up the edges!

I repeated that 4 times and ended up with this:

As you can see I took off the paper drawing of one of the pocket vents already there. Before I did that I once again scored the lines I need with my cutting knife, only that I did it very slightly this time, just to know where the recesses will need to be.

Next I drilled as many holes as I could fit in the recess parts and after that I started filing. What followed was filing, followed by filing, followed by even more filing, oh and eventually a bit of sanding to clean the edges!

Took me half the day to finish the first pocket vent front, but then I only used hand files, no electricity involved here!

However, I'm quite pleased with the result, even it needs a little more cleaning up here and there.

What's next? Well, there are three more vents to do, so I guess I'll have to strain my files (and my arm!) a bit more. Uttini!

A New Hope...

2007-07-24T01:09:00.000+02:00

...It is a period of fandom insanity. Robot builders, striking from a hidden workshop...
Oh well, enough of that ;) Hello to all fellow R2 builders and of course to everyone else as well!

Welcome to my all new R2 blog. Yes, yet another R2 building blog, but with a slightly different twist to it. As some of you will know, I've already build my budget droid, and the static version is pretty much done, but I missed to properly document my building process.

But as we all know, a droid is never finished, and now that I ordered one of those all-aluminium UBER domes and I'm waiting for it to arrive so I can upgrade my droid, I thought I might as well start a nice little blog where I will keep track of my droid pimpin' actions! ;)

I hope I will be able to fill this space with useful information, nice anecdotes and lots of R2 building madness soon!

Let out your inner Jawa!