August 11, 2007 - Progress!!!

(from my Star Wars Blog)

So, after weeks of seemingly bluffing my way through this astromech build project, I finally have some real progress to show you. I got a little time today, in between running my younger daughter to horseback-riding lessons and my older daughter to work, and managed to get the entire frame put together. Well, not entire, but close enough!

First, some catch-up pictures. The first one shows the layers for one of the outer legs. The center piece is MDF, and is cut to allow the wires for the foot motors to run down from the body to the feet. As a follow-up, the second picture shows the leg layers with the shoulder hubs. The hubs help attach the legs to the frame, and sorta cover up the gap between the legs and the skins.

Speaking of skins, here is what they look like fresh outta the package. These are Andrew's styrene skins, in four parts. There is a front skin and a back skin, as well as an inner skin and an outer skin. You put the inner skins on first, then layer the outer skins over them. This way, you get the effect of the panels on the real R2-D2.

The frame is made up of several rings, held up by a bunch of supports. Most of the frame parts are cut from 1/2-inch plywood, as evidenced by this picture of the rings before they were cut to fit.

(Of course, all this cutting results in quite a mess or two.)

After a lot of cutting, trimming, and fenagling (sp?), I managed to get the basic frame together. Here it is from the front and from the back.

The acid test was still to come, however. If the frame was cut and built correctly, the skins would fit around it like a glove. So, I put them on with some masking tape, since I wasn't ready to do anything more permanent. This first pass was not a complete success, however, as there was a bit of a gap when the skins were all on.

This has me a bit worried, but there are two things working in my favor. First, the skins were not at all tight around the frame. There were several gaps, and the masking tape is certainly not the tightest-holding stuff in the world. Second, the fact that there is a front and back skin means that there's going to be a seam behind each leg anyway, so I can always use some scrap styrene to fill in a gap or two.

In the to-do bucket are the battery boxes (made from layers of MDF... picture below), and the center leg (sorry, no pictures yet).

Well, that's it for today. Time for dinner... blackened tuna!

Bob
August 11, 2007