November 13, 2007 - Painting is Such Sweet Sorrow

(from my Star Wars Blog)

Yes, I know... "What the heck has been happening with your build?"

Well, the good news is, I have finally gotten some time to work on RD-22. The cool part is, the body is almost complete. As you can see from these images of the front and the back, I've been busy over the last couple of weekends. These are the better pictures to show the color scheme, even though they might be a bit blurry. The main color is almond, to match the color of my Mom's 1978 Lincoln Continental. The red is a two-tone of bright red undercoat and a Duplicolor Red Metal Specks overcoat, as described before.

In keeping with my normal mode of operation, the mess in my garage keeps expanding. Thank goodness for the trash can that we store our dog food in. It's the perfect size to hold up the body, and the lid is soft enough to deform under the weight of the body and cradle the body when I lay it on its side.

In keeping with the idea of honoring my mother with this droid, I have added a few, well... inconsistencies. Probably things that Don Bies and the folks over at the r2builders group would notice, but nothing that takes away from the (presumed) operability of my droid. I submit for your perusal this image. Can you see what's wrong?

I also managed to get the utility arms and the large data port (see image below) onto the body just this evening. I need to ask the experts, but the gaps at the ends of the utility arms bother me. They work fine, but there's a lot of space there...

The best part of the build happened tonight. With a couple of blasts from my drill and a 1-3/8" hole saw, I got the legs on the body! The pipes need to be trimmed in order to get the legs closer to the body, but the holes ended up just about perfect. The pipes will sit on the 3/4" plywood supports inside the body, and will be tied together with a couple of screws once I get everything lined up. I also need to cut the pipes, to eliminate the overage.

However, not everything is fish and roses here at RD-22 Central. I have been painting up all the other little bits and pieces, and had the four battery harnesses primed and ready to get a coat of metallic chrome. If you remember the picture of the mess above, you will see that the table in the foreground is pretty full. Actually, that "table" is a panel cutting jug for my table saw. The four battery harnesses were sitting on the edge of the jig for the longest time, waiting for paint.

What you can't see in the mess picture is that, just below the jig, is a recycling bin. When you mess with fire, you get burned, right? Turns out that one of the battery harnesses got knocked into the recycling bin and tossed out with the recycling. That's why there are only three in the above image. Whoops! I'm hoping to find someone who has an extra, or snag an extra from the resin gurus when I start buying parts for the dome.

Speaking of the dome.... there isn't one! I'm still holding out for an acrylic dome, when the r2builders club finds a way to produce them. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Gotta run now... I'll let you know what happens this weekend. If nothing happens, it might be a while. I need to travel down to the coast and help my father-in-law rip out his kitchen cabinets, in preparation for their kitchen renovation. Finally, I get to demolish something!!!

Bob
November 13, 2007