I think I’m done painting the skins. No really, I’m done! Why don’t you believe me?

I even started to peel away the masking tape, so there’s no going back – Okay, okay. I know I’ve done this before but I mean it this time.

But seriously, I’m much happier with the finish now and can’t see me going back to do this again anytime soon.

There’s a few spot on the inner skin I need to clean up but it should be easy. It’s mostly the green undercoat that’s super thin and leaks under the masking tape easily.

Some bad news though – the top corner of the back door started to de-laminate once I’d removed the masking tape. The surface area for the glue isn’t very wide in this spot and I guess the epoxy was thin or non-existent. Once I get the panel inserts in place and epoxied, it should be an easy fix it without marking the paint.

I couldn’t resist laying some of the panelssee how things would look. Hopefully this week I’ll get some hinges working, and the permantent panels/inserts epoxied in to the skins.

I do need to clean up the epoxy on some inside edges of the panels as they’re not sitting exactly square, but overall I’m happy how things came out

I also went back and started to remove the tape and latex on the horse shoes. I scored the perimeter with a knife to help get a cleaner line

Next up, gluing all those panels in place and fitting the back door.

Some of you may have noticed that I’m now closing each month with a summary of posts. I’ve also gone back and done the same for months with lots of activity.

In addition I’ve added a new link to the menu above called “Archive” which lists all the posts by month and a brief summary where applicable. Hopefully it’ll allow people to find things a little easier.

Don’t forget you can use the category links to the right, and also there’s the tags at the bottom of each post which are also click-able. e.g. There’s a lot of posts for the Pittman motor and each one has the tag which will show all the others.

Happy New Year everyone. Slow day today. Doing some research for my door panels and servos needed.

Been chatting back and forth with Chris Grootjans in Belgium on how he went about it. Here’s a cool video of his setup using micro servos directly attached to the Robart Hinges. I really like the solution because it doesn’t need any extra push rods etc and everything is more self contained.

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Full details of Chris’ setup can be found here.

Right now I’m toying with the idea of just ordering a few mini servos from ebay. Typical cost is $20 shipped for 4 vs buying them domestically where one would cost at least that much. Size is around 22mm x 27mm x 11mm, but I’ve seen them as small as 20x17x9.

Update: I never did receive my servos from china, so buyer beware, the good news PayPal refunded my money.

Would you believe it, today is my one year build anniversary? I’d really hoped that he’d be back on three legs with all his skins on and looking like the real deal by now, but alas it wasn’t to be. I’ve learned that it’s not always good to rush, and all good things come to those who wait.

I’d joined the Builders Group back in January 2001 and been a member since. I’d had one failed attempt with a resin kit I’d purchased back in 2002 and shelves the project. I really didn’t follow much of what was going on with the group apart from remembering how blown away I was with Gary Weavers all aluminum droid sometime during 2004. I thought to myself I’d never be able to build or afford one of those.

But in late 2006 I rediscovered Artoo and the Builders Group. I couldn’t believe how far things had come and I ordered some parts. Then on December 31st, 2006 I picked up my Dremel and started to cutting my newly delivered R&J dome.

During the year I’ve learned so much, met a bunch of fantastic warm welcoming people that I hope to call friends for a very long time. The big highlight of course was Celebration 4 – which was a big motivator. About a month before I realized that I had most of the parts in hand or could make what was missing to get a droid on three legs and maybe running around. With a lot of late nights and 30 days later I was at C4 with a droid in the races and delighting kids young and old throughout the convention center. He was skinless but who’s counting.

Then over the summer, like a lot of the builders who went crazy before C4, I took a break – 5 months in fact. I tinkered on and off, but for the most part he was basically the same droid.

Sometime in late October/early November I got the bug again and went full force into building. I had it in the back of my head that I wanted to get him “done” by the one year anniversary – or at least looking like a real Artoo-Detoo. And I came close.

For the record my shortlist of “to-do’s” which I have no chance of cramming into the last few hours of 2007 are –

• Re-attach newly painted skins
• Re-install electronics
• Screw in body details like the oct port, power coupler etc.
• Glue loose panels onto skin
• Magnets on back door
• Hinges on various panels

Again so close that I’m kicking myself.

If I look back I’ve probably worked a totally of 5 months out of the year on the project, so I have nobody but myself to blame for not getting him done.

But like every true droid wrangler knows – your droid is never done, and for me going into phase 3 I’ll be expanding on my new sound system, finish up the dome tricks I’d already made a start on like the fog/fire-extinguisher and adding a periscope. I also want to get the utility arms opening, and servos on the dome panels, maybe the cpu arm working too.

Two big lessons for me this year – have patients and do your research. We’re called “Builders”, but I think we all have to be thinkers first and open to new ideas. I know I’ve spent more time reading, thinking and seeking advice than building.

It’s been a real fun year and the next big event coming up is San Francisco WonderCon in February. I think this will be the first year for droids at the event.

Thanks again to everyone for helping me along in this journey – especially Victor Franco, Mike Senna, Gerard Fajardo, Chris Simonds, Allen Mahurin, Ed Wamser, Calvin Thomas, Tiny, Richard Jacobsen, George Luck, Jerry Greene and all the parts suppliers and people who helped me find parts.

I also have to thank my wife for putting up with all the mess, the noise, the paint fumes and me wanting to constantly talk and share the latest thing I’ve worked on.

This has got to be one of the best R2 videos on Youtube ever!

Now to figure out what the song is so I can put it in my sound system 🙂

I’d ordered a bunch of super strong ‘earth’ magnets last week and they arrived today. I’m hoping to use them in quite a few spots, hence the tall stacks.

The larger 3/4″ discs will be used to secure the battery boxes to the feet, the rods will be used on the removable back door, and the small 3/8″ discs in various spots, like securing the shoulder hubs to the legs for easy removal, and holding the front blue panel around the vents. I’m also going to experiment with using them to hold panels and doors closed, but they maybe too strong.

When out and about with R2 or when conversation turns to hobbies and invariable R2 building, it’s always handy to have a card ready with your contact information.

I’d created a simple business card design to use a Celebration 4, but I gave away my last one today, so I decided to create some new one’s tonight. What do you think?

Standard trading cards are a little larger than a business card so I may shrink them down to fit in my wallet easier.

[edit] Here’s the front and back of the new smaller business card next to the original larger trading card on top. I printed them on heavy card stock using my inkjet printer and they came out great.

I was going to add a few more coats of paint to the skins today, but on close inspection in the daylight they looked fine. A lot of the dust spots I was seeing yesterday just rubbed off with my finger now that the paint has had time to dry. I’m going to leave it a few more days before I attempt to remove the masking tape, as it’s been pretty cold and I’m not sure how the paint cures in this sort of weather.

I’ve decided to re-assembling R2. Started off with something easy – the center ankle as it’s relatively simple and self contained. I need to get him back on 3 legs to start laying out the electronics again. I’m probably going to move things around a bit, for example I know the speed controller can’t stay where I had it on the back mounting plate as it now hits the skins. It may end up on the back side of the plate or somewhere else internally. I also want to build in some sort of switch and circuit to allow me to charge the batteries in place rather than having to remove the cables each time to clip the charger on.

I’ve been paranoid all week that I’m going to ding or mark the paint, and tonight I had to moved passed that. Right off the bat there was no avoiding dirty fingerprint from the grease when handling the new white paint, plus I scratched a some paint off trying to get the ankle to fit back in the foot shell slot. I really should have filed down the metal parts a long time ago to compensate for the added paint – but I didn’t. I’m sure it going to wear off in this spot anyway, but don’t ya hate it when something like this happens?

I’m glad now that I didn’t get things powder-coated and at least I can touch it things up myself if I need to.

I’m going to have to keep an eye on the foot shells as they’re steel and prone to rust, especially where I live on the coast. It’s ironic that one of the reasons I went with an aluminum droid was because wood warps so easily here, even when sealed, and now here I am worrying about rust from the salt air. I may just grease up this area when I get around to weathering him.

I also noticed that nearly all of my ankle cylinders are scratched up and should really be repainted, but I’m not going to do it this time around.

I used silicon to attach the foot strips to the foot shell. I should probably tap and screw them on, but I’m feeling lazy and really want to see this done. I roughed up the two surfaces and taped on the strip. I’ll probably know tomorrow if it works.

I think it looks pretty cool all put together don’t you think?

One last thing while I remember, don’t forget to use screw Loctite or something similar. I missed a few screws in the feet before C4 and lost nearly all of them by the end of the week.