(06-20-2015) Painting and assembly begins

Last week the foot drives for R2 arrived and assembly of those began.  This was the last big piece that kept R2 from being totally assembled and on his feet.  This weekend I started working to paint any parts that I believe are ready to go and I'm trying to push to get him fully assembled and working.

Yesterday (06-20-2015), the dome plate was powder coated with flat black.  This is a plate that goes inside R2-D2's dome for mounting accessories (periscope, life form scanner, etc)

And today (06-21-2015), the horseshoes were powder coated and assembled with their greeblies.  I think they turned out fairly well - a bit of the orange peel that you usually get with powder paints, but otherwise very good.  The masking was the hard part, but it's very rewarding to see it starting to come together.

Legs, ankles and feet are scheduled to be next - if I have enough powder to paint them all.  I'm worried about getting the legs into the oven and baked without damaging the paint, so I will need to think this through before I proceed.

(12-31-2014) R2's dome is 99% complete!!

The past couple of days, as time has allowed, I've been working on finishing up the R2's dome.  It's down to the tedious stage of checking, double checking and triple checking everything for final assembly - but it's finally getting really close to being finished.

I believe that once all of the panels and dome are cleaned and polished to match that it will be ready for final assembly.

(05-20-2014) Back to work!

It's been a long time since I've really worked on R2 but I'm finally getting back to work on him.

The past week I've been working on finishing up the cuts on the dome.  Sunday, I cut the bottom edge of the dome and filed it smooth so that the dome is the correct height now and I cut an access hole in the back of the dome and finally I drilled holes for the dome buttons to be mounted.

There is still a lot of work to do - installing hinges for opening panels, install the rear PSI, mount plastic ring and more paint work, but it's getting there.

(08-14-2013) Dome panels cut

Last night, with the help of Jody, all of the top dome panels cut out on R2.  I need to add hinges, cut out another hole on the side for access to release the wires inside the dome and drill holes for the dome bumps and then it will be final assembly and clean up of the dome.  Can't wait for it finally to be a completed piece.  Someday I'll add periscope and LFS lifters, but that will have to wait for now.

(07-16-2013) Status update

A few weeks back my brother wired up my 220v power outlet for the welder, plasma cutter and most importantly - the oven to cook the powder paint for all of R2's large parts.  Unfortunately the stove's bottom stove burner instantly burnt out, and so I have ordered a replacement which should arrive soon.

The parts to complete R2 are down to just a few:  battery boxes, foot strips and battery/side plates.  The foot strips and side plates I could make, but if someone does a run I will probably order them. 

All of the electronics are either on hand or on order, but the foot drives are still several months away from being ready to ship.  The next step is to finalize the mounting of the dome drive motor and start testing the mouse interface for dome positioning.  Hope to get that working and have a demo to show soon.

(06-25-2013) R2's radar eye

The other day I put R2's radar eye on to see how he's going to look.  Something about that center eye really says R2 to me.

In other R2 news, the outer legs are almost complete, the center ankle arrived and soon he should be standing on his on 3 feet.  It will still be a while before the foot drives are ready and then I will need motors, so don't expect him to be moving in the near future.

(06-15-2013) More color tests

I powder coated a few pieces of R2 and placed them to see how the color looks.  I'm very happy with the color, but not too happy with my paint skills.  Too much dirt in the paint and it's hard to sand and remove the specs from powder paint.

I also did some tests on some old aluminum go kart wheels.  The copper looking wheel is painted with transparent orange, and the grey is painted smoke chrome.  Both of these colors are from Eastwood.