Merry Christmas!

Hope you guys have a Merry Christmas! And a Happy New year!


BUSTED!


Wally decided to climb in our tree when we were putting it up last month.

Skin and frame work

Dad and me got some more work done on R3 today. :) This is starting to turn into a father and daughter project.

The picture above shows the drawing we're using to show us where the panels and everything goes. You can also see some of the guide lines dad drew on the skins.
I got quite few panels drawed and cut out of some .40 styrene today too including the arms.
Below shows how we figured out how to get the vent to fit in a Dave E. frame.

As you can see the standard Dave E. frame is not designed for the CW droid. Here we will have to modify the frame for the pocketvent.

2 pieces need to be removed from the frame for the pocket vent to fit.

We used a dremel to trim the frame verticals back 1-1/4 inch to make room for pocket vent. And trimmed the frame ring back 3/4 inch to make more room for the vent to fit properly.

Cut a new vertical piece and glue here for added support. This leaves room for pocket vent.

We should be finishing up the vent tommorrow.

Star Wars C5 is going to be in Orlando!

"Breaking news: Reliable sources have confirmed to GalacticBinder.com that Star Wars Celebration 5 will be held in Orlando, Florida in the summer of 2010."

http://www.galacticbinder.com/news/BREAKING-NEWS-Star-Wars-Celebration-5-To-Be-Held-i-n651.html

YESSSSSSS!
And we're going!

EDIT: Forgot the link to the Star Wars C5 website. http://www.starwarscelebration.com/

It's GROWING!

It's getting taller. :O
We taped the skins on to the frame to see if they fit, and they fit great!
The drawings on the skins are going to be changed since I'm doing the Clone Wars version.

Frame is completed

Now we just have to wait for the glue to dry, then we can check to see if the skins fit good.
Only 2 more frames to go! O_O For their droids of course.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Man, this year has gone by quick! Only a few more months till Megacon, yeesh!
Dad and Mom got some more pieces glued together as you can see in the pics.
The frame was done mainly by them because I have little to no skill at this kind of thing. lol But I did do all the sanding and some of the cutting at least.





Also here is a picture of our 20 pound turkey. Yum!
I hope you guys have a Happy Thanksgiving! :)

Working on R3's frame

I finally got the time to work on my robot again! :)
My dad and me spent most of the weekend cutting out pieces of polystrene for the frame and sanding them.
Yesterday and today we glued some of the pieces together.

Happy Halloween!

This isn't related to building Goldie just thought I'd share it anyway.
Today was the big Florida Vs Georgia college football game and Dad decided to bring him out in the crowd.
Man, people were flipping out over him!

Also the last pic is my kitten I found under my house 4 weeks ago. One of my outside cats bred with a siamese cat apparently and she only had 2 kittens.
One is female and the kitten I have is a boy. I named him Wally. :)

And I should be working on my robot this week too! (I hope)

More dome progress

We spent about 20-30 min. or so sanding the bottom of the dome to get the rough jaggedness off of it.
Then I cut out the ring that goes around the bottom of the dome.
We only need one ring instead of two since that's how R3 is in the CloneWars movie.
You can see the ring we'll be using better in pic. 1.

Some progress

Well, haven't been able to do much lately but, I did get a few things done this week.
I got the top round panel up on the top of the dome cut out today.
We at first had the smaller panel you saw in the last post on the dome until we noticed that the panel was actually bigger in the CloneWars movie, almost touching the other panels.
So we cut that piece out of the inner dome, which works for me because it made the inner fit ALOT better inside the outer dome.
The hole in the top circular panel will eventually be filled will glazing putty and will then be sanded.




And I also finished cutting the skins out, and got the extra styrene cut off of the ring the dome sits on.
Annnd finally the material for the frame came in this week!

Panels cut out

Dad and I finally got most of the panels cut out today with a dremel and sanded them down.
I just placed them anywhere to see what they would look like on the dome.
Dad did a good job on those, it's looks great and I haven't even painted it yet!

The last picture is what the dremel did to the extra C&D styrene dome we bought for the panels.

Giant R2D2 Brownie

I know this unrelated to building Goldie but it's gonna be awhile till my next update.
Mom cooked it about 30 min. ago. :-)

Panel guide lines

The "spider" Pixelfiend sent came in real quick! (Thank you! :))
I now have the panels drawn on it. It's off alittle by maybe a hair but, it doesn't need to be THAT perfect. And I don't think anyone'll notice either.
It may be off because some of the waves that were in the dome when I got it are still in there. Couldn't sand it all out. :(

And it turns out I had just enough Easy-Tack to get the "spider" print to stay on.
First, I had to spray the easy-tack on there to keep it from comming off of the extra styrene I had.
Then, I had to cut it out.
And after that, sand off the incorrect lines I had on the dome.
Then finally, put the spider on top, tape it down, and draw the lines on.

And I thought I wasn't going to get anything done today. HA!

(Picture of "spider" taped on the dome in the 1st pic, and picture of the guide lines drawn on in 2nd pic.)

R3 update

The extra C&D outer dome that I need to make the panels and eye with came in today!
I'm pretty much gonna follow what DroidWelder did to make the eye, panels, and the arms. http://astromech.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1453&page=5
The frame material also came in today buuut, it was the wrong size! So we sent it back and now it will probably be a while till it gets here.

I got the plastic base plate for the frame cut too. (second pic)
The base is 3mm thick and about 18 inch across.

Annnnd, the can of Easy-Tack I use to keep the skins from comming off ran out, so I may not be doing much at all this week.

Skins Update!

Finished the cutting the inner skins, now I got work on the outers tommorrow.
Back inner skin in pic above.

Would of finished all of them but, I have to wait for everyone else to be done with theirs first. So I guess I have to do one a day. It ain't no rush for me since the frame material may not be here this week.

Will post pic when both outers are done!

Cutting The Skins

The polystyrene skins finally came in yesterday, and I also got the blueprints printed out at Fedex Office today.
The size of the skins are .40
So I began working on it and only got the the front inner skin cut. (would of done more but I was out all day)
I used Easy-Tack (refer to pic 2) to keep the template from comming off while I cut it.
The only part I didn't cut was the round part, I got my dad to cut that part out. Mainly because this is the first time I've ever done this.
The template is going to end up staying on there till I figure out the arms and panels because the Clones Wars droid design is a bit different from the others.

I'll be working on it tommorrow! ;)

Still waiting for the material for the frame to come in. It should be here any day now.

And for the people watching my blog and are new to this like me, TAKE YOUR TIME! Cut very slowly or else, you'll end up moving it or straying away from the line.

Dome ring

We had a floral masonite ring that just happened to fit right inside the dome.
The ring added a lot of stability to the dome. Before it was pretty flexible.
Once the dome is completed we'll bond the ring in there permanantly.

And my dad cut off the excess part of the dome you see in the 1st picture. Oh and I helped hold it for him while he was cutting it of course.

I should be getting my polystyrene for the skins soon! Can't wait!

Sand, sand, sand...

I spent about an hour or 2 wet sanding the styrene dome with 320 sand paper.
Since there was some waves in the dome, it took a little bit longer.
At the bottom is a picture of the dome all finished sanded.
Good thing about a polystyrene dome is that you don't have to sand as much as you would with an aluminum. :)

Dome is in!

Yay! The polystyrene C&D dome I bought got here quicker than I expected!
I've already got some of the lines on there, will do more tommorrow. And I'll get some better pictures of it too.

WHO is R3-S6????

Goldie was an R3 series astromech droid that was stolen by agents of General Grievous.
It was taken to Milagro, reprogrammed and surreptitiously returned to the Republic to act as a spy.
After the loss of R2 during the Battle of Bothawui, R3 was assigned as a temporary replacement to Anakin Skywalker during the search for R2-D2.
Because he was a spy, R3 was very devious and deceitful.
He masked his true missions with fake innocence, relying on appeared incompetence to attempt to kill Anakin and Ahsoka on various occasions before revealing his true allegiances to them.
Later on, R3 met Skywalker and the clones in the landing bay. Anakin learned that Ahsoka had engaged Grievous alone, and quickly went to rescue her. However, R3 locked the Jedi and the clones in the hangar, and also activated three Vulture droids. B2 super battle droids appeared, and the Republic forces engaged in battle. Anakin sent Artoo to look for controls on the outer platform and open the hangar. After Artoo found the controls, R3 followed him and engaged the droid in a duel. Both shocked each other simultaneously, but Artoo managed to incapacitate his opponent. After Artoo opened the hangar door, R3 regained control and attacked Artoo again. However, this time, Artoo spurted oil at R3 and knocked him toward the edge of the platform. R3 deployed a cable and hung on to Artoo to prevent himself from falling, but Artoo lit the oil on fire with his boosters and cut through the cable with his saw. As R3 flew through the air, he was smashed to pieces by flying debris.:(


Shortly after, Artoo was rescued by Anakin in his fighter.

Welcome to my new blog!

I finally decided which droid I'd like to make after 5 years or so of watching my dad build his. I'm building Goldie!

Dad's beloved R2: http://www.tomsr2.blogspot.com/

Mom's R3: http://www.r3t7.blogspot.com/

Yeeep, so now I'm making one.
So far I've already got the dome ordered and the skins. Both made out of polystyrene. So much more cheaper AND lighter than aluminum!
Can't wait to get started!

I'll be using this blog to track all of my future progress as well in case you haven't figure that already. :)

Polystyrene dome posted above.