Droids At Play

We are putting together some movie clips of some of the group’s droids running, and one of the local TV station is going to put it on their morning show. This film is a trial run. I’m running Clay's R2-C2 (the completed one) and another local builder is running his In-Progress droid (R2-CM).

Quasimodo Was Adopted!

The fourth frame, affectionately name Quasimodo, was haphazardly put together and raided for pieces to replace frame mistakes by the rest of the group. Mr. Claybo decided to adopt Quasi, so now we definitely will have to replace the pieces we pirated!

Router Table Build

I had to work late tonight, so by the time I got to Moose's Jason and Moose were hard at work. As Moose continued his work the electronics on his R2-CM droid, Jason and I worked on creating a new router table to route out the bottom and top frame plates.

The weather got bad again tonight, but everyone showed up to work because you can never really tell what is going to happen or whether or not you can trust the weatherman. Reports came in that four boyscouts died at Little Sioux campground in north-west Iowa when tornadoes tore through the campsite. This struck us all pretty hard because we had all camped there as kids. When he was younger, Moose was camping there the last time a tornado hit the camp. When the sirens sounded, we quit early and went inside to ride out the storm. Early in the evening, when it should still be light out, the sky looks like night.

Moose's house fared pretty well after the storm, but it looks like I'm going to have to take some vacation to cleanup the tree damage around my house.

A New Router Makes All The Difference

We started the day off with a vist from Moose's friend and his kids. As sure as you can bet on death and taxes, you can count on kids loving R2!

We had a rough start to the day. Moose's router couldn't hold onto the new router bit I bought. If the router actually held the bit, without drilling a hole in the piece we were working on, the depth would change. I borrowed my brother's router to see if it would help. Unfortunately, we had to adjust the jigs to accomidate the new router. THE NEW ROUTER WORKED!!! New rule of thumb, "Good Tools Produce Good Results."

We routed the bottom and top plates for all four frames to accept the upright frame pieces. Jason was able to assemble his frame.

We have three proud new papas standing next to their kids. Kids are so cute when they are this young!

Oh yeah, there was also a fourth frame that was put together. The three of us raided it to replace pieces in our R2s the old router damaged. We put the damaged pieces into the fourth (we'll probably replace them later). For now, we have affectionately named the extra frame "Quasimodo." The tentative plans for the fourth frame is to give him a hump, contorted dome, and along with the normal R2 sounds have him yell out "Sanctuary!"

Jason, Mooose, and I posing with our new frames.

Considering the Nebraska weather as of late, we put the frames in the workshop as soon possible. Moose's R2-CM stands guard over the younglings.

Framing In The Storm

Moose and I started notching the upright pieces of the frame last night. We kept having a problem with the router bit coming loose, so we finally resigned ourselves to the fact that need a new router bit or router.

Jig setup.


What we need to cut.


Dry fitting my frame.

I still need to route out the base and top plates to accept the uprights, but this gives me a general idea about how things lineup.

The weatherman said the weather was going to be bad tonight, but you know what they say: "Weathermen are the only people who can be wrong 90% of the time and still keep their jobs!". We decided to work anyways. You could have guessed it, this night represents the other 10%. We only got the uprights for two of the four frames completed before the lighting, thunder, and wind got so bad we started considering calling it a night. When the tornado warning sirens started, the decision was made for us. We stopped working early.

Moose takes the top plates off of our frames just in case the storm out side blows through the garage. We don't wat to send the frame top plate flying!

Test Leg Drawing

Jason let me borrow his A&A leg to see how I did drawing my leg template. The A&A leg is slightly smaller (minor fractions of an inch) than the JAG plans call for, but the A&A leg matches the club approved leg Moose bought online. I'll redraw the bottom (ankle) portion of the leg, and then cut out the template.

Dado Day

Jason and I finish up the frame side plates for the four frame project.

Moose and I measure out the ribs on some of the pieces we previously cut out.

Moose gets help creating a jig to cut the dados from Logan and Amber.

The finished jig!

I'm checking the depth of the router bit.

Moose and I cutting the dados for the partial and middle rings.