Frame Work & Nomad Panels

It was a small build night tonight, just Clay and I, and I showed up late. Clay helped me bore out the holes on the 3/4" plastic plate that holds my center leg. This plate will slide smoothly up and down four copier rods when transitioning between two and three leg modes. I also did a little sanding on R2's skirt. Clay worked on cutting out panels for Talon's Nomad from the season two espisode, The Changeling, of the original Star Trek.

Nate's Frame

Clay uploaded the club plans to his CNC for the Mike Senna wood frame. As usual Clay lets any club member use his CNC for free; all anyone has to do is bring their own materials and a desire to help and learn. Nate brought some wood plates for his frame that needed to be evened out. As a club, we used the CNC to cut his center and top frame plates to precise measurements. Next week, the frame base plate.

Another Midwest Robots Build Night

Jason and Clay reassembled Jason's custom router table and then tested trimming the bottom frame plate down to size. I repainted my dome a previous night and wet sanded it again to get it ready for a final paint job.

Frame Priming

I hadn't used a spray can in at least five years, so I decided to prime my frame with some White Krylon Indoor/Outdoor Primer. I think I may have put it on a little too heavy because I ran out. I'll finish after a trip to the store.

First Really Cold Build Night Of The Fall

I didn't get much work done on my own R2, but it was nice to hang out help out others a little, and joke around. One of Syrena's side frame supports popped out when it was drying; so Brad and I used a chisel, screw driver and a clamp to free it from it's wrong position and then re-glued it. Moose needed some extra light while he was trying to replace the belt on the sander, so I helped out. I either tried to blind him by shining the light in his eyes or burn his neck by holding the light too close.

Kevin's Frame Work

I helped Kevin McGarry dry fit his frame. It fit together really nice. Very little routing was needed on the top and bottom frame plates.

The entire crew worked to glue Kevin's frame together. It went really quick and very smooth. I think my skins have helped glue up nine frames now.

Denny worked on his biker scout armor.

Frame Help

At our last build night Jason, Moose, and Jeff worked on their new frames. I helped out where I could, but mostly heckled and took pictures.

Final Frame Sanding

At the build night tonight, I finally finished the sanding on my frame. The skins fit around my wooden frame without any gaps. I didn't take a picture because it looks like every other picture I have taken through the sanding process. Jason and Moose tried to glue the bottom piece of Jason's frame back together and support it with some scrap aluminum. If this doesn't work, then a new A&A frame piece will have to be purchased.

Other Group Members' Outer Leg/Frame Projects

One of our builder/observers finally decided to start building her own R2 this week, so she bought the extra frame and one of the outer leg sets I had. Moose and Brad helped her glue them together while I looked on and heckled.

Today seemed to be the day to finish up odd R2 projects, so Jason tried putting together his A&A legs.

Moose pulled apart Jason's A&A frame to use one of the rings to determine how much sanding needs to be done on the wood frames we made. Moose, Talon, and Jason took some time today to put the frame back together.

Move Over Kenny Baker

I was in the middle of remodeling my basement and Joshua (my girlfriend's son) asked me where my R2 was. When I showed him all the parts I was going to use to make my R2 he asked me when I was going to "fix" R2-D2. I guess I better get busy putting R2-NU together. When I showed Joshua R2’s frame (which he refers to as R2's skeleton) and told him Kenny Baker use to be inside R2 in the first set of movies he climbed inside and hammed it up for the camera.

More Frame Sanding

I tried sanding...again. I sanded the entire frame because there was a slight gap on the side of the skins from top to bottom. I turned the frame upside down because the skins will be even with the top and have a slight overhang on the bottom. I taped one side of the skins to make sure the edges stayed together and Moose, Jason, and I tried to touch the edges on the other side. Grrr! The top matches, but I have to do some more sanding on the bottom half of the frame.

I Needed Help Testing My Frame Sanding

It was hard to make sure I sanded my frame enough to have the skins fit properly, so Brad and Moose offered to lend some helping hands so I could check the gaps. I'm really close, but I still have to do a little more sanding.

Brad and Moose noticed right away that I trimmed the upright boards inside my frame to allow myself bigger pockets behind the long R2 doors.

Starting Off The New Year By Sanding My Frame

We cut are frames based on the plans found online, but the when they were glued together we realized they were too big for the aluminum skins we purchased. I picked up a package of 100 and three sheets of 36 grit sandpaper (which really didn't work and it made a huge mess when the paper came apart) to use on my orbital hand sander. This turned out to be a long and tedious process. after about a day's worth of work, I decided to borrow a plainer from my father to slim down the vertical frame boards. The combination of the plainer and the sandpaper did the job, eventually. I'm going to take my frame and my skins to the next build day and compare it with Moose's droid.

Gluing The Frame

Moose and I met today with the intention of having a very productive work day. We spent most of the day running errands, barbequing, and trying the new Force Unleashed demo. When we actually got around to working we glued our frames together.

Final Frame Cuts

After the Arrows to Aerospace Parade and the Cub Scout meeting I really wanted to work on my R2. I stopped by Moose's house and finished routing and cutting my frame. On the next build day, I will bring my skins over and do a dry fit to make sure everything lines up before I glue the frame together.

I'm standing next to my fully routed/cut frame.

I routed out the space in the frame ring for the coin slot.

The hole was cut for the center leg.

The edges of the base frame board where cut to allow the feet and the battery boxes to slide by easily.

I put Mooses skins on my frame to see how much sanding needs to be done to get my skins to fit properly. I wish the frame plans were a little more accurate.