Motor Mount/Ankle Plans & Outer Ankle Gluing

Wow, we had a lot of people show up tonight. Not a lot of real work got done, but we did make some decisions about the Dan Baker motor mount/ankle project. When I showed up Moose was cutting out the some center leg templates from some drawings Brad printed.

Brad brought over some free key chains for everyone.

Brad has a family member making R2-D2 beanies and selling them for cost. These are great! I had to pick one up; if for no other reason then to see Michelle turn six shades of red when I wear it out in public with her.

We had a new builder show up tonight. Welcome Steve Schmitz! He has been following the R2 Builders for awhile and talking to everyone online, but it was good to meet him in person. Steve's expertise seems to be in metal working. He came up with a great aluminum spacer example for the Motor Mount/Ankle project to use a chipless die on an aluminum dowel to create the spacers.

I printed off three examples of possible motor mount/ankle designs (Dan Baker's original design, Moose's changes to mirror the A&A design, and a design I made to move the spacer holes). It was decide that we would use Moose's design without the extra spacer hole under the motor hole and shaving about an 1/8" off the front end of the motor mount to give the motor mount some extra movement inside the foot shell. We didn't need to use the design I made because Steve showed us how thick the sheet aluminum would be and his spacer example was rock solid.

Clay brought over an example of some of the track he made with some Smooth-On products for his Wall-E. It looks pretty good, but man it's going to be heavy. Clay estimates the two tracks are going to weigh 35 pounds.

Because we have a limited number of good clamps, it was Jason's turn to glue his legs together. Believe it or not, this is the best smile I could get Jason to make.

We had some small clamps lying around that would not hold the long leg pieces, but they worked fine to glue up my outer ankle boards.

Tam continues to work on his chain mail Link costume.

I had to take a couple of group shots with our new member Steve.

Outer Leg Gluing - Part 2

Brad and I stopped by one of our local builder's house tonight to do a little R2 building. We have a limited number of clamps, so I was the only one to get me legs glued together.

Brad brought over his frame so he could check the dimensions with some aluminum skins. Sorry Brad, but it looks like you're going to have to sand just like Dash and I did.

I had to take a picture of the Gonk droid charging R2's batteries.

R4 couldn't wait to have is dome glued, and I couldn't wait to try it on! Michelle is going to love these pictures.

Outer Leg Gluing

The crew got together tonight to glue the leg pieces together. When I showed up Moose, Brad, and Clay were using razorblades to clean up the edges of the legs.

It was soon determined that the brackets we had to make the gluing jig were not square or solid enough to meet our needs. We took a field trip to menards and picked up some new brackets that worked much better. While the rest of the crew put together the gluing jig I finished adding the t-nuts to the inner board of the leg pieces.

The gluing went pretty quick. We were limited to how many we could do because we had a limited number of good clamps.

The cold weather is returning, so we brought the newly glued legs inside to dry properly.

Empire On Ice

The 501st was asked to attend the Star Wars Night at the Omaha Lancers and they graciously extended an invitation to the our club. I didn't actively participate in the evenings events as a builder because I was there with my family to enjoy the game and cheer on the Lancers.

I had to take a couple pictures of Jason in his TK costume. Oh yeah, Patches too!

As soon as you walk up the stairs the participating builders members were there. So I snapped a picture before they had a chance to get out of the shot.

My parents stopped and got a picture with the 501st.

During the first intermission, they had a sled race/obstacle course between a mini-Vader and a mini-Storm Trooper.

I know I wasn't suppose to participate in the evenings events, but I couldn't help taking Patches for a test drive after the 501st race during the first intermission.

During the second intermission the 501st walked around the ice and threw t-shirts into the crowd.

Michelle and I got our picture taken with some builders and Patches.

Thanks again Denny for letting me use some of your pictures.