Back in action!!

Hello again!! Finally got around to doing some more progress to my R2 build. Let me say, that I read on the forums that it was easiest to just draw the pieces out. Well, while I was telling my neighbor across the street (Hi Dave!), he said "well heck, i'll just draw them up at work real fast, and print them out!" So.......with his help, he quickly printed my 3 sets of each diagram. I only have the 1/2" pieces so far, so thats all that he gave me. Here's some photos of the plans blown up!





Without a doubt, being able to cut the plan out, and trace it made things A LOT easier than it would have been otherwise. If you did this at like OfficeMax or something, it'd cost you an arm and a leg, however, if you have someone who can do it for free, you'd be CRAZY not to take advantage of it. So we set to work on some more pieces, and got them all cut and sanded tonight. Dave helped me through much of it, and without his knowledge, or tools, I am sure I would not get very far!! Here's a couple photos of some items that were being sanded!!




We are planning to do the dado cuts tomorrow, and complete the bigger outer ring and that should complete the 1/2" birch pieces. Here are some photos with my parts over the plans so you can see how good of a job we did! So far, their have been no screw ups!! Hopefully, things go as planned tomorrow and we'll be able to accomplish getting that outer ring done!!





As of right now, I have 15/22 pieces done (with the exception of the dado's, but thats fairly easy)......so far, this project as been a BLAST and I am so happy I decided to undertake it. I encourage anyone wanting to start an R2 to do their research, and ensure that this is something you're willing to stick to until completion. I researched from November, 2011 until June here before I decided I had enough knowledge (and money) to undertake such a project! It is NOT a quick project and is certainly something that will keep you busy for awhile, and you'll have fun in the meantime!!!

Hope to update soon!!!

R2D2 gets started!!!!

Today was the first day to start the R2 build. I have researched for the past 4 months to get an idea as to which direction I wanted to go, and how I wanted to go about finishing my Astromech. I have opted for a wooden frame, complete with aluminum skins, the 300mm dome, and am undecided on the rest. A lot of it will depend on how my budget is looking as these aren't cheap! So without further ado, today, I started my wood frame. I started with the basic vertical pieces. There are 10 of them in total. I laid it all out, and realized I made my pieces 1-1/2" wide instead of 1-1/4" wide as the plans call for.......this is the perfect example of measure twice, and cut once! I am glad I caught this error or else i'd be starting over!!! After I fixed it, and cut the first piece out.......I then realized I stacked all of the pieces right on top of each however........very quickly it became apparent to me (FYI - I am not an accomplished wood worker, so this is a learning experience) that the saw blade isn't as thin as my pencil line, so all the hard work I did of drawing it out was pretty much a waste because once the pieces were PROPERLY cut out, I had to redraw all the lines and where the dado cuts would have to go. Due to these errors, I did not have time to cut the dado's tonight, so hopefully that will be accomplished this evening! Here are a few pictures of the small progress.......