Steel Feet - All painted up! Finally!!

I have had my steel feet for awhile, but have never got around to painting them. Now that I have an ETA for my aluminum legs, I figure I need to get busy on getting the final touches done to attach everything properly once they arrive. For some reason, the feet were a pain in the ass for me to paint. I had to re-sand and re-paint 3 times to get these things nearly perfect. There isn't much else to say about them, but now that they are done. I need to get to painting the aluminum ankles and order the hardware to attach the ankles to the feet. I also got the horseshoes painted, but at the moment have no photos of them. I will soon......promise!

Update!

Been awhile since I have posted, I believe sometime in April!! A lot has changed in that time! I got engaged in May, and have started taking flying lessons!! A lot of R2 events have happened since April as well, we did Maker's Faire and Planet Comicon. However, I want to show some pictures of what we have now. Here is the outer feet, center foot, and outer ankles. I also have the center ankle but its not pictured.

Here is some photos from our spot on Fox 4 News.

Here is my aluminum horseshoes that now have a coat of primer on them. It'll probably be another few weeks before they receive paint.

What's next?!

Currently, I still have a few parts on order that I am hoping will arrive soon and am patiently waiting for some aluminum legs to become available. Once that happens, R2 will be standing on his own two feet....while awaiting the 3rd. At this point, I am starting to get a sense of "getting there" and it's been a long way coming! R2, with some luck, will be done this fall/winter and then we can focus on getting Kristen's droid done! Her droid will not take nearly as long as she is not doing full aluminum. As soon as some more parts arrive, i'll get a new update going. Oh, and as a side note....paint has been purchased for 'weathering'!

Ray Park!

Ray Park, otherwise known as Darth Maul, was a guest at Planet Comicon. He is without a doubt, one of the nicest individuals you'll ever meet. In fact, he talked to me for a good 15 minutes about my droid, and the best part of all.........he offered to sign it for no cost! He even let me take photos with him. I am truly grateful that he became the first (and only so far!) person to sign my droid!! Here is a photo!!

Planet Comicon - Kansas City.

If you want to deal with a headache, come to Planet Comicon. It won't matter if you're dealing with the promotors or the crowds, you'll get a headache. First of all, I have never seen a promoter so disorganized that he doesn't get back to you UNTIL the week of. I have also never met someone who really only cared about the dollar signs, but this promoter fits the bill perfectly. Lets cram as many people into as small of a space as we can was the motto for the weekend. Nonetheless, it was still a good time and a large number of people got to see the droids. Here's a few snapshots from it. I did meet a new builder, so that was exciting!

New Parts!

Of course I have acquired some new parts as well! New to me include... -aluminum ankles -aluminum horseshoes and shims -aluminum ankle locks!

Wizard World - St. Louis.

Wizard World - St. Louis happened on the weekend of March 22-24. St. Louis is about a 4 hour drive from my house to there, so we said "LET'S BRING THE DROIDS!". Myself, and several members of the Kansas City R2 Builders (www.kcr2.com) make the trek to St. Louis to be in the con and it was well worth it. Not only did we have a great time, we also met many members of the St. Louis R2 builders group. Here are some photos from St. Louis.

So. It's been awhile.

Well, it has been quite a long time since I have updated anything here.....but that's not to say the building hasn't been continuing. A lot of times it's very time consuming to juggle building and updating a blog. So, I have a LOT of new photos to share with you all, and rather than create one big post, I am going to break it down into a bunch of smaller posts that describe each set of photos! First of all, let's start with my girlfriend, Kristen. After enduring my build for a long time, the fateful moment finally came.....she decided to build a droid herself. At the moment, her plan is an all black imperial droid with hot pink panels. She's getting started the right way though, she ordered a crash fiberglass dome and the NEW Com8 A-1 aluminum frame. She's extremely excited to get to build and is still waiting on her first few parts to arrive, even though she's already acquired a few aluminum parts thanks to Engima516 (George W.) and myself! So please, if you're subscribing to my blog, or just passing by, please check out her build as well at..... http://kristenstrand.blogspot.com/

It's a bird? It's a plane? It's a......

So I have been collaborating on a side project for awhile now. I have been keeping the details very quiet and outside of those directly involved, very few people know whats going on. So, at this point, I can now show you this side project, or at least a 'very' small portion of it. I will give no details, but here is a few photos of the progress. Don't expect to see many updates on this until it gets closer to completion.

Great Day for Parts!

Happy Valentine's Day to all, especially to Kristen who puts up with my bullshit through this build. Because I know she reads this, hi! Today was a great day for parts as I received my JAG ankles! Here's another view! Finally, I have been getting the detail pieces painted and installed.

NEW PART DAY!!!!

Today was a good day! I received new parts for R2's body! I received some aluminum power couplers and some aluminum coin returns! These parts have been extremely difficult to obtain, so I am glad they found a new home! (Thanks Guy!). Also, I have pictured my aluminum side vents that I got from LePaul (Thanks Paul!). I have a very innovative way to mount them, so hopefully once it gets warm enough, I will have them painted and mounted! Here are some photos!! In other news, today was a day of infamy.......the JAG aluminum ankle run started, and I was very quick to snatch up a pair, and they're pretty much sold out in 12 hours. Thank goodness I checked Astromech today! Here's some photos!!

More parts acquired!

Since my last post, I have managed to acquire a few more aluminum parts. They're not in my hands yet, but I wanted to mark the date. I have recently acquired the side vents, coin returns, and best of all, power couplers! They should be arriving in the next few days, and we'll really get R2's body almost complete!!

Vents and Electronics!

Been awhile since I have had a decent update. I've completed a lot, but just haven't taken the time to post! So anywhere, here's a small mini-update to tell you all whats going on! First, we installed the center vents. This was rather simple, place them where I needed them, marked where the screw hole fit, and then drilled a small hole into the side of the vents, placed a screw in there, and bam, they are secured!

Next, is my electronics board. There isn't much on here at the moment, but you'll notice an Arduino UNO, a Sparkfun MP3 trigger, and a Syren 10A. All of these work flawlessly with my wireless PS2 controller to control the dome movement and provide the sound! The real gem here is my amplifier. Its a little 3" x 4" 35 watt amplifier from a company called "Pyle". The model is PLMPA35. What makes this micro-amp nice, is that it has a built in 3.5mm jack, ironically, so does my MP3 trigger. So I can connect my MP3 trigger to the amp, then straight to the speaker. The other benefit is that this amp can run 12v directly, so I have no need for a volt regulator. This setup has been tested and worked PERFECTLY!!

Finally, here's a quick shot of how I mounted the board. You'll notice the amp is off of here, thats because when this photo was taken, the amp hadn't arrived yet! Rest assured, it still fits beautifully.