More welding and grinding

I did some more grinding and welding today....

When we were done this is what we had. A beefy center foot bracket that ties all three feet together.



Also here is a picture of DarthWill's belt for his A&A motor holders. I just ordered the same ones hoping it will solve my tire problems.

Shooting the breeze and welding R2.

While working on R2 today an old friend stopped by who I have not seen in 10 years sense he left Omaha. He stuck around for the rest of the day and we talked about old times while working on R2. I'm the one with the hat.


Today I was taking a break from frame building to show our newest local member Reaper10 how an R2 works. He was eager to help so i put him to work helping me and my friend cut angle iron and welding it together to make a center leg holder and outer leg holder for my droid.

Here is some cutting....That gas can is far away. It just looks close LOL.

Here is some welding......My poor R2 had no idea what was going on LOL.
I will have finished pictures of the brackets tomorrow so here is a funny vid of us goofing off.

On top of having all this free help I got word that my 300mm Dome has shipped! YAAAA!

Ordered an R4 Dome as well

Ordered an R4 dome kit for droid #2.

Below is some pictures of the kit and an actual R4 unit.

My R4 body will look more like an R2 body and the eye will not be placed as high. It will have more of an O.T. kind of look.

Now I just need to pick a color scheme. LOL

Four Frames

Jason Towne and me did some more work today on our frames before it rained. We finished cutting out our 1/2 inch circles. Plus cut out the top frame members.

Then we cut all the vertical pieces out.

And cut them to length.Next time we get together we will start cutting out all the Dadoes.

We have been framed!

After work today my friend LittleCity came over and we started building four Senna style frames. (Yes I said four LOL) First we layed out the 18 inch circles on the half inch and 3/4 inch MDO.

Then we rough cut out the circles with a jig saw.

I modified mt skirt making jig for the router table to accommodate an 18 inch circle.

Towne and me took turns cutting and vacuuming for about an hour and a half.

We had full sized blueprints that Towne got from out other local builder named Jason. We also had my original frame on hand for reference.That is a lot of wagon wheels LOLThat is LittleCity in the white shirt and me in the black posing with our partial frame pieces.

Booster work

I test fitted the shim thingy and the booster cover with the new hold downs attached.

Looks good!

There will be no picture updates for a while because my camera phone fell apart soon after I took these photos. LOL

I also put a little more glue on my skirt curved pieces.

More of the Newspaper story!

Today I took my booster covers and routed out a few spots in the back for some thin wood pieces that will be used to mount the boosters. The wood will not be seen once the center piston is installed. I used an old worn out wood ruler as the strapping. LOL Then I took one of my leg shim things and glued it to a piece of plastic to use as a template. I did not like the wood ones to well and they are way to thin to last very long made out of wood. A little final sanding and I will use this to make the one for the other side. Once I prime and paint it it will look much better.

Front Page News!

My friends and I from the local R2-Central club made the papers this week!
The droid on top is mine and the one on the bottom is my friend Clay's. The dome on my driod is my friend Jason's.

Legs, skirt, and skin

Well I got word the Futaba remote is another month out! So I am putting my motor holders on hold for a while.

I started glueing up my curved skirt pieces.

I also glued back on the finish layer of my foot that came off.Then I used the jig I made a while back to make some dowel holes for my ankle pieces.I then put the jig on the legs and drilled the corresponding holesEverything was dead on and a tight fit. Even without glue the ankle pieces were hard to get back off.

I also ordered two sets of John's R2 skins! Here is what they will look like.

the other problem

Ok lets say I have the tire problem fixed with the rubbing and got a new belt.

Here is the other problem I would have with a 6 inch tire. The clearance between the floor and the bottom of my foot shells for the inner and outer feet will be totally different!

I really want the same clearance on both the center foot and outer feet.

I do not know yet how much farther the JAG outer feet shells will go past the motor holders but I do not think they would make up that much difference. That is why I was asking William about his smaller wheels in the first place.

I hate being a Noob some times LOL. I fell like I am pestering people to much.

Here are some pictures of the JAG center foot put together with the A&A motor holder and the 6 inch tire shoved up as far as I can put it. The Omni ball still has to stay on the higher setting to keep the motor holder straight.

Noob motor holder troubles

Ok. I mounted the 6 inch tire back into the upper slot and you can see how much I had to tighten the wheel to get most of the slack out of the belt.Even with a little slack left in the belt I am already hitting in a few places with the tire.

The picture below shows the first spot which is easily fixed with some light shaving.But the real problem is that I am wedged against this outer bottom bolt and outer side piece of the motor holder. Plus....Plus the upper bolt and motor tab as well.When i mount the tire itself in a position that it is not hitting anything you can see i have way to much slack in the belt!
This is a reference picture to the size of the gear that is on my motors. Do I need a smaller belt? A bigger gear on my motors? Maybe both?
The item number on my belt says HTD-405-3M-12

More Builder's day photos

Here are some more photos that my friend Talon sent me. So I am in some of these photos.....somewhere. LOL