Leg Bling Update

Got most everything silvered up, so now I am getting ready to paint certain areas brown.
I hope to be able to paint most of the bling tomorrow. Also the final sanding of the horse shoes should be tomorrow, that way I can paint them white again.

Nice Leg Bling

Today I busted out my resin pieces for Patches' legs and did some more silvering to them. Unfortunately I ran out of silver and have to get some more. I also prepped ED's dome motor holder for instalation.

Getting ready to skin yet another droid

The inner skins are mostly cleaned off and ready to install.
I dug R4's frame out of storage and did a test fit of the skins. The frame need some sanding in a few places for the skins to fit properly but all is looking good. If it was not raining I would do it today.

Cool R2 Cooler

My friend Brad was cleaning out his basement and he gave me his Episode 3 R2 cooler! Thanks Brad, I love it! It is in great shape and will have a place in my workshop soon. Now I have an R2-D2 to add to my collection finally LOL. I think Patches is star struck....

R4 skins

After working on R4's dome the other day I got the itch to work on his skins again. I finished taking the aluminum tape off that I did not like around the openings and cleaned up most of the residue. A bit more cleaning and they will be ready to mount permanently on his frame finally.
Here are the skins ready to be mounted.

More ACME Comics Pictures

Republic Commandos, Clone Commanders, and Biker Scouts! Oh My! Were not on Endor anymore.
Vader directing traffic.
Boba playing with the kids.
Best picture of the day by far.
Video of the event will be up later.

A Bondo-ing we will go

With the river being flooded there is no biking to be had today. (see the flood on my other blog)
So I have some extra time to do some R2 work.
I started by digging out ED's head and adding some more filler where needed. The seam on the back side pictured below is really hard to notice unless you are in direct light.
Then I put another skim coat on R3's legs and horseshoes.
I also took Patches' horseshoes off and put another skim coat on them as well.
Once they dry for about an hour I will start sanding.....something.

ACME comics with Daniel Logan

Went to the ACME comics 15 year anniversary yesterday in Iowa. Patches and TD where happy to come help out. They guarded the store till the doors were ready to open.
Daniel Logan (Baby Boba from Episode 2 and the Clone Wars) wanted to hang out with all of us instead of doing Autographs.

Here is Boba signing Patches rear door.
Always a pleasure to meet a Jedi.
After the event we all got some final pictures with Daniel and just hung out with him for the rest of the night, we ate, drank, played football and Frisbee till it was dark out. Thanks to Kevin and Fran for such a wonderful day at their store. Here is to 15 more great years!
There are a ton of more photos on my Facebook page and I will upload the video some time next week.

Three Little Droids all in a row

It is super late but I finally got Patches all together for tomorrows event. Still wish I would have had time to finish the horse shoes. Everything electrical seams to be working.
After fixing a few more wires on Jeff's droid it is moving great as well.
R3, Patches, and Jeff's TD are ready to strut their stuff. Now to load everything up....in the morning.
Here is a video of the droids. It is a little dark.

More Patches progress

As the weather is warming up, the legs are getting dry. I installed the motor mounts and flipped the poor little droid right side up.
I took the old broken dome motor out and installed a new one. I will put the drive wheel on later after I reinstall all the internal wiring.
I am glad R2-CM is finally standing again :D
Next I put on some of the leg detail pieces and the unfinished horseshoes to make sure everything still fits. I will put the other detail pieces on after tomorrows event.

R2-CM back again

Today is a new day and the rain is holding off for now, so I set R3 outside so the dome can dry faster. I also assembled Patches' legs and put them on his body. In certain spots the paint is still tacky so I will leave him sitting outside for a while as well.
As it has taken this long for the paint to tack up I will not paint his horeshoes white till after this event. I will at least sand and primer them though. Once the leg paint is dry enough I will attach the motor holders and flip him over and start on his wiring.

I also need to get poor R4 our of storage some day.

TD repair

Jeff brought TD over for some electrical work yesterday. The drive train and dome were not working properly.
After taking a look at how it was wired up I rewired it so each system would work independently and not run off the same power wires. Unfortunately the dome controller was fried so I installed one of my cheap-o spares till Dawmer can get a new one. Everything works for now but should be rewired soon with the right gauge wires to prevent shorting out in the future. We will work more on TD tonight.

R3 update

Today jen and I got a lot of work done on R3.
I started by mounting the large Data port...
Then finished making the dome motor bracket and installing it.
Jen finished up the leading on the dome.
I fixed the damaged wiring to the motor controllers that got jarred loose at the last event.
The dome has to dry overnight but we tested it out anyway. A little more tention on the motor and the dome will work perfectly.
Here is a short vid of the dome moving...

Patches leg repair

Today I did some spot putty work on Patches legs and added the booster notch lines.
I then spot primered everything and painted the two legs white.
Hanging them up in the back of the shop, I will let them dry overnight.

Smooth silky Legs

This weekend I got back to Patches' and R3's legs. I did a final rough sanding to R3's legs. Lots of dust everywhere!
Then I chiseled all of R3's inside corners smooth and put a layer of filler on all the screws and end grain.
On Patches legs I sanded and filled, sanded and filled till I got close to the finish I wanted.Once I was done sanding I primered Patches' legs so I could spot any little defects, One more fill and sand and I should be ready for paint.