Droid meat locker

Dragon-Con is just two days away so I am getting all my droids put away as I will not be taking any.
This is my first time going to such a big Con so far away from Nebraska that I want to enjoy as much of it as possible and still have time to help out at the R2-Builders booth. I am looking forward to meeting builders I have chatted with forever but have never meet in person. I also look forward to seeing R2-KT as well.

So can you name all the droids under the sheets and which ones they are?

Star Wars Night at the Ball Park

Star Wars Night at Rosenblatt for the last time. Why you ask? Because the city had the bright idea of building a new stadium in the congested part of downtown where there is no parking after restoring this old ball field. Our tax dollars at work!

Still we had a great time and the crowds loved us as usual.
Brad facing off against the local mascot.
Jeff posing with the droids.
The 501st hanging around looking cool.
Vader just got done throwing out the first pitch.
Lumpy and Patches goofing off together as usual :)
Uh oh, I hope R2-CM is not the droid they are looking for!
Afterwords there was a big fireworks show set to the music of Star Wars!

Double take

A few of us builders went to the zoo this week to hang out, get some exercise, and do something different for a change. Jen took this photo while we were there and I just had to laugh.
To me it looks like the top of an R2 dome and the gear around it looks like a dome ring gear. LOL

helping friends

Jeff came over tonight and I helped him glue some more parts on Steve's R2 legs
When that was done I marked out on Jeff's frame where he needed to cut to put his dome motor mount. After that, he drilled the mounting holes.
Once the braket was loosely bolted in place I marked the location of the motor.
I marked the location of the holes and drilled them out on the press.
Now all Dawmer has to do is hunt down some mounting hardware and a wheel.
This new motor mount design I made for these wood frames based on the JAG one seem so be working well as ED and Patched has not had a problem with them yet.

Horse shoe work

I took Patches legs apart a while back to start finishing them but still need to go out and get the sander to do it. With an event to do tomorrow I started putting R2-CM back together. While I was at it I decided to mount the piston and buttons the right way instead of hot gluing them in.
I drilled holes in the pockets where the item screws will be located.

Then I countersunk the back side so the screws will sit flush.While holding the items in place on the shoes I drilled from the back to make a mark where to drill in the resin. After i drilled the holes the rest of the way in, I screwed them to the shoes and put them back on the droid. I can't wait to cover up the dowel dots some day.

boxing openings

Today I had time to box the front in.

Legs everywhere

Got a few odds and ends done last night. I set up Jen and Serena to cut out the shoulder hub holes on both sides of the legs and let them cut out the last two sets of legs.

While the girls were doing that I helped Scuba Steve glue his set of legs together.
After all that was done we made a new template for the center legs but did not get it finished as the table saw power switch got gummed up with saw dust so we had to fix it.
Machinist Steve finished soldering up an electronics board last night as well but we have no pictures of it.

Fingers and Toes

It rained all day so I made the front feet. Now I just got to make room inside for the wheels.

R3 lower ring

Not much to report on the R3 today, Jen got one of the lower rings leaded and now we have to wait for it to dry.

Da Feet

I got the rear foot shells made. I wish R2's were as easy to make. LOL

Prep work

Jen prepped her dome for more leading with some blue tape and cleaned the surfaces. She will lead it tonight.
Last night I also got most of T3's back bread pan piston made.

Can Drive

Today the 501st, Rebel Legion, and the R2-Central builders did a canned food drive at the one year anniversary of Capes Comics.
A lot of people came to donate food and celebrate.
I even managed to find a sweet deal hiding up in the rafters. A never used Mace Windu Lightsaber for only $75.00! SCORE!
Dawmer manning the sign for cans.
Lumpy doing the meet and greet.
Ed being silly with or without his body LOL.
All in all it was a great time and charity event. The food bank should be very happy :) We look forward to doing it again next year.

Better late then never

Here is a video of us at Osfest. The original vid was lost when my computer crashed at the end of editing it. I did not feel like starting over so I salvaged what was left and re-put it together.

Eye, eye captian

If you can not tell I started on the eye :)

Other droid work

Started putting Scrubs together to see what he looks like. Not bad considering the cruddy paint.
I am now working on the back tackle box.
Also T3's wheels came in for his feet!

Most productive work day yet

Last night we did a ton of work.
LC worked on his skirt and helped out.

Steve got his leg work caught up with everyone else.Kevin fixed a lose joint in his frame.
Brad and Syrena set up the router table and everyone routed out the under arm detail areas.



While they were doing that I cut the tips off some of the leg pieces to turn them into the rear leg piece.
I traced out the shoulder hubs, Dash rough cut them out and Steve found the center of them to do the final cut on the band saw.
LC continued to sand his skirt.
Once Steve had his legs caught up, him and Dawmer started doing some frame work.
I showed Kevin and Syrena how to glue up their R2 legs next. With the new brad nailer I got it is a lot easier to tack things together instead of using screws.
With all the clamps we had we were able to glue up two hole sets.
At the end of the night Syrena and Kevin tightened up the clamps one more time and cleaned up any left over glue.
Picture of all the builders who came and helped. Great job guys!