Status Update

Well DragonCon is over. I only spent a day there, but I did get some R2 building done. I made a major push to get some things complete. Over the weekend I shaved the center ankle mounting block down adn now the center foot is mounted. I finished painting all the feet, ankles, and legs. This includes all the blue parts too. The Radar Eye is also painted blue too. I then moved to the dome where I cut the large hole for the 1 piece Front Logic Port (FLP). I then drilled and counter sunk screws for the FLP, Rear Logic Port, and all Holoprojectors. He is now looking more like a complete R2 droid.

Photos coming soon....

Painting 102

No real pictures of this... not very interesting. All leg pieces have been masked and primed.

Painting 101

Not much done physically to R2 over the weekend. The Olympics were on and while watching and listening to the stupid comments from the commentators I took apart R2... again. I was hoping to get the new plates to update the leg to ankle joint and have him up on his feet and assembled for a progress picture. Now he is in pieces again, but they are now all masked off and ready to be primed and painted. I hop to have the primer coats on by the end of Tuesday. The final layers may have to wait as they are calling for some major rain here.

Alternate Krider Blue Test

Ok I used some scrap to test the blue using the Krylon X-Metal Purple. I used a white primer and then 2 coats of the purple. I let the purple dry over night and masked it off. I sprayed the Duplicolor Blue on in 2 coats and then the clear in 3 coats. I did one more test with this setup. On half of the finished blue, I used an acrylic wax and sealant. I know I should have let the clear dry for 24-48 hours, but with the light coats and quicker time intervals the paint was fairly dry for this test.

The Purple with the White primer masked off


The blue in diffferent lighting: (You can start to see the purple show through in the highlights)

Pay no attention to the blemishes on the paint. The painting was done outside without a paint booth to cover it. The days were hto and humid... rain in the area. Take notice of the color\deep rich change in the blue in each picture. The acrylic sealant gave the blue a much deeper\wetter look. The video i have show this transition a little better.





This video shows how the Color changes in different lighting, well as much as I can show it. Take notice at the end of the video how the reflection of the light changes where the acrylic layer starts.

Weekend Build

Busy build weekend. The first thing I worked on is cutting 1 of the braided hoses and testing out the KHF. It looks like I will need to cut the hose a little longer as the braided hose expanded a little and shortened the length as I put a section of tube in side.

I moved to putting a coat of white primer on the center foot. This is just a base coat for the foot since I plan on using Satin White later, but I already used a gray primer to stop any rust on the foot. The white primer will cover up the gray one better.

I needed to put the mounting screws in the battery boxes so I can start figuring out how to attach the boxes so they don't rattle. I marked the location of the holes and then drilled and tapped them.


Next I drilled and tapped the ankle cylinders so the wedges can attach to the cylinders. I lined up and measured the first cylinder and made a jig to do the other 3. A few adjustments need to be made before the cylinders and attached wedges can be moutned on to the ankles. I expanded a few holes, but the center ankle has one wedge combo that is really going to need some fitting.

I primed and test sprayed a piece of scrap to test the Krylon X-Metal purple as an alternative to the elusive Rustoleum. More to come on that.

The last thing I worked on was mounting the LDP to the frame. I mounted the LDP and marked it's location. I then drilled and counter sunk holes for screws. I now just have to drill and tap holes in the LDP.