Mounting Battery Boxes to Feet

While I was at Lowe's I started puzzling over the battery boxes, and mounting them to the feet.
I picked up a small (13 piece) tap and die set. It's got from #6-32 to 5/16-18 taps. Turns out, the 10-24, which is in there, is the size I need. And, even better, I already have some 3/8" long 10-24 screws with nuts to fit. Only problem is they are philips head, and I'm thinking I'll be wanting some hex caps, so that if I can get my hand in there I can tighten them.

After some super careful measuring and marking, off to the drill press we went! For the 10-24 tap, I used the 5/32" bit, to make sure I had enough left to cut the threads into.

Here you can see my practice drill/taps:




There wasn't much difference between the 11/64" hole and the 5/32" hole, but the larger hole seemed a little more wiggly to me, so I went with the smaller one. Was probably in my head, but so is the whole project. "Hole project"....get it?

Anyway, after drilling and tapping the holes, I had to get out the trusty dremel, and grind down some welds on the inside of the battery box, so that the nuts on the back of the screws sit flat. On my first test fit, the welds were causing the screw to push over at an angle.

Here's pics...you can see the measurements on the boxes:



The pencilled in up isn't so I'll remember which way the battery box goes. It's because the removable door on the back isn't the same on both ends...just FYI :)

The left foot's battery box fit like a glove, once I had the depth of the screw adjusted properly.

The Right foot required a little 'adjustment' to fit properly...as seen here:



But after that, they now fit like a glove. See:







So, that's all for today, since it's starting to get a little dark outside.

Tomorrow (Saturday) the 501st is having a fundraiser at my local Buffalo Wild Wings. Last year we raised $550 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, with little to no advertisement thanks to the store donating 10% of their sales. This year, we've had PSAs playing all week on 2 different radio stations locally. And the store is donating %20 of their sales. And we've expanded to include 3 more stores in MS.

Fun to think that tomorrow could well be R2's last trooop with breakable feet :)

Primer for JAG feet

So, I looked up in the 'paint closet' to see what I had on hand as far as primer goes, and found 4 cans. One was empty, or close enough, and it was some no name brand I bought back when I was spraying my first E-11. There was also a can of store brand (don't know what store) grey primer that's been set aside as well.

The last 2 cans were Rustoleums, which is a good thing, because other than blue, it's all I use :)

There was a can of 'dark grey' primer, which is actually more like black, and the more common light grey, which we're all used to. Note the bargain sized can... :)



Decided to try the dark on the insides of the feet, here's how that turned out:







It's a little difficult to ensure that ALL surfaces have adequate coverage, so some other surfaces may have runs, but hey, it's inside :)
Plus, I seem to recall it's harder to cover the dark primer with white...

Anyway, while that dries, I'm gonna head to the store to pick up some more cans, since I'm pretty sure I'm out of white, and that light grey is probably at least half empty. Or half full. Whatever :)

Before heading out, I remembered I needed to primer the steel detail pieces too, and wanted them done when I got back:



***Back from Lowe's. Bought 6 cans, 2 light grey, 1 dark grey, 2 white and 1 clear.
Don't worry, not using the clear on anything white.



Anyway, more paint pics.

Now that the dark grey inside is dry enough to be handled, I started primering the bottom outside:



I used the cardboard trying to keep as much overspray out of the inside as possible. Let that dry some, then flipped it over, onto a brick with some more of that old T-shirt over it for a stand:



That pretty much did it for the old can of light grey.

After the center foot, I swapped to a new can, which is important, because as you can see in previous photos, I've been using that trigger handle. It doesn't fit the new tops, so I've been using old ones. Turns out, the new tops are pretty nice...

Here's before and after on the bottoms of the outer feet:

JAG FEET!!!

So, after 22 months of waiting, I finally have my JAG steel feet in hand!

They came well packed, and are fairly heavy. They will most likely be able to handle the punishment that I dish out to my R2's feet :)

They were sprayed down with some sort of WD-40 type grease spray, they bagged in plastic, separated by cardboard and packing peanuts.





Included were detail panels for the sides of all the feet.



Started off with the JAG recommended warm water and dish soap bath. This removed the still liquid grease, but there were lots of places where the grease had umm, coagulated? Maybe dried is a better word for that. My first thought was to sand it off, that didn't work, the dried grease was sticky and loaded up from the metal dust almost immediately.





Next solution was much more effective. I got out the ol' gallon can of acetone and poured myself a small bowl. I cut the arm off of a t-shirt (in fact, the same t-shirt that's been chopped up to make the poor man's fiberglass that I used to reinforce the A&A feet) and with a fairly easy washing, all the sticky is now gone.



Up next: Primer.

DragonCon '11

Had a good time at DCon this year. Drove up on Thursday, and got my 4th floor room at the Hilton. No sooner did I get R2 out of the car and into the elevator I heard "Oh look, another one". TKBear was in the lobby with an R2, so I was able to get my R2 to the lobby fairly quickly.

At DragonCon there were at least 8 droids. My R2-D2, TKBear's R2-D2, Doug Dixon's R2-D2, Chris "UuberGeek"'s R2-D2, Chris Lee's R2-D2, Blake Mann's R2-X2, Ted Koenig's R5-X2, and "DarthEddeus"'s Goldie. Oh, and Thomas Arroyo's Mouse Droid, an unknown 501st member's Scrubber Droid, and Doug Dixon brought K9.

The most fun I had was when I converted my R2 in the Family Guys Cleveland R2. People kept calling him Afro-D2, until I'd play a sound byte, then they almost all knew who he was.

Naturally, I didn't have my camera. In fact, never took it out of the bag, so I don't have any pics to post.

There are a few over in the DragonCon thread at Astromech.net, -->Click Here<-- and scroll halfway down to see them.

Next up: Weird Al concert, RMH plane pull, and sometime in there JAG feet.

Wedding pics

So, as promised, here are the pics from the wedding...



R2 was the ring-bearer. Since I don't have working utility arms or a ring-bearer attachment, we hung the rings on the front holo-projector.

Here's an action shot, heading down the aisle:



And just before I ran him into a pew:



A big overhead shot:



The wedding party:



And the obligatory Leia pic:



And the flower girl and the ring-bearer:



The wedding was a good time, only the wedding party knew that R2 was the ring bearer, so it was a big surprise. What's that saying about "The best laid plans"? That's kinda how it went...during the rehearsals I'd stood in the lobby and driven down the aisle from behind R2. In the actual wedding, no sooner did R2 start down the aisle, they went to shut the doors to the lobby, so I had to duck out into the sanctuary and stand there in front of everyone, while driving blind down the aisle. As I mentioned earlier, I did run R2 into a pew on the left side of the aisle. It got a pretty good laugh, and didn't break anything, so it was a good thing. And luckily I'd practiced the blind turn at the front enough times that that part went well.

It was a good day, kinda sad that it took so long to make this post.

What's up?

***This was written almost a month ago, but wouldn't post***

Not much, that'd be the answer.

Took R2 to a wedding for some friends in late March. And, I have the pics somewhere, just haven't uploaded them apparently. R2 was the ringbearer, and due to some poor planning on my part, I wasn't able to see his feet as I drove him down the aisle, so he slammed into a pew about 2/3 of the way down. No damage, but it did get a big laugh.

The most recent thing was PlayOnCon. This is a small con in Birmingham, only in their 4th year. The 501st has been helping them expand from a table-top gaming con into something a little more fun :) Again, no pics from me. There were plenty taken, but I have yet to find more than a couple of them.

Next up is DragonCon, of course. I'll be debuting some minor mods to R2 that should add to his popularity :)

And then, once we get home from DCon, there are JAG feet to look forward to finally. Yes, that's right, finally going to have steel instead of plastic. When htat happens, I'll document it here.

Oh, and Weird Al is coming to Mobile on Sep 28th. We'll have troopers there, and most likely R2 as well, since Al seems to like him :)

I'll post more when I remember to upload the pics...or when something else big happens.

Old Events - Christmas Fun '11

Well, these pics made it to Facebook, but never into the blog here...so since I'm not friends with the entire world on FB yet, I'll post 'em.

Story behind these goes as follows.

At the BEST Robotics event, I reconnected with Elise, who I'd known probably 14-15 years before, and she then found me on FB. Sometime around the beginning of December she asked "So, what do you and R2 do for Christmas?". I decided a pictorial would be the best answer. It's entitled "What happens when R2 tries to help".

Old Events - BWW-MAW troop, 10-30-10

Here's another one that flew by under the radar.

Since Goose and I are regular patrons at our local Buffalo Wild Wings, we were able to arrange a charity troop, where the restaurant donated 10% of their sales all day on a Saturday to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. All we had to do was troop...so troop we did!

This turned out to be a great event, especially since we only advertised at the company I work for, and roadside during the event (standing by the street, waving at the cars driving by) and still managed to raise $550. The manager of the store said it was their best Sat all fall, and Bama wasn't even playing that day!

Anyway, on to the pics, random as usual...
















Lastly for this event, a quick story that you might not even believe...
Several pics above, there's a server in an Auburn jersey. When I brought R2 into the store, she asked me "What's you robot's name".... can ya believe it? I couldn't.

Old Events - Build-a-bear 9-25-10

So it's only just come to my attention that I missed posting a couple of events here.

First, the Build-A-Bear workshop event down in Orange Beach, AL. Event was 9-25-10.

Anyway, LFL had asked the 501st to assist with promoting the event with an appearance. Since I don't really plan to ever wear armor again, with the notable exception of the once annual "active status" trooping, I took R2 instead of an armor bin.

Here's pics:







Since I didn't take the pictures (as usual) there are only a few of R2, but many more of the "gang"...



Riding on the Ferris Wheel...


Searching for Droids...


One of those multiple workstation shots:


The Build-A-Bear Force Choke:


And TB craziness...those trees can be troublesome.