A New Project

Allons-y!

If that's not enough of a clue, you'll catch on shortly.

If not, Google it.

So I ordered another A&A kit from Astromech.net , the droid builder's website.  This time it's not an R2 kit.  If you don't know, A&A makes ABS plastic flatpack building kits for robots.


Here's a shot of the glue I ordered from Amazon:


It's called Weld-on 4. The number 4 indicates that it's a liquid. They also make a Weld-on 16 that's more like a modeling glue as far as consistency, but for this build everything I read said that 4 is the way to go, because it's a liquid and it can get into the joints quickly.

Anyway, on to the production shots! Here's a pic of the lower rear piece taped and ready to be glued:

At this point I will mention that the table I'm working on is plastic. I wasn't sure how the glue would react with the table (apparently it doesn't near as I can tell) so I taped some aluminum foil together for a work surface. That's why the table is shiny.

I bought some blue painter's tape at the Wally world, since it was what was handy. Unfortunately it's "quick release" so I think maybe it doesn't stick as well as regular masking tape. Oh well, I bought two rolls of it, so it's what's getting used. You can see here that it really doesn't want to stick:


No matter, the tape sticks long enough for the plastic "welds" to set.

Here's a shot of what the joints look like after glue and tightening the tape:



There's going to be some sanding required, as well as some filler that'll need to be sanded too.

Here's a shot of the lower side panels glued, in the process of tape removal:

And here's a shot of all 4 lower panels after glue:



In that last picture you can see where the glue puddles on the foil after having run down the joints.

Next up, the 4 lower panels taped together before gluing:





Once the lower panels were taped together, I realized that there was no way I could just glue them and hope that they'd be square, so this happened:





Hopefully that worked out. Looks like it has so far.

Also built the "control panel". Here's a shot or two. One of them shows the doubled up pieces that add strength to the thin ABS:







That's all the pics I have for now. If you haven't figured it out already, I'm building K-9 from Doctor Who.

After the success I've had with my R2 using the PlayStation 2 wireless controller, that's the direction I'll be going with K9 as well. Almost doesn't make sense to have a controller half as big as the robot.

So far, I've picked up a couple of Arduinos from SparkFun as well as as MP3 Trigger board for sound. I already have a RigRunner 4004U power panel from West Mountain , and extra 12V batteries from R2.


I'll post more soon!

Oh yeah, about the feet...

Well, apparently I never made a post about being close to finishing my JAG feet.

It's done.

Seriously though, I've spent almost as much time upgrading the feet as I did building the whole droid the first time around.
Luckily I'm usually pretty good about grabbing my camera and snapping pics along the way.

Here they are.
Had to thicken up the center ankle a little bit:


Drilling the KHF holes with the step bit:


Holes for the power wires to pass through:


Center Foot detail strips applied:


Outer feet foot strips:


The foot strips are homemade, from a piece of 1"x1/8"x36" aluminum stock from Lowe's. Cut to length with the dremel, ends angled on the table sander, and holes drilled with the drill press and the step bit.

A couple of painted and detailed feet shots:



Center Foot mounted:


Center foot completely assembled:


Outer feet mounted:


Outer feet completely assembled:


You can see that the foot channels aren't tight on the ankles, mainly because when the bolts are tightened, the metal doesn't squeeze together like the plastic ones did...
To remedy that, I brought in some bricks from the backyard and used them under the front and back of each foot to level them out so I could add a locking screw through the foot and ankle next to the mounting bolts.
Thing is, I only brought in 2 bricks, and did each foot separately. And the bricks were 3/4" taller than the finished foot, meaning that the whole angle I secured the feet at was wrong. The feet sloped towards the ground in the back.
Luckily there was just enough wiggle for me to level out the feet and put some creatively made spacers in place to hold the foot level:

In that shot you can see both the "spacers" and the locking screws. The good thing about those spacers is, other than the small drops of superglue and the 4 inches of tape, they only cost 13 cents :D

That should just about cover it, although it's in much less detail than I'd normally go into, mainly because it's 8 months worth of work crammed into one post.

All that's left to finish before DragonCon now is putting on the battery boxes and the hoses, which are ready to go. Silly thing is, it'll take 3 minutes to do the work, and an hour to document it...

Re-Kridering the dome panels

Well, like the title says, here's my post about repainting the dome panels.

Two Sundays ago I looked outside, and saw that it was sunny and clear, which is something of a rarity this time of year, since most afternoons we get those big afternoon thunderstorms down here on the Gulf Coast.  I checked my weather channel app, and it said the temp was 92 degrees, with 76% humidity, but I went ahead and painted anyway, figuring "who knows when my next chance will be".

I had put a couple more coats of primer on the pieces on Friday afternoon and sanded them on Saturday, so everything was ready, with the exception of my paints.  I had everything I needed except for enough of the DupliColor MetalCast Blue, so I made a quick trip to the AutoZone to remedy that.  When I arrived, at first I was worried, because they had all the usual colors except blue, and they appeared to have added a very light teal color judging by the caps on the cans.  After picking up the teal, I realized that the cap had faded and it was indeed the blue I was looking for.

I headed back home and began the 2 hour process of painting the parts, using the timer on my iPhone to remind me when the 15 minutes between each coat was up.



Painting went well through the metallic blue coats, easy as could be.  The only problem came when I started to apply the Duplicolor.  Of course I had some of that left in the can from last time, so I was going to use it first.  Naturally, shortly after I started the first coat of clear blue, the can starting "spitting" and messed up a couple of the panels.  I immediately tried to blot up the spots with a corner of paper towel, but that really didn't work, so I grabbed the new can and continued painting.  The new can of course had no issues, and I was able to finish the 2 coats of clear blue without further problems.  When it came to the clear coat, instead of the usual 2 coats, I applied 4 coats, hoping that the weight of the paint would somehow settle the spots down, but that really didn't work.


You can see the "spits" in this photo:

I went ahead and brought the pieces inside and let them cure for what initally started out to be 3 days, and turned out to be 2 weeks, just due to procrastination,I guess.

Anyway, today I reglued them to the dome using my good old PolySeamSeal silicone.  I also used much less silicone this time than I did last time, just because you never know...



Here in just the last 5 minutes I've gone back and added some small pieces of painters tape to hold the pieces in place. Thanks to our old friend gravity, they were sliding down to the bottom of the openings.
The color is a pretty darn good match, although the old paint seems to be a little darker, possibly just due to age. Anyway, repairs done :)

De-Kridering dome panels :/

***I apoligize for the crappy formatting...it's Blogger's fault, not mine***
So, about a month ago I started doing my "DragonCon checkups" on R2. Some of you may recall the "Cleveland R2" wig I made for DCon last year. Leaving the wig on R2's dome for an extended period of time caused an ugly problem. There's apparently some sort of chemical that leaches out of the marine vinyl that I used as a base for the wig. It caused the clear enamel Rustoleum that is the top coat (or 3 top coats) to become thick and gummy.

Here's a shot:


You can see it's kind of ugly. The panels were originally attached with silicone. I decided the safest way to remove the panels without major damage was to use one of the flexible thin steel rulers.



I think it was $2 at the good ol' Harbor Freight. After taping the dome to try to avoid extra damage, I pried up the bottom corner of the panel just enough to slip the ruler underneath. I then hammered the ruler through the silicone until the panel popped off.



The panels were slightly warped from prying up the corners, but that was nothing that some tapping on the back of the panels while held in my hand couldn't fix. Next, I had to old silicone to deal with. I basically just "worried" it off with my thumbnail while watching TV to make the time pass. Here's a shot of what I had to work with:

 

Next up, I posted on FB asking if any other builders had any experience removing the paint, but got no replies. Must have been a bad time of day to post. Anyway, I checked on Astromech.net, and only found one post about removing krider paint in the last 3 years. It suggested "acetone and a clean soft cloth". I gave that a shot, but the cloth didn't even really turn blue with "vigorous rubbing". That meant I wasn't even getting through the clearcoat, which granted, is probably 4 coats thick. My next plan was more daring. I stopped by the Neighborhood WalMart and picked up a $5 2-quart aluminum saucepan. Once I got home, I checked the kitchen cabinets to find I had an old saucepan already. Can you say "upgrade"?  Anyway, as a test I poured about a half an inch of acetone into the pan, then put the top middle "donut" shaped panel in to soak. After a couple of minutes, I found I was able to just rub the paint off of the piece. The strange thing was the Duplicolor Blue and it's reaction to the acetone. It really didn't dissolve like the clear and the metallic blue did. It remained stringy and gummy the whole time. I added about another 2 inches of acetone to the pot, and proceeded to clean the remaining pieces. As soon as I started working on the first piece, the acetone turned the prettiest metallic blue color you've ever seen. When a new piece was added it would begin swirling around in the pan all by itself.



Anyway, after each piece had been cleaned, I rinsed that piece in cold water and set it aside. Once all the pieces had been cleaned, I then disposed of the old acetone and poured an inch of fresh acetone into the pan. I then gave each piece another bath, to remove anything the previous bath didn't get, then another bath, this time in warm water with dishwashing soap (Would've been Dawn, but the store was out last time I bought dish soap, so it was actually Gain) and a light scrub with a scrubbing sponge.

I think the oddest things of all are that the acetone didn't remove what was left of the teflon in the old pan, and that the acetone ALSO didn't remove the primer from the panels. I believe if I'd had something to scrub the panels with in the 2nd acetone bath, it might have come off.



The spots where the primer did come off were places where the panels had been scratched or chipped, and so the acetone was able to get into the primer better. Or at least that's the theory i'm gonna go with. Next step will be to let the panels sit overnight and completely dry. I toweled them dry, but I'm being lazy at this point. Tomorrow I'll sand them lightly then apply another coat of primer, which will cure tomorrow night. MAYBE it won't rain on Saturday, and I'll get to repaint...

Battery boxes

I've said it before, I REALLY hate painting all these pretty aluminum parts... maybe next time I'll build an all ALU droid.


The mounting screws:


Mounted on the feet:


Carving out some room for the motors:




Ready for primer:

Dan Baker motor mounts to JAG feet

So, the challenge here was figuring out how exactly to combine the 2 systems, which weren't designed to go together...

The most important thing was to NOT drill on the motor mounts until everything else was ready to go...

So, we start off with designing something that will hold the nuts in place. Here's what I came up with:



"Gluing" the washers in place:


"Gluing" the nuts in place, with a little JB Weld...ok, so a lot of JB Weld.


Curing the JB Weld:


The original pre-drilling test fit:


Drilled the motor mounts:


"Gluing" the mount plates into the motor holders:


Everything all put together, ready for some paint:


Drilling out the holes for the KHFs:




The holes are much "cleaner" than they look in these pics. It's the missing primer that makes them look rough...

JAG Center Foot

So, I just looked at my blog and realized it's been since Oct last year since I posted...I've been working just not posting, so here's a metric ton of info...starting with the center foot.

Start off with pics of the center foot mounting bracket..all primered and clear-coated. Standoffs installed..





Holes drilled in the wheel mounts:





Detail painting:






The center foot is ready to be installed, just haven't done it. The only issue I can see so far will be locking the foot in place.