Eat and Drink

having a very nice and small bbq with good friends owning old aircooled volkswagens, a good friend of mine brought me this:

sparkling apple and berry juice wthout alcohol!

Utility Arms working progress

I was concerned about the complex unit of the Utility Arms mechanization kit and how it would fit to Gary's frame design.
But what can I say; it worked better than expected.
So now I have a set of normal ally Utility Arms left. My decision to use the lightweight ones was because of the weight and the problem, to get the (too big in diameter for the ball bearings) rods pressed out of the arms.
Now I need to mount some short pieces of fuel lines to the rods of Servo and Arm rod. A flexible way with a built in "override System". Lol

Luke will build a droid !!

my buddy thomas will build an astromech in the near future!

Ali skirt works

maybe i get some more work done today on the ali skirt;
i was missing the base plate for the skirt.
finally i found it after one hour of searching because my daughter had cleaned the room for me days ago...

unfortunately the metal shop didn´t cut in the center hole for the center foot lifter (i will install a 2-3-2 mechanism), so it´s up to me to do this now.

ok, cut out:

 and already welded to the skirt:

look, if everything will fit...yess!!!

Ali Battery Box works

now some more finetuning on the surface to get them perfect!!

Dome Panel hinge parts

I just bought on the bay some parts for my dome Panel hinges.
Thanx to a hint from a fellow French builder.
The parts are used in RC helicopters and planes, too.
Pics when the parts have been arrived.

Nerf Blaster

für das mando kostüm gibts auch einen kleinen blaster, oder besser gesagt, zwei davon!
dieser hasbro firestrike elite blaster hat genau die richtige größe und handlichkeit, dass er damit der titelaspirant für das mandalorianer kostüm des sohnemannes ist!

dass das gute stück so neonfarben natürlich nicht bleiben kann, ist klar! daher gibts das komplette programm in sachen wheathering!! so stay tuned!!

The choice of the day !!

what shall i do? what is the best choice?

i have received another pair of ali utility arms, this time a lightweight version.

both sets that i have now, are great! one of them is lighter, due to the holes from underneath.

some differences between them; both appear to be CS:L !

Just another perfect resin part...

...that i build! the coin slot for r2:

most people don´t take the time for building the silicon mould, but it´s the essential thing to do so!!
and of course the way how to build a two part mould.

the next step is to take your time while adding the resin to the silicon mould. if you don´t do that, bubbles of air will remain in the mould and you have imperfections in the resin! not good!

Leg work

leg number one was ready since months, leg number two was on the waiting list of my "to do in the near future" parts for r2.

i first decided to go the steel way and will continue it now. but the plans for a set in ali are on their way... i already spoke to my buddy at the metal shop. :)

here are the first steps of it; the first parts tack welded together...

as you can see, the openings for the booster system are already there. plans are to build this system too.
therefore i have to do some changes on the booster covers. these must be three parts that open in diefferent directions; one has to slide up, the other two to the left and right.

Ali Utility Arms

just came back from the customs where i picked up the last parts for my ali r2; these beautiful one piece milled ali utility arms that ed sent me from california!

Mando Costume Picture Update

here is a shot of the armor in all its glory (LOL):

some more work has been done until now; here you can see some more protectors (three parts) in a raw and already heated and bended state:

the same procedure as before, the parts are looking like this now:

Junior Mando Costume

for my son i began to build a mondo costume in a bobba fett style.
his wishes were a red colour scheme with a cool helmet and two weapons with holsters.

i decided to add a booster pack and two control units for the arms!

as always it had to be a low budget thing, so i looked for easy to find in household used parts...

okay, the armor had to be made with styrene. i had some sheets in 4mm left on stock. taking measurements on my son was an easy thing. this and the cutting time was done within two hours. 

for his leg protection we used some of his old football parts:

 some fine grinding of the surface and some fine layers of black colour later...

 
here is a shot of the parts before painting and aging them:

not all parts are done yet, i am still building them!

here is an overview of the steps i did to all parts with a short explanation:

cut out shoulder pad styrene pieces

 traces of fights and damages on surface better visible after a ground paint in silver to get the parts look like metal

i used some toothpaste to cover the spots that hadn´t to be painted 

after applying the red paint and a drying process, i brushed off the toothpaste

 some detail work, same steps as before, but another colour

 the mando sign

more pics later!!