...from the world of films...
My buddy Oskar came along with his fantastic Jurassic Park Ford Explorer...freshly painted by himself ! Great Work!!
some months ago i made all the body work for him (what a rusty pile of shit!!). but now it is here in all its glory!!
the printing work for poe dameron´s blaster was done some weeks ago, now it was time to sand it.
after this was done, i applied two layers of light Grey primer, sanded it some, the i put some bondo on gaps.
after geeting dried, i will have to send it again, to erase the small imperfections on the surface.
this process will have to be done several times i guess...
the work on the two units of han solo´s dl-44 blaster could be continued.
sanding, gluing, you know that time consuming thing!
the two owner´s, the nieces of my buddy thomas, worked on their blasters getting help in case they needed it.
this gas is required to get good welding results while welding aluminum.
unfortunately the gas bottle is empty now. but luckily the shop is open at the moment.so tomorrow i will go there to change my empty bottle against a full one, so that i can continue my ali parts.
and the ordered teflon tubing for the mig welder has arrived too!
pic will follow
well, the year is always at its end and i wish you a merry christmas, a lot of presents and some relaxing days.
hoping that the corona virus will leave us soon and normality in life will come back soon.
not that easy, as i thought. even the MIG welding can make problems.
but after having ordered a new role of welding wire and its unexpected arrival yesterday, i tried it again and it worked.
happy me!
anyway i ordered a teflon tubing for the welding machine, to get a smoother inner surface for the wire transport.
Over the last months i built myself a small collection of steel and ali parts for my future droids. R5-D4, R2-Q5 and R2-D2.
After having built four different steel leg versions, it's time to think about a new concept.
The next version Mk5 will have welded in threaded studs inside for the booster rocket kits support, an enlarged opening for it, an inner support for the shoulder hubs, predrilled holes for the under shoulder details and so on...
After having done two Ali feet and almost one Ali battery box, i ran out of welding wire.
Luckily i ordered some new two weeks ago.
Unfortunately the wire diameter was the wrong size. I needed 1 mm, but ordered 0,8 mm.
And now the welding Gas bottle is almost empty too.
I could order new wire, that will come on the 28/29 of december, but the welding gas bottle shop is closed until the first week of the new year.
So i changed to building steel parts...one leg is almost done... this time with the new support for the shoulder hub.
Pic on that later.
Old and new...the first MiG Welder i bought two weeks ago was damaged after day two. Not repairable they said.
Today they sent me a new MiG welding machine. This time their "housebrand"...
Big laugh!!! It's the fucking same machine only the powdercoated paint is another.
Until now everything worked great.
The welding.of even very thin Ali sheets was no problem!
I made two ali center feet today from remaining sheets i had on stock.
today i found some time to work on the booster cover system of the first leg.
i took the extended bracelet version and bolted the two lower pieces of the sectioned booster cover onto it.
next step was to modify the middle section of the booster cover. here i had to grind off some material inside...
the center ali rod was cut into two pieces too. the lower part was screwed to the lower plate of the extended bracelet (as on pic above). the upper one was screwed to the middle part of the booster cover. looks good so far...
next is the lifter arm construction for the upper cover part below the shoulder hub...
I finally found some time to continue the work on one of the legs...
there are still so many changes to be done to get a fully operational booster rocket system running...
unlucky me!
the brandnew mig welder that i got three days ago, is already out of order.
two days ago i made first welding attempts and adjustments. and it was fun to work with it. easy handling and good welding results for such a cheap welding machine.
but i think this is the problem; they wrote "only for personal, but not for commercial use.
is it that why it can get broken after day two? i don´t think so!!
i made one welding spot on the second day, the adjustments weren´t changed, then the radiator inside stopped turning, the front displays got black. but the main switch on the rear of the machine was still on and the light inside was burning.
a little bit confused i read the instruction manuals again and there they wrote about an overheating switch, that would reactivate the system after cooling down to normal temperatures.
okay, if it would have been hot...but after only one welding spot??!!
anyway, i waited more than 20 minutes doing other things instead, and restarted the system. no change!
then i switched off everything and waited another half an hour. again no change!
now i sent the machine back to the company and hope to get it back repaired or exchanged against a new one before x-mas... (okay this was a joke! i prepared myself getting it back the next year!)
after some searching in my files section, i found the files in dwg and dxf version for the ali skins of r2.
unfortunately the guy, who is doing the cad stuff in the metal shop, is on vacation for the rest of the week.
so i have to wait until monday morning to meet him and talk about the whole process of lasercutting, rolling the sheets to the right diameter and so on.
As 'template' i will take.my skins Set.to the Shop.
so more on that next week...
...and a new idea!
two days ago i saw an ad in a french r2 forum for the outer dome skin, already cut. unfortunately without the panels.
but for me producing the panels is only a small problem...
i had the idea to make them out of transparent 1 mm plexiglass or acrylic glass.
the price was ok for me and i ordered it. hope to get it before x-mas!
this must probably be the only one on this planet done like this...
...some parts for a second han solo blaster in high defintion. a 27 hours print...
hope that they are finished this evening...
pic will follow
the parts for the motivator that i wanted to print on the second printer don´t want to cooperate...no adhesion to the surface of the printing bed, even after several adjustments.
maybe it´s an error in the slicing process, too?
i have to figure that out!
Today i tried to start the print of the first parts for my R2 unit's Motivator.
But the first three layer of the raft filament went a little bit wrong. No really good adhesion to the magnetic bed made it almost impossible to get a correct raft.
It may be a bad adjustment of the bed, but after the third attempt of readjusting it plus making a higher temperature i stopped it.
i had some severe issues with my ender 3 pro 3d printer.
the problem was, that the filament didn´t want to come out of the nozzle. the temperarure was on 200 degrees, but almost nothing came out. i checked it double, but everything was fine, there was no error on the display.
the tubing for the filament wasn´t the best anymore, so i thought it would be best, to cut off a little bit of it. but again no filament.
the metal gear for the transport was fine too, only some small abrasive areas on it. to minimize the source of errors, i mounted the gear a little bit higher to get a perfect filament transport to the nozzle.
but again no success.
at the end i found, that the nozzle didn´t get enough temperature and the filament couldn´t get out of it. the motor couldn´t transport it and the gear wasn´t strong enough too.
two completely new extruder kits with a new tubing were ordered, because my second printer had the same issues some days ago.
after having replaced the complete unit, everything went fine again.
the printing can go on!
The idea with the modified ankles isn't that bad. But i haven't done the drawing for my CNC Buddy yet.
I made another drawing for him concerning the shoulder hubs support area. If you have the Standard Ali shoulder hubs, there is no was to get them fixed the right way.
My Idea is as simple as effective; a cnc'ed ring in Ali and optional in Steel.
The Steel Ring will be welded into the outer Leg Sheet, the Ali version is getting some M4 threads.
Drawing is done and sent to the CNC Shop Guy.
The parts are here. Together with a small bunch of spare parts, that my CNC Shop Buddy made for me one year ago...
...last night i had a dream about how to build a better outer ankle support for the ball bearings and wiring for the drives in the outer ankles...
it will be a mixture of steel sheets and a cnc´ed part. later today i will make a sketch and send it to my buddy at the cnc shop to see what he can do...
so more news on that in a later post here on this blog...
some adays ago i made a new order for some sheets...
Pic will follow
with these sheets i can build, together with the remains of sheets i had on stock, another center ankle.
and the rest of the sheets are for a set of new outer ankles.
i found the time, to weld a new center ankle in steel...i had some sheets on stock to realize at least one ankle...
pic will follow
After some good results on the second set of printed parts for the Han Solo blaster, i decided to print Poe Dameron's Blaster.
I changed the settings for a 10% longer printing time. The final result was worth the waiting...
Here at the beginning of the print:
And here after it was finished:
The assembled Blaster:
i found the printing files on thingiverse and started the print...
here right at the beginning of the printing process:
and at the end...
this took almost a full day to print!
now it´s time to assemble the parts. but nothing fits. every part had to be grinded...
but in the end i won the race!
...is thid set of battery boxes i made from mild steel.
now some mediablasting and a coat of light grey primer...
another set of steel battery boxes have to be done...
here the lasercut sheets:
why lightweight? well, i can work way more efficient concerning the time it take to complete a set.
there is no construction, on which i bend the roundings of the battery boxes. this is all done free hand. so if i use thicker material, it is very hard to get the right shape in a short time. good for my muscles (call me arnold schwarzenegger), bad for the time consuming building process.
and on the other hand a light droid is better than a heavy droid...😉
the postman always rings thrice...
i got all the parts, to get a set of steel ankles finished now.
hollow screws, nuts and ball bearings, all in metric dimensions.
a new bunch of aluminum body to leg hubs is to be produced very soon.
my cnc buddy will make a bunch of sets. here is a pic of the last sets...
i just got the ordered hollow screws for the next ankles/feet set.
pic will follow
now i am waiting for the ball bearings...
next on the agenda is the work i have to do on the screws, so that cables for the drive system can slide through it...
the new season of the mandalorian is online on disney+.
i hope to see it within the next days...i am so busy actually...sniff
..and the next season of the mandalorian will air on disney+.
can´t wait to see it!!
here is the link to the official trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW7Twd85m2g
this is the way !!
...of feet for a new droid for a good r2 builders friend in england are needed.
i had a set on stock, that will make their way over the channel to make him happy.
pic will follow
i just wanted to show you the fabulous cars of oskar!
he first made the jeep wrangler in the iconic jurassic park design by vinyl wrapping the car, adding some self made 3d search light housings on the windshield frame, the front wrench, plus a lot of nice and fine gimmicks inside and outside of the car.
his newest creation is the ford explorer, that he bought as a cheap and rusty car in berlin.
as always, the lower areas of the car were very rusty and i put my hands on that by recreating parts and welding them into the car. the front fenders were replaced, the whole body was changed back to US specs.
the car will get the inner center tunnel consoles as in the film, same are the rear and front additional bumper tubings, that were 3d created by him too. parts were lasercut and i welded them together... what a crazy work!
here is a little teaser pic of his cars:
this time not for astromech droids, but for my 3d printed battle droid...
my buddy oskar made this big bunch of parts for my droid.
the only parts missing are the backpack parts...unfortunately his printer is in repair and oskar is waiting to get it back asap.
...outer feet.
i can´t remember, when i made them, but i am happy anyway to have them!
maybe someone is in need for them?
just contact me via the comment function on this blog. only i can see this!
the handball season has started and my weekends are full with hours of driving three of my five kids to games and additional trainig units.
so i have no time at the moment for continuing on my r2 parts...unfortunately.
my plan is to fabricate some superlight steel legs. i take mild steel with 1 mm thickness.
here is a shot of the first welding spots on the first leg.
it might be a little too light and maybe fragile...but we will see, when everything, from horseshoes to shoulder rings and hubs, ankles, booster covers, booster rocket kits and feet are assembled...
