Welding works

The second leg got it's inner small folded sheets for the under shoulder Details now.

Next step; fixing the outer sheet of the leg and spot weld it first to the leg. Then add all other welding seems.

Like this:

Little things

I got some little things done yesterday.
The small metal sheets for the under shoulder details of leg number two had to be built.

Today i will weld them into the leg. Next step is to weld the outer leg sheet in to the other parts.

Okay, you got me !!

I really tried to...but sitting around all the afternoon is not my thing!

So i went into the shed and started sanding and adding putty to the head and some other head parts of the Battle Droid.

Head part; left after printing , right after adding putty and having sanded it, then added another coat of grey primer:

And the head got some.putty too:

Here it ist already fillered:

No more energy...

Well, i intended to work on the legs for R2 today...
I really wanted to...
But when i arrived at my shop today, the first customer was already waiting for me. A good. friend with, obviously, too much free time.
We talked more than one hour. Only minutes after he left, customer number two, another friend from the Vintage VW Scene, came in and 'stole' my time, too.

And then, you guess it, he was out of my shop only for a few minutes, customer number three came and took my last precious free time too!!

So, i did almost nothing today. Shame on me !!
But on the other hand i really worked hard this week. So a free weekend is what i really deserved!!

After weeks of hard working, even on the weekend, a few hours to relax is what i needed.

And for watching my kids guineapigs eating...

Ford Explorer and Battle droid progress

i was really happy, when oskar came in with the first parts for my new project; the battle droid in life size.
talking about the history behind; we had a deal. i welded him all rusty areas on his ford explorer (the one for his jurassic park project) and he prints me all parts for a lifesize battle droid.
this beast is 2,10 m tall!!

so here are the actual pics concerning his ford...

the welding works are done (of course) and the prepping works before paint (applying bondo and sanding the surface to get a smooth surface) are in progress.

and the droid (´s head)...

Battle droid progress

the first parts for the battle droid had some unwanted errors while getting printed. so off with them into the bin!

here a pic of a piece from oskar after repairing his printer:

New project for my son

my son is getting better from day to fay. his skills (for a 13 year old boy) are great!

here he is working on his next project: a self created knife for his mando costume... the blade is made of a piece of plexiglass. to get it fixed in the handle, he made a hole and put in a magnet. for that he drilled a hole in the end of it:

next is designing the handle. he made all this on his own, there was not a single minute of help from my side!

here is his design:

and during the printing process:

 

D-O's

Two droids...one.mission...

Battery boxes in steel

Yesterday i made a set of steel battery boxes...

Comic

My oldest daughter made ne a nice Birthday present; this Star Wars Comic book:

Hi

Battle Droid and Jurassic Park Ford Explorer

a new project is on its way; the battle droid.

(picture copyright by wookipedia)

my good buddy oscar, who owns the jurassic park jeep wrangler and is building actually the jurassic park ford explorer, is printing on his large bed 3d printer parts for my battle droid.

on the other hand i did all the metalwork on his car to get a new M.O.T.

now he is working on the paint job...it will look like this in the end...

A new name

as you certainly have seen, the new name for my son´s droid is D-O2.

why? because it´s our second d-o droid finished!

Electronic panel

the rear panel has arrived at its place. it was a little bit tricky to get it there, even with the contacts.

pic will follow

now its time to attach it to the arduino nano and a power supply. and i must add a small switch to get it on and off.

more to that later!

A face

bd-1 has its face now.

i could glue the eyes section to the panel section behind.

pic will follow

the upper eyes cover is glued to it too. and the lens in both eyes was made out of a plastic lemonade bottle.
looking good so far!

pic will follow

Paint job on BD-1

while i am observing the work my son does on his d-o project, i take care of my very own project, bd-1.

unfortunately, the filament lines of the 3d print job are a little bit "raw". i wanted to eliminate the problem by painting a filler/primer to the surface of the parts and applied additional bondo to bigger gaps.
but nevertheless i had more gaps in the end than i wanted o have... 😖

and through these gaps the paint from the rattlecan "soaks" itself into areas beside the paint area. not good!

pic will follow

so i decided to repaint these areas with a small brush. i hope this will work. i hate applying and sanding bondo for hours...

D-O2 progress

the quality of work, that my son is giving to his own d-o project, is getting better and better!

he masked the parts, he painted the parts, he glued the parts...

i only gave him some good advices on how to do this or that.

here is the result:

pic will follow

BD-1 progress

while my son was working on his d-o, i used the time to fill up gaps with bondo on the several 3d printed parts of my bd-1.

sorry, no pic on that. i simply forgot that on my parts.

but i can show you a pic of my d-o visiting his buddy bd-1 in my working shed:

some of them need to have a second layer of bondo, because the first attempt wasn´t perfect enough and i saw it first after having sanded it down.

but other parts were simply perfect after the treatment and i could paint another layer of primer to it.

later i sanded this too with a finer grit and applied a layer of white RAL9010.

looking good so far when i checked them early this morning before leaving the house.

 

Private

the work on my sons´ D-O is taking up speed now.

and i love watching him soaking up my advices on how to do this or that, handling of the machines, increasing his own skills.

simply fantastic.

here you can see him yesterday on our free day masking up the first side panel of his first little droid.



after some really weird colour schemes he made, he finally decided to do a more pure look of his droid. not the common white and green, just a simple black metallic, dark grey and red.

pic will follow

and here are the panels as a final result:

pic will follow

Missing parts

I could get the last parts from my lasercutter buddy.

Short trip

D&O wanted to drive around with me...
Do droids need a safety belt?

Roundtrip

today i made a luttle roundtrip before starting work.

powdercoater, home depot, lasercutter and galvanizer.

they were on my to do (to drive) list. because of forgetting my anti corona mask in my shop yesterday evening, the home depot was out of the game! all others doesn´t care anymore of these damn´ masks!!
and here are the parts i got from the lasercutter. they made me a set of battery boxes...

and one outer ankle instead of two...on the other side they made two center ankles instead of one...

now they will cut another set of an outer ankle for me asap.

meanwhile i can start with the battery boxes.



 

Home Work

i had to do some additional home work in the shed. room number one was ready, room number two still needed some attention technically.

one window had to be repaired, the hinges for the door must be sandblasted, primered and painted.

so today is sandblasting time or the hinges only.

this means...maybe no time for beginning with the outer feet sheet metal work for r2 and finishing the welding work on leg number two...

let´s see what time will bring... 

Lasercutter

this morning i went to the lasercutter before starting my official work.

i ordered some metal sheets to build a new set of outer ankles and battery boxes.

unfortunately they won´t be cut for me before the beginning of the next week. the shop has plenty of other stuff to be done first... 😢

this means ont the other hand, that i can take care of the center foot and the outer feet. luckily the sheet metal was all on stock.

happy building!!

The missing gap

mickael from france mentioned it; the gap in the leg was still missing!

yes, this is/was correct. the metal work wasn´t finished at this point of work on the leg, when i made the picture.

now the leg has its gap and is already mediablasted and therefore ready for a layer of primer.

next step is to paint some layers of light grey primer to it...

and then i will continue the work on the second leg.

HD legs

i already made a quite similar post to the HD leg.

number one is ready now (only a few spots have to be regrinded), number two is on its way to completion, concerning the metalwork and welding process.

more to that later!

Father and Son working together

this morning we could do some droid work...

i continued on my bd-1 droid...

and my son on his D-O droid...

No Droid Stuff inside

as the title says...no droid stuff inside...

the second room is almost finished now...only the electrics have to be done now...

the stuff on the floor is away now and the floor was painted in a light grey twice now. the steel cabinet was painted white twice too, because it´s original resedagreen was awful!!
the wooden cabinet was a left over and reactivated now. the baseboard (remains from different rooms  with different colours) were later painted in glossy white.

HD Leg

First welding spots inside in the first of two HD legs...

the cover plate...the big holes have to be changed to a 30 mm diameter. and on the inside i have to build two sheets to have a closed leg behind the under shoulder details...

...and the center ankle is already finished and.packed...