R2-Q5 - Logic Displays

I'm thinking of using old cell phones to display the front and rear logic displays, set this to see how it would look. My thoughts were to run power through a usb cable and set it up to run an animated gif when turned on.

  

R2-Q5 - Started painting the dome

Base coats are in bronze and the first coat of black applied. After the last coat of paint, I'll pull the tape to hopefully have some of the panels bronze matching the utility arms.

R2-Q5 - Gets his dome trimmed

I took a couple of days off for a long weekend and finally took time to make a little progress on Q5 today. The bottom of the fiberglass dome has extra material that needs to be trimmed. As you can see above, I started to follow the slight indentation but realized it wasn't defined all the way around. Needing a better line to follow, I took scotch tape to the indentation and took time reapplying until it was aligned, marked the edge with a sharpie, and removed the tape. Using a Dremel cutting wheel I was able to cut along the line, then use the side of the disc to sand close to the edge to save time with block sanding.

The sanding time saved on the trim was lost on the pie panels at the top. With R2-D2's panels having enough contrast between the blue panels and silver dome the fiberglass mold Todd Bixby uses doesn't need to have much definition. My imperial droid will be black panels on a black dome, so I needed to make the groves deeper. I tried everything from the Dremel cutting wheel, wood carving tools, and sand paper folded into corners, but this engraving bit for the Dremel seemed to work fast while keeping control.

The last piece for the night was to see if I could get the dome to spin on the frame. Using an 18" Rockler bearing from a local woodworking shop and an 18" floral wreath (particle board base) as a support ring in the dome. I drilled holes in the six bolt pattern on the support ring using the inner ring of the bearing as a template and connected them with 2" bolts and an extra set of nuts to adjust the space to help hide any imperfections in my cutting, mounting, or potential warping of the dome. I did leave it in my garage over the last summer and winter. Here's a video of me spinning it by hand.

R2-Q5 - Making a droid

I've been a Star Wars fan since my parents took me to see Return of the Jedi when I was three years old. It's one of my earliest memories. Sitting in my dad's lap in a crowded theater and seeing luke wielding a green lightsaber with the sands of Tatooine in the background.

So when I started getting the bug to make stuff last summer, I came across astromech.net. A sight dedicated to droid builders of the R2 variety. A great site for collaborating ideas, tutorials, or just chatting on a regular basis with people who share the interest. With any large group there are a few bad apples, but I've found this to be a great community.

Here's a photo of how my droid has been sitting since the fall.

I'm going with R2-Q5 as the designation. There's something of a 10:1 ratio for R2-D2 vs. other full size replicas and imperial droids need to represent!

This one will permanently be on all three feet. Apparently retracting feet are expensive to make, but it will be remote controlled with moving dome, opening doors, blinky lights, and sounds. The last piece I put together was a lens for the radar eye. The radar itself was made from Resin by Mansugi on astromech.net. 

The lens is from an arts and crafts ornament found at Michaels. An idea discussed at astromech.net. The diameter of the cut coincidentally matched my kitchen sink drain, which was used as a template. Yes, I went looking through the house like a Sesame Street episode looking for circles.

The ornament ball is fairly sturdy, but I put too much pressure on it trying to rush through cutting. The edge of the dome is thicker than the top, meaning the breaking point isn't going to be on the piece of scrap. This is why I'm using a knife in the picture and taking my time.

Here's the final fit before gluing in place.