back from my trip and back at it....

The trip went well, for the most part but missed visiting an R2 builder. I'll have to catch chris next time. Anyway, most of my parts arrived when I got to Stanford. So even though I'm still a little jetlagged I desided to tackle my front logic displays today. The good news is that it works and is inexpensive while the bad news is that I'll need about 60 more ft of fiber optics. Fortunatly I'll be back in the US (east coast) next month. In case anyone is wondering it takes about 80 ft of fiber optics to make both front and rear logic displays on 2 complete artoos. These guys in the USA have the best prices www.fiberopticproducts.com. Once I figured out how I would approach this it took only an hour to make them. In the future I may go over to the J.E.D.I setup on 1 of these artoos but this present setup will keep me on schedule. I'll have to tweek the timing somewhat but I'm pretty satisfied. More to come...

Waiting for the glue to dry...

I finally got that glue I needed. I bought a few extra tubes, just in case. All I can do for now is wait for the glue to harden. I figured if I do the gluing now it should be totally hard by the time I get back from my little trip to Standford, CA. No real pictures to post this time but so far so good. While in the US, besides work, I'll be picking up a bunch of hard (hard to get in Sweden) to get goodies. The things that are waiting for me there are: - 2 Vex transmitters/receivers - 2 Vex signal splitters - 4sets Vex crystals - 2 Rocklers - 2 Pittman motors for the dome rotation - 20ft of 2.5mm optic fibers I can only give a very big thanks To Calvin for helping me with the finding and ordering of most of these things. Because many of the companies in the US aren't adapted for international orders getting these things wasn't easy. But Calvin's contribution made it all very simple. A great thanks to Vin as well at R2builders for ordering the Vex transmitters. All of this kind of feels like Christmas all over again, lol. Anyway, while I'm in the US I also plan to pick Chris's brain about his artoo. I'll be visiting him to get some close-up pictures of his artoo as well ;)

Plexiglass-man strikes again...

The glue that I use for my frame and skin is on back order until friday. I guess everyone has a use for it, lol. Anyway, I thought I'd do some minor building this weekend because I have to soon prepare for my trip to the states. So I was testing 3 million and 1 ways to make that "hole" board for front and rear logic displays. I tried single-layered cardboard, double-layered cardboard, different types of wood but in the end... remember all of that plexiglass I have lying around...well. I desided to give it a try and wow. I printed out the hole setup on thick paper then using the paper as a template I carefully drilled the holes through both paper and plexiglass. Yepp, dremel has 101 uses as well. I think the results look pretty good. All I have to do is paint them. The r2builders club already has a styroman, so I guess you guys will be calling me "plexiglass-man", lol. Everyday, I discover lots of uses for this stuff in my artoo build. I'm even considering making my legs out of a wooden frame but with a plexiglass shell ;)

Great tempo until the glue ran out...

So far so good! I added these progress pictures so you can see where I'm at. I hope they give you a feel for the process. Believe me, this IS fun!! The first artoo is skinned but the glue ran out on the second, so I have to wait a few days before I can finish "him". This little break gives me sometime to straighten up my little "droid workshop". It’s amazing, if one doesn’t pick up after each session, how things accumulate everywhere, lol. Anyway, as you can see the skin is made of a very strong yet flexible Plexiglas that’s 2 mm thick. I found it to be about the same weight as wood with the same thickness but extremely flexible. Another great thing with using plexiglas is that I just placed the drawing (blueprints) underneath and just trace. Once the skins have hardened onto the frame I just etch away the line details. Certain areas like the doors, vents and so forth will require that I cut away whole parts and then glue another plexiglas layer from the inside of the “body”. But that won’t happen until after I return from the USA business trip.