leg prep

So I asked around about attaching the booster covers to the legs, and the consensus seems to point toward E6000, a craft adhesive I hadn't heard of before but folks seem to like. So I got some at Lowe's and have tested it out on the holoprojector which got knocked out of place when I was putting R2 in the car after Planet ComiCon. It says to give 24 hours to cure, so I gotta keep my cotton pickin' mitts off until tomorrow night. Hopefully this stuff will do the trick.

Meantime, I put another dose of metal paint on the wooden hubs. They're looking better, but I think I'll give them one more coat tomorrow morning before work. Also, I want to take the ankle shims with me so I can cut the back parts off and actually mount them in place. I'll see how the E6000 stuff works there, metal to wood. That's probably all I'll be able to do before I take off for the weekend. Hopefully next week I'll be able to cover some more ground on the legs, at least get the outer ones finished up and ready to go.

Booster covers: after

So I gave the booster covers a nice Krider blue to go with the rest of the droid after giving them a good sand-down at the makerspace. Now it's time to add the silver touches. First, masking time:

(I'm trying Frog Tape to see how good it does for paint masking) A quick dose of Valspar silver, and voila:

Pretty nice. A little touching up here and there, and I should be good.

Today is a leg day

So the used legs I got from the junkyard showed up. I was pretty excited, as you can probably imagine. I got the wooden leg assemblies, the horsehshoes for the top, resin booster covers and booster pistons. They even had the "fat ankles" attached. So this will save me some time -- not to mention money.

That being said, I was later informed that bailing out of the leg run I had previously signed up for in favor of picking up these instead is frowned upon in the R2 club. It goes against the whole build-your-own ethos, but also it's best not to bail on a build run unless it's like financial hardship or something like that. So, now I know:

Lesson Learned:

• Don't bail out of a product run unless you have to

 Still, I've got the legs now, and they're all right. They've been glued together, and some smoothing has been done, but it's going to take a lot more. Still, this is entirely workable, and I can't wait to make it happen.

Here is one of the legs with the booster stuff, horseshoe, and the shoulder buttons and hydraulic I printed and painted a while back:

As you can see, the booster covers are going to need some serious trimming and painting and whatnot. I'll take them by the shop soon.