Disney D23 Expo 2017 - R5D4 pin badge!!

Whilst searching up on eBay,
I found that these's!

A droid set of pin badges!

These pics are gleaned from internet searching...
(credit where possible has been given)

This group pic, posted by Jeremy Konrad.

These others are off eBay, no links, just search them up.

My fist thoughts were....fantastic!!

And then sadness at probably not being able to own one, well, not anytime soon lol

Then I noticed that this R5 has the 'round skirt' design, nothing new as this style of image appears on most of the trading cards, as I've mentioned in previous posts.

Then I noticed that this one tho had been given the 'film version', centre leg!

He has an 'outer leg' as his centre leg, therefore only having the ONE ankle cylinder!!

Check the first group pic to compare with R2.

Top marks to the person who didn't just copy an R2D2 body

and change his body panels to red lol

Well, I'm off to watch eBay for more Droids lol.

Throw back Thursday - 1

Just posted this up on Instagram, so thought I'd share.

Throw back to my first event attended with R5's.

He was still a work in progress and didn't even have a dome lol.

Dome was brought along and borrowed for R5 by my new fried Ian,

with his R4-1J droid.

The end R6 droid was Mark's from PodPadStudios.

Above grab from 'james_r5d4' account

Shout out to Jedi News!

R0-D4 dome upgrade 2017 - 1.4 - LED panel

I installed a second diffuser panel (plastic cut out of a large Milk bottle) to help reduce the LED's hot-spots. After testing the LED's in the last post R0-D4 dome upgrade 2017 - 1.3, I still wasn't sure if I liked the amount of flashing. It looked a bit too much.

So I removed all the 3mm ones and wired up just the five tri-colour LED's. I then hot glued them around the outside of the screen to help distribute their light. Having them face on was no good as these are clear type ones.

This seams to give a more subtle, subdued light display.

And here they are viewed from the inside.

click pic link below to a short You Tube clip showing them flashing.

Or click here: https://youtu.be/mgaZdbc9WJA

Smugglers Bounty......R5-D4!!!

Being an R5 fan.....obviously, lol, it always bug's me that the little guy

get's over looked by toy people, clothing etc.

And one (and only one I'll be buying) that I wanted

was an R5-D4 Funko Pop figure.

Then a few weeks ago I saw on twitter a feed about Episode 1 C3-P0..... but that wasn't important to be lol, the back of the box was what people had spied.....could it be????

YES it was.....R5-D4.

Well here's the link to the Smugglers Bounty You Tube video

click pic to You Tube link

I don't subscribe to these sort's of things, my lose I guess,

but at least I now know that R5-D4 is out there....somewhere lol.

R5's transport sledge 'upgrade work' pt 7

Had time at the weekend to finish off cutting out more wood from the sledge.

Time and thought has to go into where to and where not to cut!
As you need to think about any potential weak points. Hence the rounded hole edges etc.

Once all were cut out and edges taken off with a file and then sanding.
The frame top section was re-attached.

The frame is now no effort to lift, I don't have to tense up my body/arm to lift it by itself.

Next was to apply the first touch-up coat of paint to the cut areas & to give the whole frame a fresh coat.

R0-D4 dome upgrade 2017 - 1.3

After working on the sledge, I needed to give my bench a tidy up. I was going to re-install R5's smoke system, more on that in the other post. The other box of bits was the new set of flashing LED's I had planned on using for R0's dome light PSi style panel.

Two types of LED's, blinking ones & tri-coloured LED's (x4 off)

This piece of cardboard was a test card to display the LED's to get an idea of the random layout required. And to see how they looked through the frosted piece of plastic, that can be seen at the bottom of the picture. There is already a frosted piece fitted in the dome, but this second piece helps to diffuse the light more.

Link to last attempts at dome lights.

Version 1

Version 2

I took some short videos, so will post this up once I've edited it together.

R5's transport sledge 'upgrade work' pt6

This was something I had had planned since building the sledge to get its weight down. It was a strain to lift it by itself when I first made it, thinking it had to be to support R5's weight.

So I marked out areas that could have material removed, not near corners or stress points, used a large wood bit for radius and drilled and jigsaw'd out some material.

I've not done anything to the top area......yet.....as it was getting late. But am looking at the 'double' layed section that extends to support the top of R5.

It is now a lot less effort to lift it, just by itself. More to come......

FLASHBACK - A year ago today Star Wars Celebration 2016

A year ago today I had arrived at the Excel Centre in London and was unloading R5 along with the other guys and girls of the R2 Builders club. Once what we could help with was done, myself Ian & Matt, newly acquainted, went off for a pre-opening walk to check out the event.

Whilst exploring we were amazed to see THE Steve Sansweet!

I waited till he had finished chatting to others and asked if I could have my picture taken with him. It was early, but he graciously agreed.

Myself & Mr Steve Sansweet

I was star struck lol, and didn't even think to give him one of my freshly printed Trading Cards.