December 24, 2013

Merry Christmas 2013

I'd like to wish everyone a very
Happy New Year!
thanks for following my blog this last year and I hope it's been of help.
Happy building to all!

December 16, 2013

Front Vents 2.3 - Lower Centre Vent

Ive not been able to do much work at home, and it has been REALLY frustrating going out to the garage to get things and just having to glance at R5, say 'sorry buddy' and walk out again!

Today I'd had enough, the stars had aligned........somewhere, and i got 5mins (45mins) in the garage and thought I'd make a start on cutting out the lower centre vent opening. Well, I couldnt just cut out the hole, I had to go all out and make sure it would fit lol.

Used the dremel with drill attachment first, then gradually used it fitted with sanding drum to get final shape.

Next is to create a fixing bracket.

December 12, 2013

New Project....? - A Clear Dome R3-T6

Since borrowing Ian's R3 Clear Dome, at Corsham earlier this year.
I thought how cool it would be to own one so R5 could be converted, slightly into R3-T6.
This droid was seen very briefly in 'A New Hope' on the Death Star.

R3-T6 Astromech Droid

R3-T6 Astromech Droid

The main differences between R5-D4 & R3-T6
are the Large Data Port & Centre Vent surround being red, not blue.
And his panels on his rear. These can be red vinyl stickers.
R3-T6 Astromech Droid
Oh and their Domes, of course.

Here's my R5 at Corsham earlier this year with Ian's Clear Dome.
R5-D4, R3-T6 Droids

So watch this space....... :-)

Rear Dome Rod - fitted

Just a small update, as forgot......oooops.
Rear Dome Rod fitted.
R5-D4 rear dome rod fitted

December 05, 2013

Rear Dome Rod - fitting

R5's rear Dome Rod was one of the first pieces I made, machined up.
Because of it's length and available scrap material also available time
as it was machined up on my lunchtime. I made it in two pieces.

This came in handy as now when trying to fit it into R5's recessed Dome boxes, it's a little snug. So a little bit of machining later and it will fit alot better.

Space inside R5's Dome is limited, a bit more than I had anticipated. My original idea was to bolt the Rod in place, top and bottom. See pic below.
R5-D4, dome.
Threaded the bottom and screwed a stud into it. Left piece, this will slot into the lower hole.
The top piece was going to be located with the M6 hex socket bolt.

But on installing the recessed box, I knew that the lower screw was not going to be available due to the framework inside. This wasn't to much to worry about as the lower piece of the rod has a location pin. Now for the top securing of it......?

The two piece Rod, allowed me to fit a washer and a soft spring inside to allow the top pieces location pin, to locate and hold the Rod in place.
R5-D4, dome.

Motivator Base Plate - UPGRADE


Used the first plate as a guide, I marked onto a new piece of scrap aluminium,
the same mounting hole positions and drilled through.
These are the two holes furthest apart [top & bottom in pictures]

I then marked the new position for the motivator securing bolt to go through [middle hole],
which is off-centre now to the securing bolt holes, and drilled.
This will allow the Motivator's position to fit better in the Pie Hole opening.
R5-D4, r5-d4, r5d4, R5D4, bad motivator
Motivator Base Plate, 1st attempt on left, UPGRADE version on right.
(which still needs a hole for wires to fit through)

December 02, 2013

R5-D4's Head 4.5 - Pie panels grooved

Tried to use Stanley knife to score out the grooves, then my 'grooving tool',
but this was not going well and would of taken forever!! Lol.

So tried my Dremel with metal milling cutter fitted. (this is not the right cutter, but was all I had, that was flat bottomed and roughly the right width). It worked a treat.
Depth was set using the Dremel router attachment.

An hour later, carefully cutting free hand, seven pie sections finished.

R5-D4 Dome pie panels

R5-D4 Dome pie panels

They just need a little work, but am really happy with how them.

November 29, 2013

R5-D4's head 4.4 - Pie Panels marked out

Got my protractor and rule out and used it to help mark out the positions of the other pie panels.
Then with pencil and rule, I marked them out.


Next is to groove out the panels.

November 25, 2013

Event report on the Sci-Fi Fest: (23rd Nov 2013) @ FLEET AIR ARM museum

My usual transport (my car) had been commandeered for the day so had to use the sub-standard cargo bay transport [don't tell the wife I called her car small :D]. Nearly two hours trying to fit R5 into the cargo bay of it! Eventually I had to resort to removing ALL his feet, not a big deal, only three bolts in total, as no electric motors to disconnect......yet. Then strap him in good and tight.
R5-D4


Just over an hours drive from Bristol & Yeovilton on a very cold, but Sunny morning.

Arrived and then began the R5 rebuild. Here I also meet up with fellow builder Giles & Artoojayzero. And my then unceremonious dragging him over not very smooth car park tarmac. Did a two trip journey, second was for R5's dome.

The event was organised by The Charity Sci-Fi Group.

Once inside we meet up with Mark and his 'collection' of droids! Below are links to his pages!
Podpadstudios these include a few people my recognise, and also introducing his latest creation....... Steam Punk Droid!

We set up and were off. As R5 was safley on display, I helped out with assisting Giles with his droid. Mark & Giles got loads of attention from the kids as well as parents lol. R5 also had his fair share of comments and questions and also the QR codes for our respective sites came in handy. The MK Garrison & The Southern Troopers group were also in attendance and were awesome! loads of photos taken :)

Before you knew it the day was done and it was packing up time. This was my first official event with R5....and his dome....but again, had a gerat time and managed to remember some names to put with faces. Well heres some of the photos taken.

R5-D4 Astromech Droid
R5 also has a Facebook page for those who would like to follow him on there,
click on this link to take you there James R5-D4

Artoojayzero
Giles & Artoo-jay-zero
R5-D4 Astromech DroidPodpadstudiosPodpadstudios

Jango Fett, Boba Fett & R2-D2Paul Blake aka Greedo

R5-D4, Steam Punk Droid, R2-D2

Artoo-jay-zero, R2-D2R5-D4 Astromech Droid

PodpadstudiosPodpadstudios

R5-D4Artoo-jay-zero

R5-D4's Head 4.3 - Pie panel marking's & Motivator position

Using the centre of the dome, the dowel is just still visible, I drew on where the inner and outer diameters are. Gauged against the original pie panel opening. I knew that the centre eye and motivator pie hole were in-line from before I built up the cone, see pic of dome marked out when flat. I then drew on at 90 degree angles, centre lines for these. Next was the other pie holes @ 45 degrees from centre line.

R5-D4 Dome
The plan is to mark and groove the panel 'lids', so watch this space..... Lol.

Motivator position:
I plan on moving the motivator further out, so it sits more central in the opening.
R5-D4 Bad Motivator

November 22, 2013

R5's Dome lights & 'smouldering' Motivator

Last night I fitted the motivator, bolted it into place and then hot glued into a suitable position, its battery holder and switch. Bolted into place the Antenna. Then a test of all the lights.
I will be looking at re-wireing all these to run off the 9.6 volt battery pack installed. This will require someone to do some thinking for me regarding voltages etc lol. Will be easier and simplier. Fingers crossed for how long they all work for on Saturday! :D

November 21, 2013

R5-D4's Head 4.2 - Cone prep work & RED paint!

Yesterday morning I used a rather large plastic bag (used for rubbish bins] to place R5's Dome into. I then sealed off round the edge with masking tape. Next I applied some watered down PVA glue to all the exposed sanded wood that had paint removed from sanding the joining edge of the cone to the Dome sides.
Lunchtime, I took R5's Dome into the spray booth (work). And primered up the cone and inside the pie hole.
R5D4 pic of masked off dome for pin stripes
Then that evening, I got on with masking off the dome ready for spraying the red pin stripes around the two recessed side boxes, as R5 has in the film, the rear dome rod recessed box, doesnt have pin stripping. And also the lower of the two circumferance pin stripes to. The upper one will be applied after the dome's cone, has been sprayed up white. So, 1hr later, I'd marked off the edges with red pin stripes and then masking tape holding the plastic sheet.

R5D4, Red Astromech, DomeR5D4, Red Astromech, Dome

For all of two minutes in the spray booth in work lol.
R5D4, Red Astromech, Dome


Am quite pleased with how these have turned out. Using the pin stripe tape reduced the amount of paint bleed. I didn't think to use it on the inside edges of the two recessed areas and the masking tape has allowed the paint to bleed a bit. I'll try to clean this up, but once a bit of dirt is applied it will just add to the old/used look of R5 :-)

November 19, 2013

WOW...... 215 visit's in a day!

When updating R5's Blog, I like to see check out the states, see what visitors have been reading. I had a shock this morning when I saw that my Blog had 215 visits yesterday!?!?!?

My R5-D4 Astromech Droid

This is a screen grab.

Would like to think that my Blog helps others in some small way, if only for them to improve [a lot lol] on how I've done things in my R5 build :-)

If you are one of these visitors, new or old and you'd like to comment or even email me,
please feel free :) . Thanks for visiting MTFBWY ;-)

Bad Motivator - upgrade work in progress 2.2

I found a red cap that I'll use instead of the diffuser, for the red LED.
R5D4 Bad Motivator

The Back Plate I thought was too long, so I then trimmed it down and cut angles onto the edges, as per my sketches I made from watching ANH film, pausing it and zooming in on it,  this plate needs to be fixed and bonded into place.
R5D4 Bad MotivatorR5D4 Bad Motivator

R5D4 Bad MotivatorR5D4 Bad Motivator

Spent a lunchtime soldering up some new wire for the LED, switch & battery holder.


I got to test my handywork…… Nothing! What the……. :(
Thankfully or not, it wasn't my workmanship, but the N Size battery holder contact?? The spring cripped contact wasn't making a circuit, though you could see that it was!?!?!

So late last night, I re-wired this end by soldering the wire directly onto the spring end.
And now my Motivator is Bad, lol.
R5D4 Bad MotivatorR5D4 Bad Motivator
Left picture was with the camera flash, the right picture without camera flash lol.

Once I've prepped the dome cone for primer and if time, white and red pie panels…….no, I'm getting ahead of myself, not enough time before the weekend's display event…… 

So for now, I'll just fit the Motivator into his Pie Hole :).

Don Jarr's R2D2 resin parts available on Ebay, see link below.

November 18, 2013

R5-D4's Head 4.1 - Cone almost complete.

Did a load more sanding of the filler on the cone. Then applied more wood filler to the remaing gaps.

I then looked at fitting internal panels to the Motivator Pie Hole. To give the 'lip' impression. I started of by cutting out a base to cover the aluminium Motivator bracket and the opening. Next i marked up some 3mm thick hardboard and cut side panels to shape. Then came the tricky part, the curved outer piece. I roughly cut a length of hardboard, the same thickness as sides. I then scored the back and carefully bent a curve.
R5D4, R5-D4, r5d4, r5-d4, bad motivator, pie hole

After, trimming and shaping edges, i glued the side pieces only inside the pie hole. For now the base panel and sides are not going to be glued together, incase the base and bracket need to be modified in the future. I then filled in any gaps with wood filler.
R5D4, R5-D4, r5d4, r5-d4, bad motivator, pie hole
R5's Motivator Pie Hole Base
The base plate and bracket both got a new small hole for the LED wires to be fed through into the dome.


....................this leads onto the next post on the Motivator.

November 15, 2013

"@ukr2builders" - Twitter Account



The UKR2Builders decided that it could be useful to be on Twitter.
This way we can Tweet any relevant news out to the masses easily.
It should also be used for the public to tweet stuff about us at the event
or directly mention (@) us so we can catch it too! 

To mention us in a tweet just do the following in your message "@ukr2builders" and we'll get it! So go on follow us and press the button below!

Follow: @UKR2Builders