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.

Centre Leg - Film version **UPDATE 1.4**

So i got home from work Friday 26th and gave the components a lite sanding over the primer paint.

I then set up my hi tech spray booth........My cardboard box......and set up the components for spraying. After a few coats, I left them to dry. It has been very hot here in the UK the last few days, so it wouldn't take long to dry.

new all white components

Saturday again the weather was fair, after a massive thunder storm early hours of the morning.
Out came my spray booth and i got on with clear coating the components. Again, these didn't take long to dry. A few hours later, I started to fit the components onto R5's centre leg and foot shell. They all fitted.

I dug out a tube of silicone sealant, but it had gone off at the ends. I cut it open to find the inside middle was still okay, so I scooped the good stuff out and used some to fix the front and rear ankle details onto the centre leg. Applied some masking tape to secure in place till it had set.

silicon applied to fix ankle details in place

ankle details taped into place till silicone set

The new centre leg & foot shell, pre-weathering

Rear ankle detail taped into place

Just back from a weeks mini-break..... Next up was to weather the new components to better blend in.

Centre Leg - Film version **UPDATE - 1.1 - ankle details**

I already had the plans for the ankle details, which are available via www.astromech.net forum, so it was just a case of marking up some wood and cutting them out and shaping them.

detail pics:

Drew up a template and marked out on the wood the 'detail'.

Notice that only one of them has the upper 'tab' marked on it.

Next up was gluing the two pieces together.........then cutting out the details...

And here's the first on.

I sanded the edges and faces, before applying wood filler to the cut sides & faces.

Had to stop for food, then I was back out in the garage, marking up the second 'ankle detail'.

And here they both are, cut out and wood filler applied.

Left to dry over night, before sanding and extra wood filler where needed.

.....these versions as with the ankle cylinders, don't have any blue (that can be seen in the photos), so will be just white. Which is fine as they are going to be weathered to blend in with the centre leg.

The top 'tab' would normally be blue (or dependent on your choice of droid colour) and also there's a small rectangle recess, which would also be coloured accordingly. 

** I uses normal everyday tools, the hand saw as can be seen in the pic .

The most 'hi-tech' tool I have is a borrowed jigsaw,

meaning these projects are not beyond anyone's abilities to try **

Centre Leg - Film version **UPDATE - 1.0 - ankle cylinder**

A long time  ago.......... ;-) I realised that my nagging conscious wasn't going to let me sleep anymore lol.

This (zoomed in) image of R5 rolling away from the droid lineup, shows R5's alternate centre leg/foot shell.

The obvious things you can see is that there are:

• no side crescents on the foot shells.
• the ankle cylinder & wedge, are white (no silver or blue, like the outer leg)

But when you look even closer, you can just make out that the 'centre leg' is actually fitted with 'ankle details'. Well it would do wouldn't it, as it was an outer ankle unit.

For more on this, check back on my first blog via this link below:

New Centre Leg - Film Version 1.0

So, as I already had a spare ankle cylinder.....as my original centre leg was built to the club plans (based on R2 and all Astromech's having a 'standard' build) & before I fully knew about R5's centre leg incident during filming (see the link above for more). I thought I'd do a little bit of upgrade work.

So I dug out the spare cylinder/wedge and checked it would fit the centre leg fixings I already had installed. Yep, me and the plans in perfect synic lol.

Next I sanded the cylinder and then primer sprayed it ready for the next stage.

Next I'll spray it up with Satin white from Plasti-Kote, once I've finished the other parts.
This and the primer I bought from The Range (shop in the UK).

New Centre Leg - 1.7 - Installation

So last night I started to re-assemble all the components for R5's new centre leg.

• First off was fitting the internal wheel platform into the foot shell.
• Then the locking bolt through the angle & Leg & into the M5 thread in the other angle.
• And next the M10 ankle bolt/locking washer/nut.
• On went the two side panel, half moon details.
• And finally, fitting the assemble up and into the bottom slot, where it was clamped with the two pieces of aluminium angle.

I did have to remove the cylinder holder to fit the wheel platform as the shell needs to move slightly to be able to fit the M10 bolt head into the shell. This is not a problem as the holder just pops snugly back in.

I've posted up on R5's Facebook page, the UK R2 Builders & the R2 Builders and have had good positive feed back, which coming from more experienced builders is great :)

One such comment was 'your the first to do this' !

Praise in deed, thanks.

New Centre Leg - 1.6 - White paint & Dirt

So here's the new centre leg all sprayed up in white with clear coat too.
Ankle cylinder unit and holder fitted in place too.

I did have a problem with fitting the cylinder holder, so had to trim some wood of it's inside curve edge. But it's not noticeable.

Next comes the weathering. This is the start so far.

Paint it on, burnt umber, then allow to dry, before wiping off excess.

New Centre Leg - 1.4 - Cylinder work

So Friday night's I managed 2 hrs work, re-drilled cylinder location fixing holes. Happier with position now. Played with position of new leg in centre foot to get the right angle, clearance over the foot sheel. Trimmed down the curve edge of cylinder holder to better fit the width of the leg. Touched up with some more wood filler on the ankle curved area. Cut a spacer as centre leg ankle was actually a bit to thin for my foot channel. Marked location hole position for locking the leg inside body base.

Monday mornings work was to drill through the centre foot's ankle angle brackets for the locking bolt. I used a M5 hex socket bolt I had left over from the outher foot metal builds. This might seem easy but with limited free hands and no clamps available lol..... But I got it done. 

Next was the new set of two holes needed to clamp the L brackets onto the tongue that fit's up inside R5's body. I couldn't use the original holes drilled because they were 'special*' lol.

Last was to cut off the excess material not now needed for securing the centre leg. I then drilled, glued and applied wood filler to the extra piece of wood to make up the correct width.

* and by 'special' I mean there was no way I would of been able to align these original holes lol

New Centre Leg - 1.3 - Ankle Cylinder

As only one or the other centre leg will ever be used at one time, I'm going to swap over one of the ankle cylinders to the new Centre Leg when in use. The wedge is already fitted to the cylinder, so I don't need to make a new one of these.

But I will need to make a new ankle cylinder holder. I have to make a new cylinder holder as the centre legs don't have these and the outer legs need the ones already fitted to them.

So I found a scrap piece of 18mm thick wood and shaped it to fit. Unlike the other holders [which are fixed to the cylinders] this one will be screwed onto the centre leg.

I marked hole positions onto the leg for the cylinder fixing dowels to push into.

 pictures of holes

picture of cylinder fitted position

I've done things this way so that the curved angle is right and matches up with the angle on the cylinder wedge.

Next is a brass bush for the bolt hole......

Leg Assembly......again

Last night I got to re-assembly Leg No1 again.

The way most of these components were designed to be connected together was not my 'new' idea. I have followed several other R2 Builders builds. And this, along with building the actual components, are mostly not original to me.

Adam Strawson's R2 was one of the first R2 Build's I followed.

The other being Emy by Podpadstudio's.

So here's all the parts....

Left pic shows the front, the right pic shows the rear fixing points etc.

For my build, I secure the Ankle Braclet to the Ankle 'curved' section with a small screw. This holds it in place and will locate the Booster Strut in place.

Next I secure the Booster Strut by inserting the bottom of it into the Ankle Bracelet, then a screw into a bracket on the rear of the top square part, picture below.

Booster Cover over the Strut, and press it down into the dowel location holes.

The other components, the Ankle Cylinder, cylinder wedge and support are already assembled as one piece. These are push fitted into the leg with dowels.

The last three items are the 'Ankle Details' these fit on the lower ankle sides, fron and back.
And the Shoulder Horseshoe assembly, which is pre-assembled.
The centre hub is also a snug push fit.

Horseshoe No2 - Hydraulic & Buttons fitted

To make space in the bedroom [keeping the wife happy] I took the Horseshoe back out to the garage and fitted [bolted] the Hydraulic & the two Buttons back on. Then fitted the spacer and finally, pushed the location pegs into the holes on the Leg.

Leg No2, is now complete :)

Battlestations!!! ;)

What with R5 being on display this Saturday, am a little nervous, to say the least!!

Been trying to get as much done and finished before the big day, so yesterday, I sprayed up Leg No.2 white. I gave it a few coats, but as the can was running out, decided to concentrate on the outside/front. I won't clear coat it till the whole leg has been sprayed, but it still looks good.

I also sprayed silver the second Hub, that didn't turn out great the first time. And the rear strip for the Ankle Bracelet.

Then last night I started to assemble all the components I had for it. I first screwed into place the main Ankle Bracelet. It's screw although countersunk, is also covered when the Booster Cover is in place. Next on was the Booster Strut, which sits in the hole of the Bracelet and an angle bracket secures the top block to the leg. The Booster Cover then is just a push fit with the dowels, into the leg. The Ankle Cylinder [with wedge & holder pre-attached] are push fitted into place, along with the two Ankle Details. The Hub is also just pushed into place for now. And lastly the Horseshoe goes on.

Lastly, I started to dirty up the whole leg.


**UPDATE**
I've now fitted the Large Data Port, touched up the Octagon Ports edges with metallic blue, fitted the lower vent pocket mesh screen.

Outer Foot No.2 - UPDATE
Been working on the crescent detail, to finish off the top section of the shell. Also drilled out the knurled hose fitting holes and added the top strip detail. Only going to be able to primer it up for the show tomorrow.

Ankle Cylinder for Main Leg No.2 - 2.2

I've eventually got round to taking some photos, don't really like to post without them, as it's a bit boring and a picture makes things easier to understand :)

Well I drilled, out the two wood pieces and then PVA glued in the two 'dowels'.

Next I lightly sanded over the wood filler around the end caps and all over the plastic tube to help key it for primer.

Followed by silver, masked off areas, and once dried and re-masked off, blue :)
Here it is in bits, again.

Ankle Cylinder for Main Leg No.2 - 2.1

Whilst waiting for the wood filler to dry on the Leg. I got to work on making up the end caps and location discs' I use to fix the Ankle Cylinder onto the leg. I then cut out the end pieces, angles them and will screw them onto the end caps.

Here are some links to what I did before. link to prev. works & link to end caps

The fixing design is not my idea, I have just copied it and modified it to suit my build :).

Leg 1 update

Clear sprayed Leg No1 up, don't know or remember why I'd not done it before now, apart from the Horse shoe, it's completed ??? lol

 

Then I fitted the Ankle Cylinder/wedge/cylinder holder combo in place, this just clips over the holders [click here for how I made these]. Then glued on the Ankle Details. Used silicone sealant to hold the ends of the Ankle bracelet on, then screwed it down. The screw will be covered by the Booster cover. I then fitted and screwed the Booster Strut in place and finally used sealant on the dowels again, to fit the Booster Cover in place.

Drilled and threaded some holes in the shoulder stabilisers and clearance holes in the metal back plate. Then screwed in two cut down 6BA screws to hold in place. Thought this would be easier to hold them in the leg when the back plate is silicone'd into the shoulder socket.

 

Ankle Cylinder / Wedge No3 - 1.3 - paint

Sanded the wood filler smooth, then sprayed primer all over.

Masked off into sections and then sprayed silver.

Once dried, re-masked off and sprayed with blue metallic paint.

A mishap with the masking tape ment i had to redo one silver side of cylinder :-(
So sanded, re-primed and then silver sprayed again!

Cylinder holder attached with a screw. fitted,looks good. Finally finished off with clear lacquer.