New platform/support/frame for R5 in car - Sledge 1 - UPDATE

It's been a long time coming, but over the weekend, I eventually got round to transferring the wheels off the first transport platform onto the Sledge.

This does away with the need to (if I ever did) carry two. Makes life a lot easier to more him around too.

 Location for batteries, brace added.

 Front wheel drive, lol

And with the two large wheels at the bottom, a tip up and he's movable in the upright position.

Han Solo costume for my Son....... Stormtrooper Belt 2.1

This leather look material was used for the belt. I'd already measured my Son's waist ages ago, but double checking is always a good thing :D

So after measuring him, extra added to length for poppers. The material was cut to length. We doubled it over and inserted stiffener to help it keep its shape. Then I stitched it all the way round.

Next will be locating the poppers to best suit my Son and then fixing on the main front section of the belt.

Han Solo costume for my Son....... Vest 2.0 - lining

This weekend has been a very busy one, lots of sowing, cutting and stitching. I was starting to worry that the costume wouldn't be finished in time! But thanks to Karen giving up her free time to guide my sowing, help and advice, I'm still on target lol, for completion.

So, last week's work, since last post, was to sow in the lining. Easy you might think. In hindsight, the lining would of been better sown onto each panel BEFORE stitching them together, but hay ho. On the plus side, doing it this way we combined the hemming correction of the rear neck, which needed re-stitching anyway.

cutting out using a template

sewing the first front inside lining in

First inside front lining finished

Working out the neck hem, ready for sowing.

neck hem pinned

Karen picked up material at the weekend for the shirt and leather look material for the Stormtrooper wrap around belt.

This weeks work, Stormtrooper belt, shirt, trouser modification & Blood stripes!

Vintage Futaba 'Ripmax' M4 & M6 for R5-D4 - 1.0

......photo from the set, R5 operator with transmitter....

On my searching and discovery of R5 pictures over the years for references for his build etc, I found the above pic of R5, [astromech.net], we'll call them his 'technical operator crew'.

It show's the original electronics of these Droid(s), in the open space where his dome/head would be. For me tho was the remote control transmitter being held by the operator.

I thought it would be a nice addition to have and at show's, could help people travel back in time to when the film would have been made. So I started my search for info related to this type of controller.

The controller is a Futaba.

From the image, there is a black 'knob' on the right hand side top & a switch on the left.

From my searching, I have found that this could either be an M3, M4 or M6 unit.

(the number represents the number of channels)

I say either as there are two versions (that I have found) but these are slightly different

(the top panel switches & black buttons seen in above pic) I've settled on this being an M4 version (until convinced otherwise lol).

Also the versions that were imported into the UK, where I believe, done so under the name 'Ripmax'. So USA versions are logo'd as just Futaba, but UK ones as Ripmax/Futaba (see pic's below).

Ebay searches through up a few of these on a semi-frequent basis and at not to extreme prices. So the internet history info search was on to find the correct version that I wanted.

Then last week, I found not one.....but two for sale!

Not only that, but the two were being sold as a pair for only £22!!

An M4 & M6 version.

Futaba M4 transmitter

Futaba M6 transmitter

There's always a catch tho lol.....no antenna's.

UPDATE: Thanks to Alan, a fellow R2 club member, for helping source a link to antennas.

I have also found that modeller's have converted these to 2.4Ghz's in order to fly their vintage plan's which have also been converted to the new frequency.

UPDATE: Thanks also goes to Brad and his knowledge, this can quite easily be done.

So this could be something for the future as well.

The units should be arriving the end of this week, but they arrived Tuesday.

They power up, do need some TLC and a clean, but for they're age, are not to bad.

Han Solo costume for my Son....... Vest 1.9

Managed to get back on with working on Jay's costume for Celebration Europe [Sunday 17th July].....thanks Karen.

First off was cutting out the three remaining loops and these along with the rear pocket, were hemmed.

I next added the stitch lines to the upper chest and across the rear, along with the stitch line around the lower waist line.

Next was then machine sewing on the pocket. flap & loops.

A stitch was added to the opening edges of the pocket to help the flap sit flat

Next for the Vest is the lining.....

'R0 dome build - 4.3 - 'electrical - LED's'

I bought an LED 'breathing' effects kit, practical self soldering. But its effects were less than I wanted. So I dug out the fibre optic wire I'd bought ages ago for something else and linked them up to some multi colour LED'S. These were also bought for use with the fibre optics.
I then cut lengths and carefully heat shrank them over the multi LED's, and then drilled multiple holes and randomly super glued them into place. The two main Blue LED's were also just in my box. Not sure if I should use one or both sets, as the Blue LED's are bright...

Here's a short video of the light's in action.....

**Celebration Europe 2016**, less than a month to go!

These ARE the droids your looking for.

Link to #SWCE event layout map

'R0 dome build - 4.2 - 'neck painting'

Oh..... I forgot to include the work i did for the neck ring.....

I used detail pin striping to create my design for R0's neck details. I used this technique on R5 for his top stripes.
It's good because it's tacky enough to stick but not enough to pull paint off, lol. Also it stops the dreaded 'paint bleed'!

Next was to cover the rest of the dome, with A3 sheets of paper. Masking tape was applied to it and then onto the pin stripe edge.

And then it was spray time.

Removing paper and pin stripes.......paper/pin stripes rubbish.

And the finished detail...

'R0' dome build - 4.1 - 'final spray painting'

Another busy weekend but managed to finish everything off ready for Monday.

I cut out and applied silver tape to lid's 'groove'.

Next I masked off dome......

And cut out for the squares........

I missed (in the ref pics & also on Sigge's plan's) that the recess box are colour matched, so cut these out and masked them off too. 
I decided not to spray the two rear panels blue. Decided to go with the R5 'only red' style (which then matches R5's body).

Couldn't wait till Monday to spray, so back to basics and sprayed up the dome lid at home, outside. No wind which was a plus too.

pre-spraying......

removal of masking tape.

No paint bleed (hardly lol)

And once all the masking was removed.....

Think this was more paper saturated with paint rather than bleeding under the tape.

Later once dried, I trimmed down a paint brush suitable for painting the square grooves and upper two rear panel grooves. I sprayed silver into a small container and applied it with the brush. Whilst this was drying, I cut out more silver tape for the main lower edge groove as I wanted this to match the top lid groove.

Silver neck groove tape

Silver painted grooves

The silver paint is silver, which match's R5's grooves, but the tape is more 'chrome' than silver.

This morning I brought the lid & dome back into work, as wanted to get the clear coat on.

Clear coat on.

Next is:- the light panel & weathering the dome.

'R0' dome build - 4.0 'white gloss spraying of Dome'

This afternoon's work was spraying up the dome with gloss white paint :)

Utilising works spray booth again, I sprayed up the dome and lid.

The lid is now finished so this can be clear coated and then the silver strip can be applied.
The dome still has a bit more work to be done, red & blue spraying and also silver detailing.

This is what I'm planning for the Dome to match up with R5's body.