Utility Arms

Four bits of 18mm MDF, glued together, cut to shape working from a card template and eventually rough sanded down. We now have two utility arms, easy really.

A coat of paint.

I thought I might add the first coat of primer. It always makes me feel better adding the paint, it makes up for the hours putting  on filler and rubbing it down, makes it, sort of worth while. The final paint job will be much cruder than Zoe and Emy, emulsion paint and  some form of Gloss top coat is about it. This Droid, still to be named, will be exceptionally weathered. 

More parts

To be honest the main frame and main leg structure takes very little time to construct, it is when you get into all the details that it becomes very time consuming. 

Coming together

Because of the christmas holiday I can get on a do a lot more work on the new Droid. The main structures built so far are mainly from MDF and Hardboard . I had to build up four metal brackets to support the feet which are bolted to base plates which in turn will be screwed to the underside of the feet. I decided to mock up an assembly to see if everything fit together and so far so good, it looks great standing on two feet. 

Unfortunately in the process of mocking up an fitting the dome I dropped the dome smashing the holo eyes. They were resin units so did not survive the drop well. I have used these same resin holo's on Zoe and they are not the strongest. I might just get rid of all the resin holo's and have a go at making them in metal.

Skin over the body frame

With the legs well under way I decided to cover the body frame with the hardboard. It has been sitting in my garage for a few weeks now rolled over a  former so attaching it to the frame was very easy. For now screws hold the skin in place while the glue fully dries. I have also started to etch into the hardboard giving the illusion of the panels, same system used on Emy many years ago. Drawing in all the details and cutting ports is very easy when you have both scale drawings and two completed Droids sitting nearby.

Skin over the body frame