By far one of the most challenging parts of building R2 was the skins. The skins are made of two layers of .04 inch styrene. The first challenge was finding the material. I was unable to find any place to get it local. I did find 4x8 sheets online but the shipping costs were outrageous. Eventually I found SIBE-R Plastic Supply which sold 24” x 48” pieces at a reasonable price and shipping.
This was not big enough to make each layer out of one piece, so I did each layer in two pieces, one for the front and one for the back. The seams were pretty small and were under the legs so where easy to hide. This also made the pieces easier to work with.
Below are pictures of the templates for the skins. I took these to a print shop and had them printed fully size. If you have them printed be sure to take some measurements to be sure they are printed at the right scale. The black areas are cut all the way through. On the outside layer you will make cut outs for the panels and the pieces that are cut out are further cut to make panel details.
There is a good article on Astromech.net with more information on the skins..
https://astromech.net/droidwiki/Making_Your_Own_Skins
Inner layer.
Outer layer
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