Gluing Styrene

For gluing styrene I used a couple different products. The first is the Testors plastic model glue. This comes in a gel form that has a fairly long drying time. This can be good, especially when you have to put the glue over a large area before putting the parts together. The downside is that the longer drying time requires you to hold the pieces together longer.

https://www.amazon.com/Testor-Corp-3501-Plastic-Model/dp/B00BH0NN1A/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=TES3512A&qid=1611623950&s=home-garden&sr=1-6-catcorr

The second product is the Plastruct Plastic Weld. This comes in a liquid form with a brush for applying it in the cap. This has a much faster drying time then the Testors so you don’t need to hold pieces together as long.

https://www.amazon.com/Plastruct-Plastic-Weld-applicator-Bottle/dp/B00FDFWJD8

The third product is the Flex-I-File Touch-N-Flow system. This is a liquid similar to the Plastruct product, but you apply it with an applicator that is composed of a long glass tube with a metal needle point. Instead of applying the glue to the parts and then putting them together, you hold the parts together dry and then run  the applicator along the seams. The glue will get pulled into the seams and dry very quickly.

 https://www.flex-i-file.com/adhesives.php

Each of these products has pros and cons so I used different ones in different situations. One more tip, for the bottle products I highly recommend making something to hold the bottles so you don’t risk knocking them over. I simply drilled a hole in a scrap piece of wood.

Octagon Port Part 2

To make the center part of the octagon port I used a circle cutter in my drill press to jut the various sized circles needed out of the appropriate thicknesses of wood.

Here are the disks that will make up the part. I did the bottom one out of styrene to make it easier to glue it to the housing.

I glued the pieces together and aligned them with a dowel.

I did not try to cut the dowel to the exact length, instead I left it a little long on each end so I could and it smooth later. To be able to clamp this I used a few washers around the dowel on either end.

Since this part and the housing will be different colors I did not attach them together yet, I will do this after they are painted.

Octagon Port Part 1

I built the octagon port from scratch from styrene and wood. I started by printing a template for the back from the plans. My original plan was to cut out the template and then trace it onto the styrene, but it turned out to be easier to use spray adhesive to attach the template.

Using the template I cut out the slots in the back with an X-Acto knife.

I used files and emery boards to clean up the edges, and then removed the template.

I used the plans again to cut the side piece. Remember that the top and bottom have to be curved to fit the contour of the body. I glued the sited together and to the back and used to tape to hold everything together while it dried.

Finally I cut the corner pieces to fit. Like the top and bottom these all needed to be curved to fit the contour of the body.

Utility Arms

Like a lot of my build I decided to make the utility arms from scratch out of wood and was reasonably happy with the results, although in hindsight I would probably have been better off buying resin versions of these, or getting them 3D printed.

I started by making a paper template from the blueprints. I glued this to a thin piece of wood that I will use in a later step.

I rough cut the template on the bandsaw and then used various sanding tools for clean it up.

I glued up two pieces of MDF to make a wood blank of the right thickness.

I glued another copy of the paper template to the wood blank and rough cut the shape on the bandsaw.

I screwed the wood template to this piece and then used my router table with a pattern cutting bit to cut the final shape of the curved parts. The one screw hole will be where the pivot point will go, but the other I will fill with wood filler.

The router can’t get into all the tight spots so I had to do some hand sanding and filing to clean up those spots.

With that profile complete I created another paper template and used it do draw on the other profile.

Once again I rough cut this profile on the band saw and the did filing and sanding to clean it up.

Here is the final product with a couple coats of primer.

Progress Photos

As I have mentioned in previous posts this blog is way behind my actual progress. Here are some progress pictures take throughout the years.

This is from January of 2016 when I did a test fit of the various assemblies.

Here is a picture from December 2018. The biggest different you will notice is that he is no longer a R5-D4. Once I had the body together and started to test fit the skins, I was so happy with the way it looked that I decided that there was not way I couldn’t do an R2-D2.

Finally, here are some picture from April 2019 just before his first public appearance at my companies May the 4th celebration. At this point it is just a static figure, but I have started to work on the dome lights and plan to do some other mechanical editions to it.

Read Door Frame

On the back of the frame I created a removable panel that allows access to the interior of the body.

Here is a pictures of the back of the frame where the door will go. I have seen two approaches to the power coupling that is at the bottom of the back. I have seen some people attach the power coupling to the frame and build the door around it. I decided to integrate the power coupling into the door.

Here are the frame components. I cut these using the same techniques as the rest of the frame which you can find in my earlier posts.

I wanted to be sure the door had a good fit to the frame so I first fit the uprights and clamped them in place.

I dry fit the top part of the frame and used some folded up paper to get proper clearance between the door and the body frame.

Hear I am fitting the lower rail into the frame.

Here are the rest of the components fit and temporarily clamped. I used folded pieces of paper again on the bottom to establish the proper clearance.

Once I was comfortable with the fit I took everything apart, glued it up and used a pneumatic staple gun to secure the parts.

Frame Assembly

Doing the final assembly of the frame is one of the tricky parts of building an R2. There are a lot of pieces that all have to go together at once because once the frame dries you will not be able to get certain pieces in unless you install them from the start. Here are some tips for assembling the frame:

- Dry fit everything first and make sure the fit is good.

- Be sure the outside edges of all the parts are flush with each other.

- Be sure all the parts are in the right place. I actually had two pieces in the wrong place. Fortunately I had posted a picture of it on the astromech.net message board before I glued it up and someone spotted it.

- Mark the points where pieces connect together with numbers or letters so you know how they go back together.

- Practice doing the assembly a few times before you commit to gluing it.

There are also some good videos on the process:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcgW66o0N9s&t=375s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-ZOh2rBuAY