Skirt Part 3

The hardest part of the skirt was the curved section in the front and back. I believe I found drawings of these parts that I used to make a poster board template. I used the template to make sure it had the correct fit. Once the fit was correct I cut the parts out of styrene.

I used glue and a pneumatic stapler to attach one end of the styrene to the mounting strip that I had attached to the wood side. The strip allowed the styrene to be mounted flush with the wood on the side.

I played around with a lot of different adhesives while building my droid and I found the the white Gorilla Glue worked really good for attaching styrene to wood. 

I wrapped the piece around and used some small brad nails to attach it to the block on the other side as well as the middle blocks.

Skirt Part 2

I unfortunately didn’t take any good pictures of the next part of the skirt assembly, but here is one that show a good part of it.

The first thing I built was the plywood frame that goes around the area where the center foot goes. Normally I would cut the ends of the pieces on a 45 degree angle to join them together, but there isn’t enough room at the corners for that to fit, the corners of the box would actually stick out beyond the edge of the bottom plate. I probably could have still done this, and just cut the corners off, but what I ended up doing was still cutting the corners at 45, but attached them in reverse to that the corners did not stick out.

For the flat sides of the skirt I started with two angled blocks on each site which will hold the side panels. You can see them in this picture. For the side panels I used pieces of luan plywood with the edges cut at an angle. At the end of each pieces of luan I attached a small piece of wood which will be used to hold the styrene for the curved ends. I also put angled wood blocks in the middle of the ends to help hold the styrene.

Here I have attached the skirt frame to the bottom of the body. I decided not to try to build the skit as an independent assembly, once it’s attached it won’t be coming off.

Skirt Part One

The piece on the bottom of R2’s body that goes around the center leg is called the skirt. This turned out to be a pretty tricky part to make. I started by making the bottom plate of the skirt from 3/4” Plywood. Here you can see the layout:

The flat side of the plate was cut on the table saw.

The rounded ends were made using the same technique I used to make the body plates. I rough cut them on the bandsaw and them cleaned up the cut using my router table jig.

To cut out the inside, I started by drilling holes in the four corners.

I cut the long edges on the router table, putting the flat side up against the fence and cut the other sides free hand using a jig saw.

Center Foot Shell

The center foot shell was build pretty much the same way at the outside foot shell, although the middle foot doesn’t have any curved surfaces to I made it all from wood.

I started with the part where that foot attaches to the ankle which is made from plywood.

The front and back were made from luan plywood.  Here you can see how the edges were beveled so the edges matched up correctly.

To cut the slot I tapped the two pieces together so that they would match up when I cut them.

Here is the foot with the ends attached. I have also installed a t-nut where the angle will eventually bolt on.

I don’t have any pictures, but the sides were also made from luan playwood. I glued small strips of wood on the inside of the end panels to help attach the sides.

The bottom part of the foot shell was made just like I did for the outside feet, strips of pine cut with the appropriate angles and then attached to the bottom of the foot.

Center Leg

The center leg is one of those parts that I didn’t get a lot of progress pictures of, but it’s built just like the side legs.

The leg is made from three layers of plywood. I started with a paper template and used that to cut the outer two layers.

The center layer is just like the ankle on the outer legs. Once three layers were assembled I skinned the sides in styrene just like the outer legs. 

Coin Slots Part 2

In my last post I showed how I made the stock for the coin slots. The next step was to cut bevel along the top edge of both sides. I did this on the table saw and then sanded it to clean up the cut. Next I layed out the shape of each element.

With the layout done I first rough cut each element.

Instead of trying to cut the finished length and the angle, I instead used a mini belt sander to carefully sand them down to the finished shape.

To assemble the elements into a final part I cut a piece of luan to work as a backer. I initially marked off the position of each element but found that this wasn't the best way to assemble it accurately.

Instead I cut a series of small blocks that matched the distance between the elements. I glues in the first one and then use the blocks to get the correct spacing for the remainder.

Here is the finished coin slot assembly.

Coin Slots Part 1

To make the coin slots I started with a piece of wood cut to the correct width and height and long enough to cut all the slots from the single piece. Next I marked out the location of each of the slots.

I first tried cutting the slots individually using a router bit mounted in my drill press. Unfortunately, this technique didn’t work out well so I needed to find another approach.

Instead of trying to cut the slots individually I my router table to cut a slot all the way down the stock.

I then cut a piece of wood that was the thickness of the groove and glued pieces of it on either end of each slot.

Finally I sanded the top smooth and ended up with pretty clean slots.