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Welcome to a little website created to you a rough idea of what it takes to build your own Star Wars inspired 1:1 scale R2-D2 Droid. This site is not a step by step tutorial on creating your own droid, but more of a portal into where you can gather ideas and information on building your own.
First and foremost. My version of R2-D2 was built from plans available online at Astromech.net. Astromech.net is a website and forumn for droid builders. If you want to get into the specifics on creating your own I'd suggest applying for a membership to that site and read-read-read. It' contains droves of information including materials, parts, tutorials and FAQ's.
My droid building experience started during the very cold winter of 2013. I'm a mechanically minded guy who was frustrated in that it was too darn cold in the garage to work on cars and motorcycles. I stumbled across the previously mentioned R2 builders club website known as Astromech.net and thought to myself "I can do that!".
After spending some time looking through the welcome page, FAQ section and leafing through some of the builders logs on the forumn I decided on building one using a material known as High Impact Polystyrene plastic. (commonly referred to as either HIPS or Styrene). You can buy small amounts of it from local hobby stores, but for R2 you'll need large sheets. I'd recommend 4x4 or 4x8 sheets. Information on quantity, material thickness and suppliers is available on Astromech.net.
The plans I worked from were created by club member Dave Everett specifically for using the Styrene material. Those plans as well as plans for building in wood and aluminum are also available. I chose a supplier and made an order for two 4x4 sheets. I could have ordered enough to build the entire Droid, but I thought I'd start small and see if it kept my interest.
Ok, now I have some plastic. Let's get to work cutting out some parts. R2-D2 is basically a can with a dome for a head. With that in mind, you'll need to cut out some parts to create the can structure. he plans can be printed out on paper and adhered to the Sytrene sheets to give you a guide on where to cut. The method I chose for the round parts was to use a router with a 1/8 cutting bit. I fashioned a make shift router table out of a piece of MDF board. The router is mounted upside down under the board. To cut a perfect circle, you simply run a screw or nail through the plastic and into the MDF at the exact distance of the outside edge of the router cutting bit to the center of the circle. Now flip on your router and rotate your uncut piece of Styrene around the cutting bit. Tip: scribble a note on your MDF router table for the holes used for different sized circles. You'll be cutting multiples of each size, so having a reference mark on your pivot holes to go back to later can be helpful.
Most of the inner structure of R2's body is made of up strait cuts. The beautiful thing about working with Styrene is that it can be scored with a utility knife against a strait edge a few times then snapped to create a nice clean cut.
Now that we have a few parts cut out it's time to start assembly. Now this is not a screw together or glue together kit. All of the Styrene components that make up R2 are going to be solvent welded. Solvent welding is the same process in which a plumber would "glue" together pieces of PVC pipe. A Styrene solvent is either brushed or applied with a needle applicator along a joint where two pieces are to become permanently attached. The solvent actually chemically melts the surface of the plastic it comes into contact with. Once dry it's very strong. In the photos below you'll see some vertical pieces of the inner frame being attached to R2's bottom plate.
*PVC cement from Home Depot will not work on Styrene, you need a Styrene specific solvent.
That's the basics. Now on to some pictures of the process.
Ok, with a good portion of the body and legs built, you are probably wondering about that iconic dome shaped head. These is probably one of those pieces that you will not make yourself. Some builders have used old lamp shades and lids from charcoal grills. These are decent solutions, however if you want a more screen accurate droid you'll likely have the resort to buying one. These are available through "parts runs" on Astromech.net. More information on how to obtain a dome in either plastic, aluminum or even fiberglass is available on the club website.
I chose a thermo-formed Styrene dome for my build. This is probably the most budget friendly option. The version I bought has all of detail pieces pre-cut (lazer cut). You can buy these uncut for a bit less if you are pinching pennies.
On to more parts fab and assembly.
A lot of the detail pieces on R2's legs, feet and body can be fabricated in Styrene, however they are not part of the Styrene build plans. Instead of spending a lot of time trying to make these very detailed parts myself I opted to buy them from a club approved vendor who makes and sells them. They are cast resin pattern parts from a mold.
Electronics: My droid is not too fancy. He has motors in both of his rear feet and a caster wheel in his center foot. His head has LED lighting and his sound comes from an inexpensive bluetooth speaker paired with an old cell-phone. More information on the basics of R2's electronics and drive system can be found on Astromech.net
Here he is fully assembled and operating.
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