Ankles.. oh my!

Well I've managed to get quite a bit done in the past couple of days. Mostly working on the outer footshells to fill in the spots where the joins are at and hitting them with primer. I finally got them to the point where I was happy with them and got the first coat of white on.
Another area has been the legs. So many details to take care of that it gets mind boggling if I think on it too long. :P Slowly getting those done and today I finished up the ankle area.

 Tomorrow or maybe later tonight I'll work on the boosters, horseshoe placement and under shoulder details and put another coat of white on the feet.

Legs!

No painting today.. its been raining since this morning. :( I did however get the legs finished and put together. One more big step done. :D

Summer Time! Legs and Feet coming together.

Summer time! Project time! Yay! ... at least for a couple of weeks until the summer semester classes start.
Progress so far.. the blasted battery boxes got put on hold after my last post/rant. Again. Eventually I'll finish them but in the meantime I've been working on the legs and feet.
I got the skinning finished and the legs painted up. The shoulder horseshoes are painted up and ready to install on the legs. Center foot and leg got painted up, just need to attach the details to the leg and the support board inside the body to hold it in place.

 Outer feet are slowly coming together also. I've been playing with ideas on how to keep the side panels in place and I finally decided on magnets. I got the motor mounts out from their box and found machine screws to fit and counter sunk the holes for them. To help with stress points I glued up the upper sections. Hopefully the goop will hold under the weight of the droid. I also ordered up some screws from McMaster-Carr to join the ankles to the feet mounts.

1 year ago..

Wow.. looking over my blog and I noticed how long its been since I started to track my progress on this project. One year! I had hoped to have her done by this point and I almost succeeded. No pics at the moment but I'm in the process of skinning the legs. Once that's done.. filler and paint then figure out how to mount them with the feet.

Skinning, ankles, skirt and feet

Well I've busy for the past couple of weeks. I keep meaning to take pics and update the blog but I kept getting side tracked with other things. Finally remembered to grab the camera tonight and take some shots of what I've been up to.
First off, I finally finished up the A&A styrene skirt that I've been glaring at for the past few months. Not the best work I've done but I'm planning on replacing it down the road with either a resin or wood skirt. It still needs a couple coats of clear on top of the Rustoleum Satin White. The inside crevices were filled with silicon first to help strengthen the seams then the body filled half-way with foam. I let it set for 2 or 3 days to make sure it had expanded completely then took a straight blade and sawed off the little bit that went above the surface.

Next up I started skinning the legs with styrene as I didn't have the patience to work with bondo then sand, then more bondo.. etc. Once the two halves of the leg are put together I can attached the skins to the edges as well.

Skinned and drilled holes in the outer plate of the legs so I can mount the horseshoes and added a 'plate' of styrene for the shoulder hub to fit into. I'll be putting a couple of magnets on the backside to help hold those in place.

As I was going through the last items left in my to-do box I found that I was short a couple of beefy resin ankles. As the current supplier for them is a bit busy lately I grabbed some styrene, printed out the patterns and made up a set for the center leg.

Lastly, I finished up the seams in the foot shells and sanded them down. Added the strips on the front and back and slightly enlarged the holes for the knobs. I need to figure out how to attach the curved plate on the inner side while leaving room for the motors. Then they'll be ready for a few coats of paint.

LDP, Coin Slot and Feet

Big update today as I'm catching up on a few things that I haven't posted yet. Got the LDP installed by putting in spacers under it for it to sit on top of then glued the port in place. 

Next up I had to build up the ends on the coin slot because they were too long and didn't touch the wall of the body. 

Picked up an idea from a fellow builder on how to install the horseshoes when the legs are ready for them. I clamped down the shims to the corresponding shoe then took them over to the drill press. The dowels are 1/4" and will help line up the shoe with the leg. The magnets are 1/2" in width but only an 1/8" thick and are earth magnets. These things won't be slipping once they're connected to a matching magnet.  

 Ahhh.. the utility arms. I've been trying to figure out how to mount these and keep them in place so little fingers can't pry them out. I picked up another idea from another builder who used brackets to help align them and keep them there. Mine won't be on servos so once they're locked in, they'll hopefully stay in place. Again.. little fingers..

Finally broke out the box of A&A foot shell pieces and started putting them together. By doing one a day it helped keep me from getting frustrated and messing something up. I still need to put the battery boxes together but in the meantime I'm using glazing putty to help fill in the joints and smooth them out.

Shoulders to Legs to Ankles

   Put the new drill press to use this morning by realigning the holes for the shoulder flanges and leg then glued up the two layers. Using the holes in the first layer I then drilled all the way through and rebolted the two sections together. Oops.. almost forgot to drill a hole for the wires to pass through from the body to the leg.  Outer layer is drying up with the smaller ankle bit and center leg is drying as well.

 Cleaned up the armpits so the details fit then sanded down the sides of the legs to even up the layers. And since I was making a mess I grabbed the ankle cylinders and cut/sanded off the extra bits on the backsides from when they were molded. Just need to fill in any small air holes then they're ready for paint.