January 2019 - Happy New Year!


Almost Finished The Body
Almost Finished The Body!

Happy New Year! Over the course of Christmas and New Year I spent it working on R2, as you do, and I got a ton of stuff done, painted etc. This month I’ve pretty much got most of the body done except for the grebles. I’ve even gone and weathered him which originally I didn’t want to do but I screwed up a couple of times and instead of taking him apart and starting again this was easier!

I took some of Michael’s 3D files that he has split into 2 and figured out how to merge them into one in MeshMixer which really helped as some of the bits I was printing weren’t gluing together properly and leaving bad join lines.

3D Printed Dome
Out Of The Box/ Primed and Filled

Probably the best thing that happened this month was I finally sorted my dome which I had 3D printed. It arrived and looked stunning! Using the Motip Filler Primer after about 3-4 coats between sanding it came out super smooth and then I began painting. The painting was pretty good, masking off the areas was challenging but worth the extra time. He now looks a lot more like R2 that before.

3D Printed Dome
Silver!

I’m still one and three quarters of the way through the legs, after running out of filament and January lasting 3 months I had to halt the 3D printing for a while and it took me a while longer to set it back up, for some reason it wasn’t printing properly…

I’ve been getting quite a few comments regarding the silver I had used for R2’s dome and silver parts. I’ve looked around and I’ve noticed some people are going with some car paints, others are getting some rather expensive stuff, me I use Wilko’s own brand Metallic Silver (click here for the link) and it costs around £4-5 for a can. It gives a stunning metallic silver finish and it’s ideal for a builder who is really on a budget! The blue is again Wilko’s own brand blue.

3D Printed Dome
Then Some Blue

Managed to sort the 3D printer and print some holo projectors, few more leg parts and the Front Logic Display bezels. Still waiting to print the rear one as I didn’t have enough filament left. January was also the month I broke R2… after coming in with my guitar case I caught his left and broke his booster cover which I was actually gutted about so currently trying to re glue it together but I need some better glue… I then also thought it was a good idea to list out everything I have left to do on R2, then had an even better idea of researching the cost for the remaining items… put it this way I ended up in the pub….