R2: Aluminum Skins Acquired

If there is one thing that has been consistent in my experiences with the R2 Builders club and R2 builders in general, it's their generosity, patience, and kindness. Generosity both with their time and knowledge. And often their supplies.

Today was no exception. In fact, today was kind of one of those days that makes me wish I spent more time within the R2 building hobby. With that sappiness aside, I'll get down to the story.

Long story short, I have of course kept in touch with a few of my fellow, local R2 builders, and the very moment I reach out to them for assistance, they bring it. Like madmen! I spent a couple hours with the legendary Mike Senna today, checking out his latest projects, and also chatting about R2, naturally. Because I'm doing this droid differently than my last one, there are a number of things that I don't know how to do. Fortunately, Mike has blazed the trail on the exact topics I'm interested in, so he's the perfect dude to talk to. Just an all around nice guy, with a real knack for mechanical solutions.

Then it was off to FELLOW nice guy, Matt Henricks. He of course is the gent who provided some expertly made pieces to the club, a couple of which I own. In my conversation with Matt just the day prior, he convinced me to go with Al skins instead of styrene. Not so much convinced, as gave me the nudge I knew I needed to get me pointed in the direction I knew I wanted to go. The thing that really sealed the deal was when Matt offered me one of his spare sets of skins. Now THAT is brotherhood!!!! :) I spent the rest of the afternoon catching up with Matt, checking out his stellar array of impressive projects, and of course, chatting about R2. And the Batmobile too!!! I happened to have a couple of Batmobile (oops, I mean "MattMobile") parts in my trunk, and he seemed pretty fascinated by them. Anyhow, apologies for the unusually gruesome "Smoke blowing up skirt" episode of The Project Workbench, but man, it was just such a great experience to hang out with fellow builders who are both enthusiastic and positive. We really need more of them, and it makes spending time in the hobby so much more worthwhile!

Thanks guys!

But onto the good stuff. Here are the skins that Matt so generously provided to me.



My goal for the next 24 hours is to get the frame assembled, and if I can figure out what adhesive to use, to get the skins mounted to the frame. I also want to start sanding down the dome. Things have changed a lot since I put together my last droid, and the dome surface is now MUCH smoother, and should require a lot less work. I'm also going to review my old blog entries to see how I did it last time, in the hope of recreating the same finish.