Astromech Droid

@Steve G The skins he used, and the ones I purchased, are laser cut styrene skins that are to "club spec". They also have plans for laying out and hand cutting your own skins but I deciced on the pre-cut route. The R2 Builders Club has done a lot of research and come up with a standard specification for all "Astromech" parts. The skins are included in this. There is a inner skin and an outer skin and a lot of math was done so that all the skin openings line up when the outer is put over the inner. This is all based on a standard diameter frame. With yours being "non standard" in diameter, any of the skin plans that you may find will be a bit off.

I don't remember the exact thickness if the skins but it is pretty thin. I'll try and look it up later since my work has decided they need to block access to astromech.net from here. To answer your question about the doors, in order for them to hold their shape, I believe most folks have to make some sort of thin metal frame that is bent at the correct diameter. This also allows you a place to mount hinges for the doors to open and close. The hinges themselves are a special hidden type.

When I embarked on my own R2D2 build, I had no idea how technical it would get and how hard it would be to accumulate the parts. And, my goodness at the number of parts....

@Zap.

Thanks for the reply and for the useful info. I read about the club spec skins from different different sources and the skin thinness seems to vary. I'd already planned do do my own, but want to dial in what thickness is best before I purchase some high impact styrene sheets.

The thin metal frame makes sense for the flaps so thanks for the tip.

Yeah there a lot to think about doing this kind of build, but I'm up for the challenge. I just hope it comes out at least half as good as @robot56's build.

good luck on your journey its alot of fun !

P.S.

Its gets kind of confusing with the R2-L and R2-R as there are a few differences in specs when you start looking around Astromech just a heads up

Thanks for that @Jayutmb. It's been great so far.

I found some info on the page of the guy that I got my styrene frame from. He is going to start making skins. It looks like he is using .040" for both the inner and outer skins.

Wow, they are thin. That's good to know and gives me something to go on. Thanks again Zap.

My skins are made out of 2 layers of 0.04" or 1mm sheets of styrene

You definitely want to watch out for the CS:L and CS:R variations. My droid is base off the CS:L measurements

My original plan was to cut my own skins. Make sure to have lots and lots of sharp blade replacements and an 18" long metal ruler for guiding long cuts! There is a guy on astromech who will lazer cut the styrene skins for around $100-120 dollars. After getting halfway through my hand cut skins I decided to opt out and buy some that were cut perfectly straight.

Your droid is looking great! At the rate you're building yours will be done long before mine eyeroll

For my main doors I first 3d printed a piece with the curvature of the door as the profile and then skinned the 3d printed part to make it match the exterior of the droid.

I haven't put them on yet because secretly between you and everyone in this forum I will most likely (time permitting) be making my own lightweight 232 frame ising aluminum skins

Styrene skins really need to be glued or bonded to the frame to keep the door curvatures tight to the body. thats why mine bow out... I wanted to try and have them be removable but so far am not pleased with how they turned out. For now though they will have to do... stress