Assembling More Tools

First day of building didn't become a day of building so much as a day of assembling an arsenal of tools. Stack brought over some of his power tools and he also bought a Table Saw from Home Depot. It is a really nice saw. A step up from the one I want to buy. Stack is also gracious enough to leave some of his tools in my garage while we work on things, or at least until I get a collection of some of my own tools. I have never really used my garage to house anything of value so we wanted to beef up the security a little. We added a lock to the big outer door and a new lock for the smaller door. No way someone is getting in there now!

Next day planned is Friday. We should get some actual cutting done now that we have the tools assembled. Probably just some basic cuts first and move on from there.

-RandomEye

Anticipation

Tomorrow Stack and I have a "first day of building" day scheduled. I am uber excited. Hopefully we can get some wood cut. I am hoping to order some parts by the end of this month. Probably resin stuff. I am still frantically checking for part runs so that I can get in on those as well. Tonight there are some girls partying at my house for Finals week. Not going to get much done tonight for sure.

-RandomEye

First Purchases

I went to Home Depot today and picked up the wood for my R2 Project. Following Victor Franco and Mike Senna's builds I purchased:
1- 4'X8' sheet of 3/4" plywood
1- 4'X8' sheet of 1/2" plywood
1- Contractor's T-Square
The rest of my visit was mostly reconnaissance. I looked at a Router, Dremel, Table Saw, and some other smaller items. They have some great things for a lot less than I thought. I will get the bulk of those items later this month. I forgot to mention also that Stack has some of the tools required, so I am going to investigate that before making any of the major purchases. I do think I will buy the Dremel 4000XP (?) because I have wanted one of those since I was a kid when I used to build plastic models a lot. My uncle had one and was always jealous of it. I think I will begin sketching out the layout of the different wooden pieces of the frame today as well. I have the plans printed out (scaled down) and plan on re-awakening my woodworking/drafting knowledge to apply them to this project.

I also bought a work light from the local hardware store. I like to shop there before going to the big-company stores.

-RandomEye

First week condensed

Before I decided to post my build progress to this blog I had done some things. The first was to register with the R2 Builder's Yahoo Group and then the R2 Builder's Group forum. After I completed these two steps I did a LOT of reading and research. I studided over the plans, blogs, and photos of other builders. I read through a huge chunk of Victor Franco's blog documenting his Complete R2 Building Diary. That thing is over 1000 pages long! After getting a brief overview of what was ahead of me, (And I do mean brief, because honestly I have no idea yet) I decided on what type of Droid I wanted to build.

At this stage (planning) I want to build a wooden frame with Aluminum skins. I am thinking (budget-wise) that I will use several Resin and Styrene parts on my Droid. I would really like to use Aluminum legs with my Droid, but we will see how that works into the budget. I may be making some mistakes here in my planning, but I think this works for now. Stack wants to scratch-build more parts than I do. He likes the idea of the added challenge. I wouldn't mind doing that, but with his busy schedule I can see myself doing a lot more work than he. We will stick to some simpler pre-made parts as much as we can for now.

So the first real night of planning began roughly 6 days after I registered with the Builder's Group. This consisted of having Stack come over and I spewed upon him the knowledge I had spent about a week compiling. I wanted to start out as though he were beginning this process like I did. So I introduced him slowly into the basics and worked up to the more complicated stuff. Stack is quite a craftsman and can bring with him some ingenuity to this build. He also never quits on a project. So my thoughts are with my imagination and limited experience in some of these skills required combined with his motivation and ingenuity we will be able to produce a fantastic Droid.

By the end of the night we had some good ideas flowing. I think this will be a lot of fun!

-RandomEye