R1-G4 Astromech Build

[XandofTerra]

Hello everyone!

Ever since I first played the old SWCCG back in the 90's (well before the prequels) I fell in love with that clunky old astromech droid, R1-G4. The little bit of flavor text with a short backstory stayed in my mind for years and whenever I thought about Star Wars I kept drifting back to that sad abandoned droid left to roam the lonely desert sands and streets of Mos Eisley. I read so many books from the expanded universe and played the old RPG and got all the source books I could find. I made tons of sketches and even a sculpture of him in pottery class, but after the prequels came out my interest in Star Wars dropped of significantly.

Every now and then I would go through some of my collectibles and even look up some things online, and then one day I found that somehow I had missed out on a 2004 release of R1-G4 as an actual toy. I ordered one and found it to be a MUCH better representation than the sculpture I had made back in high school. Though I did find several places where it differs from the movie such as the antenna on top, the arms, and the entire left side being different, it was one of the coolest things I had owned Star Wars related in a long time. By this time I had been doing miniature modeling and terrain building for various wargames for a bit and started toying with the idea of building a full scale droid.

Once I heard that the new movies had been approved for production, I decided I had waited long enough. I had looked several times and never seen anyone else that seemed to be interested in this droid at all and as far as I could see, no one had ever produced a full-sized replica since the original film. I've got a kid that's almost four now and even though money is always tight and I don't have a lot of free time to work on it, I made the decision to start the project. While doing a check for any existing additional source information on the original prop, I found the link to this forum here: http://www.therpf.com/f79/r1-g4-droid-based-jet-engine-part-213236/

Wow, other people actually interested in this droid? I'm very glad to see that I'm not the only one interested in R1! I just finished the preliminary calculations on the size of the droid's various parts (not all of them yet, just the main core pieces) and found the scale is much closer to 19.71:1 than the general scale of the figures of 18:1. The official height for the R1 line is 1.94 meters or 76.38 inches. Going with that I'm using MOST of the measurements from the figure that are not in conflict with the images of the droid from film.

Here are the measurements that I've got so far:

toy/full

whole figure:
3 7/8ths in tall 3.875in/76.38in

head:
5 in diameter head base 5in/98.55in
3 5/8ths in diameter head top 3.625in/71.45in
1 3/8ths in head height 1.375in/27.10in
1 in antenna 1in/19.71in

eye:
7/16ths in diameter eye 0.4375in/8.62in

neck:
1 1/8ths in neck width 1.125in/22.17in
1 1/16ths in neck length 1.0625in/20.94in

main cylinder:
3 3/8ths in circumference 3.375in/66.52in
1 in diameter 1 in/19.71in
1 7/8ths in tall back 1.875in/36.96in
1 5/8ths in tall front 1.625in/32.03in

front cylinder:
4/8ths in diameter cylinder 0.5in/9.86in
9/16ths in tall cylinder 0.5625in/11.09in

back:
7/8ths in backplate width 0.875in/17.25in
1 1/8ths in backplate height 1.125in/22.17in
7/8ths in inner diameter 0.875in/17.25in
15/16ths in outer diameter 0.9375in/18.48in

front panel:
4/8ths in wide panel 0.5in/9.86in
5/8ths in tall panel 0.625in/12.32in

foot:
4 in diameter foot bottom 4in/78.84in
3 3/8ths in circumference foot 3.375in/66.52in
6/8ths in back foot 0.75 in/14.78in
7/8ths in front foot 0.875in/17.25in

Also, big shout-out to SteveStarkiller for making me not feel like the only person in the world to ever try building one of these! This will be my first full-sized droid build and any input and/or feedback on this project is greatly appreciated!

 

[Toddo]

I love this droid and am really excited that you are working on it. I've been in disbelief that it hasn't happened already from someone. I can't wait to see what you do with it.

 

[XandofTerra]

I love this droid and am really excited that you are working on it. I've been in disbelief that it hasn't happened already from someone. I can't wait to see what you do with it.

Thanks, this has always been my favorite and I can't wait to get started on it!

So a bit of an update, the main body cylinder will be the first part that everything else has to be based off of and that's what I'm looking for first. I thought PVC would be a good option since it's pretty strong and should hold to cutting pretty well. After spending a couple of days looking, I haven't been able to find any place that sells it for anything close to a resonable price unless I import it from China, and then I have to get a minimum of 10ft. While trying to find some alternatives to PVC I talked to someone who use to work in a commercial sign building company and she recommended Sonotube, which is rather like a very dense cardboard used to provide molds for concrete pillars. It's pretty strong and durable and from what I've been told can be cut with a hacksaw. Since I'm trying to keep the whole model under 50 pounds in total, this may work out. The price is affordable and would cost about $46 for the approximate 3 feet I need for the build at the correct diameter. Has anyone else tried to use this before in a build? Here's a reference page to what I'm looking at: http://www.discountcontractorsupply.com/product_p/tube20.htm

main cylinder: 20 in diameter, 37 in tall, estimated price $46

 

[Toddo]

Is 20" diameter the largest they offer? R2 is about 36", and R1 is bigger, is he not? I think it is great idea if you can get the right size though.

 

[Paul6700]

I look forward to seeing your progress!

 

[XandofTerra]

Is 20" diameter the largest they offer? R2 is about 36", and R1 is bigger, is he not? I think it is great idea if you can get the right size though.

Yes, 20" diameter is actually pretty large, most of the pipes and things I've found that would meet the size are used as primary water mains for large volumes of liquid. I've never built an R2 either, but I just measured out 36", and that's probably its height because it's pretty wide.

I'm probably going to have to abandon the sonotube idea since the largest local supplier only sells up to 10" diameter and that's way too small to work. I'm probably going to end up building a core of pvc pipe frames going down to a central base and then wrap the whole thing in a thin aluminum sheet. I had toyed with the idea of using chicken wire and paper mache to keep the weight down, but it would take too long to smooth out and the cost in clue would probably even out there somewhere.

For the base I was originally thinking of building a wooden circle with small office chair wheels around it and then the actual drive motors in the middle, but I'm also looking at the possibility of using one of these:

The head is still going to be a challenge since the whole thing is technically suppose to lean forward a little bit, I'm going to have to watch the upper weight and probably put some balancing weights down on the lower back side when its done.

Which ever way I go with the outside skin of the body, I'm planning on getting started on the pvc frame sometime within the month.

Thanks for all the support everyone!

 

[Toddo]

You could also skin it with Styrene I imagine. I know in ANH R1 was intended to be worn so that he could move. There is a cool outtake of a fellow suiting-up with it.

 

[XandofTerra]

You could also skin it with Styrene I imagine. I know in ANH R1 was intended to be worn so that he could move. There is a cool outtake of a fellow suiting-up with it.

Yeah, I saw the video you're talking about and until that point I didn't really fully grasp how big that thing was. I wish that video had sound or that there was more footage than just that one. Even better if someone had photos or knew the location of the original prop One of the hardest parts of this build is the actual planning side because there isn't a 360 view of the entire droid at all. The front right corner is never shown full-on and only very blurry from the front angle, but by eliminating the space remaining I've been able to determine the placement of all of the add-on boxes and bits around the main cylinder. I initially used the toy put out a few years back as the primary size/conversion reference, but after doing image comparison and overlapping I've had to correct most of those. The head and main cylinder are pretty much the same, as well as the foot, and those are going to have to be the first things built, but now that I've got the placements plotted out for all the extra bits I'll be able to prepare the support skeleton inside the cylinder accordingly.

 

[Pwrsrce]

Awesome project!

For reference...Most R2's are in the 18"-18.25" diameter range...Not 36"...

Also, seeing as this thing will be considerably bigger than an R2, keeping him under 50 lbs is going to be quite a chore...It can be done, but you might have to get really creative.

FYI...For a strong, but lightweight droid, you might consider building an internal frame out of gatorboard, and then skinning with Styrene. It would be lighter weight, but still pretty strong.

Happy Building!

Jason

 

[Darth Mawr]

Anything related to R2 or his cousins can be found at astromech.net on their forums. You can find drawings and blueprints and others building various models to ask for advice and such. Hope this helps. I'm a member of the forums there and building an R2D2 myself. I'm using a wooden frame and legs, styrene skins and fiberglass dome and skirt so he's relatively light weight compared to the full aluminum ones.

 

[XandofTerra]

I look forward to seeing your progress!

Thanks man! I love the videos I've seen of your Treadwell droid and am following your progress on the PLNK closely too!

Awesome project!

For reference...Most R2's are in the 18"-18.25" diameter range...Not 36"...

Also, seeing as this thing will be considerably bigger than an R2, keeping him under 50 lbs is going to be quite a chore...It can be done, but you might have to get really creative.

FYI...For a strong, but lightweight droid, you might consider building an internal frame out of gatorboard, and then skinning with Styrene. It would be lighter weight, but still pretty strong.

Happy Building!

Jason

The gator board is really awesome and I like the functionality of it, unfortunately it's too far outside of my budget for this particular build. That being said, I can see some positive uses for it on some future projects I'm planning!

Anything related to R2 or his cousins can be found at astromech.net on their forums. You can find drawings and blueprints and others building various models to ask for advice and such. Hope this helps. I'm a member of the forums there and building an R2D2 myself. I'm using a wooden frame and legs, styrene skins and fiberglass dome and skirt so he's relatively light weight compared to the full aluminum ones.

I joined the astromech.net forum and checked it out and while it looks like a couple people have an interest in building one, no one has posted any WIP pics at all anywhere that I've seen yet.

So for a little bit of an update, I got the main body frame price calculated today as costing $60.82:

36 pvc T joints, $0.75 each $27
24 pvc elbow joints, $0.93 each $22.32
5 1/2 in pvc pipes, $2.30 each $11.50