Vacuform C-3PO Head

Paul6700 · Aug 14, 2017

I picked up this vacuform kit over at the R2 Builders site and never built it. I believe it was made by Starbuckcylon. It has been kicking around my garage for about 3 years now and it is time to build it.

Everything came with the kit, except for the four inch ABS slip fit connector which I plan to use for the neck.

The plan is make random colored protocol droid this is beat up, weathered, and looks like it was removed from a body. I also plan to make the eyes light up and maybe say a couple of phrases.

The problem with my kit is that the front and back shells do not fit very well together. Additionally the resin horseshoe is pretty badly warped. I was able to clamp the horseshoe between two boards to straighten it out, but it too did not fit the shells well.

The back shell was even worse. I cut out everything that was supposed to be removed and I ended up removing the majority of the top of the back shell. I also ended up cutting up the horseshoe.

The two halves are attached to each other and there will be a lot of bondo to reshape the head.

matty matt · Aug 15, 2017

Cool. Sounds like a neat project!

Paul6700 · Aug 15, 2017

Started today by grinding down the extra material on the back detail. By grinding it down with a dremel, I was able to create a nice lip to make it easier to glue into place.

I also attached the 4 inch ABS coupler with long screws through the back shell and the horseshoe. This allows the neck piece to pivot slightly.

I knew I would need to bondo the head, but I decided to use an epoxy putty first to build up the proper shape and then finish it with bondo. I also used it inside the head to back up the areas where I might sand through the shell. Drilling the holes in the top of the head gave the putty something to hold onto.

Paul6700 · Aug 16, 2017

Made progress on the eyes tonight, but I forgot to take more pictures. Used the Dremel to clean up the eye openings and then painted everything silver.

Since I am making a protocol droid other than C-3P0, I chose a white LED over the yellow ones. These are prewired 12 volt LEDs that I plan to wire to a switch that will be hidden in the neck opening.

The wires are coiled and zip tied together with enough wire to run down to the neck.

Paul6700 · Aug 17, 2017

Went to Home Depot and bought a variety of plumbing fittings to create the neck. I want it to look like the neck could be slipped into the body of a protocol droid. Additionally, I need areas to put the switches, a sensor and batteries.

I am using a reducer, piece of ABS pipe and the slip connector for under a sink. The pipe was cut to length and everything sanded. This is what it looks like assembled.

I cut a piece of styrene to fit inside the cap to mount switches.

Installed switches into the cover, one will power the sound system, one will power the eyes and the push button will allow me to play a sound on demand. The extra hole is for wires to hang down and to help disguise the very end of the neck.

Here are the electronics and parts of the neck. I am going to use the Adafruit FX Soundboard to trigger the sounds (not pictured). It has an onboard amp and will hopefully be perfect for this project. To play sounds I will use the push button and a motion sensor connected directly to the sound board. There is a hole drilled in the pipe for the motion sensor. The speakers will be connected to the soundboard amp and are from an old laptop. The sound board needs 4 to 5 volts of power and the eyes need 12 volts, so there are two battery packs.

Here is the assembled neck, it will slip into the 4inch ABS slip coupler perfectly.

Paul6700 · Aug 19, 2017

It is now time to shape the head and fill in with Bondo.

The process is simple, Apply, Sand, Paint and Repeat.

Apply, Sand, Paint and Repeat

Apply, Sand, Paint and Repeat

I tried to sharpen the lines of the face shell with each application. Eventually moved on to glazing putty and finer sandpaper.

Then a final coat of black paint.

Unfated · Aug 19, 2017

Looking great!

Paul6700 · Aug 19, 2017

Unfated said:
Looking great!

Thanks Unfated!

DaddyfromNaboo · Aug 20, 2017

I am really curious to see how a coat of gold spray paint ia going to look. Tje new formulas, even from the hrdwre stores, are said to be quite a step up in quality.

Kroenen77 · Aug 20, 2017

Great project...I also want a accurate C-3PO head one day.

Paul6700 · Aug 20, 2017

DaddyfromNaboo said:
I am really curious to see how a coat of gold spray paint ia going to look. Tje new formulas, even from the hrdwre stores, are said to be quite a step up in quality.

I decided early on that I was going to do a different protocol droid head, other than gold. I am going to go for an old chipped up and weather beaten paint scheme.

Paul6700 · Aug 20, 2017

Today I got a few odds and ends done. Soldered wires onto the ends of the small LED flashlight battery pack. This battery will be for the sound board.

Earlier in the week, I built a battery box out of a Fatuba servo box to house the two battery packs.

Drilled holes in the plastic for the wires and to mount a ground strip on top. Then painted the whole thing black.

As soon as I receive the sound board, I will mount it along with the speakers on the back of this box.

Sanded the whole head one more time and sprayed it with aluminum colored spray paint. This will be the base color.

Drilled out the botton of the top greeblie and glued on a 4-40 nut to match the screw that is mounted in the horseshoe.

Test fit the greeblie to the head and reattached the neck to the head.

Also, marked up where I will need to hollow the back of both ear thingies. I do not think I will need to access these screws again, so will likely just glue these in place.

batbassi · Aug 22, 2017

Nice work!

Paul6700 · Aug 22, 2017

Received the sound FX board from Adafruit today and was able to solder it the header pins and terminal screws into place. Learned more about soldering today, like use the breadboard to hold the pins straight while you solder. Here is a picture of the board connected to the 2 watt speakers and power through the switch. At this point I am abandoning the button for just the sensor to trigger the sounds.

I completely forgot to take pictures of the sensor. It has three headers, ground, power, and signal. The signal wire is soldered to the center leg of the pulldown capacitor. This way the positive voltage from the sensor can be converted to 0 voltage and trigger the sound. I am surely not describing this completely. The Adafruit website was a wealth of knowledge, however this tidbit was hard to find so you do have to do some reading.

I glued the speakers to the battery box and connected everything. Also, I mounted the battery box to the neck.

Paul6700 · Aug 23, 2017

Next up, is a very simple paintjob. The first color is aluminum color from a rattle can that was allowed to cure over a couple of days. Next I masked off everything I wanted to remain an aluminum finish and then airbrushed a matte blue acrylic paint over the main shell.

Before I added anymore paint I wanted to get the eyes in place, so that they can be weathered along with the head.

The acrylic paint is very easy to scrape off at this point, I wanted the paint to look worn and scratched up. I used a screw driver for some of it and my finger nail for other parts. I also used some light sandpaper for some areas to just rough up the surface.

Then I thinned matte black and a green black with water and applied it as thin washes over all of the parts. I worked in small areas and would dab off the excess with a damp cloth. I would keep doing this until I liked the finish it was leaving behind.

Finally a few layers of tan acrylic paint to really make the surface look dirty.

Now to allow everything to dry before I add the last details.

Paul6700 · Aug 24, 2017

Finished up assembly and programed the board to play random quotes.

Glued the ear thingies into place with hot glue. I used hot glue just in case I need to remove them in the future to get the screws.

Then connected the eye leads to the neck and slipped the neck into place. It is just a slip fit.

Here is the fully assembled head with working eyes and random quotes.

Here is a quick video of what it looks like and you can here the random quotes.

The Adafruit FX Sound Board was super easy to program, you just need to use their naming system for the files. I used a free text to speech software with a UK female voice that allowed me to save the file as a wav file. Then I imported the wav files into Audacity and added an echo, then renamed each file and downloaded them directly to the board.

This was a fun build, I should maybe make the rest of it. My goal was to create a static prop that would sit on my desk and talk at me from time to time. Anyway, big thank you to everyone who liked what I did.

13doctorwho · Aug 26, 2017

Excellent work! I really like that you created your own dialog instead of using C3-PO clips. It makes it really stand out. Great work.

Redman2187 · Aug 26, 2017

Super cool. Great job.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Paul6700 · Aug 26, 2017

13doctorwho said:
Excellent work! I really like that you created your own dialog instead of using C3-PO clips. It makes it really stand out. Great work.

Thanks 13doctorwho, the dialog ended up being easier than I originally thought.

Redman2187 said:
Super cool. Great job.

Thanks for the kind words Redman2187.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Jack · Aug 27, 2017

Very nice !!! I like these step by step explanations, they are always very inspiring.

Vacuform C-3PO Head

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