Friends Everywhere, Changing Hats

Friends Everywhere
Sometime last week I decided to make a call to a local sign shop. I had read on the Astromech forums about people getting High Impact Polystyrene (HIPS) from places that make signs - often obtaining the scrap or otherwise trashed plastic. I made a call to Fast Signs in Colonie and, luckily for me, made contact with the owner of the business.

I was rather bold just outright asking him about his plastics suppliers but then explained all about how I'm part of the 501st Legion and am building a droid for charity work. I also let him know that I'm looking for somewhere local that I can just pick up a few 4' x 8' sheets of 1/4 inch and maybe a sheet or two of other thicknesses. He was very warm after that and gave me names and numbers of local suppliers of HIPS. He also said that if I happen to hit a dead end with his leads that he can arrange for me to purchase the sheets through his supplier in Rhode Island.

Changing Hats

Since the beginning of this project, I've researched everything with the intention of constructing only R5-D4. In my quest for accuracy I've noted that most people seem content with the notion that R5-D4 and R2-D2 share the same body except for 5 panels and the two utility arms - these are red on R5, while the panels are white and the arms are blue on R2. There is one other difference, and no other fan-made R5 I've seen seems to have it: one other panel has a recessed detail. You can see the outline of the panel plainly in the screen shot below.

R2 (left) and R5 (right) have different details on this one front panel just above the "coin slots".

Is this much of a concern? No, not really - though I will make sure I recreate R5 faithfully and fabricate this panel accurately.

The point of this section, and its title, is that I will be making a handful of replacement pieces allowing R5-D4 to become R2-D2. I've already paid for a styrene R2 dome kit that will be fabricated in March. Some day I'll probably make 2 full bodies but for now I am fine with making a convertible droid.

This styrene R2 head is the second piece of a droid I have purchased to date. I plan on getting the styrene in the next week as well as placing the order for the skins.