A Droid Assembled

I first roughed out the legs of the R2 unit out of two by fours; they stand about 2.5 feet tall. The legs would have to be able to hold up the entire weight of the R2 unit, which is over fifty pounds. My router, drill press and bandsaw became my favorite tools to sculpt out the details. 

Since 1977, this resourceful and spunky droid with an adventurous personality has affected everybody who has seen the movie "Star Wars".

I was no different. I have always wanted to build an R2 unit.

As a builder, I took the challenge to create my own droid. This droid will be made out of wood and fiberglass, just like the original prop from the movie. My first hurdle was to get a hold of a set of accurate plans. Although the plans for R2D2 has been available for a while, accurate blueprints have not. Some plans would be scaled lower than the actual 1:1 drawings. There are a lot of details that R2 has that I will not be able to incorporate in my model. Inside of his cylindrical frame were many arms, sensors, and other tools that could be extended to fulfill various needs. Perhaps in my second version I will incorporate more details.

Because I was creating the prop 1:1, I made sure my plans were full size as well. This made the process easy because I could literally lay each piece ontop of the blueprints for accuracy. With the correct color of blue and a set of flexible metal hoses, the legs turned out quite well.