A long time ago in a galaxy far far away. . . .

As you may have gathered we are part way through this build, not far in, but a lot of the planning and buying is done.  So time to try and catch you up.

So far we have built and tested the feet track drives, shock shoulders and MK1 of our centre foot mech.  After that testing we have applied a few upgrades and the tracks and shoulders are done. I will let James update you on his stud farming exploits.

The centre foot is on to Mk2, we were using a Rotacaster, but too loud.  So we are about to test a 100mm skate wheel on a custom caster base.

We were very lucky to get a Crash droid base.  This is light and strong.  Perfect for our needs.  The centre of gravity will be played with in this droid, we are using ali feet and adding weight to them, and then trying to reduce the weight of the rest of the droid.  The hope is he will act like a droid half his height.

One of the major factors we wanted to address was the rigidity of the structure, any impact currently carries through the solid structure and makes an already unstable robot really prone to tipping when abused.  So the Shock shoulders (again James may want to update here, our concepts, my design, his work to create it, and he did a beautiful job) allow the legs to move in plane of the leg, pivoting on the centre of the shoulders and absorbed by soft rubber skate bushes.  They also allow the legs to be easily removed.

Other nice touches so far include magnets to hold on the horseshoes, boosters and dome.  But im really falling in love with this little droid, he already has a character and he is only a pile of bits at the mo.  He is a little more relaxed and not as formal as BHD, im really looking forward to giving him some real abuse and testing him where no droid has gone before. :P

I started painting a couple of weeks ago, for the green i chose Rover Brooklands Green, it is a really nice late 70s green, very suitable for ANH droid. :)  Most parts have required 3-4 cycles of fill sand and prime before 3 coats of green and 3-4 of clear.  I am currently unsure if i will polish the paint, or leave the orange peel, the slightly satin look is actually quite nice.  I hope to have all the leg elements for all 3 legs painted and drying for Monday.  Then on to the body. :)

The droid will still be an eventing droid as the main purpose.  It will have 9 dome doors on servos, and HPs, and 2 body doors and utility arms and a few other extras.  But at half the weight of BHD and a lot more practical to drive anywhere, im hoping X2 will take the chore out of eventing, and the risk of a bad back. :)