Top and skin

Slow progress is better than no progress. As you can see in the picture, the dome and the skin are now in place and I started cutting and pasting the edges of the arm access hole.

The dome came out great. Better than I imagined. I used construction adhesive to attach the skin to the tube and then wrapped it with plastic wrap to firmly hold the skin in place while the adhesive dried. I use the plastic wrap on a roll that you buy in packaging places. As you wrap things, it tightens up. I used this stuff when I glued my B9 legs and it worked like a charm.

As you can see in the picture there's a spot on the top of the picture where the body dips a little. Unfortunately that's where a shoulder support bar is mounted. I don't think there is much I can do about that and not sure how much will show once I mount the nose and rivets. None of my projects are perfect so I'm not going to sweat a small detail like that yet.

Trimming the dome

I MUST !!!! buy some ear protection. Cutting the flying saucer dome was maddeningly loud once again. I'll probably be spending the next couple days saying "what" a lot.

Cutting the saucer, I used a combination of tin snips, rotozip, band saw, and last but not least a jig saw. Cutting the metal was tricky and I wore gloves to keep from shredding my hands. The metal was very sharp and snagged me more than once.

I cut about an extra inch around the oval diameter I will need. The next step will be to cut it on the line. I'm taking my time on this step. I had a 2" heavy foam piece that I cut out as the template of the top of the robot and used the foam piece to mark the inside of the metal flying saucer. The foam piece will be mounted in the top of the robot and the dome will fit on top of that. Just not sure what adhesive or method I'll have to use to attach the dome, foam and sonotube together.

Another major robot milestone today was we (I got permission from my wife) officially bought a life size Robby the Robot. I got a pretty good deal on him and just need to figure out how to get him to Florida. Looks like a long road trip will be in order soon.

Stylish robot apparel

I just got this flying saucer type metal sled in the mail today and tried it out on gort. Looking sporty. He could almost blend in with the ladies red hat club if his body had some purple in it.

I'm guessing the saucer could be trimmed down and make a nice dome. The oval shape will make it a little more challenging.

A little more progress

We have been spending every spare minute over the last week looking into buying some property/swamp which (today) we decided to back out on. It could have been a bad move for several reasons ... plus it would have zapped every spare moment from us for the next 6 months. Oh well ...

So today I got back into the routine by cleaning out the garage and stowing ALL of the R2 parts away as well as the spare shark parts. The main shark was dispatched to my son's bait shop. I needed to get all the distractions out of my garage and make some room so I have room to work. It was getting pretty cluttered and I get distracted too easily with never ending side projects.

Saturday I worked with a friend's daughter to help her with her senior engineering project using the microprocessor from the VEX robotic system using ultrasonic sensors. It was a good learning experience for both of us but there's still a lot of work to do.

So tonight I did a little more work on GORT by cutting out the eyes and nose area. Some thought was put into the arms but that still needs a solid plan. Next step is to attach on a layer of styrene skin.

It worked

Well after putting in a couple more lightweight supports, it looks like the new shape of the Sonotube is going to hold. Oval it is !!! The only adjustment I had to make is to remove one of the supports at the base of the torso. Two of them made it too small for my hips. Removing one of them didn't seem to matter so now it's onto the nose, eyes, belly door and skin.

The new size is wider and easier for me to get my arms into the holes I cut.

The Ironman competition is being held in our city tomorrow and they will be passing right behind our house. There's several thousand competitors I heard. We'll be able to go out our back gate and set up a couple of lawn chairs under our tree and watch them go by.

I thought it would be cool to set up the robots with signs in their hands / claws encouraging the competitors but my wife said that they could get distracted and end up in a big bike pileup which would be our fault so the robots will stay in the house and garage. They're hot much into competitions anyways.

Squashing the robot

The Sonotube is now compressing in the robot vice I built. The real test will be when the metal bars are removed and the smaller inside supports are able to keep the shape. I'm not so sure ...

Time for change

Time for change is what I've been hearing a lot of on the election coverage today after the landslide victory for Democrats. Being very happy with the election results, I considered the current robot I was working on. Time for change ....

After installing the shoulder pads yesterday, it was apparent that the bars the pad were on would have to be moved up about 2-3 inches because of the padding. And while trying it on, I thought it was a pretty snug wiggle to get my arms out of the beast. So changing my original plans seemed appropriate. Better now than down the road. Time for change.

First, I'm going to squish the robot to give it the oblong look instead of round. This was advised by another builder. It will also give my arms a little more room to move around inside the robot. Plus, it will get my head closer to the torso which will be better for seeing where I'm going.

It's not easy squishing a sonotube. I laid heavy stuff on it but it only bent slightly. I have some large threaded rod which I will use with some 1 x 4's and bolts to crank down on the sonotube and let it sit for a few days squished about 5-6 inches. After it loosens up and reforms (hopefully) I'll mount some more of those bars that I used for the should support. Since they're adjustable and bolted to the sonotube, they should act to hold the tube's shape after I remove the squishing bolts.

Change is good. When I build robots, I never completely stick to a plan. I keep the plan loose and am never afraid to admit when my ideas don't work. Better to change and improve than continue down a wrong path. And I never thought building a Robot and politics could have so much in common.

It's a good day today.

Thanks to the robots I'm now deaf !

I used the new router circle cutter I built to cut some wood circles for the top and bottom reinforcement of the torso. My ears are still ringing !!!! That was the noisiest experience I've ever had. And I used to shoot the 3" guns onboard my ship when I was in the Navy about a milion years ago. I'm sure people miles away heard me cutting the wood. My wife told me the neighbors dog started barking like crazy until the owner took him in.

So .... until I get some ear protection, the next two cuts I have planned on the router will have to wait. My ears won't be the same.

Ok, so on the GORT Front, I figured out how to get the stickiness off the inside of the sonotube. Degreaser and paper towels did the trick. After that I trimmed the torso and started preparing for cutting the arms and face holes out.

Since most of today was spent appeasing the wife in a long overdue list of home improvement projects, there wasn't that much robot work. It's getting harder and harder to get in good honest robot building time.

Torso and skin

I picked up a section of Sonotube yesterday but had to cut it in half at the warehouse since I couldn't handle a 12' piece of 20" pipe in my truck. So I brought a saw with me. I also picked up a 4' x 8' sheet of styrene at a local plastics distributor. Since it was the bottom of the stack and very dirty I got it for almost nothing.

To trim one of the sonotube pieces to an estimated size, a laser level was used. After drawing a line, the tube cut easily with a jig saw. The one drawback of the sonotube is the stickiness of the inside of the tube. Kind of like a wax inside. Since Sonotube is a concrete form, it makes sense to have some sort of mold release on the inside of the tube. I need to think of some sort of liner for the inside if it's to be a wearable robot.

Gort begins

This weekend Gort was officially started !!! This project will be a little slower and I'll be taking my time on it.

Fortunately another person is building a Gort and he shared with me the research he's done on the robot. Gary is producing a very cool retro 1930's rocketeer type movie and plans to use his robot in the movie. His website is
Thirty Second Doom. The trailers and cinematography he's done on his movie is absolutely amazing.

Another builder who built a Gort is John Riggs from the robot hut. I have to say John is one of the great robot builders and he also gave me a few tips. Check out his site at http://www.robothut.robotnut.com/

This weekend was spent experimenting with different dimensions for the torso and considering different ways to fabricate a torso. Gary used a cardboard concrete form tube which is very solid. I probably will go that route but am still kicking around making my torso from scratch using wood and styrene. It has to be light to be wearable.

While considering the options, I decided to do something I've been wanting to do for awhile. That is to make an attachment for my router to cut circles. The band saw circle cutter I made last year is not practical in so many ways. The router cutter is more precise and will be a nice addition to my tools. After 3 different designs and attempts, I came up with an excellent circle cutter that is mounted to the router table. Very stable, accurate and cheap.

Later this week I'll try to track down some cardboard tube distributors. Thinking back on the bender project, making a torso out of wood and styrene wasn't that easy. Cardboard tube will more practical.

Retro robots

Now that I'm back from vacation in the Georgia Mountains, it's time to unveil my fiendish plot and the next robot to be built in my laboratory.

Very few people remember this robot. He has been in several different movies and TV and his roots are from the 1930's and 40's. Although his name is Gort, it's NOT the Gort from "The Day the earth stood still". This Gort is from the Republic series. Republic was the name of a movie company that made the old serials that usually ended in a cliffhanger ... to be continued next week. GORT was the robot of the evil Dr. Satan in the Dr. Satan series. Gort would rob banks and do the bidding of Dr. Satan whenever Dr. Satan pressed the hidden robot button on his desk.

However, the inspiration to build this robot came from one of our favorite shows - Star Trek Voyager. You see, Voyager had several episodes where the holodeck had a program called Captain Proton and the Bride of Chaotica and it was based on the 1930's serials. Dr. Chaotica was the evil villian who controlled the robots and was bent on taking over the world. In the Republic Series it was Dr. Satan who was going to rule the world with his robots. The robots in both series were almost identical. I'm leaning toward making the Star Trek Voyager version of this robot.