Bye bye Creature

We decided to put our 7 foot sea creature up for adoption the other day and in no time we found a new loving family for the little guy. Our robot room is only so big and since the creature wasn't a robot he was the logical choice first one of who should find a new home. I'll be able to squeeze a robot into his place and use some of the $$ towards paying some bills .... translation - make the wife happy.

The creature will be right at home in his new digs. They promised to take him for a ride in their new Delorean and he will have a B9 and Robby to play cards with as well as a cool animatronic life size chimp. Of course we expect to retain full visitation rights next time we get out to California. Oh and I just received an email from the new parents who wrote " We promise that we won't let him go too California either. No blond highlights for sure or tie-dye."

Too bad I never got around to taking him to the Everglades to surprise a few tourists.

Flooded with robot brain storms

I keep coming up with ideas of robots I want to build. I will probably build them but who knows when. Some of the ideas are pretty strange I must admit but they will be fun projects. I'll never be a Clayton Baily but that's the direction I have my ship pointed. Clayton Bailey makes very cool and sometimes very bizarre robot creations. He published a superb book with pictures of his creations. The creations are not for everyone. Some of the sculptures have anatomically correct (kind of) parts that make some people uncomfortable. I think they're "the tops" though (from Seinfeld).

The Bender head now has a new mouth and a fresh coat of paint. He looks GREAT. The collar area has been built up with Bondo and hopefully after getting another coat of paint there, it will look more concentric. The inside of his belly area has also been cut more and sanded with some kilz primer painted on. Since it's a lot of MDF and 2x2's, I know that using my expensive rustoleum hammered paint will just soak in. The primer will make it easier to coat the inside. After the inside is painted, I'll add some wires and electronics and fill him up with Bender's own favorite "Old Fortran" beer. Even though I don't like people to open his belly door because it's fragile, I realize he needs his beer.

On the R2 front, I haven't done much more than research. After Bender and C3PO are ready for the science museum, R2 will return to the main project. I ordered an aluminum center foot and mounting equipment for the caster. I also got on a waiting list to get an aluminum leg. Why not. Literally spending an arm and a leg on this robot. I really want the drive train on my R2 to be exactly like Daniel's which in my opinion is the absolute best.

B9 fried his ear radars the other day. So that's something else I'm going to have to add to my list of robot chores.

Old man Bender

Guilt from my younger son prompted me to pull out the old knife and scribe out the mouth from Bender. Paul has been egging me on to fix Bender's mouth and remove the paper smile. And I knew he was right.

Cutting the mouth was a little tricky because I wasn't sure what was behind the styrene. As it turns out there was very little behind the mouth area. Some MDF on the top and the rest was just styrene that wrapped around the head frame.

I bought a few nifty dremmel attachments that allowed me to trim the MDF down about a half inch. I also had to pick up another orbital sander because the second identical piece of crap Craftsman sander I had disintegrated the same way the first one did. They were closed out for a reason I believe. Unfortunately I have about 80.00 worth of sandpaper discs (5" 8 hole sticky if anyone needs them) sitting on the shelf.

So now I need to consider the mouth backing to allow the magnetic cigar to work. Also I'm thinking about trying to slide a speaker into that area before I close it up.

Doesn't Bender look old with his mouth removed ... very funny.

Going on a Bender

I finally gave in and decided to make major modifications to Bender. After purchasing a surplus CNC table motor and realizing it was broken, I took it apart, drilled out rivets and then re-assembled it to get the thing working. The gears had jammed or something. I almost pitched it into the trash. To reassemble it, I used a tube of two part epoxy and it now works great.

The motor's purpose is to use as a base to turn Bender's head. Needless to say, I spent the entire day mounting the table to the head and gutting Bender's neck and Belly. It was very difficult because I built Bender to be a static statue ... never to be taken apart. It was near impossible tearing his stomach out and cutting into the torso area from the neck to run wires and attach something to hold the CNC unit up.

As usual, I go into these things with very fuzzy plans and no real idea what I'm doing. Fortunately everything usually turns out ok but in this case I'm kind of wondering. I got the head to turn using the controller. I will need to mount some stop switches to allow the head to only go left and right in automatic mode. But ... I'm not sure how that's going to be accomplished.

I'm sitting here Sunday night and this is one of those projects that already has snowballed. The nice clean garage I had straightened up on Saturday now looks like someone tossed in a few grenades. Tools and stuff strewn everywhere.

Cutting the stomach out of Bender busted my new Ryobi jig saw. That nifty chuckless blade changer fell apart and now the saw is useless ! I would have been better off getting an old fashioned jig saw that you use a screw to tighten the blade.

Like the rest of Bender, I only used recycled junk to build all the components for his movable head (except the CNC motor). An old Bunt pan is what is attached to the CNC and then screwed into Bender's head. I pulled the extruding tube of the bunt pan out and it will make a good Robot nose for a future project.

The Belly area is now accessible and can hold the electronics that will be required to make him move. If we're lucky a voice module could possibly fit in that area.

The other dreaded Bender project that I have been putting off is to cut out his mouth properly. It's something I just do not want to do. One slip up and ..... I can't even think about it.

Mom's old fashioned robot oil

Of course everyone knows you need to have a good stock of Mom's old-fashioned Robot Oil to keep your robots humming. Even though Futurama is in the year 3000 and the B9 Lost in space robot is from a 20th century robot, I checked and the oil is compatible with both robots.

The Warning label on the side says "WARNING NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION" Contents under pressure keep away from open flame. Made from 100% grade "A" worm oil. Mom says "Change your oil every 3000 miles".

Thanks again to Kim n Cris for the graphic. I took the graphic and overlaid it on another graphic of the solid blue color. That way I wouldn't have to paint the can. A little spray adhesive and the can in my robot junk box turns into a cool looking can of Robot Oil.

Robot beer

Bender just wasn't content with Budweiser so I searched high and low to get him his favorite beer. Thanks to Kim and Cris at http://www.kimncris.com for their help in this matter.

Good Robot / Bad Robot

Toasting completion of Bender

Got a lot done today and even had time to finish Bender despite a few setbacks. I had a lot of trouble with the feet and had to scrape all the goop off them because there was some chemical reaction with the paint and rubber and they were always sticky. I tried several different sealers without luck and ended up having to use my dremmel to clean them up. It was a mess. I finally sprayed on a coat of aerosol rubber and then painted over that. That worked. I tried a slew of other primers and sealers with no luck prior.

The base he stands on was laminated with styrene and then painted with hammered gold. Casters were added so it will be easy to wheel him around. I should have put the casters on months ago with all the shuffling around the garage we did.

With my wife's suggestion, I redid the fingers using a pair of heavy rubber gloves. I cut 3 fingers out and dyed them with a great dye that I used for my B9 legs. You can dye anything with this stuff - you just spray it on.

The legs and arms got a fresh coat of paint and I painted the area where the legs attach to the torso.

There still a few minor details to attend to with the hands and shoulders (touch up) but other than that, we now have a life sized Bender.

Even though this project was much harder than I imagined, I'm glad I did it. Time to catch up on all the projects around the house I let slip by over the last couple of months and take a break (a small one) from robot building.

In the next week or so I'll post more pictures how some of the parts go together on my Bender.

Final details and then a beer

I resanded Bender's Torso but this time I used my orbital sander being very careful not to go through the styrene. I was able to smooth out a lot of places that just didn't look right. After doing all this work, no sense in having flaws all over the place.

So today was also a day of completing a lot of smaller tasks. I completely redid the wrists. Yesterday I fiberglassed and bondoed them pretty good and used the table belt sander to smooth them out. Then a layer of styene was added to the front and a lot of spot putty layers were applied and sanded. After all that a nice coat of hammered silver and the wrists look great. I cut the hole in the top of the styrene with a hole saw.

On top of the door you could see the thin styrene and if you got close to Bender and looked down, it didn't look good. So I tried a bunch of calk for that area to build it up but all the caulk I had was old. So after pitching those in the trash, I mixed up some of this two part quikplastik stuff. Great for making a plastic / epoxy putty repair. After kneading it, I rolled it into a bead and laid it on top of the door. After getting my fingers wet, I was able to smooth it out on a bevel and it worked perfect. Now the door looks like a heavy duty metal door instead of a piece of flimsy styrene. This epoxy dries hard and is very tough. After it dried, I shot some paint on it and that was checked off the list.

The only thing I have to do now is to clean up the legs and feet and add a little paint. That will require taking Bender off the stand because I also need to finish the stand he's on.

Tomorrow he will be done and we will all open a beer to celebrate (Bender will have his own beer) Then I'll bring him in the house to join the other robots and creatures.

Smokin !!!!!

My back's been a little messed up so I haven't been doing as much building. But today I had to get something done so I worked on the Bender Hands and also perfected the mouth and made a magnetic cigar.

I think I mentioned my wife suggested making the cigar magnetic and putting a piece of metal under the mouth. That worked like a charm. I superglued a small magnet under the cigar after screwing a 3" drywall screw into the cigar. The drywall screw was the support for the magnet to stick to on the cigar.

I also bought a can of Budweiser and am making the hands adaptable to hold a can of beer. Budweiser will do for now until I can get something more Benderish. Any suggestions?

He still needs some detail work but he will be ready to come in the house to meet the other robots this weekend. It will be interesting to see how he gets along with the star wars Jawa and the B9.

Lesson of the day

First, Bender is making great progress still and the final problem areas have been conquered. But they are going to take some more bondo and drying time as I used construction adhesive to attach the new layer of styrene. All the little "flaw" areas have been sanded and resanded with new layers of spot putty. The picture looks bad but it will look good once the final coat of hammered silver is applied.

The gap between the door and body was filled with a piece of leftover pipe insulation that I had from my B9's legs. I cut it to fit, primed and then painted it silver and then slid it into the crack. Looks much better than a big old gap.

My wife came up with how we're going to give Bender a removable cigar. We're going to put metal behind his mouth and make a cigar with a magnet in his base. That will be a piece of cake. Now I need a plastic or ?? safe beer bottle. One that won't break if his removable hand is bumped and falls off. Those are the fun things for later.

Now onto the lesson of the day. I have a rather expensive resin C3PO head that I had in my garage resting on a metal stick that was in my vice. The forehead of C3PO rested on the tip of the metal stick. Kept it from falling and it looked cool.

Well today I cut the eyes out of the C3PO head and then noticed a very large flaw on C3PO's forehead. A large bump on the top of his head. I do mean large. At first I thought I purchased a flawed head and just didn't notice it. But as I felt inside the head, I noticed the indentation on the inside also. Coincidentally it was in the same area that the metal stick was pressing against the top of the head. It seemed illogical that a piece of 1/2" resin would slowly deform by just it's own weight pressing on a small pressure point. But that's what happened.

I reasoned that if the resin was that soft then I may be able to reverse the damage with a heat gun and a pair of gloves. I doubted it would work but had absolutely nothing to lose. So I pulled out the old heat gun and evenly heated the forehead and top of the head. Gently I pressed the indentation and in a matter of minutes, C3PO's head was back to a nice consistent smoothness. I learned another lesson today when cutting the eyes .... but enough confession for one day. I may be able to hide that scre....

Also added a coat of liquid rubber over a set of ancient B9 legs that I'm going to make into an end table. I had extra rubber and even though I know it won't hide the cracks in the legs, it will smooth them out a little.

First coat of paint is humbling

I sprayed a coat of hammered silver paint on today and lo and behold poor Bender looks terrible. It's like I was blind until I shot that paint on because all of a sudden there's a million flaws that need massive sanding and filling. That's the way it always seems to work.

But now when I'm sanding and working on him, it will be more like working on a real robot instead of just wood and styrene. His arms were removed so his shoulders could be masked from the paint. Those wires without the arms look pretty odd though.

The paint also brought out major flaws a wooden rib holding the structure together. It sticks out a little too far and makes Bender look like he's got a line on his side (not perfectly round). I have no idea how I'm going to fix that ... if it's even possible.

But I never fail to crack a smile every time I look at him. He reminds me of our mischevious cat always up to something. He needs a beer and a cigar also.

ust more sanding and bondo on Bender. Tonight I hope to put a finish coat on his torso. He's primed and ready to go. All the areas around the shoulders are filled in with foam and bondo and sanded. I need to come up with a game plan for his mouth now.

In between the Bender tasks more work is being done on the C3PO halo to get it to form around the head. I have to be careful not to sand too much. I think it will fit nicely.

This weekend I will definately have some better stuff to report with pictures. When Bender is done, B9 will return to the robot workshop.

Head-ing for a challenge

Well, my newest C3PO head is a pretty nice fiberglass head but the halo's that I got with it just don't work. One has a lot of bubbles and wouldn't look too good and the other is the wrong size. The wrong sized one looks like it was pieced together at one time because I can see the seam on the top of it. When you lay the head on it, the vents are completely covered about mid-head. So my options are to either create a halo from scratch of fix the one I have by cutting it along the seam and pulling it outward until it matches the diameter of the head. I think that's what I'll end up doing. I'll probably re-make the openened up area in the seam with fiberglass so I have somewhere to mount the antenna.

The head itself is very nice and detailed and will work fine as a costume. Plus it was very reasonably priced so the extra work is worth it.

Bender has a coat of primer and he's down to his scivvies while I bondo the seams and prime the parts. I was off doing other things this weekend so not too much has been done. The door is looking good with a magnetic latch installed and nice seam/edges on the outside of the door. I was able to reinforce the door and make it less flimsy. Plus I was able to get it so it didn't go all the way to the bottom of the torso. There's about a half inch of torso below the door which looks better.

Oh and there's another project ... something I've been wanting to do for awhile. I'm going to make a recycled B9 end table (1:1 scale). More on that later.

Trimming the robot skin

Just adding more pieces of skin and filling in cracks with spot putty. It looks like I'll need to break out the bondo this weekend as much as I dislike using the stuff.

The door opens and closes pretty good although it's flimsy. Since I couldn't line it up using adjustable hinges, I had to add an extra layer of styrene to compensate. Another compromise involved not having the door go to the bottom of his torso which isn't correct but not too a big deal.

Skinning Bender

A few days ago, I cut a small piano type hinge and attached it to a piece of scrap acrylic which was then glued to the curved door I made for bender. Add a few scrap pieces of angle iron and girders from the vex kit and and after about a dozen experiments, the door was hanging on Bender. It opened and closed better than my expectations. That was the hardest part of the project so far.

After the door was attached, I reinforced the wooden 2x2's (that ringed the torso) with drywall screws. Once those were in place it was an easy task to cut styrene and attach to the body. The work will be when I start filling in the cracks and seaming the joints together with bondo and sandpaper. The only problem I haven't worked out yet is how to permanently create Bender's mouth.

I also finished the inside cavity of Bender with a piece of scrap sintra. That way when you open the door, you see a neat (although shallow) compartment.

Bender Door and C3PO pistons

Another 5 minute weekend. I swear they go faster and faster.

The main goal was to come up with a plan to make a door in the front of Bender. My wife had a good idea to try and form a curved door frame using the leftover acrylic rod from my B9 collar. Cut pieces of acrylic rod, heat in the toaster over until pliable and then press up against the form of Bender's body so you have nice curved ribs. After glueing with acrylic glue (the hard part) I'll cover it with a lightweight piece of styrene skin and add an extra piece of 1/4" acrylic on one side to attach a hinge.

The forming of the ribs was very easy. If you do this, make sure you don't heat the rods up too much ... you don't want to start a fire. And using a lightweight pair of gloves is also recommended. If you don't do it right the first time, you can re-heat the rods. It's fun working with acrylic.

I also cleaned up the pistons of C3PO and mounted them. However one arm fell from my pvc mannequin onto the floor but luckily no damage was done. I'm going to run shock cord through the mannequin in case that ever happens again (especially on a hard floor).

Bender's "First Stack"

In the B9 robot building world, the "First Stack" is usually the first time the builder takes all the parts they've been making for the past couple of months and stack them into something that resembles the robot. It's a momentous occasion that causes you to run into the house and drag your better half outside to admire your work. Pieces of wood, plastic and whatever is stacked on top of itself to form ..... something.

Well today was Bender's first stack. And I'm the proud papa. The project takes on a whole new burst of enthusiasm when you reach this point. The finish line is approaching and you can finally see it. I'm going to crack open a beer after typing this and savor the moment.

Giving Bender the fingers

As often is the case, I have many fuzzy plans in my head how to do something. And once the work begins, none of the plans pan out. So I do a lot of wandering around my garage poking in boxes and looking on shelves for inspiration. Or I'll wander the aisles of Home Depot or Lowes.

For Bender's hands, I considered using my jig saw and make some elaborate wood hands with holes where fingers would protrude. But practically, heavy wood on the ends of arms would weight them down and make arm positioning/posing difficult. So a lightweight set of hands and poseable fingers were what was needed.

The Vacuum cleaner hose I bought the other day had 2 connectors that fit over the arms perfectly. A piece of scrap foam rubber over that fastened with a little duct tape allowed me to position an old duct tape cardboard inner circle over the connectors. And the hand actually looked pretty good.

The problem was I only had one roll of duct tape that was about done. Low and behold, in my junk robot parts box (that has everything you can imagine in it), I found that in my ignorant wisdom, I saved an empty cardboard backing from my last roll of duct tape. That even surprised me.

The fingers were made of some multistrand wire intertwined together. Then some pieces of my scrap foam pipe insulation were slit to form 3 fingers. Some more duct tape over the fingers and then I cut up some old black gloves I also had in my robot parts box. These gloves were leftover from a Target Sale. My wife bought them when I was building my Jawa. These happened to be too big but the price was almost nothing so I kept them.

Of course the hands get some finish and paint but he's definately starting to look like a Bender bot.

New Arms

The arms I did yesterday look like crap.

So this morning my mind was pre-occupied coming up with a new plan to redo Bender's arms. And then that light bulb comes on and a completely different design solves all the problems in yesterdays building. It needed a 2 1/2" diameter vacuum hose with a little plastic primer and a light coat of silver (so the black in the slits shows).

The new design has solid poseable arms. You can remove or replace the outer skin and the structure underneath is flexible. Plus the arms look much better than lame pvc pieces. I also started making skin templates for his torso. Now that the arms are complete it's time to start thinking robot skin.