The "homemade" dome

I decided to build the dome of bonded Styrodur sheets.

After the rough preliminary work with the wire brush I installed the dome so that it could be rotated, into my "sanding device".

When I was finished with sanding, I covered the dome with resin.

After all "grooves" were cut in, a silicon mould was poured and a three-part supporting mould was made of plaster.

Reasons for non use:

• The surface of the master model was not accurately round and exhibited light unevenness.

• The measurements were not precise enough.

• The three edges of the supporting mould made it easy to deform and this remained clearly recognizable on the finished dome.

Only two domes were made from this silicon mould. I begun to prime one of them but I didn´t finish it as it was too much work for a bad result. I "abused" the second one for painting tests. Here I tried to find a suitable blue and silver effect and tried out different painting and masking techniques.

Skirt

I wanted to make the skirt in a 4 part casting procedure. For this I manufactured a side part and a front part as a master model.

Reasons for non use:

• For a "non-supporting part" it was too heavy.

• It had the wrong proportions due to a conversion error I made. Here it becomes clear, how important it is to constantly check all of the converted measurements.

Power Coupler

The master model which fell apart after casting is shown on the left, in the centre is the silicon mould and on the right side a cast part.

Reason for non use:

• I didn´t like it.

Octagon Port

I manufactured the Octagon ports from polystyrene.

Reason for non use:

• It was, like the Power Coupler, not good enough.

Utility Arm

The two parts of utility arm I also made from polystyrene. The silicon mould here was made as a two-piece mould. This was not necessary and I recommend here a one-piece mould, which you would then cut open for releasing the parts.

Reason for non use:

• It was, again, not good enough.

Vents

These were also made as polystyrene master models and made into silicon moulds afterwards. However, the housings were replaced at a later date by more suitable frameworks. This meant that only the "Inlays" were used in the final R2D2.

Reasons for non use:

• The measurement and the curves did not fit exactly.

Battery Box

Here I manufactured the front part of a Battery box. I had planned to make four of these and then to fletten two of these afterwards in order to make them into the rear parts. These parts would have connected with thin polystyrene sheets.

Reasons for non use:

• The connection using polystyrene did not appear stable enough to me.

• This method results in a lot of seams.