Making R2-D2 Part 1 _ Styrene Frame, Aluminum Dome & Skins _ I Like To Make Stuff

**Building an R2-D2 Droid: A Step-by-Step Journey**

Welcome back, everyone! My name is Bob, and I’m here today to share my journey of building a 2D tree. No, wait—this isn’t about trees. It’s about something much cooler: constructing an R2-D2 droid from Star Wars! This project has been on my mind for decades, ever since I was a kid and fell in love with the iconic astromech droid. Today, we’re diving into the first steps of this long-awaited build.

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### **The First Step: Research**

If you’re as big a Star Wars fan as I am, you probably know how special R2-D2 is to the galaxy far, far away. But did you know there’s an entire community dedicated to building life-sized replicas of these adorable droids? That’s right—the R2 Builder's Club has a website called **Astromech Net**, and it’s your go-to resource for all things R2. From blueprints and reference guides to a supportive community, this site is loaded with information and help.

As I began my research, I realized there are countless decisions to make before even picking up a tool. Questions like: What materials should I use? Should the droid have two legs, three legs, or none at all? What functionality do I want it to have? These are just a few of the choices that kept me up at night.

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### **Choosing Materials**

After much consideration, I decided to make the core or frame of my R2 out of plastic. Specifically, I chose styrene, which is an ABS plastic. It’s durable and easy to work with, especially if you have access to a CNC machine. If you don’t have a CNC, no worries! You can print out templates from the website and glue them onto plywood or another material. These templates can be cut using basic woodworking tools like a hobby knife or chisel.

Another option is 3D printing. While I could, in theory, print every single part of this droid myself, I decided to mix and match. For the inside of the droid, I opted to use my CNC machine to create precise cuts. However, for many of the outside pieces, I purchased screen-accurate parts from vendors. These are beautifully machined aluminum components that are incredibly detailed and save a lot of time.

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### **Cutting and Assembly**

With materials in hand, it was time to get cutting. The first step was creating templates using my CNC machine. It’s always exciting to see the frame come together. But here’s where things got a bit tricky—when I started assembling the frame, I realized that many of the template marks were about placement and assembly, not just cutting. This meant I had to print out additional templates by hand and glue them onto the frame.

To ensure everything fits perfectly, I used one-two-three blocks to keep pieces parallel or perpendicular while gluing. For plastics, I tested various adhesives but settled on CA glue—it worked surprisingly well and was strong enough for my needs.

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### **The Beauty of Machined Parts**

One of the highlights of this project has been sourcing aluminum skins from vendors. These are laser-cut panels that add a sleek, professional finish to the droid. While they can be expensive, they’re worth every penny for their precision and durability. The best part? Many of these parts are ready to paint or powder coat right out of the box.

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### **Challenges Along the Way**

Building an R2 isn’t without its challenges. For instance, I ordered some aluminum skins that arrived later than expected. While waiting, I focused on assembling the pieces I already had—like the legs. The body of the droid was made from a single thickness of material, and while it worked well for the frame, the legs required additional thicknesses, which I quickly put on order.

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### **Excitement and Next Steps**

After several weeks of work, I couldn’t resist wanting to see how far I’d come. So, I loosely bolted the legs together, taped on some skins, and placed the dome on top—pure excitement! This project is a long-term commitment, both in time and money. Costs will vary depending on your build type and materials, but it’s important to budget for high-quality components if you want something truly impressive.

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### **Final Thoughts**

This is just the beginning of my R2-D2 journey. I can’t wait to share more updates as this project progresses. If you’re interested in following along or have any questions about building your own droid, be sure to subscribe and check out my other project videos right over there.

Thanks for watching, and until next time—stay curious and keep building!

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That’s it for today, everyone! I’m really happy with how far I’ve come so far, and I can’t wait to show you more of this epic build. Click, click, click out as you explore the rest of my videos—I promise there are tons of exciting projects waiting for you!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey I'm Bob it I like to make stuff today we're gonna start making our 2d tree this is a project that I've been wanting to do for a very very long time in fact since I was a kid I've always loved Star Wars and I've always wanted to have an r2 so I decided recently to get started on the project and the first step was a ton of research the r2 builder's club has a website called astromech net and this is the place you're going to go for all of the information that you're gonna need it's a community of people that are super helpful and willing to answer questions plus there's blueprints and tons of reference for everything so as you're doing research there there's a bunch of decisions you're gonna have to make before you can even start and those decisions are things like what material you're gonna use what functionality it's gonna have whether it's going to lean back have two legs three legs there's a ton of options I haven't decided on all the functionality I'm going to use yet but I did decide to make the core or the frame out of plastic I'm going to use something called styrene which is an ABS plastic so that I can cut it on the CNC if you don't have a CNC you can certainly just go onto the website and print out templates that you can glue on to plywood or plastic those things can be cut out with normal woodworking tools where you can just use a hobby knife and a chisel either way you're gonna have to have some files handy so that you can get a really nice fit on all the different pieces another option is 3d printing in fact you could 3d print top to bottom the entire droid if you really wanted to you could certainly make every single part on the droid yourself if you want to but there are also vendors who create screen accurate parts and they sell them in batches if you keep an eye on the website you'll see when a vendor has a new batch of parts and you just put your name on a list so that you can get the parts that you need but the downside of that is that you have to kind of wait in line and you have to wait for the parts to be available the upside to it is that you get beautifully machined aluminum parts that are super accurate I decided to make the inside of the droid but by a lot of the outside pieces from these vendors I got the skins and the dome and then a whole bunch of these detail pieces to fit in and they are beautiful these are ready to go for paint or powder coat so I have my first cuts of r2d2 finished on the CNC so it's really cool to have the frame all ready to go and start assembling it obviously if you don't have a CNC there are other ways to get that cut most people will go to a local office supply store like I did I spend about $18 printed out the templates full size and then they glue these onto the material and cut it out with a dremel or the jigsaw or something else like that the irony is though that I actually had to go get these things printed out anyway even though the pieces were cut on the CNC when I went to start looking at assembling the frame I realized that a lot of the marks on these templates are really about placement and assembly not about cutting so I had to print these out I'm gonna have to cut these out by hand and then glue them onto the frame before I can start assembling it now luckily I don't have to cut everything out these have all been cut and they don't really have any special information on them the big thing is these rings these dark areas are where you put the uprights and so I have to cut these pieces out glue them to my plastic and then score over these lines then take these templates off so I know where to put the uprights and glue those things in place so I'm gonna start going through these sheets and cutting all the pieces I need there were some pieces that I had to bevel using the table saw but you can also do that with a file if you need to that's so that these pieces will fit together at the right angles and to hold them perpendicular to each other while I glued them up I use these one two three blocks these are great for keeping things parallel or perpendicular to assemble all these plastic parts I used CA glue there are special solvents that you can use for all different plastics but I did quite a few tests and the CA glue actually seemed to work out just fine and be strong enough luckily the construction of this frame lends itself to being pretty strong and so the individual joints don't have to carry a whole lot of load one of the parts that I ordered were aluminum skins these are the actual body panels that go on the outside of the droid and these turned out beautifully these are laser-cut aluminum and then rolled on a machine to the right radius and they look great even after making the frame you do have to line up some of the individual pieces with the openings and the skins there's all these panels in the skins that get cut out so you have to make sure that the frame behind those openings is clear something I'm not used to about this r2 project is that a lot of the pieces are actually better to be made by other people they'll do parts runs where they'll take orders for a certain part then they'll make a whole bunch of them and it's usually the machined aluminum stuff these are some of the ones that I just ordered and I haven't looked at them yet but they look so good it's totally worthwhile to get something like this done a minute you could 3d print it I suppose but like there's a contour it's super well machined it's just ready to drop in and ready to go so for example on these the back surface here needs to stay aluminum and this needs to stay aluminum so they're made so that you can unbolt this pull the whole back off and then paint the inside here and then bolt that back on works that pretty well now they are usually more expensive but this project is not really a cheap project anyway I followed the same process for cutting out the templates and cutting out the pieces on the CNC for the legs and then it was time to put them together the body of r2d2 was made all out of one thickness of material and I've used that same thickness to cut parts of the legs but the legs actually do require two other thicknesses as well I've put those on order and while I'm waiting for them to show up I'm gonna go ahead and assemble these pieces that I have so far luckily the instructions that the guy put out with these files are super easy to follow it's just a matter of gluing this stuff together just like I did the body and actually these legs are far from complete there are tons of detail pieces they could put on the outside plus the ankles and the actual feet but after several weeks of work I was dying to actually see if it looked like r2d2 so I decided to loosely bolt the legs together tape on the skins and then drop on the dough obviously I am super excited about this project and it is really cool to see r2 up to this point now this is a very long-term and a pretty expensive project and I'm not going to go over the specific costs that I'm putting into it because it's gonna be different for every person depending on what build type you're using what materials your cost is going to be very very different because it's such a long term project I don't know when the next build videos gonna be out about r2 but if you don't want to miss it be sure to subscribe and in the meantime I've got tons of other project videos of all different types that you can check out right over there that's it for this one guys thanks for watching see you next time I'm really happy to have gotten this far so far that's and that's my out of order tons of other project videos for you to check out so click out some so click click click outhey I'm Bob it I like to make stuff today we're gonna start making our 2d tree this is a project that I've been wanting to do for a very very long time in fact since I was a kid I've always loved Star Wars and I've always wanted to have an r2 so I decided recently to get started on the project and the first step was a ton of research the r2 builder's club has a website called astromech net and this is the place you're going to go for all of the information that you're gonna need it's a community of people that are super helpful and willing to answer questions plus there's blueprints and tons of reference for everything so as you're doing research there there's a bunch of decisions you're gonna have to make before you can even start and those decisions are things like what material you're gonna use what functionality it's gonna have whether it's going to lean back have two legs three legs there's a ton of options I haven't decided on all the functionality I'm going to use yet but I did decide to make the core or the frame out of plastic I'm going to use something called styrene which is an ABS plastic so that I can cut it on the CNC if you don't have a CNC you can certainly just go onto the website and print out templates that you can glue on to plywood or plastic those things can be cut out with normal woodworking tools where you can just use a hobby knife and a chisel either way you're gonna have to have some files handy so that you can get a really nice fit on all the different pieces another option is 3d printing in fact you could 3d print top to bottom the entire droid if you really wanted to you could certainly make every single part on the droid yourself if you want to but there are also vendors who create screen accurate parts and they sell them in batches if you keep an eye on the website you'll see when a vendor has a new batch of parts and you just put your name on a list so that you can get the parts that you need but the downside of that is that you have to kind of wait in line and you have to wait for the parts to be available the upside to it is that you get beautifully machined aluminum parts that are super accurate I decided to make the inside of the droid but by a lot of the outside pieces from these vendors I got the skins and the dome and then a whole bunch of these detail pieces to fit in and they are beautiful these are ready to go for paint or powder coat so I have my first cuts of r2d2 finished on the CNC so it's really cool to have the frame all ready to go and start assembling it obviously if you don't have a CNC there are other ways to get that cut most people will go to a local office supply store like I did I spend about $18 printed out the templates full size and then they glue these onto the material and cut it out with a dremel or the jigsaw or something else like that the irony is though that I actually had to go get these things printed out anyway even though the pieces were cut on the CNC when I went to start looking at assembling the frame I realized that a lot of the marks on these templates are really about placement and assembly not about cutting so I had to print these out I'm gonna have to cut these out by hand and then glue them onto the frame before I can start assembling it now luckily I don't have to cut everything out these have all been cut and they don't really have any special information on them the big thing is these rings these dark areas are where you put the uprights and so I have to cut these pieces out glue them to my plastic and then score over these lines then take these templates off so I know where to put the uprights and glue those things in place so I'm gonna start going through these sheets and cutting all the pieces I need there were some pieces that I had to bevel using the table saw but you can also do that with a file if you need to that's so that these pieces will fit together at the right angles and to hold them perpendicular to each other while I glued them up I use these one two three blocks these are great for keeping things parallel or perpendicular to assemble all these plastic parts I used CA glue there are special solvents that you can use for all different plastics but I did quite a few tests and the CA glue actually seemed to work out just fine and be strong enough luckily the construction of this frame lends itself to being pretty strong and so the individual joints don't have to carry a whole lot of load one of the parts that I ordered were aluminum skins these are the actual body panels that go on the outside of the droid and these turned out beautifully these are laser-cut aluminum and then rolled on a machine to the right radius and they look great even after making the frame you do have to line up some of the individual pieces with the openings and the skins there's all these panels in the skins that get cut out so you have to make sure that the frame behind those openings is clear something I'm not used to about this r2 project is that a lot of the pieces are actually better to be made by other people they'll do parts runs where they'll take orders for a certain part then they'll make a whole bunch of them and it's usually the machined aluminum stuff these are some of the ones that I just ordered and I haven't looked at them yet but they look so good it's totally worthwhile to get something like this done a minute you could 3d print it I suppose but like there's a contour it's super well machined it's just ready to drop in and ready to go so for example on these the back surface here needs to stay aluminum and this needs to stay aluminum so they're made so that you can unbolt this pull the whole back off and then paint the inside here and then bolt that back on works that pretty well now they are usually more expensive but this project is not really a cheap project anyway I followed the same process for cutting out the templates and cutting out the pieces on the CNC for the legs and then it was time to put them together the body of r2d2 was made all out of one thickness of material and I've used that same thickness to cut parts of the legs but the legs actually do require two other thicknesses as well I've put those on order and while I'm waiting for them to show up I'm gonna go ahead and assemble these pieces that I have so far luckily the instructions that the guy put out with these files are super easy to follow it's just a matter of gluing this stuff together just like I did the body and actually these legs are far from complete there are tons of detail pieces they could put on the outside plus the ankles and the actual feet but after several weeks of work I was dying to actually see if it looked like r2d2 so I decided to loosely bolt the legs together tape on the skins and then drop on the dough obviously I am super excited about this project and it is really cool to see r2 up to this point now this is a very long-term and a pretty expensive project and I'm not going to go over the specific costs that I'm putting into it because it's gonna be different for every person depending on what build type you're using what materials your cost is going to be very very different because it's such a long term project I don't know when the next build videos gonna be out about r2 but if you don't want to miss it be sure to subscribe and in the meantime I've got tons of other project videos of all different types that you can check out right over there that's it for this one guys thanks for watching see you next time I'm really happy to have gotten this far so far that's and that's my out of order tons of other project videos for you to check out so click out some so click click click out\n"