In a soda can galaxy far, far away...

[Gman93643]

Episode Who knows; The quest to build life-size R2

So begins one of our biggest builds as of yet requiring massive amounts of cans. We have allocated 2000 cans to the project to begin with and we have no doubt that building the astromech will take up the majority of them.

We start with the body knowing full well that it will require several layers of cans to achieve the desired strength and shape. We checked with several of the astromech building forums and came up with a general diameter of 18.3 to 18.5 inches.

With this in mind we use our templates to cut out a top, bottom and finally a body piece. The body piece itself when laid out on the workshop floor was well over 4 foot long. We glue the body piece into a round position and afix the top and bottom piece and begin paneling over the preliminary off color layers of cans. The estimate is about 64 to 70 cans required per layer.

So at step one of the process, as you can see, R2's body has begun to take shape and the layers of can material required to strengthen him begin to form the overall appearance. The color of the cans are of little consequence until we get to the final layer, which of course must be white:






More to come soon from our newly formed astromech factory...!

[jaffro]

Nice one... I'm looking forward to watching this one take shape... may the force be with you.

[Kevin WS]

Will be watching with interest.

Like the soda can models - they have a kind of arty appeal.

[Gman93643]

Finally after some serious, continuous gluing the R2 body is now in the proper color, white. This however will not be his completed outer skin. We have opted to go with Diet Pepsi white for the large areas of white on the model, Diet Pepsi Silver for the dome, and Pepsi blue for the areas that are blue.

This completed outer skin of Coca Cola white makes the 5th layer of cans applied to the main body structure to give it strength. The next step will be to move on to the tricky dome and the very complex leg pieces...

More to come soon!

[Gman93643]

The quest for the astromech continues. At this point in the build, we have reached over 560 cans consumed and over 150 construction hours.

The next step in our construction was to begin building the iconic dome piece. We start by building a base structure out of off color coke cans which will be paneled over with the appropriate silver color once the base structure is completed. The dome starts to take shape:





The dome piece at this point has taken 40-60 hours construction time and over 50 cans, bringing our grand total of cans well over 600 and our construction time in hours over 200. The dome base structure is finally completed and is test fitted over the body piece:



R2 stands at about 3 foot tall and the next step for right now is to begin paneling over the dome and also working on the leg pieces.


We start paneling over the dome into Silver Diet Pepsi cans. This process takes up another 36 cans and 24 hours of construction time:




Now we begin the two outer legs which will consist of up to 5-6 main pieces fitted together, and the center leg which will consist of three mounted to an under skirt. We work from the foot and ankle up producing the middle leg and ankle assembly:



More to come soon!

[Gman93643]

Well, rather than draw this thread out another four or five updates, I decided it was much easier to show the culmination of this project through a concluding video. So without further delay, here is the conclusion of the life-size soda can model R2D2 project:

R2D2 life-size model built out of soda cans - YouTube

[Gman93643]

So proud and humbled to announce that soda can model R2D2 was awarded the Mildred Terbush Memorial award for Best in Show at the 2013 IPMS Dragon Lady in Yuba City California.

Completed life-size sodacanmodel R2



R2's award

[jaffro]

Wow... I missed this when you finished it, awesome job. Nice work on the model and congratulations on the award, very well deserved.

[elliott]

It was a great thread and a great model. The award is absolutely well-deserved. Congratulations!

[John Bowden]

Congratulations! It is well deserved!!