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Thursday, January 1, 2015

A New Year, A New Hope ... ...

Happy New Year to one and all! Wanted to start 2015 associating with the most anticipated Movie for this year; Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens.


This is a no-brainer for most people. The iconic Astromech, R2D2. This is a 3D metal model kit and my good pal Karyan bought it for me all the way from France. Well, of course, this is retail here in Singapore at most departmental stores for $29.90.
It's actually something I will not buy but seeing a completed model inspired me to just get on with it to complete it.
 



The parts are made of steel and I figured it has to be stainless steel. Well, time will tell. So, you get 2 sheets of metal and you will need to cut them out and refer to the instructions manual to complete it.




This is really small and you will definitely need tools like tweezers and any other tools to get this done.



To achieve the 3D effects from flat sheets, you need to bend the parts and there are either lines or perforation to allow for bending. This is where it gets tricky with the perforation and I encountered the above situation with R2's front leg. The parts broke from excessive bending.
 

Basically, the parts hold together with everything intact and with breakage, it means it's game over. But I was determined to complete it and eventually have to glue the front leg to the entire piece.


At the end of it, I think I have done a 'OK' job on this thing and the finished product is indeed quite a show piece. If only, it is bigger




The picture above is before any repair is done to connect the body to the leg. 





All right, what is supposed to be an hour job became a few more but I'm happy with it and I have it in the ACI boots container for display.





Once again, Happy start of 2015 to all and we have 12 months to wait for the movie with the release date on 18 December 2015.

2 comments:

Dennis aka Katsuden said...

Nice metal build R2-D2. Happy 2015 and may the force be with you.

Jonloh said...

Yes, I like it but I've not exactly done justice to it.