Well, small report here, but still makes me feel good that some stuff has gotten accomplished.

I’ve been able to meet with my cousin about my new frame designs (which i have drawn out on paper, but not in autocad just yet). He looked over everything and said it shouldn’t be a problem to do what i want done! So that was very good news, now just need to get to work in autocad.

Last week I made a Home Depot/Lowes run and purchased quite a bit of tools and paint to be able to start working on R2. I have picked up a Dremel workstation as well to make a drillpress, but after checking it out, decided that it just shook too much with the plastic, so i’m going to be taking it back. I’ll pick up a real drill press at Harbor Freight or something, just not going to be too happy with the station i don’t think. On the paint, i was able to get a hold of the metallic blue, but not the blue anodized, hopefully will correct that next week.

I made 2 of my first BIG purchases!!!  First off, I ordered aluminum R2 skins from Ed Sherrel. After talking it over with Bluewolf a few times, he convinced me this would be much easier/less time consuming/exact/and probably cheaper in the long run. Thanks John

The second purchase was a 300 dome!!!  Ok, well, i’ve only purchased half of it, but i’ll be paying for the other half next week, then Darren will ship it my way!!!  Bluewolf already has his and has taunted me with it.

Hopefully, these are the only 2 major purchases i will be making for the build.  I hope to scratch build the rest of it or use resin parts from Keith (or whoever might have some).  I need to get ahold of dome resin stuff soon so i do test fitting and stuff.  I know that i’ll have to de-slag/de-burr the skins and dome, so that will probably take up a lot of time after i get them in.

I’ve also started thinking hard about electronics here lately. There is still time to get in on the J.E.D.I. light run over at astromech.net, but i’m thinking that i’m gonna try to save some money there and do my own setup (me and Bluewolf both).  Hopefully i won’t be regretting that decision later on down the road.

I really need to go ahead and start getting some plywood and start on legs soon. I think it would give me something to concentrate on and allow me to actually get results in hand which in turn just ups the excitement factor i already have for this project.

Right now, I have very limited space to work in, but i’ll just have to make it work. Hopefully i’ll win the lottery soon, so it won’t be an issue, but until then, i’ll have to make do with this small apartment area and outside area to work in.