Pit Bot- Making Of: Part 3

so in Part 1 I began carving shapes and making fiberglass parts of the torso and head. In Part 2 I showed how the outer shells were made in carbon fiber. In this part I will show various extra bits like the arms and hover dish..

Extra Parts

for the 'ear' pieces i took a mould of a large cog i found in the workshop, added bits from model tanks and planes to create an interesting mechanical part, then moulded in silicone and cast two versions in resin

 

in the photo below is also the rear head thruster, a solid resin tube which was turned by hand on a lathe.

 

the head now has a carbon fiber faceplate and I have been filling and sanding the head shape, getting it ready for painting.

Hover Dish

 

the main hover dish was 3 layers of MDF circles, glued together and then the whole thing was turned on the large Lathe in the workshop. the size of it was dictated by the largest size possible on the vac form machine, which i then used thin clear perspex to form 2 copies of the disk shape, this took quite a while as you have to heat the perspex very slowly so that it doesn't burn on 

 

 

the 2 dishes were layered on top of each other, the outer one was cut out and would then be the support structure for the 'Thrusters'. the thruster mechanisms were various bits and pieces, the man bits were the large outer casings of cheap headphones from Argos (2 sets collected after they broke from old age- recycling guys!)

working away in my Grannies garage, started arranging all the parts as a kind of dry fit. The grey circular part at the bottom of the bot are disks made from several layers of MDF and Marine Ply, cut on the CNC milling machine and sprayed grey.

 

Arms

  these details are various bits and bobs found throughout the workshop, then moulded in a flat silicon mould so that i could duplicate them many times. most of these parts would be used on the robots arms..

i built the ams in a way that i would only build one, mould it, and pop out 2 full resin versions. the ivory sections are resin parts, the details above and 2 resin cylinders, turned by hand on a Lathe. the brown parts are the hinges, drawn up in Autocad, 3 layers milled out in MDF by the CNC miller, then glued together.

 

the forearm and upper arm section was then moulded in  silicone block and then built a plaster case around it to retain its shape.

 

 

the fingers were don in the same way as the hinges- autocad drawings, CNC mileld and glued together, moulded and then resin version cast.

 

the left arm was going to be a drill hand, so i lathed some more resin disks, and then moulded and cast out a resin drill head from an old drill i had. the pistons are just alluminium tubes and the white finger covers are just vac-formed styrene parts, based on aother shape turned on the lathe.

Finished hands ready for painting

 

all the hand parts were washed and cleaned from any grease before painting.

Lighting and Finishing

 one thing I wanted was a really well lit prop, so i spent nearly 2 weeks lighting the bot.

i purchased pre-wired LEDs from a place in England, these are a life saver, no complex electronic maths, just plug them into a 12V power source and bingo-lights! the rear light was a solid lump of clear resin that was turned on the lathe, then 3 lights popped into the underside of it.

heres the head with lights and paint scheme..

beginning a rough assembly of the whole bot. The neck was a bendable coiled wire from a desk lamp.

 

 

the outer shell was pop-riveted on with aluminium spacers.

 

all the parts in a dry assembly fully painted (except for final weathering.)

final assembly and paint, next stage is adding sponsor logos and realistic weathering. stay tuned!..