Wooo-Hoooo! Another Frame Is Born!

Finally we have gone from 2-D to 3-D! Frame contruction took about 5 hours. Do I have any advice or tips? Why, yes I do! Purchase as many small squares as you can reasonably justify. Waiting for each upright part to "set up" takes most of the time. Here is my start:



Have I started a model of the coliseum? Stonehenge for Spinal Tap? No, it's the start of level 2! I used my taller squares to be sure the rings were even.



Here is where it started to get tricky -- tiny errors multiplied later. Be careful!



She's not perfect, but she'll do. Frame done! I used tape to force some parts together. Will add some extra stryrene in places needed tomorrow. The cutting process caused most of the problems: some pieces weren't precisely the same height/width due to imperfect edges from the "breaking/snapping" method of cutting styrene.



A "frame-is-finished" builder tradition: trying on the skins! Some minor filing will need to be done before they are glued on, but HEY we are starting to look really droid-like, eh?



All in all, I'm glad I did this by myself. If I wanted a perfect droid, however, I'd pay to have the patterns laser-cut. There were so many tiny issues -- things that I will see forever, but that hopefully not too many others will notice. But WHEW I've got one major part done!! Huzzah!