The past few days I’ve been tinkering around with some of the greeblies (random adornments) that you see on 3PO. They are solid brass made by a talented friend of mine and rather than glue some of them to the suit I opted for bolting them on where possible and reduce the risk of bits falling off and getting lost. It also allows me to remove the majority of them if the suit ever becomes damaged or if they need polishing without scratching the suit.

Above is one of the examples and on the upper greeblie I polished it up a little to show the difference in finish. It doesn’t look much but when all the brass is polished it does add a certain dynamic to the costume.

After marking out where I needed to I drilled and tapped suitable for M3 bolts. This is just what I had a lot of spares of. I was careful to measure the distance of the plunge on the pillar drill first as not to drill all the way through the brass as that would have been a disaster! Even tapping these was awkward and there isn’t much after the chroming process that doesn’t make you nervous given any bit of adding finishing touches could also result in damaging the suit.

Thankfully, all went well. The first of many brass bits to go…

After building astromechs a protocol droid seemed a logical choice, especially as so many fellow builders in the club kept suggesting I had the frame for it!

I must admit, I do quite like building things that you don’t see many of and its this that pulls me towards learning cad and electronics more and more amongst other skill sets. Although there is not so much a specific club, there are groups of people who have really helped and enabled me to develop my own suit.

Unlike the other droids til now, 3PO is entirely 3d printed. He’s come with his own unique challenges but it again is another journey and one which I look forward to follow for years to come.

If you are thinking of printing or building your own suit I can’t recommend the C-3PO builders group on Facebook enough. There are some very talented people out there and the kindness of some has enabled anyone with a 3d printer to jump into building their own suit.

I’ll jot down some updates again soon, so stay tuned!

I started my droid building journey some time back, perhaps around 2007/2008 after seeing the UK R2 Builders at a nearby event. I was immediately enamoured by what ordinary folk could achieve so close to, if not better, than an original! I realised it would be a huge undertaking and not something I could do in a day, week or month but I figured if they could then perhaps why not me?! I love making and building things and I had the most enjoyable chat with a few of the builders!

Simon, whose aluminium R2 was so silent, the foot drives were utilising a belt method opposed to chain drive! Due to this it seemed to have more response to others. As I found out in later years this isn’t just down to the ‘drives’ its also how the ESC is programmed but its surprising to see the difference of a belt driven R2 in handling and noise, more so in a quiet room.

Next up I met Brad. He was a tech guru and had the most tricked out droid (BHD). It had all the bells and whistles no doubt about it and even had the most sought after mod of all, a 2-3-2 mech! Not something he used often but amazing to see any time any where. The engineering this guy put into his droid, parts and electronics. Incredible. We had a great little talk and he really showed what can be achieved by putting the time in and not cutting corners….something which he would repeat to me every so often over the years!

Finally I came across Colin. A true gent. If I’m honest I put it down to him for all his encouragement from start to finish that kept me building. He saw my enthusiasm and suggested if I put the time in then its a very rewarding hobby and it is just that. His droid did everything he wanted it to and he went on to build some more fantastic droids.

I’d originally signed up on yahoo groups but gave it 6-12 months of research on astromech.info and astromech.net (the main builders forums) before I started my first droid, a styrene (HIPs) build and years later I’m still building and starting my own aluminium droid (R2-RND!) affectionately referred to as my R2 Research and Development droid.

So skipping forward a few years…after my first build and many events I had the opportunity to purchase someone elses work in progress. A fellow builder called Max, who was an engineer and had slowly been using information he’d gathered to build his own droid from scratch….all but the dome he’d made himself. The frame (as pictured above) for example based on documented JAG designs (another builder in the US). Max had done a great job with so much but it was still far from finished and as I found out when rebuilding things…the frame wasn’t entirely up to spec but he gave me the first foot up onto the ladder and in return he was able to pursue his new hobby – American muscle cars! I remember being a little nervous for spending so much in one go on a hobby but then he did give me a ride in his Plymouth duster which was incredible!

So R2RND continues to be a project, years on and I continue to read up on things, learn new stuff and one day I will finish him but I’m in no rush. The important thing for me is to continue enjoying what I do. I don’t have to spend every day working on something until its done, I have multiple projects on the go all the time because I like to dip in and out of them. I guess its like people enjoy reading but don’t wish to read the same book or genre all the time, sometimes they like to find something different to occupy their mind.

So anyway, there is a little back story to R2RND. I’ll keep updates coming and I’m sure you’ll see a few other projects coming up in between too.

So as you may have guessed my name is Chris and this is where I plan to jot down some of the things I get up to in my spare time. Some of you may know me as @Dmspockets on insta and will know I enjoy making things, tinkering around with mechanics, electronics …..usually associated with science fiction! However, going forward I’ll be posting most of my makes with@chrismakes.uk.

So what have I been doing with my time of late? Well, mostly its been time spent working on my C-3PO suit to wear around the various events I attend with fellow Droid Builders and just for funzies I’ll likely take it or my droid to other events outside of the UK given half the chance. There will be lots of updates on this coming soon as I’ll also be putting together a YouTube channel where I’ll review some of the methods of creating the C-3PO suit, techniques, materials etc as well as discussing some of my other projects. There’s some super interesting stuff coming so I hope you do find it interesting and who knows, perhaps it’ll encourage some to even embark on their own projects!

Enough about that for now however, you’ll find a tsunami of updates on other droid projects, resin projects, a little metal work, wood work and over time maybe some workshop updates. Its going to be quite a mixed bag so if any of that sounds of interest please keep reading! For now, thanks for checking out the page and enjoy!