1/6th STAP with Battle Droid

[Aku]

Long time lurker, first time poster

I've been on a bit of a Star Wars kick lately, so when I read the review and build WIP of Hunter Rose, I was inspired to pick up one of the AMT STAP and clankers kit.

 

Unfortunately, mine was not quite the bargain as Hunters was coming in at £45. 😞 However that was the only one I could find in the UK, all the rest were from the USA and after postage would pretty much work out at the same price 

Since the STAP and droid together are too tall to be displayed in my DETOLD cabinet, I'm going to display them separately. Rather like Toftdale, I'm having the Battle Droid standing armed with blaster. 

BTW I don't see the need for repeating verbatim all the same comments that Hunter made in his thread. Hay, it's the same kit, it will be going together pretty much in the same way.  I'll just be going over where I deviated from the standard assembly. Thanks BTW for the notes on removing some of the locating pins and using the clamps to hold the large assemblies together. 

 

There is already quite a bit articulation in the droid already, I'm just going to push it just a little bit further. I don't need super high quality joints. This is a model not an action figure. I can't see me changing the pose more then a couple of times in a year. 

AIM 
1. Improve articulation such that the Battle droid can stand unaided and be posed
2. Still allow the battle Droid to be mounted back on the STAP if so needed at a later date, so maybe magnets in the feet
3. Modify an Action Man gun to use as the blaster
4. Replace the base and use a ball/socket joint to allow the STAP to be mounted slanted as if coming in for a tight turn

I also collect LEGO kits and I've found them a very useful source for hinges and ball and socket joints. And I have the pieces to hand already. 

 

HEAD

Yeah. I made a mistake here. Since the model is jointed there are a number of pieces that are not glued. Marked as below. Fine but you have to take care. I glued the "ears" to the head so the head wouldn't tilt. I managed to free it in time before it set. The head tilts OK now. 🤪

 

 

HIPS
There is a ball and socket joint here but it is quite floppy. A couple of layers of thin cloth my my fabric box (a scrap piece of silk I think it is), super glued around the hip ball joint should help pack it out. In testing it holds up quite well. Nice and tight now

ELBOW
With the legs, the connector piece fits into the opposite part, it's a nice tight joint. It doesn't do that with the arm joint though, it just rests against the flat bit of the opposite part. So I snipped off the thin pin, drilled out a hole through all three pieces of the elbow joint and inserted a LEGO rod through. It didn't have to be LEGO BTW, a standard plastic rod would have worked just as well, but with the shops closed I had to use what I had to hand. 

 

No glue on the middle wheel so it's free to move. I made sure the hole was a nice tight fit so that friction will keep the forearm from flapping around. So on the left arm it went together perfectly. I just glued the rod to the outer arm part, for the inner arm piece I just push fitted it in. This gave a little bit of freedom of movement to allow the wheel to ratchet round. The other arm did not go together so well, there was more ply in this one so I ended up gluing the rod to both the left and right sides. 

 

 

 

SHOULDERS
After a little bit of playing round I made a joint using these parts

 

4 stud length axle
Axel connector 59443
Plastic strip 1x2 with cup 14704
Axle 4211375

 

 

These sort of parts

I cut off the stud portion from the socket part and trimmed down the top of the inner arm piece,  (parts 11a and 13). The axle running though the chest was cut down by about 4 mm to bring everything into line. At the moment the socket is held down in the arm with superglue but I'll be using epoxy later to really secure it. Likewise I'll use epoxy glue to secure the rest of the bar inside the body. If I secure the axle and connectors only, and leave the ball with cross axle (part 4211375) free, I'll be able to swap out the arms in the future. I could make a battle damaged part if I wanted and pop it in and out. The great thing about LEGO, it's designed to be hot swappable.

 

As you can see I get rotational movement and a little side movement as well.  At the moment this is all dry fitted. 

 

NEXT STAGES

Ankle
I'm thinking of doing something similar with the ankles to give it a rocker motion. Over the next week I'm going to see if I can work this LEGO piece in. The leg is very slim here, it will require quite a bit if cutting and test fitting to work. 

 

Blaster
Spare 1/6th Droid blasters are around £25-£30 on Ebay. It would be cheaper to buy a full sized toy blaster TBH. (BTW I totally just did. I ordered one for just over £20. With a bit of a repaint I can get it looking like a proper studio scale reproduction). Anyway, I picked up an Action Man one gun on Ebay for £2.45. I think I can convert it into a passible Star Wars style blaster.

 

Roger. Roger. Watch this space..  
 

Edited January 17, 2021 by Aku
spelling

[Pete in Lincs]

Aku, welcome to Britmodeller. And a new Sci fi fan is always good to see. 

I hate to say this, but I've had one of these on my for sale thread for months. Ah well. 

I like the silk in the hip joint idea, and the use of Lego. Lateral thinking is good.

From what I've read, the feet don't really fit on the footrests, so you may have to do a dry fit.

Good luck with the build, you're off to a very good start already. Cheers, Pete

[Hunter Rose]

That's great work with the lego joints on the arms! 

So funny you mentioned the bits NOT to glue on the head as I did the exact same thing with my one! 

 

Following with interest

[Aku]

Making slow progress. Apart from struggling with my own sloth like abilities when it comes to model making,  I was additionally hampered with having to order in extra supplies, rather then popping to the shops, when I discovered my aged tubes of filler and epoxy were dried up and crusty. In addition, having to work in the shed in the dark and cold when dealing with the smelliest of the glues put me off a bit. 

First off, my plans to convert an Action Man gun failed before it even got started as I discovered the gun was way too big. Looks like I'll be scratch building the blaster now. 

Shoulders 
Epoxied the Lego ball and socket in place. Everything works as it should, and i can still pop the arms off for additional work and painting. 

 

 

He's got legs and he knows how to them

Finished off the legs. Trimmed down the LEGO pieces to fit, and epoxied the socket in place. I think it stands out too much right now but 'll see how it looks after a coat of primer. If it's too plain I might add some greeblies around the socket. 

 

If I were to do this again I might consider mounting the ball socket actually inside the foot, making it less obtrusive.  

 

The knee joint seemed a little floppy, so I wanted to tighten that up. I was going to use the same rod technique as I used on the elbow joint, but I wasn't confident that it would hold up, so I used a small screw instead. 

Drilled and widened the hole in the knee joint just a fraction as I didn't want to stress it when the screw cut into it. While the screw was the smallest I could find it was still a little too long. I sawed off about 3 mm, and filed the rounded top a little flatter. I was hoping that being a mechanical piece it wouldn't look out of place on the droid, but I'm not too sure now. Again, it might look less obvious under a coat of primer. On the other hand it had an advantage over the elbow joint as  I can adjust the tension by tightening the screw to get the joint just right, and I can still even remove the lower leg if needed. 

 

Hips don't fail me know
Tried to pad out the hip joint as I planned with mixed success. It's funny, but in dry testing, two layers of fabric worked fine. But when I then superglued then in place they became too think and I had to sand then down to fit tightly. 

 

I also appeared to have lost a little movement as I can't flex the legs as wide as I like. The legs rotate fine, but now the stance is a little narrower. I don't think now I could mount it on the STAP properly, which is no big loss TBH as I'll be having him standing next to the STAP. There was no way I could have him mounted on the STAP in my IKEA Detolf cabinet anyway. 

 

Still, not a complete failure. The legs are as posable as I had hoped, and the joints are nice and tight.

 

All that remains is to finish off the arms, backpack, and scratch build a blaster and a make a stand. 

If it all goes well I might buy another set. Two roger, rogers are better then one. 

 

Edited February 17, 2021 by Aku

[Hunter Rose]

Cool! Great work with the legs! 

[Aku]

Some progress to report, but after that I might have to take a little hiatus.  I'm finding I'm having to replace too many items now, but with the shops closed I might have to wait a while to restock. Plasticard, Milliput and blades, a saw, all need replacing and hopefully in a couple of weeks, the local model shop will be open again

I'm all about that base, dat base, dat base
Since the droid will be mounted next to the Hot Toys Sandtrooper on my shelf, I wanted to make a similar base for him to stand on to bring them to similar heights. 

 

 

A few hiccups on the way but I finally got there I think. The intention is for some sort of battle field diorama. I posed the droid standing and kneeling on a piece of paper marked out to the finished size, to get and idea of which areas would be free and could be worked on and not get in the way of the pose. I would then would then try and keep those areas the flattish. I initially laminated three 6"x4" pieces of foam card together and layered with plasticard top and bottom. I've made bases this way before and after being coated with Milliput or Apoxy sculpt, found them to be light but strong. The intention was to coat the sides of the foam card with Milliput and when sanded smooth would make a worthwhile base. Unfortunately my aged Milliput wouldn't mix properly and I ended up with these chunks that would not dry. 

 

In the end I glued another piece of platicard to the bottom that was about 2mm wider all round and then use more platicard around these edges to finish them off. 

I cast some droid and STAP pieces to act as debris. The clay was pressed in around them to hold the pieces in place and to stop the mold material running under them. I made a silicone mold and cast the pieces up. 

 

Test fit

When cast, the clay base proved to be too thick to be removed as simple "flash" that could be cut away, however it actually worked out quite well in the end. I'm actually going to use that as part of the ground. Not all the pieces would fit on the area I had planned, so I'm going to have the lower pieces loose on the shelf in front of the base. I roughed up and cut dents and gouges into the pieces to simulate battle damage. 

Using Avis Apoxy Sculpt I made the ground, rough and bumpy. Scrunched tin foil up to press into the sculpt to give the ground texture. Added extra pieces of rubble and stuff. A sliced up cotton bud makes some nice piping. I also rolled some large LEGO rubber tires over the ground to  leave tracks. A little coral sand glued in as well for additional texture. Its not easy to see here, but there is a lot of texture here that should stand out with a little wash and drybrushing. 

 

Top View 

[Pete in Lincs]

That looks good. Don't stay away for too long!

[rockpopandchips]

This is definitely look very nice and the base is fantastic. 

[Hunter Rose]

Agreed that base is bloody nice! 

[Vipermark7]

Beautiful work. 
Sorry for the necropost, but any chance you have either a link or the name of the ball joints you used?

Thanks in advance. 

[The Chief Smeg]

 

On 8/3/2023 at 1:13 PM, Vipermark7 said:

Beautiful work. 
Sorry for the necropost, but any chance you have either a link or the name of the ball joints you used?

Thanks in advance. 

First place I’d look is Bricklink

 

https://www.bricklink.com/catalogTree.asp?itemType=P

They have a very good reputation 

Edited August 6, 2023 by The Chief Smeg