Skins! I’m really excited to have created my first couple sets of Composite Skins. The process required a fair amount of prep work, including a two hour drive to meet with a Composites Expert to help refine my plan and choose products. As mentioned earlier, I purchased molds from long-time Builder’s Club Member, Crash. I have worked through the exact process that Crash used to produce up to 100 Skins from these molds in the past (including Skins for a Disney park) and have made a few small tweaks for local conditions and my supplier’s recommendations.
Note: I have signed a non-disclosure agreement with Crash and will not be going into great detail on the process I’m using to build these skins. In the tradition of builders though, I’ll be sharing what I can!
I’m not quite happy with the surface finish of these first sets, and will be making another soon, but these are going to serve me very well as a base to prototype a few ideas on. My first Astromech, R6-T3x is a dark colored imperial unit and I’m not afraid to use some bodyfiller/glazing putty on it. I’ll be permanently bonding these skins into the body shape/size later, and hope to add an integrated frame.