Introduction: Star Wars WED Tredwell Droid

About: Chief Project Manager and Fabricator. I make all sorts of props and costumes from scratch on very low budgets for fun. anything from star wars to steam punk i always like to challenge myself with builds and pr…

In this fine Instructable i will be showing how to make a star wars full scale Tredwell droid" from star wars. the build is moderately difficult and is a long build and is also a R/C if you choose it to be.

The Tredwell droid was a prop in star wars episode 4: a new hope. it was one of the droids lined up to buy by uncle Owen and Luke Skywalker by the jawa's. this droid didnt have much screen time.. no more then 5- 8 seconds. so finding the measurements where quite challenging due to the lack of toys and screen shots but it came together quite well.

I built this for fun on a star wars binge i was on with my productions group and did this all completely from scratch. the entire build is relatively straight forward and easy in thought but can put you back a bit because PVC was 50% of the cost by it self.

THIS IS A HUGE BUILD. it took me about 1 month at part time hours to do it by myself.

feel free to make your own changes to what ever you like! like paints and the attachments.

feel free to ask questions and share comments with others! best of luck.

Step 1: Gathering Materials

First: clear an area for your work. you'll need a work bench or table that you don't mind having paint, glue, plastic on it etc. be sure for it to be well lit and have power to it. then gather the following materials:

High Temp Hot Glue
Dremel
Band-Saw or your choice of saw
PVC pipe
4-4 cans of krylon spray paint (1-2 orange and 3-4 tan [or your favorite color], one flat clear coat.)
Foam board or craft foam sheet.
3 Sheets of HDPE plastic (you can get this at Menards or Granger 24x30, (Cheap and easy to work with and strong!) or ABS (more expensive harder to work with.)
1x2 wood
screws
nuts
power drill
wood glue
90 degree angle braces
12"x12" Plywood board
!SAFETY GLASS! EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!
and last some sweet jams to listen too.

After collecting your tools and materials next get a couple reference pictures of the inter-webs and print them off and tack them in front of your work area.

Step 2: The Lower Body Skirt

start by marking your measurements with a Square and  Level on the HDPE. this will create your body kit of the droid. here are the measurements i used: FRONT PANEL 20"x5" SIDE PANEL 32"x5

after the measurements use a band saw to make the cuts. the band saw works the best for this plastic but if you dont have one you can use a dremel or rotozip. bigger saw blades from table top says or the revolving of a jig saw will either bend the plastic and warp it or demolish entirely. Basically you want a low impact, thin blade for cutting the HDPE. once they are cut take a low grit sand paper to remove the burs along the edge of the plastic from the band saw. then use the hot glue gun to the the pieces together putting the front and rear pieces in front of the side pieces covering them so that the side panels are not visible from either the front or back.

many people will tell you to build the body around the fram but in this case it didnt work . it was much easier build the body then measure the inside for the frame.

Step 3: The Frame and Support

start building the frame in the top of the body or flip it up side down and let gravity take it to the edge. i sued a basic box frame with horizontal braces for added support and for the base to attach to. use the angle braces to attach the corners together.

on either long side of the frame set up a raiser mount and put a horizontal bar 3" away from the body these two parts of the frame will be what the wheels are connected too. there are 5 wheels on either side remeasure your frame and evenly put the 5 wheels along the wood plank.

in the middle of the frame make a riser mount the is flush with the top of the body and then raise it another 2-3 inches to allow clearance for the warm base.

Step 4: Uper Body

this part you'll be adding the top part of the body.

you want to make for parallelograms. here are my measurements: FRONT: 20x11 x7 SIDE: 32x 7x7

use the hot glue gun to glue the pieces together make sure your gluing from the inside. grind of the excess glue of and smooth our the corners with the dremel. WEAR SAFETY GLASSES AND A LONG SLEEVE SHIRT. the glue will fling off the dremel, melt and harden onto your bare skin and burn you. just make sure the dremel is rotating away from you.

after its all smoothed out and the gaps are filled get a can of krylon primer preferably white and 2 cans of tan krylon paint. apply coats even over the body over the next day or two.

Step 5: Body Toppers

next well do the body toppers. these lay on an angle of the body but the top of them should be flat.

here are my measurement: FRONT 5.5x x4 SIDE 11.25x3.5x8.5 TOP 8x4

keep in mind that they may need to be trimmed to fit your body. the sides of each of the toppers must have the textured side out this is a very fine detail but it shown in the movie and other references in books and action figures.

again glue from the inside, prime them and paint them orange.

Step 6: Armature

this is the armature. the droid has 8 arms which means you need 14 peg base to attach the arms.

use a piece of particle board and cut it round at 12"

these are the 1x2" cut to 3 inches high with a 3/4" angle cut in each side to make a parallelogram
glue the pegs onto the board with wood glue and put a single screw in them from underneath ti support the.

drill a whole that's just a size smaller then the nuts you choose for the arm connectors.

drill a center hole in the middle of the base and put a screw into the base of the frame. make sure you can take the screw out easily this will help with the assembly and transportation of it.

Step 7: Arms

the arms are fairly simple

get 8 PVC pips that are " long and another set of 8 that are slightly smaller and " long.

cut notches into the thicker and longer at the top and so that the arms can move up and down. also drill holes at the top and bottom of this arm. these arms will connect to the armature and the other arms.

drill holes in the top of the smaller pvc pips as well so you can attach the two arms.

prime and pain the arms tan

for the arm "supports" get some aluminum tuvbe and make a bend in the top of them over a vice and clamp the ends.

for the under "supports" get a couple wooden dowels the similar size of the aluminum tubes and paint them silver.

Step 8: Neck and Head

to make the head simple get a couple pre-cut PVC pipe and another that will fit inside the other and glue them together the hot glue will do the job.

make a couple cut of the pvc pip the same size and a couple others that very in size. the total length of the nect should be 38"

prime them and paint them tan once there assembled. use painters tape to tape the tan parts and spray over with a couple coats of the orange.

the head is similar to the body make to two rectangle boxes 4" in diameter with a small pvc base and two of the parallelogram and attach all this to a plywood base. and glue it to the neck.

Step 9: Assembly

once its all painted up and dry. assemble it and do minor modifications extra glueing screws etc...

if you want to put an R/C motor in it you can you'll need a powerful one due to the weight of it. you can also rig some lines though the arms to make them go up and down from a controller the same way. you can set up to rotate the head or make a sound board.

put the dowel rod you painted silver and glue them to the arms and put a scrap of ply wood at an angle supporting the rod in the front of the arm.

also don't forget to make the attachments or "hands". these can be done with parts and scraps you have laying around i made a couple claws and a shovel like hand. the other 5 arms i just went to home depot and wandered around and found some cool looking things in the electrical departments for hands like light sockets and other wiring harness's.

feel free to add your own flair to it. wiring to the head L.E.D lights for eyes etc.

Step 10: Done and Done

after everything all assembled drag it out and take some pictures to show of your hard work!

hope you enjoyed reading and hope you give your own WED droid a try!
feel free to check Towering productions out at our other projects on  our face book page and like us!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Towering-Productions/264942270203718

May the Force be with you.

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