Great job on the home-made dome for Robby. if you study the original Rooby in the Forbidden planet movie beside the fancy cut around the top of the fins like you mentioned you can also see that the back side of the dome was horribly rippled. But since they were painting it, I guess it was good enough based on the time constraints. Thank you for sharing your build with the world. Hope some of my dome building was of help in some ways. I have made 3 dome slugs through the years. The first was all wood and turned-on a lath. But I found that no matter how smooth I sanded the wood that when the hot plastic hit the wood the grain would rise and show a bit in the dome. So then I made a high heat resin slug for the dome that was basically hollow and filled with wood scraps with resin poured in as well for strength. The vacuum system I was using would crush any dome slug that was not internally supported in some way. I was going to just pull the plastic over the dome slug as well, but I took a trip to vacuum forming shop and told them what I was trying to do and the found so interesting that the price was going to be about what I would spend on making a large heater and buying the PETG. So, you never know unless you ask when large Manufactuing places might just take a job for the fun of it unless you ask.
John! I am honored you watched the video and shared your insights and experience. I believe your name comes up in a few of my videos :) I really enjoy your channel (ru-vid.com), learning about your amazing collection and all of your replica builds. In particular the tips, STLs, & instructions that you have given the Robby community (esp regarding the mechanicals!) have been invaluable. I was contemplating making a high-heat fiberglass plug and pushing it down into heated plastic instead of the pull-down method, but if I can make 2-3 more for spares with the current method I might quit while I am ahead. Right now I'm working on the head, leveraging 99% of your "block-head Robby" details. Thank you!
You are my hero! I have been pondering this problem for decades, trying to find some commercially available plastic dome that was similar. You do amazing work. Nice pinball machines too! I have that hobby as well. Maybe pinball goes with a love of vintage robots? I have Gottlieb's Haunted House, Gorgar, and Stars by Sterns. Thanks for creating this video it is very inspiring.
Thanks! I'm working on another video to document my work on the rest of Robby. Most of my parts are my own design, but it you are interested in 3D-printing your own I highly recommend checking out Ian's files: www.patreon.com/ScifiProps
I would love to get involved in this hobby but I do not own a 3D printer yet. Can you recommend a model as a good one to start with? The gentleman with the ROBO HUT channel has also shared files he designed for Robby parts, including the alternate heart box with the three lights as seen in many 1960s TV appearances of the original Robby suit.
Some of Robothut's work can definitely be applied to a full-scale replica. As for printers.. it's a rabbit hole. Most of my Robby was printed on my Gigabot, which is very $$ these days. But there are newer, large format printers like the Elegoo Neptune 4 Max (just bought one) and other great brands like Creality and Bambu. No printers are "zero maintenance" so expect to have a little learning curve. But I highly recommend jumping in. You can start printing some small models, helmets, props from many of the free sites out there and work your way up to big projects like Robby.
Thanks and, wow - I cannot believe how affordable that Neptune 4 Max is! Amazon has it on sale for $267. The last time I considered jumping into this hobby, which was a few years ago, the least expensive 3D printer I could find was around a thousand dollars.
One day, I'll bet a robotics engineer will build a fully functional, computerized replica of the 2 iconic robots there in the room. JUST to show that it could be done. Driven by AI software.
