My Scavenger Workshop Astromech Skirt Build
Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2025 7:58 pm
On July 19th, 2025 I was delivered an astromech skirt kit from Xometry and I started putting it together that evening. I am quite happy so far with the kit so far. It was very clean out of the package. I truly hope that this is the norm with Xometry, because this is worth the wait.
The box was an appropriate size, each part wrapped in butchers paper, then a foam sheet, stacked, and finally bubble wrapped. Smaller parts were stacked and then shrink wrapped in plastic and bubble wrapped. The rest of the box was filled in with brown paper and sealed properly.
I ordered the kit “as cut”, opting out of the extra sanding or finishing. So far there was no sanding at all needed to make any of the parts fit. I’ll still give it a quick sanding prior to painting in the early morning one of these days. It has been too hot outside to be in the garage for any length of time needed for sanding with outside temperatures reaching 100-115 degrees Fahrenheit. Just drilling the countersinks in I had to break up my time in the garage with the drill press.
This has been quite easy and straight forward to assemble, so I am sharing my experience here on it. Here is my progress so far.
How things was packaged.
Raw photos of the parts unwrapped:
Countersinking of the parts:
The two curved strips and the two side strips also need to be countersunk as well so the flat screws fit down into place. I didn't take a pic of those guys though.
Then I started to assemble things:
I left the 5mm screws a hair loose incase I needed to shift something. but quickly realized going forward that I was going to need something to help hold the 3mm nuts in place. The suggested blue painters tape was not working for me, so I used a hot glue gun and went a little wild. It was probably the heat getting to me! LOL
Once this was all together and tight I took one of the curved front parts and put it over my knee to start giving it a curved shape so that it was easy to screw down into place. It needed a little more curving than this, but i just worked it until it was close being careful not to kink anything.
The hot glue made screwing this together super easy.
Next up was working on the bars to get them fitted into place. I used a dremel with a drum sander attachment to sand the tabs slightly just so that there was little resistance in the slot, but that it is seated all the way. You can see in this next picture that there was a little more sanding needed to get it to sit in the slot properly.
This is starting to look much better.
With the bars in place and seated well it was time to glue them in place. I was going to buy the standard E-6000 that was suggested, but due to my other half's sensitivities to chemicals I opted to try something that was labeled as odor free. Sticking with the idea of E-6000, I picked up a tube of E-6000 Plus. To our delight this stuff was easy to work with, and there was no harmful odor. In fact my other half had no idea I was using glue at all. Now she is excited to have a new glue product to try in the future for her droid builds.
Up next will be a picture of the assembled skirt, and then on to prep and paint!
The box was an appropriate size, each part wrapped in butchers paper, then a foam sheet, stacked, and finally bubble wrapped. Smaller parts were stacked and then shrink wrapped in plastic and bubble wrapped. The rest of the box was filled in with brown paper and sealed properly.
I ordered the kit “as cut”, opting out of the extra sanding or finishing. So far there was no sanding at all needed to make any of the parts fit. I’ll still give it a quick sanding prior to painting in the early morning one of these days. It has been too hot outside to be in the garage for any length of time needed for sanding with outside temperatures reaching 100-115 degrees Fahrenheit. Just drilling the countersinks in I had to break up my time in the garage with the drill press.
This has been quite easy and straight forward to assemble, so I am sharing my experience here on it. Here is my progress so far.
How things was packaged.
Raw photos of the parts unwrapped:
Countersinking of the parts:
The two curved strips and the two side strips also need to be countersunk as well so the flat screws fit down into place. I didn't take a pic of those guys though.
Then I started to assemble things:
I left the 5mm screws a hair loose incase I needed to shift something. but quickly realized going forward that I was going to need something to help hold the 3mm nuts in place. The suggested blue painters tape was not working for me, so I used a hot glue gun and went a little wild. It was probably the heat getting to me! LOL
Once this was all together and tight I took one of the curved front parts and put it over my knee to start giving it a curved shape so that it was easy to screw down into place. It needed a little more curving than this, but i just worked it until it was close being careful not to kink anything.
The hot glue made screwing this together super easy.
Next up was working on the bars to get them fitted into place. I used a dremel with a drum sander attachment to sand the tabs slightly just so that there was little resistance in the slot, but that it is seated all the way. You can see in this next picture that there was a little more sanding needed to get it to sit in the slot properly.
This is starting to look much better.
With the bars in place and seated well it was time to glue them in place. I was going to buy the standard E-6000 that was suggested, but due to my other half's sensitivities to chemicals I opted to try something that was labeled as odor free. Sticking with the idea of E-6000, I picked up a tube of E-6000 Plus. To our delight this stuff was easy to work with, and there was no harmful odor. In fact my other half had no idea I was using glue at all. Now she is excited to have a new glue product to try in the future for her droid builds.
Up next will be a picture of the assembled skirt, and then on to prep and paint!