Bender "Bending" Rodriguez, Futurama Full Size IRL

[Silverbullit]

Howdy mates,

Promised to up some more stuff I fumbled together.
Found some Pics from the very, very first thing I made, even some poor film.

Story behind is I happened to watch the premiere episode of Futurama, thus I know this was around March 1999.
Low and behold the funniest robot I ever seen pops up, Bender "Bending" Rodriguez and I think to myself *woa, I want one of these*
Hmm but everybody will think I'm completely nuts.... hey thats reason enough to make one!
ITS ON!

Now at the time I had never seen a welder up close and did not own a tool, further more I live in a puny 2 room apartmant with no garage.
Went to the local junkyard and asked if they had any broken powertools and yes they happened to have a couple of pallets,
most turned out to be broken anglegrinders by the brand Bosch. I grabbed a crapload and started swapping parts and ended up with 2 anglegrinders I could grab in each hand and shake like maraccas and most of the time one would buzz on.
I was in the game!
Went to "Biltema" got an foldable workbench, a 5kg roll of 0,6 weldingwire, a tarpaulin and discs. (My budget was belly up so nothing else, no protective goggles, gloves or a n y t h i n g. My protective gear was my shooting earmuffs, sweatpants, T-shirt, Crocs a roll of duct tape and most importantly an ergonomic deskchair as I'm handicapped and need to sit and fumble.
Borrowed the poweroutlet on mates driveways, throw out the tarpaulin to easy the cleaning, borrowed welder where there was something supposedly welderish asf
Now I did not know any better and it took me a couple of years to build Bender.
Exhausted I decided *n e v e r a g a i n* however the few people that tripped over Bender was so overwhelmingly positive so I started on another project, and ever since I fumbled with the metalsculpting stuff to the point it's unimaginable to stop.
To this day I have workbench in my trunk, live in the same 2 room apartment, no garage. 20 yrs later... :/
Now I suddenly own a few tools as last summer Kemppi came and brought me the cutest little transportable welder I ever seen, Hypertherms boss came over in person and lent me an XP 30 Air, and Metabo gave me a wonderful flathead Anglegrinder and support with more stuff!
Things are just wonderful mates!
Thats the background, sorry enough rambled, here we go!



Diver tank...


Go inside and measure and measure again (Because it is warm inside)




Visir/Cyclop sides


To show wuzz goin on

[Silverbullit]

Cont'd


Head front


Head side, need to change the chin slightly




Fingers


First draft was metal eyes, later abandoned

[Silverbullit]

Cont'd


Lacked dough for hinges, threw together some stuff to make an adjustable neckswivel and easily upgraded to motorized.


Counterpart for neck


Body, split a big gas-bottle and put in two V-shaped pieces of flat iron to shape the body to the V shape.


First made a bottompart from a scrapped Segway to have the Robot following behind me through populated areas.
However he would spontaneously fall flat on his face and heavy as fxxk that was to dangerous.
Ended up with these legs for the time being, and time has run and still on this fixed leg contrapion

[Silverbullit]

Cont'd


Handy parts


Door


More Door


More more door...


Soles

[Silverbullit]

Cont'd


Other Sole


How the heck do you build eyes???
I looked around at Biltema and got these "universal joints"


No do, got these from dx china


Anglegrinding some crap together
(Now these have changed a lot and expanded with sensors'n crap over the years)


Cheezus, how to save this bungle!?!

[Silverbullit]

Cont'd

I fumbled together a video of the eye project and eventually uploaded it a few years back, here





Now heres another video I eventually uploaded of the half-finished build

[Silverbullit]

Cont'd

Much happened after that video but I did not document the progress properly and I lost most pics on top of that.
Heres one,





Sorry mated, don't have more than this to come with for my Virgin metalworking project.

Anyhooo, hope you liked it anyways!


May the force be with you!

[Silverbullit]

Oh one thing I really want to add,
At the time I saw the premiere episode of Futurama and started fumbling "Bender" together I really wondered if anyone ever would recognize the reference.
I fell in love with Futurama instantly but I could never in my wildest imaginations anticipate the Cult hit it became.
You never seize to be surprised...

Well on ya!

[labparamour]

Silverbullit,
That turned out great!
I think Bender is the best (perhaps because he appeals to my cynical side .).
Very creative. Nicely done!

Darryl

[Insaneride]

Nicely done. Bender gets his name from being an iron worker. He's a girder bender. Moms oil adds a nice touch.

[SlowBlues]

Love bender, and love this piece. Futurama was a great show, some real tear jerker episodes in there. Bender is freaking hilarious. Loved when they went grave robbing and he asked fry if he wanted him to smack up the corpse a little!

[Silverbullit]

Silverbullit,
That turned out great!
I think Bender is the best (perhaps because he appeals to my cynical side .).
Very creative. Nicely done!
Darryl

Thanks Darryl, I really appreciate your kind words. All the positive feedback you give here means a lot to me!

Nicely done. Bender gets his name from being an iron worker. He's a girder bender. Moms oil adds a nice touch.

Thanks Insaneride, yeah he really belong here amongst weldingwebs community of tools

Love bender, and love this piece. Futurama was a great show, some real tear jerker episodes in there. Bender is freaking hilarious. Loved when they went grave robbing and he asked fry if he wanted him to smack up the corpse a little!

Yeah he IS the man!
And yes, many things Bender squeezed out really sticks to my mind too mate.

[rlitman]

Nice build. What we need are some details on how shiny his posterior is.

[Silverbullit]

Nice build. What we need are some details on how shiny his posterior is.

Haha, B's travelin the planet (Out on loan) but as soon as he gets his (shiny?) *** back here I'll post a xxxnographic pic for your printer/workshopwall!

Oh yeah, and thanks mate for your kind words!

[N2 Welding]

I don’t know how I missed this thread and Bender build but never the less it is great to read the story of how you stumbled into this metal artwork. By all means keep at it, your workmanship and art pieces you create are very inspirational.

[Silverbullit]

I don’t know how I missed this thread and Bender build but never the less it is great to read the story of how you stumbled into this metal artwork. By all means keep at it, your workmanship and art pieces you create are very inspirational.

Kind words as always my friend, I'm not sure I'm worthy of your high praise but still your support is awesome and deeply appreciated!