My story with Robert is like so many others. I'm just a nobody who knows as close to nothing about precision shooting as possible, yet when I decided to ask Robert to spin up an AI barrel for me, he went so incredibly far beyond my expectations that, after a single phone call, I knew I wanted him to do any and all future gunsmithing jobs I could possibly need.
I called him out of the blue one day and explained to him that I wanted to see if he'd be able to spin up a .338LM barrel for an AXMC. He said absolutely and he spent over an hour talking to me about various options and just regular bullshitting about everything, not even just guns/shooting. He went on bugholes.com and picked out a barrel that would work best for my situation and told me that I could order it and have it shipped directly to him to avoid having to re-ship it once it arrived. I ordered the barrel and had it shipped to him and he called me several times over the next few weeks to verify things we'd discussed and was always very patient with me when I didn't quite understand a concept he was explaining, and used very simple metaphors with other fields to further my comprehension of specific mechanics/concepts. He never went too fast or got frustrated and was incredibly humble in his responses to all my questions, which were probably very stupid questions. His responses were never, "this is how you need to do it" but rather, "if I were building myself an xyz, I would probably go with ____ and here's why:" followed by an incredibly informative explanation.
I discussed with him the possibility of spinning up an AI barrel in 30-06 for no reason other than I really want one, and he said he felt very confident that he could modify a .300WM magazine to make it all work perfectly. We discussed refinishing a 10/22 stock that I had. We discussed several other projects as well that I intended to send his way when he got caught up after his illness earlier this year. I'd imagine I spent somewhere between 15 and 20 hours on the phone with him and every minute of it was with a humble man who was genuinely trying to just have a good time while also being informative but never pushy. Unfortunately, none of the projects we had planned ever made it to fruition, but I hope he was able to spend time with his loved ones at the end.
I hope his family is able to see these stories and understand that while it's not at all the same, we're all mourning with them.
Rest peacefully Robert, your personality will be greatly missed.