HOWTO: Making Metal Alloy Jango Armour

I needed a break from the Westers I'm working on so I thought I'd tackle having a go of the armour and pop up a bit of a tut on how I'm doing it.

This may hopefully help out some other Jangos hoping to make their own alloy armour.

Firstly here is the belly piece, cut from 2mm alloy



Now I've taken a piece of 15mm (I think) steel and filed a round edge they I need to 'fold' the alloy over.



Then mount it in the vice were you can see the filed curve



Then sit the alloy over the edge of the steal by a couple mm



Then take the flat of a ball pen hammer and hammer an angle about 5-7mm all the way around the edge, this will allow the piece to look thicker and have more light curve on the edges of the alloy armour (Will make more sense later, stick with me!)


you can see here the hammer marks, this is the face side up


on the underside you should have something like this




Now comes to the curving part

I managed to pickup a piece of PVC from work that was 25mm X 200mm, I found this was perfect for all the armour panels



also wrapped an old tea towel around it to help stop any sharp dints accuring in the armour


now start hammering away, use about 50% of what you would use to hammer a nail in some hard wood.



now ending up with something like this



now get the files out and clean up the edge that has been hit with the hammer


Now you need to file a 45 degree around the edge of the whole panel



Now use a smooth file and clean up 'round' all the work you've done so far



use 240grit - 400 - 600 - 800 - 0000 steel wool - 0000 steel wool and polish - cloth and polish

and here you go




here is a bit of a before and after on the shoulder pieces using the same technique



A couple of chest shots



and here is where I am at so far, I'm very happy with the way they are coming up!

Looking impressive!
Just out of interest, how are you intending to create the detailing on the right chest piece?

good question, still havent made up my mind. it will be one of two ways

1) Dremel out the indentation and have a rough surface finish inside the step

2) drill and file out the indentation completly, and then mount a thinner piece of alloy inside the cutout, this way it's nice and clean.


i'm thinking the latter, only thing is it's much more work

this is great looking armour do you mind telling me what u used to cut out the metal with? i tryed this once and it did not work out well at all.

jinto said:

this is great looking armour do you mind telling me what u used to cut out the metal with? i tryed this once and it did not work out well at all.

Click to expand...

I cut my 2mm Aluminium armor plate with a hack-saw. Then tidyed up the edges with needle files.

jinto said:

this is great looking armour do you mind telling me what u used to cut out the metal with? i tryed this once and it did not work out well at all.

Click to expand...

I used a band-saw and a guillotine

if you didnt have access to something like that then the method Reven used would be your best bet

do you think sheet metal would work?