My Custom Design

i love the belt and leg pouches. very cool. your armor/helm looks great! cant wait to see more!

Me too. Time is a nasty thing, I never have enough!

Wooow . It's amazing what some people can do. I would love to have a custom mando gear, but I lack the skills to do it myself. :angry Would love to see some warriors in RL, not only Boba's and Jango's.

Looks great!!!

Hey guys!

Making progress again on my Mando armor!!

I've been paying a few visits to the 405th lately as those guys generally lead the way in new techniques for making Pepakura armor. They've been talking for a while now about a material they call "Mud" or "Rondo".

I thought I'd give it a go myself today in the hopes it'd speed up my progress and help finish my Mando for a con in November.

Now, basicly. You take 1 part filler(Bondo) and 1 part resin. Mix the too to make a grey(usually) thick liquid, then add the hardener which in most cases is the red paste. The red paste changes the colour of the filler/resin mixture to a dirty pink/red colour. This is great as you know when you've added the right ammount of hardener by checking the colour of the Rondo mixture as you stir it all up.

Now, the mixture is very runny so what they 405th guys say is to simple mask off any areas you don't want covered, then pour the Rondo over the piece to be worked on.

I tried the pour method first and although the result was great, I was very unhappy with the mess and waste caused by the excess run off. So I put the piece asides and mixed up a new batch of Rondo to continue with other pieces or my armor.

This time I applied the Rondo with a brush as it's runny enough I thought to be applied that way.

I started with my chest plate, coverage was good and because the Rondo is thick but runny, the brush strokes quickly vnished as the Rondo spread gently over the piece. There was very little run off and waste. I then continued with the same batch of Rondo to cover my ab plates, shoulders and cod!

Like I said, very little waste and mess, PLUS I covered a load more pieces whereas the first batch(both first and second batches were the same ammount) only covered my butt plate and I wasted loads!

Great news!!!!

You can see the pics above of the butt whcih I've started to sand a little now. You can also see how smooth my other parts are after being Rondo'd with a brush.

The top pic you see was done by a buddy of mine here, oneone1111, who took some concept sketches of my armor and a few progress pics and came up with that great artwork of me in my gear!!!!

Very interesting. I'm gonna have to try this. Thanks for sharing this info. Nice progress too, it's gonna look sweet when you're done.

Thanks T!

I can't take credit for discovering the Rondo method, though it's so simple really I'm surprised someone didn't think of it a lot sooner! I mean the resin and filler is all polyester so it's hardly rocket science. LOL!

Still, it' a great method but works much better when applied with a brush! Now that part I'm more than happy to take the credit for!!! LOL!

Well, I've been working on my Mando gear again today, one step closer!

Anyway, I'm doing my gauntlets now. I picked up a pair of ESB Boba gaunts in the hopes that they'd be Ok for modding to try and save me time in getting at least a temporary set of gaunts. The one's I'm making from scratch are ok but not ready. These ebay gaunts were cheap so I grabbed them but wasn't expecting much, it didn't matter if I was going to mod them right? WRONG!

These things are absolute garbage! The details are non existent, scrappy bits of resin all over them, bubble holes aplenty, you name it. If you could suggest a potential fault then I'd wager that these gaunts have them all!

So, I decided to go back to my own designed,half built gauntlets. Figured it'd save me alot of time just sticking with my own set rather than even contemplate fixing up the ebay set.

I've made good progress today but I need some parts and thought some of you guys here may be able to help me??

I'm going to sound like a true newbie here but I need the box that fits onto one of Boba's ROTJ gauntlets. I think they house flamethrowers?? Here's a pic:


I'd like to get hold of two of these if anyone out there could maybe cast me up a pair?? Legitimately(sp?) of course?? Or even if some gauntlet makes here may have some lying around or even sub-standard parts that they'd not ordinarily sell??

They're for a custom Mando so perfection really doesn't matter too much as they'll be modded to fit my design anyway.

Any help there would be hugely appreciated!

Tomorrow I have the inlaws visiting for the day but I should have more pics and updates by Tuesday.

Here are some pics of the gaunts I'm making. STILL need some flamethrower housing parts for them guys!!!!????

These need more sanding, hopefully my new sanding pads will arrive today so I can crack on?! some parts will need another layer of rondo too to finish smoothing them out. There's a pic of my lumber plate too.

Hey Skip, it's nice to see you are making progress in your armor again!!!
Congrats!!!

Thanks buddy, it's great to be back at it. I've made some good progress this morning too. The in-laws are here now though 'til tomorrow so I'll be back on the case tomorrow afternoon.

Awesome skip!!! Thanks for that Rondo idea...I'm gonna have to try this...

Glad to see you back at work on this!!!

:cheers
A'den

Thanks buddy,

I'll have some new pics soon after a session on the sander this morning.

Ok vode!

We're painting!!

I managed to sand alot of the armor to a finish I wanted for it yesterday. My paint arrived this morning so we're good to go!

There are tons of surface imperfections particularly around the abs, back, cod and butt. I could have sanded them away but they'll add to the used, battleworn look I'm aiming for later! Same goes for the gaunts too! I could have spent more time to get them perfect but then they would have just looked too "shiny"!

Paint and further weathering should bring it all together. I HOPE! LOL!

So far I'm just laying down the base silver, my color scheme will follow soon enough. Also, I managed to solve me flame housing problem thanks to a few people, and I should have some tasty knees soon too!

It's all coming together nicely now! Good thing really 'cause the wife wants to throw a Halloween party this year!! I wonder what I'll wear?

Onto the pics!










Last pic just show some parts that aren't quite ready yet. The shoulders need a bit more work too.

Awesome! Good work, keep it coming.

Skip; awesome work on that helmet!! I'll be happy if mine turn out half as good as yours!
And again; Nice doing business with you!

Thanks guys. I started cutting my slots out for the chest lastnight. Plus I'm hoping to have my shoulders ready for paint.

I'm new here and to mando armor in general. But I have to say Skip, you are my inspiration (but not in weird way). I hope my stuff comes out half as good as yours.

Awesome build man.

Thanks very much, I'm flattered sir.

Nice Pics!!!! But we want more!!!!!