Jango Armor

Steelblitz

Active Hunter
I'm posting most of this from a thread I made on the Armorers Coalition board a month ago, so it is a repeat to those of you who are also on there.

Here is a new process I tried to make some parts with that some of you guys could use fairly easy.

I wanted to see if this works on something small first since my intentions is to try this on a much larger non-fett project. Anyhow, I had a pile of those foamie sheets laying around in my garage and it gave me an idea to try something.

I've always liked BM Fett armor the best after seeing it in person. It has the nicest thickness, contours, along with beautiful edges on the armor IMO. I've got great Fett armor myself from BKBT, but its fiberglass. Personally, I don't like working with fiberglass, I prefer to work with resins. I'd would have loved to put some of those details like the nicer edges on my own Jango armor, but I would of had to grind the overall size down to do that. Since my body size was already pushing the max size for my Jango armor, I thought I'd give it a go myself. In comes the foamie sheets. Why foamie sheets? I thought maybe the foam sheets would make it easier to get the nice compound curves to the armor.

I started by making a drawing of the armor shapes on paper, then traced them onto the foamie sheets. I then brushed resin on them, 3 coats each side, letting it harden between coats. I then took out the heatgun and carefully started to bend the parts. Used various buckets to form the collar, shoulders, and ab, while using a shot filled bag for the 2 chest parts. I then started to smooth out the parts with poly-flex filler, also building up any additonal thickness needed with it.

Everything worked fairly well but I ran into a couple snags. You have to make sure you get an even coat of resin on the foam sheets or you end up with soft spots, plus the 2 chest parts gave me fits fits getting nice curves to them. I don't think I would make the chest parts out of the foam sheets if I had to do them over. You end up with the same wrinkles that you would if you tried to heat and bend a sheet of plastic. I ended up adding regular bondo to the backside of all pieces to stiffen them up which was also something unexpected I had to do. The chest parts ended up being msotly bondo in the end due to problems with flexing of teh parts.


cont....
 
Paper tracing tranferred to foamie sheet and then cut out:
IMG_2914.jpg


ugly with 1st coat of resin on foam
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Starting to smooth it out with poly-flex
IMG_2917.jpg


foam chest tracings and abs diamond
IMG_2918.jpg


chest covered with resin, figured out how to do apply it smoother at this point
IMG_2919.jpg


foam collar and ab
IMG_2920.jpg


resin done and first coats of poly-flex added, also curves beign added
IMG_2924.jpg
 
Starting to cut the 2 chest depressions on the left breastplate. It's easier for me to cut one large hole and then make add a filler strip in the middle later on. Notice you can see all the layers. On the back is pure bondo, then resin, foam, more resin, some flex filler, and the primer.
IMG_2941.jpg
 
These were the parts close to before molding.

IMG_3008.jpg

IMG_3009.jpg


The two breast plates didnt end up being molded as I am going back and modding them some to have the upper edge return towards the body some.
 
I had a suggestion to make, but from the other forum it looks like you've already caught it. These look great and it's nice that you're making some pieces that will fit someone much bigger than Tem really well
 
Well, I'm 6' 225 and the BKBT stuff fits pretty good I think, but I'm at the max range for that imo. Alot of the look matters in how how you space the parts out on your soft parts when you are attaching the armor. These parts I did started out much larger when I had them on paper, but as I alluded to on that other board when someone wanted some overlays, I neglected to take into account the loss of overall size when I started adding curves to the parts. Except for the diamond though, most parts are slightly bigger still. Another noticable difference will also be in thickness as I am casting these from .125-.150, plus all these parts have more compound curves to them than my BKBT stuff. A little sanding to bevel the outermost edge and I think these will be some nice looking armor plates.
 
Great work. I will move this to the Jango section for you.

Thanks, what I do, post it in the Boba section?:lol:

will be for order? if so how much...loooks sweet

I'll have a few of my test pieces up for grabs this weekend, only consisting of the collar, shoulders, and the ab section, maybe the diamond also if I get that siliconed in time. I have to check over at CE first since a couple guys might have called dibs on the first parts a couple weeks ago.

The breast plates won't get molded for a couple days still, then it's open season on the upper torso parts for anybody. I'll get going on making the lower half parts the folowing week most likely. Price is to be determined until I settle on the final recipe for how I want to make these and with what exact resins, but it will be way less than what I got my other armor for, so I don't think there will be any sticker shock.

This is a hobby for me, as is for many of you, and I'm not here to make a living off making parts. You you won't see me talking these up that they are the best thing to come along since sliced bread, and I've never made a claim on anything I've made as being the best or the most accurate thing out there, I'll let the parts do the talking for me once they're in your hands as I've always done in the past. (mostly with clone items mind you) You won't be dissapointed. (y)
 
Steelblitz looks great so far:)Will you be posting the cost when you are finished with them:confusedKeep on Fettin':cheersJeff
 
The weight varies a little, the one prototype set I did got more weight than the others until I found a happy medium balacning the weight and rigidty of the parts, but the other 3 sets are comparable to thick ABS. They are on par with fiberglass I think.

I put the first four partial sets up for sale to fund getting the chest parts molded, so prices are available in that thread.
 
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