Death Watch Building Armor for Star Wars Celebration 2015 - Now with Night Owl

Love how you attached the exhaust nozzles. Very smart. I wouldn't worry as much about people bumping into you as you or your crew bumping into the wall or each other. My first troop I took a corner too sharp and nailed that jet pack good. Luckily everything stayed together.

Great at work as usual!

I'm pretty happy with the attachment. I'm still hopeful that we'll have time to install the smoking exhaust arrangement in one or two of them as well.

Last night I finally took a few minutes to sit down with one of the sewing-capable members of our crew and work out a plan for the ammo belts. Since we're deviating a bit from the animated look, I opted for something a little bit more Boba-looking.

To start with, I took a length of 2x4 and ran it through the table saw to get a stack of chamfered blocks like so:


Then I cut out a couple of patches of some pretty nice pleather like so:


Then I glued them onto the sides of the block like so:


Then cut out a strip of pleather, stitched a hem around the edges, and glued it in place on four of the five sides so I could still pass a nylon web belt strap through the back like so:


This pouch is a bit rough, but somewhere in the course of making 179 more I'm sure we'll get the hang of it.

In other news, we've printed out an alternate version of the jetpack rocket:


These are based on Rafalfetts awesome digital models from this thread: LINK.

Still 212 parts left to cast...

What brand 3d printer are you using and do you like it?

The orange pieces in the last picture are being printed on a Makerbot that belongs to Matt's brother. I'm not a fan.

I have an Objet30 which is phenomenal, but the resin that it uses is very expensive and I can't justify spending the money on a project like this since it's not a for-profit endeavor.

That said, the Makerbot is doing a good enough job of getting us parts that are 95% done. Here's the version 2, "Boba-style" rocket base:


It still needs some filling and sanding before we can mold it and cast the final part, but it should look good once it has the correct rocket in place:


In other news, Matt's finally gotten a start on re-working the collar armor for the male version of the armor. Here's how it looks right now:

Changes include a wider neck opening and what will be a better looking line at the top/back edge.

So that's that.

If you're keeping score at home, last night Matt laid up the gelcoat for the 14th of 19 jetpack bodies:


While he was doing that, I was focused on one of the other costumes that will be debuted at SW Celebration next month:

Because clearly one massive project isn't enough. I need at least six in order to keep me interested.

More to come. Comments welcome. Stay tuned...

Really hope to see you guys get the smoking exhaust installed on at least a few jetpacks. What an awesome upgrade that would be for DW/Night Owls.

We now have 14 out of 19 jetpacks out of the molds:


Still a couple more of the Night Owl helmets to cast. I've taken to actually keeping inventory on a whiteboard:


At this point, the only parts that look tricky are the shin armor and the male collar armor. I only made one mold for the shin, so we need to get one out of the mold every day for the next two weeks in order to keep up. Then we decided that we didn't like the look of the collar armor and Matt's been a bit slow with making the new prototype. At this point, the new prototype is made, mounted, and waxed. So today I should be able to get the mold started for that piece. We only need nine of them, so it should be pretty quick work to get them cranked out.

I'm now having dreams about laying up fiberglass, so I'm glad that part of the project is nearing its end.

Still churning out parts, so the best update I can post basically boils down to "more of the same."

On the plus side, I'll be building the mold for the new collar prototype today:


Somewhere out there one of the girls has been spending her mornings making ammo belt pouches. Hopefully I'll be able to get some pictures of those soon. We've also got 40 yards of faux leather due to arrive on Friday. That's when we'll start sewing up flak vests.

It's all about to get pretty exciting.

I may or may not fangirl over the scale and number of deathwatch at one time. Great continuing work buddy.

I hope the choreography is done!

Hydra said:

I may or may not fangirl over the scale and number of deathwatch at one time. Great continuing work buddy.

Click to expand...

It's possible this project got a little out of hand. When you see us, make sure you get some photos.

UPDATE: LOTS OF NEWS

First off, I've come up with the plan for the girth belts. I started by designing a flat version and carving it out on my Carvewright CNC machine:


The flat recess in the middle will help to keep the ammo belt in place:


Once the whole thing was dusted off, I soaked it with three liberal coats of primer to fill up the porous wood surface:


Once the primer had dried, I gave the whole thing a couple of coats of gloss lightish red:


The next day, with the paint dry, I filled the whole thing with silicone:




The next day, when the rubber had cured, I peeled it out and it looked like so:


I filled it with an expanding flexible foam, covered it with a strip of black fabric, and clamped it between a couple of boards. Two hours later it looked like so:


Here's Matt peeling it out of the mold:


The color wasn't quite right on the first one, but it looked like it would serve its purpose otherwise:


For the second and subsequent castings, I tweaked the pigment blend a bit and came up with a color I like a lot more:




Leeloo approves:


In other news, the prototype for the base of the alternate center rocket is done:


Here's Colin getting ready to pour his first-ever silicone mold:



Trimming parts:


Yesterday Dani spent the whole day doing the itchiest job we've got and nothing else:


Daniella did a lot of it too:


Matt's been laying up more parts:


At this point, we've made all of the chest armor, codpieces, gauntlets, helmets, backplates, shoulders, and "version 1" jetpack nosecones.

Still a handful of jetpacks left to lay up:


All told, there are 117 parts left to be made. That doesn't include the sewing. We've got all of the neck seals assembled, most of the coveralls modified, and a huge pile of gloves and balaclavas.

Hopefully we'll have the first fully-assembled suit sometime in the coming week. Then seventeen more shortly after that.

And I've still got my other projects in progress:




Progress continues screaming along.

Five days and no comments? I at least thought the belt would be worthy of a chuckle or a guffaw. Is nobody reading this thread?

Oh well. Here's an update anyway.

It's been a busy five days. Much of it has been spent laying up parts and finishing up the last couple of molds so we could have an alternative version of the center rocket for the jetpacks.

Yesterday I decided to pull focus for eight or nine straight hours of trimming down the edges of the armor parts:


I made quite a mess:


My normal casting prep bench was completely overwhelmed:


And half of the shop floor looked like so:


But in the end I'd trimmed down 36 thigh plates, 35 shin plates, 19 codpieces, 19 sets of chest armor, 38 shoulder plates, 38 collars, and a few scattered other pieces:


It makes me happy:


I still have the 19 backplates to trim and the 19 pairs of gauntlets, but those will be pretty quick work. There's also one more shin plate still in the mold.

If I never see a single strand of fiberglass ever again, it'll be too soon.


While I was doing that, Colin cast a few more detail parts and did the final sanding on the last six helmets:


Meanwhile, Matt got to work drilling out the ends of the jetpacks and doing a bit of body filler work on them:


There's still two more that need to be laid up, but we're getting close:


Elsewhere, the ammo belt pouches are being sewn up:


And while all of this is going on, I'm still making progress on my Sith Acolyte costumes:

Such hard work going on over there! I hope you all have time for sleep. Also hope to see you guys at Celebration--YEA! Keep doing what your doing.

How're you tracking in terms of being ready for Celebration?


Sent from an encrypted commlink on the outer rim

At this point we need to make two more belts and two more jetpacks. There's still the flak vests to sew and all of the painting and weathering, but I planned to give myself a week to do all of that as well as all of the trimming and sanding for the armor, so I think we're actually ahead of the game. Only by a day or two though.

I cannot imagine what y'all are going through with that level of anxiety. I'm just trying to finish ONE deathwatch and I'm freaking out. Good luck!!!

Hydra said:

I cannot imagine what y'all are going through with that level of anxiety. I'm just trying to finish ONE deathwatch and I'm freaking out. Good luck!!!

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I'll admit to at least a bit of anxiety. I'm sure you'll pull yours together.

The last jetpack was laid up today.

The last girth belt was pulled out of the mold too.

Just to feel like I got something done, I also sprayed primer and a base coat on the last four Night Owl helmets.

Now whenever I wake up I'll do the last little bit of trimming, wash the mold release off of the remaining fiberglass parts, and burn through a lot more primer.

The paying projects are getting in the way a bit, though...

I'm feeling relatively good about this project. It's the Old Republic stuff that I'm worried about. That, and the outfits for Sunday.

Keep up the great work fellas!

One of the girls in the group took on the daunting task of making all of the pouches for the ammo belts. She started with this big pile of stuff:


And so far she's made 140 of these:


It may be damaging her sanity:


Yesterday I sat down with the Dremels and split all of the gauntlets apart:


There were a lot of them:


And I made quite a bit of dust:


Meanwhile, Trevor sat quietly at the other table and finished the prep work on the pistols:


They're all in primer now:


Hopefully by the end of the day we'll have all 19 jetpacks in primer. The armor parts should also be washed and trimmed to the various sizes.

While all of that's been going on, I'm still making steady progress on the other projects:




Since we're coming up on the last minute(s), clearly it's time for everything to get done.

Primed shoulders:


Painted shoulders:


Put stickers on some of them:


Then stuck them all in a box:


Painted right thighs:


Primed left thighs:


Painted left thighs:


While I was doing all that, Matt concentrated on bodyshop work for the jetpacks:


Since we're in a rush and they'll all get heavily weathered and battle-damaged, we're only giving them one pass with bondo and sanding before they're getting primer. So they'll all look thoroughly used.

Matt also smoothed out the seam lines on all of the jetpack exhaust nozzles and added the screw eyes that they'll hang from:


The day ended with me putting a coat of primer on many (but nowhere near all) of the Sith Acolyte parts:


If only there was more time:


At this point, all of the shoulders, knees, and thighs have their base coats. Same goes for the last four helmets.

Tomorrow I need to trim down the shins, re-size nine of the back plates, re-size some of the chest armor, and get the gauntlets trimmed and wearable. Then there's a huge pile of other little details to take care of.

Comments welcome. I could really use a dose of encouragement.

thorssoli said:

Yesterday I sat down with the Dremels and split all of the gauntlets apart:

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I love this picture! The angle and the way the light hits the dust is stunning.