Armor progress

[MonCal]

It's from smooth-on.com . The plastic is: C-1509 semi rigid casting resin.

It takes about 3 hours for it to set up and then about 16 hours before you can pull it out of the mold. If you can rig up some sort of roto-caster, you can get it to do a hollow shell. I could probably modify a mold to fit in the roto-caster I made for the shins:

I've since put a motor on it so I don't have to rotate it by hand for 3 hours

 

[judz dwedd]

Maybe I could rig the mold in my lathe, and spin it for 3 hrs on low speed.

 

[judz dwedd]

Smoothcast 60D has the same shore hardness, and only has a 3 minute pot life/10 minute demold. I could rotocast that by hand.

 

[sithlord23]

Man, that is looking awesome! can't wait to see more!

 

[MonCal]

Thanks sithlord!!!


Judz, that might work. I haven't used the smooth cast 60. I've used the 10 and the 25. You might want to email them and see if it is similiar to the 1509 or at least do what you want it to do.

I just finished pouring the last hydrocal piece that I will use for vacuum forming the top / silver plates on the armor.

Here is a little of the process :

** I built a clay wall around the fiberglass I made earlier:

** This is the hydrocal piece I poured over the fiberglass:

** Then build another clay wall around that hydrocal piece and grease it up with vaseline to pour more hydrocal on top of that:

** Then I have a positive hydrocal piece to vacuumform off of. It's still fresh so I need to wait a day and then do some sanding and clean up:

 

[MonCal]

O.K., I made some more progress:

Here is the first pull on the vac table:

And trimmed:

Sitting on top of the fiberglass pieces:

They need to be trimmed a little but I'll wait until the leather is on. Also need to carve the lettering. I'm debating whether or not I should carve the lettering into my vacuum -forming buck (buck is the term for the casting I'm vac-forming over )

 

[judz dwedd]

Damn red x's ! I really wanted to see those pics.

 

[MonCal]

I hosted them somewhere else... for now

do they work now?

 

[judz dwedd]

Ooooh yeah!...and they look miiiiiighty fine.

How thick is the plastic? Thick enough to engrave the lettering into?

 

[MonCal]

The plastic I had on hand is .065 ABS (1/16"). I will use 1/16" styrene normally though. It will most likely be a little tough to carve the lettering into. This is why I will experiment with carving the lettering into the hydrocal...... I'll have to see how it turns out either way

 

[Mr Fett]

Excellent, MonCal!

 

[judz dwedd]

Well, if it's that thin, you could cut the "letters" out of the pieces, and back it with more styrene.

 

[MonCal]

So Judz, do ya got any progress pics of your gauntlets / hand guards ?

 

[MonCal]

I carved out the lettering in the armor plates tonight. Now I just need to get the leather dyed so I can assemble them...... oh and rub n buff the abs pieces

 

[judz dwedd]

Ooh yeah, that's lookin fine. Don't have any gaunt pics yet. I had to start over, because what I was initially working on was turning out to be too large. I'm on the right track now though.

 

[Seven]

It looks like the lettering is a little low on the armor...but otherwise it looks very clean cut.

 

[MonCal]

The angles aren't even the same but since I'm holding the armor a little low compared to my ref. pic I scaled up to size, the lettering should be close. This meaning if I could tip the top of my armor back similiar to the real pic behind it, then the lettering and the bottom shape of the armor should line up.

 

[MaulMaus]

Lettering looks great... though a little low to me also. Did you try holding it up on a person... to see if it looks right?

 

[MonCal]

Finished the armor

I still need to take pics of the harness that is fully attached and enclosed inside the vest.

Dye the leather and glued onto the fiberglass:

Cut out the unnecessary leather so the top piece can be glued directly to the fiberglass:

Some weathering and rub n buff under the letters:

Vacuum formed piece weathered, rub n buffed and glued on:

Added some more dyes to the leather for weathering:

 

[obi sean kenobi]

dude that is frickin amazing!!!!!!!!!