Hello everyone!
Since I do not have all of my soft parts to test the size of my armor printouts yet (just ordered my flak vest from K'raam Xrati (yay). I thought I would tackle a piece that did not really need the soft parts in order to size. Enter the gauntlets! I am currently working on the right gauntlet, but I am planning on mirroring them for the left as well. I am using the WOF templates, and found the following links very helpful:
Warmaster’s Workshop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CliYqIE0eEY&t=1973sHinged Gauntlet Tutorial:
https://mandalorianmercs.org/forum/index.php?topic=166047.0Let me throw this caveat in here, I have NEVER worked with PVC foam, or any type of foam (unless you count Great Stuff hole fillter lol). This is all new to me and I am very much learning as I go and trying to glean as much knowledge as I can from here and other websites.
Now here is where you guys can laugh at me. By watching and reading, I didn’t get how everyone was easily getting these four parts together. Needless to say, I was even confused watching Warmaster’s video. “Oh well! I’ll be able to figure it out”. Needless to say, I cut four pieces of board for one gauntlet. After more research, I then realized that some use the WOF template taped together and then used as a template for only two pieces out of the board to shape. Whoops!
Being the stubborn being I am. I decided to continue and see if I could use the four pieces to add ‘depth’ to the project and make a more substantial armor piece. I used 3mm pvc board for all cuts except the jigs.
I increased the size of the templates approximately 10%, which in turn on the outer shell, I had to increase the small tapered end for 5/32” and the larger end for ⅜” on the outer shell to accommodate the wrap effect.
So first I decided to cut out the jigs out of 6mm PVC foam board. Using #11 blades, this was tedious, I am glad I have a dremel showing up tomorrow.
Warmaster made using the jigs seem so easy. I tried and my finished product was not nearly as nice (I do not have pictures). On top of having to shape four pieces instead of two, everything was just out of whack.
Note: I am procedure oriented. Something about not getting killed in my career has made this ingrained. So! I had to revert back approximately two decades to use my imagination on how to get things done!
So! Off to Lowes I go looking for something I can use. I was thinking traffic cone, PVC, something! Urequa! In another life I was an apprentice carpenter, so what is tapered from small to large? Banisters and table legs! I found my anvil!
This made things so much easier, it is hard to describe. The taper once measured darn near matched my wrist to forearm, so it was easy to place the inner shell closer to the smaller taper, then the outer shell 1.5” above that taper to allow the roundness to go over the outer shell.
I’ll be updating when I get my rotary tool to sand down the edges, gluing the shells together, and adding the piano hinges when they get here. I am adding a the custom box Warmaster linked in his youtube video, in which I am going to need to figure out how I am going to ‘Mando’ it up.
Until next time!
PS. I am trying to link from an open Goggle Photo account, but it does not seem to by showing pictures. Any recommendations? the IMG tags were not working, so I had to remove them in order for the links to show up.
