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[RC-3141]

I printed out test versions of the front and end of my gauntlets, and realized that I had significantly oversized them. If you know anyone who needs partially biodegradable rib augmentations, let me know



I have since redone my gauntlets, and was able to do it significantly faster thanks to the experience offered by my first failure. These were sized correctly for my arm dimensions, as measured with the digital caliper I recently acquired.



I also got my hands on some latching buttons and some USB flashlights, so I will be designing the compartment that I will have on-off switches for my helmet electronics in.


Another edit because I forgot something:


My family does these wooden swords and shields as kids toys, and this is one of the designs that we put on our shields, I believe it was designed by my mom's best friend. I may use/adapt this for use in my kit, not sure how swarzy it looks

[Awall]

Nice!  When I did my gauntlets I made a cylinder in the 3D modeling program that matched my proportions and forearm length ... then imported it into my gauntlet file to check the fit before printing.   Because of doing this my gauntlets fit perfectly with batteries and don’t move around or pinch.  If you go this route don’t forget to take your measurements with sleeves and gloves on.  Keep up the good work!

[RC-3141]

Edit: I've added a table of contents to my first page to make it easier for anyone just hopping in, can someone confirm that the links work?

I'm back! I've been plugging away at projects for the last couple weeks, and am just now getting around to posting about my progress on the armor.


I used Dynalite resin (not Bondo but it seems to be working) to join the seam on my Jango 2 Piece and to repair my collarplate sometime last week:




I then sanded these down and added another layer, and then sanded that today. I do not have a picture of the collarplate but I think it turned out well




I have not been working on my gauntlets, I need to get back on that sometime. I also need to design some earcaps for my helmet, I am considering going for a hexagonal design similar to the special operations clone trooper helmet. I like the look of these, and they would also allow me to disguise earholes/microphones in my helmet to help with hearing the environment:



This is the way

[RC-3141]

Apologies if the post sizing/formatting is weird, the text editor is a little odd.

I've been continuing to work on the helmet and got a visor cut out based on Kol Var'Das's Sun Visor Template. I am currently waiting on my 3D Printer to become available, because I have been printing face shields with pretty much all of my printer time.


I added some fiberglass cloth across the inside of the seam of the helmet, as well as some Sintra reinforcement.



I experimented with Droodles curved visor template, but I decided to not use it





Test fit of my first visor cut-out:



My final visor. I cut along the top-side fold lines so that it would be easier to fold, and added some Bondo to fill in said cuts.



I got a USB male to female cable that I'm disassembling right now so that I can implement a helmet flashlight, accidentally got a significantly better constructed cable than I intended to so I had some fun taking that apart.


I've also been working on designing some earcaps, waiting on some feedback before I go about implementing those.

[RC-3141]

Got some work done on my kit today:


First, I added some weapons to my right hand gauntlet, going for dual blasters, darts, and unidentified weapons that are probably gonna be flamethrowers (I'm gonna try to add char marks, etc to the area around them). Apologies for taking pictures in the slicer and not the modelling program, I forgot about my WIP




Also worked on installing my earcaps onto my helmet, CA glued them into place and will be bondoing and sanding, also ripped out the visor (quite literally, I pulled it off the posts) and cut some holes for hearing that I will be backing with mesh once I get my kit painted







This is the way, still quite a bit to go but I'm happy I made progress.

[Mirran]

I love your ear caps! For whatever reason I had a hard time wrapping my head around them until they were on but I think they're neat.

[RC-3141]

I love your ear caps! For whatever reason I had a hard time wrapping my head around them until they were on but I think they're neat.

Thanks! It's going to be really annoying to get that mesh inside of them, but I really like how they look and the functionality that they add.

[Slade Kel]

You've clearly put a lot of thought into planning here, and I think this is going to be a solid kit when you get it done. No real input as of yet, but I look forward to watching as this progresses!

[RC-3141]

Did some more filling and sanding working on integrating the earcaps this week













After this first layer of filler, I added spot putty






Also did some filling on the visor






Progress from the (virtual) armor party today:


Got my flashlight 3D printed, the flashlight/lens is separate from the barrel, I will be drilling a hole into my helmet and popping the flashlight in there, painting everything, then putting all of the more sensitive flashlight parts in there




The soldering isn't pretty, but it's functional






And some light sanding happened as well

[Slade Kel]

Looking good . You're definitely getting there!

[RC-3141]

And we're back for another episode of filling and priming, starring the hardener that I put in the body filler before mixing was actually the non-active component because it seems to have separated. (I didn't actually catch any pictures of this though, unfortunately.) If anyone knows of methods that would work to cause that to harden without the hardener, I'd much appreciate any advice for remedying this.
In other news, I had a fun time drilling 7 different holes in my helmet


I drilled the hole for the flashlight, dremeled out a little bit more and got it to fit, tacked it in with hot glue and then superglued it.






Drilled out my keyholes in the back of the helmet, and then used small hand saws (I ended up settling on the one in my swiss army knife) to cut the rest of the shape. I attempted to use the dremel on the first one and it... didn't go terribly well. I put filler on that one and I'll be filing it down again once my filler actually hardens





I also found this cool greebly bit when a kitchen utensil broke, what are your thoughts on that? Use it for the keyholes? Save it for the something else?

[RC-3141]

Continued work on the helmet today, mostly just sanding. I ended up scraping off the unhardened stuff and reapplying another coat, and that seems to be going ok although it felt bad to be doing negative work

[RC-3141]

Attached my visor today, it's all starting to come together.


I hope to have most of this kit done before the end of August, which means I'll have to really knuckle down and work on it

[Anansi]

That's coming along really nicely!

[Awall]

Your bucket is sick!  Nice job!