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[Kalska Nubu]

I've started on a new kit since the old one is . . . a little tight. 

And partially broken.

So new plan: everything is metal, now.  Except for the soft bits. 

I've already made a concept thread for this which can be found here, but the basic idea is Heavy Legacy armour with a focus on heavy weapons and demolitions. 

I've designed just about everything, so now with all this sudden free time, I plan to get some actual progress made on the build itself.



Soft Parts (in need of someone that knows what they're doing with needle and thread)
     Comms Carrier Assembly (cap) - Planning Stage
     Flight Suit - ✓
     Flak Vest - ✓
     Girth Belt - ✓
     Kama - Template Cut Out
     Boots - ✓

Armour
     Helmet - On Its Way
     Plates - Template In Progress
     Gauntlets - Planning Stage

Weapons
     Heavy Rotary Cannon - Well Underway

Tech
     Comms Carrier Assembly (insert) - ✓
     Fan Assembly
     
     

[Kalska Nubu]

Minor update, I've got the commission started on my helmet and once I get my garage cleaned out and organized with my shop tools set up, I'll be getting started on fabrication proper for the rest of the metal parts. 

My goal is to be an official member by New Years.  By that point, I will have been an UM for six years. . .

[Slade Kel]

Your concept looks solid, you have your influence references lined up and all that jazz. Official by New Years is definitely doable, just gotta keep your nose to the grindstone. It's not a race, or at least, not a sprint, so it takes as much time as it takes and not a moment more or less. The one fortunate thing about current events is giving us lots more free time at home to work on stuff, eh? As a longtime metal mando, I'm glad to see another up and coming! Have you done any metal armor work in the past?

[Kalska Nubu]

Kinda-sorta-not really.  A few years back I tried my hand at making gaunts out of metal and with no experience working with metal and a. . . unhelpful room mate that claimed to know more about it than he did, all I got was a piece of sheet metal twisted into a vague cone that has since been lost to history.

Fortunately, I have a new room mate that not only worked as a mechanic for a while, has also worked in a machine shop and actually knows what he is doing.  In fact, we'll be building our armours side by side, except that we'll have to scratch build his helmet while mine is being made by Dres.  Also fortunately, we found a series by The Welding Geek that covers making a full set of metal merc-ware from the soft parts to the metal, all of which I believe fall within the CRLs, so if we follow his directions, I don't think it should be too much of a problem, especially since I work at a hardware store with a pretty decent discount on shop tools.

Unfortunately, I'm simultaneously working full time and going to school. . . well, I'd say full time, but it's not exactly normal classes.  Regardless, there is a definite balance, and it seems like the most time I'll have to work on this will be weekends/normal time off.  But the motivation should also be there since I'll be working with a partner.

[Slade Kel]

Yep, it's always easier to work when you have someone who has an idea what they're doing. I've seen a video or two of The Welding Geek's, and he knows what he's doing. Keep in mind that things are easier and faster for him because of access to an entire shop full of every piece of metalworking equipment you could dream of, lol. With enough time and effort, however, you can do nearly as will with nothing more than a dremel, hammer, a sleeve full of sand and something solid to planish against. If it helps, there's a bare bones metal armor making tutorial in the Jadd Halls of Knowledge that has a list of basic tools you need if you guys don't actually have them already acquired.

If you're roommate has ever made a motorcycle gas tank or the like, he already knows 2/3 of what you need to for metal armor making! From there, it's just adjusting the techniques for the slightly different shapes.

[Kalska Nubu]

Kandosi!

Yeah, I have to admit I got a little jealous watching him, lol. 

Right now my shop consists of a bench and a half (one's a portable [racing mechanic's?] toolbench/toolbox combo and the other is three 1x3's set up under three sheets of plywood set up in a scale pattern over two sawhorses), a miter saw, a band saw, a skill saw, a drill press, a grinder, a belt/disk sander, an airbrush, and a handful of hand tools, including a Dremel and an angle grinder.  I'm slowly but surely building it back up again, now that I have someone to use it with.  Working at a hardware store helps. . .  I really want to pick up one of those expander/contractor presses and a roller, but the cheapest ones we sell are still triple digits.

Unfortunately, sourcing materials at the moment is a bit tricky.  We have one option where I live and I'm currently boycotting them.  I'm not sure if any metal shops in the area sell sheets of metal, or if that's even a general practice.  Requires further study.  Fortunately, room mate used to work in one of said shops before deciding to move onto greener pastures, so he might know.




In other news, I've finally picked my colours.  Exciting, I know.  Orange (#ff6600) and grey (#333333).  I'm thinking predominantly grey with orange as a highlighting and detail colour, though we'll see.


As it turns out, apparently #333333 is the exact same shade of grey that the forum background is. . .



In the meantime, I still need to make sure my template will fit me as well as I'm hoping, so paper-board and tape are the materials for now.

[Slade Kel]

Colors look just fine . And yeah, definitely jealous of Geek's workshop, lol.

For metal, I use onlinemetals.com. The prices are good and the quality has always been on point. Mandalore pointed me at them years ago and I've never had any regrets buying from them. Pretty prompt shipping and delivery, too. Even with all the stuff going on, I had my most recent order arrive in under ten days. Otherwise, I've bought steel from Lowes and Home Depot in the past without too much regret, lol.

[Kalska Nubu]

By Manda, that's possibly the best website I've ever seen!  Thank you for that!  I know where I'm spending my next paycheck. . . 

[Kalska Nubu]

Slight change of plans:  I was originally going to make a completely custom legacy kit, but I'm lazy and I'm going to try the print-off templates first.  I'll keep the custom plate design for a rainy day.  What's that?  Its raining right now?  HahA!  Its night, so doesn't count. 

Hem.

I've also done a rough mockup via Mando Maker for what I'm going for with my color scheme:



I want the orange to offset the overall darkness of my kit.  I'm not Batman.  Dark colors are just slimming. . . With that in mind, I'm planning on having the orange run down in stripes, possibly just one, possibly three.  We'll see. . .

I really wish you could add in a kama to it, as I absolutely plan to use one.  I've got some pleather on hand, one in black and one in red (they were on sale at Hobby Lobby literally the day before we went into lock down).  Not sure if I'll use one, both, or neither in this one.  Maybe I'll just keep it around for someone else to use. . .

[Kalska Nubu]

Another day, a little more progress.

I printed off two of the Legacy armor templates (Original and Ohld Vart's) and got the original put together today.  I made a quick mock-up and it looks ok, but I want to see what Ohld Vart's looks like tomorrow.

Here's how it looks on me.  A little big, but plenty of space to go around the sides.



And it works for Geoff (aka, Silpas Torgo), too.  I'll send this to him for his WIP.



And Eddie, the Shop Dum-Dum, also modern art.



Now then, to cut out this lovely stack of paper. . .

[Shurik Bhar'vani]

The legacy plates might still be just a *tad* too big. I'm mostly going off the size of the collar, as I know the breastplate is a layered design and generally wraps around more than Modern plates.

Love the color pallete by the way, It's refreshing to see something that isn't  mono-black and red  no offense to anyone else's kit, that color combination just doesn't do it for me.

I really wish you could add in a kama to it, as I absolutely plan to use one.  I've got some pleather on hand, one in black and one in red (they were on sale at Hobby Lobby literally the day before we went into lock down).  Not sure if I'll use one, both, or neither in this one.  Maybe I'll just keep it around for someone else to use. . .

I'm not sure if you meant "wish you could" in regards to Mando Maker, but you absolutely can have a kama on your kit.

[Kalska Nubu]

Yeah, I'm actually going with the Ohld Vart template (reminder to self, upload a picture of that).  The one I have printed, cut, and assembled is a tad large as well, but I'm planning to do it all over again at 3/4 size as the current size heavily limits range of motion in my arms.  I'm actually printing them off as I type this.

I blame Twitter of all things for my colour scheme.  I was messing around in the settings and I stumbled accross the "night" setting along with the base colour setting and I realized that dark grey and orange make a good pairing.

As for the MandoMaker, I didn't see anything that would allow for an added kama.  I'm using one in my kit and the ability to see what colours work for that would have been nice.

[Kalska Nubu]

This is the template that I'm going with:


I scaled it down 75% and brought the plates together more in the chest.


I still need to bring in the arms somewhat, even on the 75% one, so I'll probably end up printing it out one more time at 85% and see how that fits.

[Slade Kel]

Yeah, I'd go up a little bit in size and then trim the arm holes manually to fit. No template is going to be perfect unless you designed it yourself, to your own dimensions, but they make an excellent starting point to work from with little tweaks.

[Kalska Nubu]

Yeah, really glad I got a French Curve a few months back.  That'll really help with that nice gradiated arc.  My plan is to see about where a plate would stop interfering with my arm's range of motion, set the curve on that line parallel to the original, then set the new angle for the rest of the plates, if that makes sense.  And before I print out yet another set of templates, I'm going to measure the length of the plates as is, measure the distance from my navel to where my collar plate ends, and do the math to see what exact percentage I need to set it at.  As it is, the 100% exactly covers it, so I'm not sure if I'd even need to re-do the printing, cutting, and taping to make yet another template.