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[Drako Katora]

Been meaning to start this for a while but here is Svik Katora's and my work in progress. We technically started about a year and a half ago but without guidance from the forums we blindly stumbled along and made a general mess of things so this is our proper start. We have just about all the materials we need but basically all of the work ahead of us. Here is an image of my armor as of today:


Plainly things regarding plates are pretty rough. My armor was rather poorly stored (sitting outside for 6 months) and I attempted to paint it as was without sanding, proper priming, or any real methodical approach. It was then left out again for several more months. In short all plates (excluding knee and forearm) need sanded down completely and redone properly. The knee plates and forearms* are Svik's creation with my finish and priming on them.
*The forearm plates shown are old, early attempts that we don't plan on using. For clarity I will refer to them as MK-I's and the actual plates as MK-II's

The helmet is a Rubies deluxe Jango (please spare me the hate) that I am heavily modifying. Refinishing, fiberglassing the inside for strength, custom padding, new visor, painting, the works. I have yet to acquire the visor but I'm hoping to glass it and prime it this weekend. The only trouble with it is the plastic piece that holds the rangefinder on is at a horrible angle and I can't figure out how to detach and fix it without ripping the whole helmet apart.

The soft parts are the most unique challenge for us. Coveralls for flight suits seemed pretty expensive for what we needed so we made the conscious decision to get cheap ones with the intention of some major modification. We were pleasantly surprised by the great quality of them but still got what was coming: they're huge. My flight suit is probably intended for a 6'4" male and I'm 5'10". Svik's is scaled much more properly but still need custom tailoring.
We purchased old leather jackets from our local Good Will (pictured above) to cut up into kamas so we are covered in that department.
We have detailed instructions for our flak jackets and will be getting materials for those within the next month.
lastly we have the miscellaneous belts and ammo pouches etc. that we will acquire over time.

I have started a pepakura jetpack and have a thread for it at TDH if you would like to check it out:
http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/f25/bobas-z-6-pepakura-build-47641/

That's it for my armor for now. I don't have all svik's stuff with me (he is out of the country currently acquiring a British accent) so I will post details on it when I get to his house and bring it back to my place. (since he is out of the country I'm doing all the work right now) Our hope is to be 95% complete by the end of summer and 100% complete by Halloween. We have one week set aside in which basically everything will get done so expect a massive amount of posting during that time frame.

[Tethys Vox]

That image is broken

Definitely looking forward to seeing what you two have got going on over there, though. "Double Trouble" sounds pretty promising.

[Drako Katora]

okay so the forum is majorly effed up for me and not letting me post any images or modify my original post. I will have to try again tomorrow.

[Drako Katora]

Sorry for the lack of images though, I forgot that flickr doesnt embed.

[Niabi]

If you are using Flicker all you need to do is use the "Grab the HTML/BBCode" function and copy / past the link it gives you

[Drako Katora]

thanks for the help Niabi, I don't know what was going wrong before but here are the images.

my total kit:


the funky angle on the rangefinder piece:

the photo is taken from straight on and yet the internal hatching is clearly visible. I can't find any way to remove it without damaging the helmet though

[Drako Katora]

Okay so I sanded down and reprimed all the plates today. I never imagined I would go through so much sand paper just for this but with the paint dust sticking to them they died pretty fast. I reprimed everything back to a matte white and did testing for the metal layer on my already primed knee plates.

starting out:


post sanding:


primed:



metal layer in comparison to primer:

it doesnt look that sparkly in person either, just the camera flash glinting off the second color.


note this is all my stuff and I have yet to post Svik's kit as I still dont have it will me. I am hoping to gather up his stuff tomorrow afternoon and post his then.

[Niabi]

Nice work vod

[Svik Katora]

Yay, my stuff next

[Drako Katora]

Well I got back to paint the plates with the metal layer today and unfortunately disaster has struck. There was some sort of chemical reaction between the paint and primer that caused massive gas bubbles to form ruining the metal finish. As if that wasn't bad enough the bubbles ruptured and when I tried to remove the excess they had melted all the previous layers of paint and primer right down to the PVC itself. I have never heard of any spray paint doing anything like this and its caused quite a bit of damage to my plates. Two of them are completely ruined and need stripped down and completely reprimed painted - again. The rest of the plates appear fine but I'm weary of internal damage that could have occurred under the paint that I can't see. All the paint used was the same brand and base, except for the plate maker's primer, which is unknown to Svik and I. I will be contacting the manufacturer about it and see if they know of any issues.

for now have some photos of the carnage.

The bubbles in my backplate



after the bubbles burst and all the paint peeled off of my chest piece. The yellow color is the PVC plate itself, all four other layers were melted off.


The strangest thing about the bubbles though, they were random. I painted chest plate around midway through the can then the backplate with the bottom of it. Then it didn't bubble on any other plates, as if there was some contaminant on those plates. If anyone thinks they know what happened please give me your take on it. I don't want to start over only to have the same thing happen again.

[Niabi]

How long did you leave between the base and the silver ? it could be that you did not leave long enough between coats

[Drako Katora]

I waited 5 days as the can recommended for doing on plastics. I feathered out the damage and I'm waiting for the manufacturer to contact me before I redo the plates. I don't want the same thing happening twice. Until I hear back I'm probably going to work on glassing my helmet.

[Jaa'det Otxoa]

First off, looking good so far Vod! 

Second, that sucks about the bubbling in the paint! 
I ran into a similar issue when spraying my bucket , I'm using Rust-Oleum Painter Touch 2x on a J2p as well as on the Nerf blaster mod I did. Except the reaction on the blaster came between the metallic layer and the black semi-gloss layers.
I think the issue is that the solvents in the metallic paint don't always mix thoroughly/evenly with the other media(s) (think it is plastic particles in metallics, as well as the actual paint media) and you end up with spots that have alot of solvent, which reacts with the under layers (primer) when the solvent starts to evaporate, or "de-gas". Obviously any surface contaminates (dirt/dust, oil from your fingers, moisture, cleansers, etc.) can cause a reaction, Just before painting I usually rub the whole thing down with isopropyl Alcohol on a lint-free (or low lint) cloth and let it dry for about 30 seconds to a minute before spraying. I had an old article from a car magazine that suggests using a bucket of hot to warm water and inverting the spray cans in it, it's supposed to keep the paint media more liquid and mixes with the solvent better, also shake the can about every 30 seconds of spraying (make sure you hear the ball clicking really good).
After re-priming my bucket about 3 times (more because I got a bit anal about a few flaws I spotted rather than the bubbling like you got ) I got the method down pretty good . I also found that with the 2x paint that I have to keep a fair distance (closer to a foot or more to make sure the coats are thinner and more even).

Good luck with the build and hope this helps Vod!

[Drako Katora]

From my observations it did look a lot like what solvents do to paint so I think your hypothesis is spot on. When I paint next I'll be sure to thoroughly wipe down the plates and soak the spray paint in hot water. Thanks for the advice Jaa'det!

[Svik Katora]

Yea, I had the same trouble before to, i think it was a mixture of spraying to close and not enough shaking the can, also leaving it in the sun to dry might have caused some of that.

[Drako Katora]

So I heard from the manufacturer and they have absolutely no idea what happened. Their only suggestion was to wait longer for the primer to dry. big help. They did offer to send me free replacement cans however. I'll have to cross my fingers and hope it doesn't happen again when I repaint the plates that were damaged. (I will use Jaa'det's suggestions)

On an unrelated note I finally got Svik's stuff and will post pictures of it when I get off work.

[Svik Katora]

For the record my armor just has a mock up paint job that I did to see if I liked it, then i realized that the oxford blue paint looked more purple.

[Drako Katora]

okay now that I have made some progress on the armor (and due to svik's constant nagging) it's time for some updates.
First and foremost here are Svik's plates. (happy Svik?)

His plates are funny looking because he used odd sand papers to try and take the paint off. iIt didn't work too well. This week I will be properly sanding the plates then priming them when rustoleum sends me my replacement cans of paint. His helmet is also a rubes but he has done a bit of reshaping to it to give it a custom visor shape. The back has gotten warped in the heat of his garage  after reshaping it will get fiberglassed.

I gave my helmet two rounds of fiberglassing to great results this past weekend. Great strength and only moderate clean up on the outside. I also got my rangefinder off so I can clean it up and put it back on at a better angle. Now its on to painting and the visor. What's the best method for visor attachment? I've heard hot glue but that seems rather... primitive.




Here are the gantlets that Svik cooked up. Mine need a bit of trimming to sit comfortably on my forearms. We went with these instead of traditional gauntlets because well, we're cheap, didnt want to try and build elaborate ones, and were just fine with plain plating.


That'sall for now. I'm hoping to see some major progress in the next week.

[Svik Katora]

I am happy now . Anyways yea, we may add a few things here and there to the gauntlets, but for the most part they will remain like they are. Can't wait to get back from Idaho to work on my stuff.

[Swift]

Plates are looking great vode As for the visor, hotglue does work, yes, but I've found that bolts are much cleaner and much stronger. When I used hot glue it was simply as a temporary measure since I didn't have time to install bolts. PointOfOrigin has a good tutorial on visor installation: http://mandalorianmercs.org/forum/index.php?topic=52872.msg743004#msg743004

Hope this helps, and best of luck

[Svik Katora]

Plates are looking great vode As for the visor, hotglue does work, yes, but I've found that bolts are much cleaner and much stronger. When I used hot glue it was simply as a temporary measure since I didn't have time to install bolts. PointOfOrigin has a good tutorial on visor installation: http://mandalorianmercs.org/forum/index.php?topic=52872.msg743004#msg743004

Hope this helps, and best of luck

Thanks for the advice, but I feel like the vinyl that the helmet is a little soft to put a bolt in. I have some scrap stuff so i might try it on that just to see how it holds up.

Edit: Oh drako, been meaning to ask, how sturdy is the helmet now that its fiberglassed?
(Try to avoid double posting. Especially with a simple additional question. - Thaxos)

[Drako Katora]

Okay so I haven't gotten as much done this week as I would have liked. Svik stopped nagging and apparently he gave me quite a bit of motivation... oh well. I got Svik's armor all primed (no horrible bubbles like last time, still cautious though) and it looks pretty good. I have also done some work on my Z-6 jet pack.

Here are the plates with the previous coloring.


and poof, primed and readied. Thank you again jaa'det for the tips.


Here is my jet pack as of tonight. The thrusters will be rondo'd and resin'd tomorrow. Then its on to clay and bondo.


I'm going to start on Svik's republic commando pack tonight and hopefully have all the paperwork done by Friday. Then it can be resin and rondo'd at a later time. I know this isn't really the place for pack work but it's a smaller project not worth its own thread.

The problem with Svik's helmet is that it is warped pretty badly in the back. One side is pushed inward about an inch while the other side juts out. The rest of the helmet is completely symmetrical though so its pretty hard to reshape without messing some other part of it up. any advice?

Svik and I decided on our brigades two nights ago. We will both be gearing our armor and loadout for special operations. I personally will go for sniper and Svik will gear up for recon.

[Drako Katora]

Due to more nagging by Svik here are some updates. This is going to be very brief and short because I am currently re-mulching my yard and I'm taking a break right now.

I painted my shoulder bells and knee guards in my blue color and used mustard to get some initial weathering on them. The color looks a little too purple to me but that could be one of several factors: The lighting in my shop and the fact that I'm color blind... What do you guys think? Too purple?


after I wiped off the mustard... only downside is paint apparently absorbs smell pretty well.


a detail shot. I'm rather proud of this bit. once I weather it with some steel wool I think it will all look pretty nice.


Here are Svik's plates all primed and ready to go. My back plate is also here to finish repairing the damage from earlier.


*poof* silver layer. my finger is still numb for some reason and I painted this stuff well over a day ago...

[Svik Katora]

I get the manly version of warm fuzzies every time I see my armor. 

[Svik Katora]

Ok, so me and my vod decided than we would have similar armor designs, However his kit will be much cleaner and less beat up than mine. And Our colors will be diferent, but the placement of primary and secondary colors will be the same.



And heres after the mustard is removed.




So what do you all think? Any advice on the color scheme or anything else feel free to tell us.
In other news, I can't wait to get it all painted and on the flight suit.