Macattack64
Well-Known Member
Your chest piece looks super smooth on the outside just to start! Man, you are just going all out!! Remind me never to stand next to you at a convention!
**Carpathia's Mk VI Armor: Master Chief Going into Cryostasis!
- Thread starter Carpathia
- Start date
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GuitarMaster157
Member
Beautiful as always, keep rockin on!
Carpathia
Sr Member
Me either Mac! I love the knee cover idea. I'm sure it'll look great. I had to do the same to the ab area of my torso, glad I'm not the only one.
Oh now come on, I'd be honored to stand next to either of you in your armor. Part of what keeps me motivated is builds like both of yours!
Looking good Carparthia's
Thank you all very much! And, Cyberben, your Mk VI build is another one that motivated me to even start this build. When I saw the progress shots of your shins and cod piece, I was hooked!
No pics for now, but I got the torso cleaned up and trimmed. I did a few test fits and was getting a little worried because it was still fitting a bit tight. However, when I taped what I will be using as strapping to the back and put it on, the strapping pulled everything into place and the front fits beautifully now. I did a test fit with my undersuit on, with the strapping (shoulder straps from an old backpack, you'll see) and everything lines up exactly as I had planned a year ago when I started building the undersuit!!!
I couldn't be happier with the way this is progressing. I'm still on target for getting the torso finished by the end of the month, so keep watching.
ColFork85
Active Member
Fantastic build! I like how you did the underarmor bits. I had a thought of perhaps attaching the neck piece to the helmet itself? The thought would be, that it would more or less create what would be(simply from a realism standpoint, not really a true function) a seal against say, chemical weapons, or an air-seal.
Again, inspiring build, I'm going to have to stop being intimidated and get started on at least a part of the armor.
Again, inspiring build, I'm going to have to stop being intimidated and get started on at least a part of the armor.
GuitarMaster157
Member
Of course you couldn't be happier, it's absolutely beautiful!
Carpathia
Sr Member
Thanks! Attaching the neck seal to the helmet was something I considered at one time, and it may indeed help with the realism aspect of the costume. However, my neck seal rides up high enough on my neck that even when I am looking up, you can't see any skin (unless you're standing below me looking for some). So, I'm pretty content with what I've got, plus, it makes it a bit easier to display the helmet.
Thank you very much!
Update, small.
As I mentioned earlier, I got the glassing job cleaned up and the edges smoothed and trimmed.
Tonight, I worked a little on the underarm connections. The front part has a cut out section from where the protruding piece on the back part once resided, so I backed that section up with some mat board...
I will be applying a coat of resin and backing this panel with fiberglass tomorrow. Also, I'm going to leave it recessed like it is, and the reason for that will be come evident soon, but here you can see that the fit is still very nice...
And as a special little treat, I asked my wife to snap off a few shots of me doing another size test...
**Note that the ab plate slipped a bit and will not sit that low, it will need to sit about an inch higher than you see here.**
**I also need to adjust the placement of the back of the undersuit a bit, make sure it rides a bit higher, which should happen when the thighs are strapped into the undersuit.**
And here is a shot of what I am planning for the strapping of the torso..
You can probably make out the old backpack straps. I still have to spend a little more time planning their layout to better pull the back into place since it was having a little trouble fitting properly tonight (granted the straps were simply taped into place and didn't hold very well).
The problem I am still having is that the torso is fitting a tad tight, not impossibly tight, but it may be difficult to put it on. However, once it is on and in place, it should be fine. That said, magnets will not be sufficient to hold the two pieces together. I've started to dream up possibilities for securing the pieces, and the most promising one is a post and lock system. This is where the recessed panel that I installed onto the sides will come in. I will install a post on the portion that sticks forward from the back piece and a matching hole in the recessed panel in the front portion. This post will then lock into the hole and the pressure from the side of my ribs will keep the pieces in place (meaning I will have to purposefully detach the front form the back) if that makes any sense. If it's still a bit unclear, I can do a few sketches (I may need to in the near future to figure it all out myself).
As far as the top connection, the alignment device I'm working on will still be used, but without the before planned magnets. It will now be simply an alignment tool. I was thinking of putting another post on a tab attached to the front piece that will lock into a hole on the back piece. That one is a little more difficult to explain and I'll have to sketch it out. Just know that I've built a locking device like what I am planning in the past, albeit for metal medieval gauntlets, but the principle is the same.
Well, that's all I've got for tonight. I'm going to wait until the weekend to start the bondo work on the torso since it's supposed to be nice all weekend and I'll actually be home for once. Thanks for taking the time to check out my armor and let me know what you think!
Edit: Oh yeah, I mentioned it, but forgot to show off my new shirt I'll be wearing under the armor. It's a black Fila training shirt (to match my Fila compression pants)...
It fits nice and tight like my pants do, and the fact that it has thumb holes is nice since now putting on my biceps and gauntlets is much easier!
- Member DIN
- S980
I've got to add a second to Mstruvmgc's (dude, buy a couple of vowels, it's hard to type!) comments on the neatness of your glass.
So:
What weight of mat and cloth are you using?
Do you dip the glass in resin, then apply it, or brush resin over the glass in place?
Finally, do you use a roller?
The best threads are the ones where the builder shows details for the community to learn from. I've picked up a couple of things here. Thanks a lot.
Redshirt
So:
What weight of mat and cloth are you using?
Do you dip the glass in resin, then apply it, or brush resin over the glass in place?
Finally, do you use a roller?
The best threads are the ones where the builder shows details for the community to learn from. I've picked up a couple of things here. Thanks a lot.
Redshirt
Carpathia
Sr Member
Very nice looking stuff ya got there bud
Your glassing is really clean and awesome. How long did it take you to glass the chest?
Thanks! Glassing the torso only took a few hours. Over the course of this build, I've become very efficient at glassing.
Thank you as well.
I couldn't tell you exactly the weight of the mat and cloth. It's the stuff you can purchase in the same area that you would find resin and bondo. They're the 3M Bondo brand cloth and mat. The cloth is pretty fine and neatly woven, here is what the packaging looks like...
And the mat is a bit heavier and is more randomly woven, here is what the mat packaging looks like...
I usually only use the fiberglass cloth, since it hardens the piece up enough to take the bondo layer on the outside nicely. However, for larger pieces like the torso and parts that need a bit of extra reinforcement like the cod, I put a layer of fiberglass cloth, then lay down a layer of fiberglass mat. My cod piece and the under arm areas of my torso are practically rock hard.
I used to dip my fiberglass in resin, then apply it, but that was incredibly messy and ended up wasting a lot of resin. What I do now is brush on a layer of resin on the inside of the part, slightly larger than the piece of fiberglass, then I lay the fiberglass down in the wet resin (preferably without touching the resin with my gloved hands) and dab the cloth down in place with the brush, adding a bit more resin if necessary. This way I can be sure that the cloth gets into every corner I need it to. If there is a very difficult part to fit the cloth down into (IE an area with a lot of detail and a lot of folds) I might apply a thin layer of rondo before the fiberglass (this is what I did with my helmet).
And, no, I use the same type of brushes I use for resining to glass, no rollers.
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Now for the update.
Ok, I officially have a new favorite method for sanding and detailing bondo! Many of you already know of Cereal Killl3r's wonderful video thread. If you are not familiar with them, get off your butt and check them out!! If you are familiar, you already know that Cereal likes to use a lot of hand tools, moving to power tools only when necessary. I USED to be a hardcore advocate of knocking down the high points on the bondo with my dremel, sanding it down with a coarse grit paper on my mouse sander and finishing it off with a fine grit sand paper on my mouse. Well, the other day I came across my set of files and decided to give his method a try. OMG what a difference! The rasp takes down the rough bondo incredibly quickly and I can get the bondo shaped in the same process. Then going over it with a finer file nearly finishes it completely. Here is how the part that I worked on looked after the first pass (keep in mind that I hadn't touched my dremel or mouse sander yet)...
After studying a few reference shots, I started working on the game detail, which looks like this...
To get the circle details, I used these...
I laid the bondo over top the bumpers high enough to cover both, then I used the rasp to bring the level of the bondo down to the top of the bumpers and smoothed it out with the finer file, then simply removed the bumpers. At the end of the evening, this is what I have on both sides...
And using the files made this extremely easy!! So, I anticipate the rest of the torso looking equally nice!
Anyway, there's where I am as of now. Thanks for watching!
Seth Knight
Well-Known Member
Do you have a link or pictures of what files you are using? Your work (and the tool's results) are fantastic!
EDIT: And by files I mean the tools, not the pep files lol.
-Seth
EDIT: And by files I mean the tools, not the pep files lol.
-Seth
Carpathia
Sr Member
Sure, man! The files I'm using are Task Force brand files. Here is a picture of the set...
And out of that whole set, I've only used these three files so far...
The rasp, a medium grit file and a small detail file.
I believe that this is the same set that Cereal Killl3r is using in his videos, though I could be wrong.
Also, I've had these files for so long that I can't remember where I got them or how much they were. Likely, they were a Christmas or birthday gift (since both my dad and father-in-law bought me tools for both for years and I now have a TON of hand and power tools).
And out of that whole set, I've only used these three files so far...
The rasp, a medium grit file and a small detail file.
I believe that this is the same set that Cereal Killl3r is using in his videos, though I could be wrong.
Also, I've had these files for so long that I can't remember where I got them or how much they were. Likely, they were a Christmas or birthday gift (since both my dad and father-in-law bought me tools for both for years and I now have a TON of hand and power tools).
Seth Knight
Well-Known Member
Hm, going to have to do a search on those bad boys now. Will beat the power sander in cost if they are good enough. I bought a set of generic files and wasn't impressed, but I'll look into those to see if they are cheep enough to try. Thanks!
-Seth
-Seth
Macattack64
Well-Known Member
You have a hell of a lot of straps it looks like! I guess this also means that come summer I should start on a legit ab section!
GuitarMaster157
Member
I kid, of course. It looks absolutely beautiful! Keep it up, man!
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