The method you seem to be using is backwards if I'm permitted to be frank. I don't know how else to explain this
So long as we're being frank, I feel a few things really need to be cleared up here.
First off...
-----> CnC out side of the helmet Once the outside of the design is milled stop the machine. <-------------Flip over the helmet have the CnC mill it out like you would a bowl. After it's done cut out where the face plate out to be and wallah you have the finnished peice.
Have you ever
used a CNC machine? I have, and while I agree that using one to carve the outside of a helmet is possible (Benstreeper has done this), simply flipping it over and letting the CNC mill out the inside is near impossible and very dangerous with out some kind of elaborate and expensive restraining device. Most people, when using a CNC to carve out a helmet, will continue by making a mold from that carved block of wood, then casting hollow copies; very expensive.
This is the cheap idea I have. A block of wood that is about 17 inchs by 17 inches cost about 40 bucks at Home Depot.
Show a link to this. I've spent a fair amount of time in hardware stores like Home Depot, Lowes and Menards and have never seen a huge chunk of wood like this, especially for $40.
If you machine your helmet right you should have very little waste at the end of it.
I don't mean to go all Dwight Schrute on you, but... False. If you started with a block of wood (assuming you could find one) and milled it down to a helmet, then somehow managed to hollow it out, you'd have cut away about 80% of that block of wood, all of which is waste.
Then you go into this...
You do not have to do slice idea. THe end idea I"m trying to get to is 3D Printing from a FORTUS 900MC. It cost 450,000.00 dollars. I'm curnetly trying to get a small buisness loan so I can obtain 2 mill for a FORTUS 900MC, NextEngine 3D scanner, a PlasmaCam CnC machine that can cut steel or wood. The NextEngine cost 2,500 and it scans objects into 3D in DXF or .STL. The FOTUS 900MC is a 3D printer. It prints millicron by militcron until you have a finnished 1:1 part. There is 0 casting and 0 machining. Just take it off the base and you have a finnished part. The PlasmaCam CnC machine can cut wood by 35 feet wide by 35 feet wide into any 3D object you want. How do I know? The Disney movie cars used the nextengine scanner and the PlasmaCam to create 1:1 recreations of the actual cars themself's for the animators so they could get better refernces. I intend to use the machines to create my own manufacturing company but on the side when I'm not bussy I intend to scan made Pepakura or parts made and upload the parts on here in .OBJ, .Pdo, .STL and DFX Format. When I build a part I'll record it and upload it to youtube so you can see how I build them.
This describes 3D printing. What happened to using the CNC?
http://s1281.beta.photobucket.com/us...97343867703113
^ link to the photo of the part in CnC format. No snake oil dude!!!
...broken link.
Where am I getting 1000 dollars from. Google how much it cost to buy resign. People say it cost them 100 dollars to 200 dollars per bucket they buy. Adam Grumbos videos tell you that you have to mix A plastic with B plastic and that's just to get a thin layer for a rubber seperator. Than you have to do a plaster of paris outer shell for the mold. Than you have to buy more expernsive resign or liquid fiberglass to fill it. Ithica's post and youtube vids say it cost him about 50 dollars to 200 dollars per cast. That's alot. My idea if you buy a block of 17 inches by 17 inchs square of wood and machine the outside so you have the designed desired look. Than you flip it over and machine out the inside. I think you're upset that I'm trying to steer people away from tradtional ways of making it by origami by painstakingly cutting it out. Trying to crease the line properly. Glue it right than having to spray fiberglass harderner on it with fiberglass mats. If you read Ithicas noob required mats to be safe the mats are well over 500 dollars. Military Steel Toe boots minimal go for 60 dollars max about 200. Pants he suggest about 60 bucks. Breathing mask he suggest another 60 dollars. Spray paint to make your models easily over 100 dollars if you want it to look nice. I don't think you did a proper inventroy list on the very items and the penny by penny cost that goes into making helmets, or armor.
I think you have your armor-building techniques and products confused here. You start out describing materials needed to make molds and casts, which most people here on the forums do not do. Then you claim that the "mats are well over 500 dollars." What? Paper is cheap, less than $15 for 250 sheets. Fiberglass mat and fiberglass cloth cost a few dollars for a 3' x 3' sheet. At most, for my entire suit, I spent less than $50 for fiberglass cloth and mat. Resin is only about $25 -$30 per gallon, depending on where you live; I've heard it cost as much as $40, but never $100. Bondo filler is about $20 per gallon. Then there are the other materials you point out which were suggested by Ithica (which by the way has since deactivated his account). These are merely suggestions, not requirements, meant to point a potential costumer in the right direction. Very few people actually spend as much as you're suggesting. I got my boots for less than $30, my pants for $20, my respirator (breathing mask) for half of what you have listed and only spent about $80 for the paint for my armor (which, if you've ever seen how I do my paint jobs, you'll know I use a lot of paint, probably twice as much as many others use). All-in-all, I'd estimate the materials for my suit (including the cardstock, resin, bondo, glazing putty, fiberglass cloth/mat, strapping, buckles, padding, electronics, the visor, paint, materials for the undersuit, clothes worn under the armor) to be around $500, $600 tops; not much more than the method you've suggested if you consider the cost per hour of using a CNC machine, and a lot lighter than wearing wood.
grandun66 on youtube uses CnC.
When does he mention this? I honestly want to know, because he is a member of the forums (LeeKegan), and from what I remember, he did all his work by hand. Even if he did use a CNC, however, he only dealt with weapons, not armor. Wood is a great medium for building weapons.
BlueRelm Studios downloaded a tut to scratch build a pirated CnC Machine. Adam Grumbo has a CnC machine that he uses to turn out peices of his armor. Their armor builds are some of the better built models I've seen on this site. Don't get me wrong they're are some tallanted papakura scratch builders on here. But look how flush and prefect their models and armor looks compared to those who use pep. The old way is good if you know what you're doing. It's a complicated way of making a plaster of paris cast but it's with fiberglass and not molten metal. Some of the molds don't look that great but it's awsome they're trying. even the people on this master prop makers site on this 30 minute video on youtube say that 1/2 of the pep makers arn't that good.
The armor built by entities like Bluerealm Studios, Legendary Armor and Nightmare Armor Studios is great, no doubt about that,
but it's all they do. It's their job, not their hobby. They get paid to crank out pieces of armor and are expected to deliver quality products, which makes it a stressful endeavor. I don't know about anyone else here, but I think it's safe to assume that people do a hobby to get away from stress. I wouldn't go so far as to call how many people here create armor "the old way." If you take a few minutes to actually look around, you'll see that many talented members are devising new and innovative ways to tackle this hobby, and others are taking those new methods and expanding off of them, creating even more new methods. And even if a method is "old," if it works, why change it? That's like walking up to a fisherman, taking the old reel out of his hands that he had been using to catch fish his whole life and saying, here, try this new reel, it'll do the same job as your old one, but it's new.
Granted it's a good set up but why not do it the way the pros do it. There are pros in craft making and there are hobbyist. Why not do it the proffesional way but dirt cheap.
Because we're not pros, we're hobbyists. This is not a source of money for us, it's a hobby. We like to create something with our hands, then sit back and say, "I built that," even if it looks like junk. Many of us would not want that taken away to have a machine build it for us. Sure, you might end up with a great suit of armor, but you wouldn't be able to honestly say that you built it yourself.
OK, that's the end of my rant. I don't normally do that, but someone contacted me with concerns that this might provide newcomers with inaccurate information about the hobby.
I'm all for using new and innovative ways to create armor and props, but please try not to ram it down our throats. People will gravitate toward a particular technique or way to do things; all you can do is show us what
you can do (which you actually have yet to do).
