Attaching/Mounting Shin armor piece?

[Unit287]

Hey there 405th! I've been planning a new armor build for far, far future me to make once I have the time and place to do a build with all of the knowledge and resources I gained from my previous build. (and it's fun to play what if) I can visualise most of what I will do to improve on my previous build, but there is one place that I am still stuck on, the Shin piece right above the boot. In my previous build, my boot was built around a thick snow boot that I had on hand, so the shin piece just slid on and stayed there with friction. When I do it again, however, I will be using a wrestling shoe so my boot can flex more and give me more maneuverability, which is something that I really don't have with my current setup. This means that I won't have a boot to keep the shin in place. I've looked into padding the inside with EVA foam and using straps and harnesses, but what methods have you guys used to keep the shin in place and not slide down into the boot?

 

[SpartanSweed]

Welcome welcome! For my shins I’ve mainly used upholstery foam and/or eggshell foam to help keep things in place

 

[SgtSaint]

Just a suggestion: There's a lot of range between "snow boot" and "wrestling slipper".
My suggestion is go with an army/hiking boot with a zipper on the interior side.

Your shin armor still slides down over the top of the boot to protect your ankle but you keep a lot of range of motion and maybe won't break your ankle when (not 'if'), when you trip in your armor.

You can see the shin come down over the boot in this side shot

 

[Unit287]

Just a suggestion: There's a lot of range between "snow boot" and "wrestling slipper".
My suggestion is go with an army/hiking boot with a zipper on the interior side.View attachment 374124

Your shin armor still slides down over the top of the boot to protect your ankle but you keep a lot of range of motion and maybe won't break your ankle when (not 'if'), when you trip in your armor.

View attachment 374125

You can see the shin come down over the boot in this side shot

View attachment 374126

Oh wow, that's impressive. What's the inside of the boot like? Is the tread of the boot on the ground, or is it sitting inside the armor piece? And how did you attach the armor to the boot? It looks pretty sturdy. I'm also guessing you had to make the boot armor bigger to fit it correctly over the boot?

 

[SigmaProps]

If I recall correctly, Saint uses cast rubber soles for his boots. Definitely a good call on the suggestion for side zip boots, they're great for getting in and out of if you're suiting up without a handler.

 

[SgtSaint]

Oh wow, that's impressive. What's the inside of the boot like? Is the tread of the boot on the ground, or is it sitting inside the armor piece? And how did you attach the armor to the boot? It looks pretty sturdy. I'm also guessing you had to make the boot armor bigger to fit it correctly over the boot?

The combat boot sits inside the armored boot. Yes you have to scale the armor to the boot. Just take a model of the combat boot: Size it to your real boot. And put it on your avatar. Then scale the armor to that. You can see it here on my ODST build but its the same for Spartan or Martian Goliath or whatever.

If I recall correctly, Saint uses cast rubber soles for his boots. Definitely a good call on the suggestion for side zip boots, they're great for getting in and out of if you're suiting up without a handler.

Close. They aren't cast rubber: They're printed TPU.

 

[Unit287]

The combat boot sits inside the armored boot. Yes you have to scale the armor to the boot. Just take a model of the combat boot: Size it to your real boot. And put it on your avatar. Then scale the armor to that. You can see it here on my ODST build but its the same for Spartan or Martian Goliath or whatever.

View attachment 374127

Close. They aren't cast rubber: They're printed TPU.View attachment 374128

Got it, is the entire thing TPU or just that black bottom half? If not, how did you smooth out the TPU on that top grey/orange area? Also, how did you make the tread like that? You must have modified the files or something similar. I do have a printer that can print TPU, so I might look into this. Oh, and what rating TPU did you use?

 

[Unit287]

The combat boot sits inside the armored boot. Yes you have to scale the armor to the boot. Just take a model of the combat boot: Size it to your real boot. And put it on your avatar. Then scale the armor to that. You can see it here on my ODST build but its the same for Spartan or Martian Goliath or whatever.

View attachment 374127

Close. They aren't cast rubber: They're printed TPU.View attachment 374128

Oh and what settings did you use to print the TPU?

 

[SgtSaint]

I don't tell my settings. Not because I don't want to share but because I don't like the blow-back I get if it doesn't work for someone else. The number of times I've gotten some pretty bad comments about how I must have deliberately sabotaged someone and cost them money on wasted material - or whatever - Its just not worth doing. My materials, on my printers, in my hummidity etc. aren't going to be the same conditions as the next person. Even the same settings on two different machines... Here's a recent example: Same spool moved from one printer to another in my shop. Same settings, temps, speeds, all of it. The only difference is one is a Bambu machine with .4 nozzle and one is a Giga machine with 1.0 nozzle - and yet one is bright and shiny and the other is kinda dull silver.

And its the same with TPU, or ABS or any other material. So rather than give you my settings that won't give you my results I always recommend: test, tweak, test, tweak, and continue to dial in your material on your machine until you get the results you like. Dialing-in your material is so much more educational because even when you fail something you still learn something.