To recap from my introduction thread - I'm building a MK VI suit to help advertise me and my wife's video game store in Pigeon Forge, TN (FB page in my sig). I will be wearing it usually on Fridays out by the road, flagging tourists in as they make their way into town.
I used RoboGenesis' Low definition files. After building the thighs, I noticed the thighs in that set do not include the inner pieces that extend completely up, so I printed and pepped those inner thigh pieces from the HD pack and made them fit onto my existing LD thighs.
I am 5ft 11in, 150lb, and of slender build and I used a scale of 75 on the Robogenesis LD pack. Since registration was disabled up until a couple days ago, I only snapped a couple pics of the work already done but since I am now registered and can start a log, here we go!
Here are the pepped pieces curing from the outer resin coat.
Prior to last night, I had gotten the fiberglass on the inside of all the pieces, with the exception of a couple pieces that were not completely done. The ones that were done, I went back through and added reinforcement to different parts, especially the edges(very important to do this or your suit will crack over time). Last night I spent the evening trying to finish up the fiberglass on all the pieces.
I'm going to show you how I fiberglass. I'm not going to say it is the right way or the only way, but it's MY way and it works pretty well.
Cut your fiberglass into different sized squared and strips and lay them out. Get a decent set of tweezers handy.
after you get your resin mixed, (I use about 30ish drops of hardener in a cup this size that comes on the top of the 1gal jug of resin) use your tweezers to drop a square into it. Dab it a little into the resin. You don't have to soak it, just get some on one side.
pick it up with the tweezers and put it into place on your piece. Do this with a bunch of different sized pieces for where you are putting them. This is a shot of the inside of the chest/back piece
Once you have them in place, put some resin on your brush a DAB it on until the fiberglass is saturated. Dab it until you do not see any more white strands. Don't brush it on as you risk moving your piece around. This is the inside edge of a gauntlet I just got done dabbing.
I also had some pieces of the armor that needed fixing where the pepped piece had got a little misshapen from the resin and fiberflass. One side of the codpiece stuck out too far so I taped it into position and added fiberglass on the back to put it where I wanted it.
A bunch of pieces waiting for the fiberglass to cure
This pretty much all continued from about 6:00 to 9:30 at night. As you can see in some of the pictures I already had bondo work on some of the pieces. It was working on those that I realy realized how much more I had to reinforce the edges and some other parts.
Do yourself a favor noobs! Take your time on your pep. reinforce it wherever you can and check and double check that the pieces and in the right same and they match! I regret not spending more time on my pep as a few extra hours of gluing paper is much easier than extra hours of sanding and bondo work.
Upon working on the gauntlets, I noticed a mistake I had made. One of the pepped Pieces I had made had a part on it that was supposed to stick out rather than stick in. Things like this happen when you hurry through your pep.
I taped off the offending piece and got it ready to add a healthy heap of bondo to properly form the piece in question.
Once the bondo just begins to harden, it gets rubbery. Use that time frame to your advantage and take a razer to it. You can shape the bondo to your liking much easier than sanding it when it is rock hard. Using an assortment of razers, bondo scrapers, planers, and rasps, you can do some really detailed work during this time frame (just take a look at CEREAL's WORKLOG). The important thing is to work in somewhat small quantities. If you work with too much at a time, it may harden too quickly and you will lose this window.
Here I am shaping the glob into this piece I carelessly messed up..
Next up on the list will be putting just a few more pieces of fiberglass in the chest piece and more bondo work. Yay! If you have any questions, by all means ask away.
I used RoboGenesis' Low definition files. After building the thighs, I noticed the thighs in that set do not include the inner pieces that extend completely up, so I printed and pepped those inner thigh pieces from the HD pack and made them fit onto my existing LD thighs.
I am 5ft 11in, 150lb, and of slender build and I used a scale of 75 on the Robogenesis LD pack. Since registration was disabled up until a couple days ago, I only snapped a couple pics of the work already done but since I am now registered and can start a log, here we go!
Here are the pepped pieces curing from the outer resin coat.
Prior to last night, I had gotten the fiberglass on the inside of all the pieces, with the exception of a couple pieces that were not completely done. The ones that were done, I went back through and added reinforcement to different parts, especially the edges(very important to do this or your suit will crack over time). Last night I spent the evening trying to finish up the fiberglass on all the pieces.
I'm going to show you how I fiberglass. I'm not going to say it is the right way or the only way, but it's MY way and it works pretty well.
Cut your fiberglass into different sized squared and strips and lay them out. Get a decent set of tweezers handy.
after you get your resin mixed, (I use about 30ish drops of hardener in a cup this size that comes on the top of the 1gal jug of resin) use your tweezers to drop a square into it. Dab it a little into the resin. You don't have to soak it, just get some on one side.
pick it up with the tweezers and put it into place on your piece. Do this with a bunch of different sized pieces for where you are putting them. This is a shot of the inside of the chest/back piece
Once you have them in place, put some resin on your brush a DAB it on until the fiberglass is saturated. Dab it until you do not see any more white strands. Don't brush it on as you risk moving your piece around. This is the inside edge of a gauntlet I just got done dabbing.
I also had some pieces of the armor that needed fixing where the pepped piece had got a little misshapen from the resin and fiberflass. One side of the codpiece stuck out too far so I taped it into position and added fiberglass on the back to put it where I wanted it.
A bunch of pieces waiting for the fiberglass to cure
This pretty much all continued from about 6:00 to 9:30 at night. As you can see in some of the pictures I already had bondo work on some of the pieces. It was working on those that I realy realized how much more I had to reinforce the edges and some other parts.
Do yourself a favor noobs! Take your time on your pep. reinforce it wherever you can and check and double check that the pieces and in the right same and they match! I regret not spending more time on my pep as a few extra hours of gluing paper is much easier than extra hours of sanding and bondo work.
Upon working on the gauntlets, I noticed a mistake I had made. One of the pepped Pieces I had made had a part on it that was supposed to stick out rather than stick in. Things like this happen when you hurry through your pep.
I taped off the offending piece and got it ready to add a healthy heap of bondo to properly form the piece in question.
Once the bondo just begins to harden, it gets rubbery. Use that time frame to your advantage and take a razer to it. You can shape the bondo to your liking much easier than sanding it when it is rock hard. Using an assortment of razers, bondo scrapers, planers, and rasps, you can do some really detailed work during this time frame (just take a look at CEREAL's WORKLOG). The important thing is to work in somewhat small quantities. If you work with too much at a time, it may harden too quickly and you will lose this window.
Here I am shaping the glob into this piece I carelessly messed up..
Next up on the list will be putting just a few more pieces of fiberglass in the chest piece and more bondo work. Yay! If you have any questions, by all means ask away.
