Help! What material should I use for my first armor?

[JustStok3d]

Total rookie question, I know, but what medium per se should I use for my first suit construction? I have most of the items needed for foam built, anybody can pep, and I do also have an enclosed 3d printer. I plan on just starting with the helmet or something and seeing if I want to commit to this. If I start with the helmet, is that something I 3D print? Or do it with foam? Also, how do you all make visors? I plan on making a pilot helmet, and that has a substantial one. I have a shop vac as well, throwing that in because I have seen some visor tutorials on here. Thanks so much for the help and sorry about the barrage of questions.

 

[billeybob250]

Hello and welcome to the journey.

it sounds like you have a great set of tools at your disposal and your asking the right starter questions. You can definitely do your helmet out of either Foam or 3d printing and there are many who do either. I think the helmets are starting to lean toward 3d printing now days due to the quick advancements in printing speed, quality and size. My ENTIRE armor set is 3d printed (including visor).

As i have not done foam smithing i cannot speak on how difficult it is but there are some amazing foam smiths in this community and foam armor can look spectacular.

i chose 3d printing because once i got the scaling figured out i can hit print and walk away. most of the work for 3d printing is in the sanding and painting while foam smithing a lot of time is dedicated to the cutting and joining.

Visors

There seem to be 3 main options out there, Vacuum forming (probably best for visibility), resin printing (very dependent on printer size and deals with toxic resin please wear PPE when handling), and then there are some who use sheets of window screen or tint to just make a visor (this is probably the cheapest and easiest to do).

for vacuum forming people build an entire apparatus for is (which is where you mentioned the shop vac) but doing this requires a dedicated heating machine (like a toaster oven for many people) just to do.


Please keep in mind when doing any of the crafting methods when you are dealing with chemicals or sanding this material is toxic and PPE is always heavily recommended.

Billeybob.

 

[ReclaimerODST]

My advice (as a novice myself) would be to 3D print the helmet, and if that’s a process you feel comfortable with, keep at it for the full suit! Helmets are usually much more dependent on symmetry, curves, and precise, small pieces, which is why many people who are talented foamsmiths still tend to print their helmets.

I don’t think I have the artistic skills or steady hand for foam, but speaking from my experience with 3D printing, you can get an extremely detailed and accurate suit with fairly minimal effort. Joining, sanding, and to a degree painting, are all fairly straightforward and accessible. The largest weaknesses IMO are comfort/mobility, with stiff plastic being much tougher to move/sit in, and ease of modification. Once something is printed, making a change or even relatively small repair may call for reprinting it entirely, where as someone talented with foam could just cut and paste new bits and be done.

These are of course my limited and personal thoughts, but I had a lot of fun and a fairly easy time putting together my first 3D printed suit, so that’s what I’d recommend.

 

[JustStok3d]

And as for filament choice, what did you use? I’ve seen some use ASA which I am comfortable with using (PPE included, duh) but what did you guys use?