I have no clue where to start...

[William D]

Alright, so a little background. I have very little experience, but I think it would be really cool to have a suit made out of sheet metal or something of that sort since I have more experience with that then EVA foam or cardboard. I have an idea for the helmet, which is the main focal point for this plan I have. It would have an orange-tinted piece of glass, but the suit has a cool thermal-scope like thing on the side, which attaches to a small monitor that resides in front of the operator's face, and I found a base suit that would give room for that. I have a good understanding of wires and code, so I believe it could be possible to create an almost heads up display like feature. I'm linking a picture to the suit I'm basing it off of, and please let me know if this is a good idea or not.

 

[Coreforge]

One thing to consider with sheet metal is weight. If you're gonna be using steel, it will be very heavy, as steel is about 7 times more dense than PLA, and you need about 10kg of that for one suit. I you're using aluminium, it'll be less of an issue, but cost might be one, as aluminium is more expensive than steel. I've used maybe 3m squared of foam for my suit so far, and that doesn't include the helmet. I'm also not sure how you would get roundet shapes like the helmet without steps in atleast one direction, but I don't have a lot of experience with sheet metal. I'd recommend foam and 3d printing though, as both are relativly easy to get the hang of, and you can get very good results with enough patience. If you wan't something more solid, pepakura is very good for that.

 

[William D]

I had never thought about the weight, I may need to adjust parts of the shoulders or hollow out parts and fill it with foam, thanks for the insight!

 

[Benton188]

Everyone here will probably agree that making it out of foam or 3D printing a suit will be the easiest method. But if you are serious about your venture into making a full suit out of metal, may i suggest you go through Sandbagger full thread on his all metal Ironman suit:

Sandbagger's Iron Man builds - Now in STEEL.

*******Updated EDIT: I have now finished my THIRD Iron Man suit, constructed in FULL STEEL. *******Updated EDIT: I'm now onto my THIRD Iron Man suit which has been the goal to eventually build in metal. The first half-finished wearable suit was pepakura and fibreglass/bondo. The second...

www.405th.com

 

[he4thbar]

Heads up display? RandomRanger has been working on that one for a bit, I bet you guys would have good conversations. I can agree, steel is gonna be heeaavvvyyy. But if you manage to make it more power to ya! gonna be heavy is all.

 

[RandomRanger]

I have a hud tutorial available here: Ranger's HUD Progress that got me 1st place in special effects at HOD Chicago, however it was expensive and ultimately not terribly practical.

If you want an easy HUD, I'd recommend waiting on adding a HUD until after I build my new HUD app. Ideally, it'll allow you to add a hud to your helm for less than $20. Only caveat with that solution, is the helm has to be large enough to fit your phone in front of the visor because it uses Google Cardboard Tech. I'm hoping to have a beta within 6 months to a year.

 

[Harri51]

ODST. Enough said? No but serious note. Ask questions look through posts and decide on what suit or prop you want a run with it. Plus figure what medium you want to use. Pepakura, foam, 3D print. Things like that. Feel free to shoot a message anytime we love to help!

 

[comics1996]

Do you have any forging experience making simple metal? As it will be like drawing were you might have to start simple first. Unless you have studied forging.