TuckerDidIt
New Member
Well, here I am again. It's been an interesting road.
TL;DR: I'm back and am 3D printing HALO armor for myself. Armor for the dog will have to take a bit longer as I'm still trying to figure out how to design it. Please skip to the bold face for where I have some questions I could use some help with.
I am still Derek, and Caboose is still the black lab, but he's put on another 16 pounds and weighs in at a hefty (and somewhat portly) 60 lbs. The plan is still to make custom HALO armor in Tucker's (from Red vs Blue) distinctive aqua, and to make a set of armor for Caboose (yes, the dog) to wear in Caboose's (from the same show) standard dark blue with his specific helmet.
A couple of things have changed. First off, I decided that the Rubie's costume was complete crap. It's flimsy. It's built for someone 6'5" tall, and the fasteners are terrible. I doubt it would make it through even one convention, much less multiples. I would not recommend anyone purchase any Rubies costumes! My girlfriend bought a 1960's Batman Catwoman costume and parts were falling off of it before we even got to our first convention. Between that $120 disaster and my $200 waste buying the Rubie's junk, we should have gone with option B right from the get go. (Option A was to try to reinforce the Rubie's costume with some kind of sealing foam, but it was just too large and too shoddily made.)
In December of 2018 (About the same time I posted here last), I decided to buy a 3D printer. Unfortunately, what with work and everything, it more or less sat in my den for 14 months before I got it up and running a few days ago.
So, I'm in the process of printing this armor, which is coming along fairly well. Hopefully by tomorrow evening I will have one arm. (The left one, if anyone is curious.) Along the way, I also purchased this helmet, which I like, although it arrived looking deformed, like it had either had a weight set on it in shipping or had not been allowed to cool properly before having pressure put on it. Some judicious application of a heat gun and I have managed to get it close to the right shape. I'll also be replacing the visor (because what's in there is pretty craptastic) with a gold motorcycle visor.
I have a couple of mods I want to make to the helmet and armor if anyone has suggestions.
Mod#1: I would like to add a helmet microphone with a speaker that is either in the front mouthpiece of the helmet or located in the chestpiece of the armor. I'm stumped on how to do this, although adding a mic to the helmet is simple enough.
Mod#2: I am considering adding sound amplifiers to the helmet as well. I have a vague idea for this: basically yank the electronics out of a pair of sound dampening electronic earmuffs like you'd wear at the gun range. I'm just curious if anyone has done something similar to their helmets.
Mod #3: I am also considering adding closed cell foam like this to the inside of the armor pieces, both for comfort and to make it easier to attach velcro fasteners to the pieces. Has anyone experimented with this stuff in their armor?
I'll be reading through some of the archives for the next few days and slowly joining conversations. I'm hoping to have a prototype of the armor completed by the end of June-- I have 54 pieces to print, so if I can print and assemble one per day without too many redos, I should meet that goal.
Thanks for reading. See you folks soon!
Derek (and Caboose)
TL;DR: I'm back and am 3D printing HALO armor for myself. Armor for the dog will have to take a bit longer as I'm still trying to figure out how to design it. Please skip to the bold face for where I have some questions I could use some help with.
I am still Derek, and Caboose is still the black lab, but he's put on another 16 pounds and weighs in at a hefty (and somewhat portly) 60 lbs. The plan is still to make custom HALO armor in Tucker's (from Red vs Blue) distinctive aqua, and to make a set of armor for Caboose (yes, the dog) to wear in Caboose's (from the same show) standard dark blue with his specific helmet.
A couple of things have changed. First off, I decided that the Rubie's costume was complete crap. It's flimsy. It's built for someone 6'5" tall, and the fasteners are terrible. I doubt it would make it through even one convention, much less multiples. I would not recommend anyone purchase any Rubies costumes! My girlfriend bought a 1960's Batman Catwoman costume and parts were falling off of it before we even got to our first convention. Between that $120 disaster and my $200 waste buying the Rubie's junk, we should have gone with option B right from the get go. (Option A was to try to reinforce the Rubie's costume with some kind of sealing foam, but it was just too large and too shoddily made.)
In December of 2018 (About the same time I posted here last), I decided to buy a 3D printer. Unfortunately, what with work and everything, it more or less sat in my den for 14 months before I got it up and running a few days ago.
So, I'm in the process of printing this armor, which is coming along fairly well. Hopefully by tomorrow evening I will have one arm. (The left one, if anyone is curious.) Along the way, I also purchased this helmet, which I like, although it arrived looking deformed, like it had either had a weight set on it in shipping or had not been allowed to cool properly before having pressure put on it. Some judicious application of a heat gun and I have managed to get it close to the right shape. I'll also be replacing the visor (because what's in there is pretty craptastic) with a gold motorcycle visor.
I have a couple of mods I want to make to the helmet and armor if anyone has suggestions.
Mod#1: I would like to add a helmet microphone with a speaker that is either in the front mouthpiece of the helmet or located in the chestpiece of the armor. I'm stumped on how to do this, although adding a mic to the helmet is simple enough.
Mod#2: I am considering adding sound amplifiers to the helmet as well. I have a vague idea for this: basically yank the electronics out of a pair of sound dampening electronic earmuffs like you'd wear at the gun range. I'm just curious if anyone has done something similar to their helmets.
Mod #3: I am also considering adding closed cell foam like this to the inside of the armor pieces, both for comfort and to make it easier to attach velcro fasteners to the pieces. Has anyone experimented with this stuff in their armor?
I'll be reading through some of the archives for the next few days and slowly joining conversations. I'm hoping to have a prototype of the armor completed by the end of June-- I have 54 pieces to print, so if I can print and assemble one per day without too many redos, I should meet that goal.
Thanks for reading. See you folks soon!
Derek (and Caboose)
