Ironman Mark V Foldable Foam Suit

captaincaliflour · Aug 25, 2012

WELL! I have progress! Magnets and velcro arrived, and despite the starting of school I spent an hour and installed them...

Unfortunately there's some division now in the pieces, but I still have the same range of movement. That said, I can now fold the arm up into some semblance of compression

Pics:

Arbitrary compression

Extension

Assembly

Deveralia · Aug 25, 2012

Wow, it looks great! And I think it's really cool how you've made it all fold like that.
I'm also impressed with your ability to balance school and put this together at the same time(since just doing a body suit took up all my time I'm worried about my own armor build with classes starting again ><). I'm looking forward to seeing how this progresses.

Toja · Aug 26, 2012

Awesome! how many magnets you use!? painting is not the end ... right?

Impresionante! cuantos imanes usted utilizo!? la pintura no es final...verdad?

captaincaliflour · Aug 26, 2012

Toja said:
Awesome! how many magnets you use!? painting is not the end ... right?

Impresionante! cuantos imanes usted utilizo!? la pintura no es final...verdad?

Of course I'm not done with that arm, I have to install the EL wire for the repulsor, paint on the battle damage, touch up the edges, rework the finger covers and the interior elbow cover, and assemble the rest of the suit lol...wow that's a lot to do now that I think about it.

As far as magnets, I used two per plate, so 4 per complete panel. That's why there's some gaps too, as placement is key. If you put them into the foam itself they don't have enough attraction to hold it together. I'm looking into some sort of covering then to make up for the spacing. Also I need to readjust the silver band's magnets because one is too far into the foam and it's causing it to pull apart like that

Thank you both for the compliments!

captaincaliflour · Sep 4, 2012

More Work has begun! the second arm has all the parts cut out, just need to assemble them.

I also have a new elbow joint instead of the old one. It's mostly the same, just slightly more functional:

It folds properly too

Yay for all foam rotary joints

I've also replaced the bend in the other joint, and have begun work on the left palm and hand so that soon they'll be ready for painting.

captaincaliflour · Sep 19, 2012

Nixon's BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!

Made a lot of progress on the suit in the time the 405th's been down, even more than I have pics for.

I got the front of the chest mostly done:

minus the painting of course. You can also see the connection points for the arms, with a better picture here:

This is basically the whole rig I have complete right now. I do have the straps which will connect the front to back, but, because they're unpainted, they're each a different gaudy color. I plan to finish up the chest this week.

Toja · Sep 19, 2012

genius, keep it up

Mstruvmgc · Sep 20, 2012

Righteous man, keep going!

thorn696 · Sep 20, 2012

Looking good. That's one complex build, my hat's off to you for taking it on.

DBmike · Sep 20, 2012

I'll be honest I haven't posted on this build yet because I really couldn't see it working.

Dude I was soooo wrong, watching this progress i'm super impressed and now subscribed. I really can't wait for more.

excellent work!
DBmike

captaincaliflour · Sep 26, 2012

Updates! because it's been too goddam long!

The chest if wearable, though not complete. I still need to construct the neck seal, as well as the shoulder assembly, which will be a great chance to test my new superthin foam rotary joint. Not a moment too soon too since my elbow joints are going to **** fast. They need a redesign anyways, that'll probably set me back a few days.

Anyways, enough lamenting. Updates!

Front chest assembly:

Back assembly:

And of course, everything I've got so far:

I'm also considering redoing the palms with something thinner in an attempt to give myself more range of motion and maybe clean up some of the detailing in the process.

Spartan_127 · Sep 27, 2012

This is shaping up well! I love that you took this build on and have laughed in the face of the MK V "undoable" suit. .. . LOL! Keep up the good work.

I don't know what kind of foam that you used for your palms, since you said that you may want to redo them, but the Best Step Anti Fatigue Foam roll is just at 1/4" and it's not as thick and stiff as the floor mats you can get a Harbor Freight and stuff. Hope this helps.

DBmike · Sep 27, 2012

Absolutely beautiful man. Love the detail on the spine

captaincaliflour · Sep 27, 2012

Spartan_127 said:
This is shaping up well! I love that you took this build on and have laughed in the face of the MK V "undoable" suit. .. . LOL! Keep up the good work.

I don't know what kind of foam that you used for your palms, since you said that you may want to redo them, but the Best Step Anti Fatigue Foam roll is just at 1/4" and it's not as thick and stiff as the floor mats you can get a Harbor Freight and stuff. Hope this helps.

Yea I used a thinner foam for the yellow arm. It's like 1/8th or 1/16th of an inch, and i layered it to give it increased rigidity and durability over cutting down the thicker foam. As for what's in the palms now, it's standard 1/2 inch foam.

Thanks for the compliments y'all

I'm gonna get the shoulders done then go around tweaking the upper body.

Mstruvmgc · Sep 28, 2012

MAn this is looking sweet

ColFork85 · Sep 28, 2012

Great job! That's alot of small parts to keep track of and put together.

Noskey · Sep 29, 2012

This suit is looking absolutely great so far. I'm definitely going to keep checking this thread! Superb work, Cap!

captaincaliflour · Oct 1, 2012

Quick update! got the chest section done, now I can continue to finish the entire upper body

the whole assembly:

the back assembly:

The shoulder superthin rotary joint prototype:

and the same style joint that replaced the old one in my elbow joint:

close up on the neckseal:

and the rigging for the shoulder plating:

also, sorry for the tiny images, it was either this or freakishly massive ones...

Also: new update until I get the abs complete...my EL wire came today

captaincaliflour · Oct 15, 2012

WORK HAS BEEN DONE! I've got the upper body about 60% accurate to the references I've been using. at 80% it'll be wearable...just be missing some screw heads and other minor details.

For now the chest isn't foldable, but that'll be fixed once my next shipment of magnets comes in and I can separate the green side panels and make them reattachable. That'll let me actually put it on again too...because the side panels are reeeeeally tight lol.

Anyways! pics:

The side panelling: