Mjolnir Armor In 5 Weeks... The Race Is On!

[RFAPunisher]

Well, I came across this site about a month ago when I was looking for a quality method of build up some Master Chief armor for my brother's costume wedding this Halloween. I wanted thank everyone on these forums, because there is such a wealth of knowledge here, it has made this project infinitely easier for me, even with my limited fabrication/craft skills.



Here are some progress photos of what we have so far, and how everything is coming along. We are definitely learning some things as we go, and feeling a lot of pressure from a time standpoint. We've been at it for 2.5 weeks, and have about 80 hours invested as well as ~$200 in materials (not counting lots of Monster and Budweiser). So without further ado:



Here's the helmet, which we were able to cut and glue in one night (~14 man hours total).

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Head on view of the pepped helmet.

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After two more nights of work we had a few more pieces done.

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Here we have a foot, shin, and codpiece. We did all of the right-side parts first so that we could see how the fit would be before printing and cutting the left side. That way if there was a scaling issue with the pep we wouldn't have a mental breakdown thinking about folding the entire suit again.

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The completed lower body.

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And the completed upper body.

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Here's the fully pepped armor, which took about 56 hours all together to print, cut and glue. Now on to the resin!!

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Here's the helmet after resin, which we simply placed on a dowel and a big foam ball from Joann Fabrics. It sagged a little during pep, but nothing we couldn't fix.

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I have about 10-12 more update pics to post... I actually bondo'ed the forearms and shins last night, but now have the ridiculous task of sanding them, which should be pretty time consuming. Thank goodness for the Mighty Mouse!



Let me know what you think!

 

[Deathcoreknight]

very nice man very nice work keep it up.....

 

[RFAPunisher]

very nice man very nice work keep it up.....

Thank you! I didn't realize how time intensive this would be, especially in such a short time frame, but it's going well. I just have to make sure the perfectionist side of me doesn't get in the way of finishing by the end of the month!

 

[AngelVirusX]

Looking great there RFAPunisher. I'm sure you'll make the deadline for your brother's wedding with time to spare.



I'm doing the same thing too, a halloween deadline and also started about a month ago. It's going good on this end too.



Good luck and can't wait to see pictures of the costume wedding with your completed MC suit!

 

[RFAPunisher]

Alright, here are some more progress pics going into the fiberglassing and some of the bondo. I have a feeling I made my life harder than it has to be with the bondo, but we'll see. It's my first time using it, and there's a lot of learning to be had!



Here's the pepped chest armor with the first coat of resin setting in. We just made a quick stand with a dowel rod and a foam block.

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The right shoulder all resined up and happy.

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There's no place like home, there's no place like home...

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We chose to use fiberglass cloth, which is a little bit more expensive, but has done a phenomenal job in terms of strength and ease of use. The only annoying part is all the random threads that come off these things!

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Since we're working in the garage and it's starting to get colder here in Michigan, we made a makeshift cure oven lean-to with some plywood, a space heater, and a blanket to help seal it up. Works great!

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The workbench.

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Clearly I've either smelled too much bondo and fiberglass, or had one too many Buds, because I am way too excited to fiberglass in this picture.

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Here is the lower body all 'glassed and with one shin bondo'ed... I have a feeling it's going to be crazy getting that thing smooth again.

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The forearms bondo'ed up... I took a bit more care on these pieces.

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The feet with fiberglass setting up and a spacer to keep the top open appropriately.

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Here's the (near) finished chest! We have to figerglass the straps still... I'm worried about keeping it propped open during cure so it's not all compressed on me.

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Here's a close-up of one of the bondo'ed forearms.

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Well... that's it for now, but we're going to finish up the 'glassing tonight as best we can (still have the helmet, chest straps, and cod piece), and get back to bondo'ing. My friend Kurosh, who has been my partner in crime on this, is almost done pepping an Assault Rifle, so I'll post some pics of that as well tomorrow.



Thanks again everyone!

 

[RFAPunisher]

Looking great there RFAPunisher. I'm sure you'll make the deadline for your brother's wedding with time to spare.



I'm doing the same thing too, a halloween deadline and also started about a month ago. It's going good on this end too.



Good luck and can't wait to see pictures of the costume wedding with your completed MC suit!

Thanks a lot!



Good luck with your suit as well. This is the first time I've made ANY costume for myself, let alone something this involved. I'll be sure to get some good pics up of the wedding parties... I was trying to convince one of my brother's friends to go as either covenant or flood, so I could just stalk him the the entire evening. Haha!

 

[AlexSpartan177]

dude i hope that comes out great

 

[AlexSpartan177]

hey dude i have a little question,

is your brothers wedding is goin to be in halloween and its gonna be a normal wedding or is it goin to be in halloween and its gonna have a halloween theme or something like that????????????????

 

[RFAPunisher]

hey dude i have a little question,

is your brothers wedding is goin to be in halloween and its gonna be a normal wedding or is it goin to be in halloween and its gonna have a halloween theme or something like that????????????????

It's actually going to be on Halloween day/night, and the wedding parties are required to be dressed in costume for the ceremony and the reception. My brother and his fiancee are going to dress normally for the ceremony to have a few nice pictures, but will be in costume for the entire reception. They're having guests dress up as well, which should be fun... this will be the 9th wedding I've stood in, so it's nice to have a different spin on things!



The one thing I'm worried about is standing up in front during the ceremony for 30-50 minutes just sweating in this armor.

 

[Shade88]

Best Reception Ever!!! Hey looking great! Keep it up.

 

[tiredofbuttons]

Awesome! Good luck man, you're making great progress. My sister got married last year. It was a costume party/surprise wedding. Everyone showed up from all over and just thought it was a costume party/get together of old friends and then she got married. It was a lot of fun setting it up and seeing everyone's faces.

 

[HaloGoddess]

Everything is looking pretty good and you seem to be making some very good progress on this as well. Just keep it up and I'm sure you should have this finished in time!



I live in michigan too, but I don't have a garage so I can't do any of the resin and stuff on my projects. I will have to wait until it starts warming up again.

 

[RFAPunisher]

Okay, quick update from last night before I start in on the evening's activities:



This little guy here may be my new favorite heater in the world. Propane heater with a tube of blue flame that was warming me in the garage from 15 feet away!

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Here's a look at the inside of the helmet. I glassed the brim and the top last night and will be looking to get most (if not all) of the rest of it tonight!

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This was incredible! I made a large batch of the resin and hardener for glassing, and about halfway through the mixing dish I noticed that the fiberglass cloth was really warm when I was applying it. Suddenly this this started foaming, hissing and bubbling and giving off smoke. The whole thing superheated and hardened up in about a minute, and looked like ice that had frozen all the way through. Anyone seen that before???

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I wasn't extremely happy with the stiffness of the chest, so I reinforced a few areas to give it more structure and sturdiness. The expanding foam should help as well!

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Here is some adhesive cork material that we found that we're going to use for raised details on the armor. I'm hoping that with a little resin applied and some light bondo, it will stiffen up so it doesn't dent if someone hits it.

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This is adhesive foam material that we'll be using along with bondo to do some detailing as well.

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Well, that was it for last night... only the rest of the helmet and the cod piece to glass now, and lots of bondo work to do! Any advice for fixturing the cod piece while it dries so it holds the shape of your waist???



Thanks everyone!

 

[tiredofbuttons]

I've seen both polyester resin AND epoxy resin "exotherm". Once I noticed the cup I had mixed was smoking and the other time it just melted it. (one was a plastic cup one was a paper bowl)



The cork material is an interesting idea. I was just going to use craft foam, but its pretty soft so I was hoping the epoxy resin would soak in pretty good. (or I was going to seal it with modpodge) <shrug> heres to hoping!



On the waist I used pieces of wood secured with painters tape to give it the proper shape and hold it. Sorry I don't have any pictures.

 

[Spartan 343]

Very nice lol, Just make sure to wear a respirator when fiber glassing, this stuff is horrible for ya lol.

Keep it up!!