what do you think

[Spartan711]

This post is a work in progress...As I come up with new ideas (not necessarily new but i'm new here and haven't read most of the posts so they are new to me, if they truly are new and they are worth telling people about then tell them) i will update this post and use is as a constructive criticism thread for my armor and also as a checklist type thing or a reminder of all the crazy stuff i'm trying to do so i don't forget while i'm making it and it doesnt' get implemented. Anyways: On with the post!!!

I am planning on making a cardboard set of armor. I would like to know what ya'll think about my idea for reinforcing it. My plan is to use the pep stuff and the models provided by jedi as a sort of pattern. I will then copy that pattern onto peices of cardboard which are roughly an 1/8th of an inch thick and pure white. In order to get the folds right i will have to use and x-acto knife or somthing similar to cut through 1/4 to 1/2 way through the board and bend it. then i will cover that with some form of hard substance (most likely fiberglass) and insulate with 1/2" think padding on the inside of all peices. The helmet will have working lights, internal fans and speakers. Fans are easy, just use the standard cpu fan. The speakers i plan to use will most likely be from a set of headphones. As i am a somewhat experienced amatuer electrician (lol i think that's an oxymoron) i can easily do this. For that set up i plan to put the speakers in the helmets "jawbone" (where the MC's jawbone would be, the place where the flashlight is on the outside) with the wires possibly going in the bottom edge and having a connector in the bottom rear of the helmet. Do ya'll think the cardboard stuff would work? Does this make any sense? Will the fiberglass go over the cardboard or seep through? Any constructive criticism is appreciated...You can be as mean as you want lol, doesn't matter, i just want to do this right.

I also need to know i kinda inexpensive way to make a visor. I don't have that much money (i'm starting my first job in a week) and i gotta buy a car and blah blah blah (main reason i'm doing this with cardboard :roll: )

I want to add a way to put on/take off the armour without screwing it up. A good thing i just thought of while looking over the crotch peices would be either velcro or snaps (buttons) on the peice that goes between your legs and on both sides where it goes on your hips (for the hips maybe one of those clips with the three prongs that go into the big slot that you push the two sides in to unclip it (don't know if they have a specific name)). I could make the peices in segments so they are somewhat flexible and attach them to a strip with the buttons or velcro. I think this would only work well with the chest peice and the crotch peice though. Thinking of a way to do for the rest...

Maybe a way to make the tint in the visor be controllable. So that it can be a full metallic reflective thing and then you can turn it down and actually see through the visor...

Don't know about the cardboard that i was planning on using...it's thick as hell and hard to cut...also the flaps from the pep thing are kinda small for for how thick the cardboard and how much it'd need to fold...might have to go buy some cardstock...

 

[Frizzlefry]

Here's a bit of an out of the box idea for an inexpensive visor that you can make.

Buy the yellow colored plastic food wrap and tightly tape or glue it to the inside of your helmet making it the visor. It will be very fragile, but should display well if you take your time putting it in.

Visors really don't cost that much though, and would probably be worth the investment.

I too want to make my armor easy to get in and out of. I also want to kind of "one size fit's all" my armor. So what I'll be doing is modding the pieces so that rather than fitting like a glove, they will bend around the arm/leg/whatever. To do this I am going to incorporate hinges into my armor and use velcro straps to tighten.

 

[Sean Bradley]

Every consider casting them in foam for your application?? Like the spongy stuff that the make Nerf footballs out of.... it would look solid if it were painted right, and be flexible enough to fit any body.... and if you fell while wearing it, you'd be more protected , and less likely to injure yourself or your armor.

 

[Spartan711]

i had thought about doing molded foam/plastic then covering that but i'm not that advanced in the ways of molding. I want to do the pep thing with the cardstock then coat that with fiberglass and put cusions on the inside of pretty much every peice of armor cept feet and hands. in my head it seems like it'll work perfect and almost be like the molded stuff...don't know though..this is kinda the first time i've ever tried to do somethign like this. I printed out the mc helmet model from pep and put it together with just regular copy paper because i wanted to get a chance to practice putting the stuff together and how it would look when it was finished and i have to say that it works pretty good. only problem is that i'm gonna have to do alot of resizing. the helmet is gonna have to be a bit bigger, probably gonna have to expand the chest a wee bet, shorten the thigh part drastically because the model prints out at 21". Feet should fit but might need to make bigger, haven't calculated how big they'll be but i wear a size 12-13 tennis shoe. 11.5 R in army regulation combat boots. so it'll be a fun summer/fall/winter project i guess and definitly a learning experience.

 

[Spartan711]

i plan on doing something a lot like what berzerker is doing here