A carbon fiber Mjolnir suit

[Canaga]

I’ve been fooling around with the idea of making a suit for a few years now, and figured now’s probably the best time for it – so here goes!

Special kit at my disposal – My days are consumed with architecture and my nights with architectural model making, so I’ve got some special stuff to play with. I have access to laser cutters, 3D printers, and the cherry on top – the university I attend has a composite laboratory which I have access to – meaning I can build a carbon fibre Mjolnir suit – which may very well be the final material.


My background in architecture and model making means I’m good with my hands, and I can provide DWG’s or PDF’s of the suit for you guys to make, (cut and score/fold lines) and give you guys access to free CAD software to scale the suit to your bodies, I may even write a short document on how to use the programs and how to deal with referenced scaling to fit as you.


Update posts will be pretty few and far between, working on PhD stuffs and many other things, but when the end goal will be (hopefully) a gnarly suit made of carbon fibre, they will be worth it. Expecting this build to be a year, possibly 18 months.

So to start, here’s a glove, made with just some forming card, laser cut and one coat of polyurethane resin kiln cured, resin glued to an old woodworking cotton glove lined with latex to get a rough idea of how it’s going to feel and look – which may change from the chief’s suit, design student, I like to change and improve where I can.

And a little sample of a composite material, stuff is hard
View attachment 246372

View attachment 246376

 

[TurboCharizard]

This build looks genuinely interesting and is taking an approach to construction that not many suits do. I'm ready with popcorn to sit here and watch how it turns out!

 

[Dirtdives2424]

I'm wondering how well the carbon fiber will adhere to fabric.....it would make the suit incredibly fitted and super light. But is the suit is permanently mounted/attached to the undersuit....how would you put it on? .....hummmmmm.........Chicken and the egg.......Looks cool though. So the material you used is forming card? Not familiar w/ that. Can you elaborate?

 

[Canaga]

I'm wondering how well the carbon fiber will adhere to fabric.....it would make the suit incredibly fitted and super light. But is the suit is permanently mounted/attached to the undersuit....how would you put it on? .....hummmmmm.........Chicken and the egg.......Looks cool though. So the material you used is forming card? Not familiar w/ that. Can you elaborate?

Forming card is what I use in my architecture scratch models, it's like cardboard but much stronger - made of dozens of laminates of cartridge paper sheets, perfect for this stuff.

 

[Canaga]

Update #1

Like I said, few and far between, may try to post something atleast once a fortnight (It's 5 in the morning where I am after an all-nighter to make time for the suit :S)

So, first part of the process is to construct as close to a replica of myself - a mannequin which I can work off for both under suit and hard components. I'm playing with several processes from forming my body in a vacuum bag, to medical plaster forming and cutting myself free with assistance of course - however I'm deciding if I'll build the suit in a more accessible way so you guys can follow the process (switch carbon fibre with cardboard and whatever resin you guys can source from a hardware store).

I've also decided no pepakura or anything of the like, going to try and build this bespoke, like I said - design student, I'm gonna play with the design a bit. First design decision is to have built in bolt thread shafts on the undersuit to bolt on hard components, which will be split up into pauldron (should to wrist) as one piece, leggings, and cuirass which can be tightened with ratchet straps - like those on snowboard bindings. Remembered the final cut scene of Halo 4 where the suit requires it to be unbolted from his body. Thought I'd try and replicate the details as best as I can because of reasons...

Sooo some pics, just a couple of me playing around with using thermo-plastics to mould plastic pieces before deciding, "if I'm going to do this, go all in with a full body mannequin". Also some scrap carbon fibre I'm salvaging from the workshop - this is pre-preg meaning it's already treated with resin, ready for forming and curing. Stuff is expensive, so I'll scavenge material for smaller components until I start making them.

 

[Cadet]

The most straight forward way to make a dummy based on your proportions is to do a "Duct Tape Dummy." Basically, you wrap yourself in plastic wrap, and then cover that with duct tape, and then you can fill it with a batting material. Not as fancy, but it works pretty well and is less messy and easier to do than doing a life cast with medical bandages. I've done both and I'm not in a hurry to go through the life casting process again.

 

[TurboCharizard]

The most straight forward way to make a dummy based on your proportions is to do a "Duct Tape Dummy." Basically, you wrap yourself in plastic wrap, and then cover that with duct tape, and then you can fill it with a batting material. Not as fancy, but it works pretty well and is less messy and easier to do than doing a life cast with medical bandages. I've done both and I'm not in a hurry to go through the life casting process again.

I've done a hand cast as practice, not really looking forward to the head cast for mask and helmet making.