SeaSickle
Jr Member
Nice! My sister-in-law has a Cricut. I may need to see if she'll print some for me.
1st Build My ODST Journey
- Thread starter KocourUS
- Start date
KocourUS
Jr Member
Now, a lot of things are about to start happening very rapidly at the same time, because trying to assembly line each stage of the project just takes too long with too much downtime. So we'll have parts getting assembled and bondo'd, parts getting primed, painted, detailed, its gonna get really hectic. So here we go.
KocourUS
Jr Member
One of the most important details with this armor is the visor. Many a veteran will tell you, the visor can make or break the wearability of a suit. We're going to vacuform our visor, since that seems to be the easiest path. See my other threads on the adventures of building a vacuformer from scratch for about $400 because no one in your area will have one.
Print your visor buck out of ABS, unlike the rest of the suit. We're going to take advantage of a couple of different processes here, to try to achieve the best possible result. Print this part slow, with lots of overlap, and dense. Unlike the rest of the suit, which has been printed at 4 walls/top/bottom and 15% gyroid infill, we're going to go 10 walls/top/bottom, with 50% gyroid and 2 solid layers every 20. This piece is going to experience a LOT of vacuum, we do not want it to crush.
Now we need 4 things. We need a glass jar big enough to fit over this buck with lots of room around it, a flat glass or mirror plate to set it all on, some paper towels, and 100% acetone. We're also going to need a respirator with acid gas filters, gloves, and eye protection, because holy smokes aerosolized acetone is extremely toxic, so do this outside and lean back when you open the jar.
Put on your gloves, eye pro, and respirator. Ideally, wear long sleeves.
Soak a paper towel in acetone and stick it up against the side of your jar, place your buck on the mirror plate, drop the jar over the top of the buck and make sure to label this jar because we don't want anyone getting curious.
Set a time for 15 minutes and walk away. When the timer goes over, go check on it, BUT DO NOT OPEN THE JAR. Depending on a lot of factors, this process can take a few minutes or a couple hours. Reset your timer and walk away. What we want to see is the sharp contours of the layer lines begin to soften. Once this happens, give it another 15 minutes.
Get a fan going, and put your PPE back on!
Take a deep breath, lean back, and lift the jar. Stand upwind from the thing, exhale hard, and then breathe in. You've just released a cloud of aerosolized acetone and that stuff will ruin your entire weekend. Let the fan run a few minutes before approaching.
now, this next step is the hardest part:
DO NOT TOUCH IT. NO, SERIOUSLY. Don't even poke it. Walk away from it. Tell others not to touch it. Don't even think about it for a couple of days.
Leave it alone for a couple of days to cure. Its still in a semi-liquid state, and is outgassing dissolved acetone. If you touch it, you'll completely ruin it. You'll leave fingerprints, ruin the lines, and possibly even collapse it.
Now, once you've let it sit for atleast 3 days, begin your process of bondo and primer filler to smooth it out. A fun tip, if you dilute bondo with acetone, it makes for a much easier job spreading it, and it fills in gaps better. Be sure to observe proper PPE protocols when working with liquid acetone, including eye protection and gloves. I didn't get any pictures of this process, but its very similar to how you're going to prep the rest of your armor. Use liquid bondo to fill any gaps, sand it smooth, then apply layers of primer filler. Once you have about 4 layers of primer over the top of your bondo, start wetsanding with increasingly finer grits. Find the absolute finest grit sheets of sandpaper you can, and use a shoeshiner technique to keep things even. Don't apply pressure from behind the sheet. If you've never seen a shoeshine boy, I suggest you listen to more Johnny Cash.
See this? This isn't smooth enough. If you can see a layer line, if you can feel a layer line, its not smooth enough. Keep going. This needs to be the single smoothest item you've ever touched in your entire life.
Print your visor buck out of ABS, unlike the rest of the suit. We're going to take advantage of a couple of different processes here, to try to achieve the best possible result. Print this part slow, with lots of overlap, and dense. Unlike the rest of the suit, which has been printed at 4 walls/top/bottom and 15% gyroid infill, we're going to go 10 walls/top/bottom, with 50% gyroid and 2 solid layers every 20. This piece is going to experience a LOT of vacuum, we do not want it to crush.
Now we need 4 things. We need a glass jar big enough to fit over this buck with lots of room around it, a flat glass or mirror plate to set it all on, some paper towels, and 100% acetone. We're also going to need a respirator with acid gas filters, gloves, and eye protection, because holy smokes aerosolized acetone is extremely toxic, so do this outside and lean back when you open the jar.
Put on your gloves, eye pro, and respirator. Ideally, wear long sleeves.
Soak a paper towel in acetone and stick it up against the side of your jar, place your buck on the mirror plate, drop the jar over the top of the buck and make sure to label this jar because we don't want anyone getting curious.
Set a time for 15 minutes and walk away. When the timer goes over, go check on it, BUT DO NOT OPEN THE JAR. Depending on a lot of factors, this process can take a few minutes or a couple hours. Reset your timer and walk away. What we want to see is the sharp contours of the layer lines begin to soften. Once this happens, give it another 15 minutes.
Get a fan going, and put your PPE back on!
Take a deep breath, lean back, and lift the jar. Stand upwind from the thing, exhale hard, and then breathe in. You've just released a cloud of aerosolized acetone and that stuff will ruin your entire weekend. Let the fan run a few minutes before approaching.
now, this next step is the hardest part:
DO NOT TOUCH IT. NO, SERIOUSLY. Don't even poke it. Walk away from it. Tell others not to touch it. Don't even think about it for a couple of days.
Leave it alone for a couple of days to cure. Its still in a semi-liquid state, and is outgassing dissolved acetone. If you touch it, you'll completely ruin it. You'll leave fingerprints, ruin the lines, and possibly even collapse it.
Now, once you've let it sit for atleast 3 days, begin your process of bondo and primer filler to smooth it out. A fun tip, if you dilute bondo with acetone, it makes for a much easier job spreading it, and it fills in gaps better. Be sure to observe proper PPE protocols when working with liquid acetone, including eye protection and gloves. I didn't get any pictures of this process, but its very similar to how you're going to prep the rest of your armor. Use liquid bondo to fill any gaps, sand it smooth, then apply layers of primer filler. Once you have about 4 layers of primer over the top of your bondo, start wetsanding with increasingly finer grits. Find the absolute finest grit sheets of sandpaper you can, and use a shoeshiner technique to keep things even. Don't apply pressure from behind the sheet. If you've never seen a shoeshine boy, I suggest you listen to more Johnny Cash.
See this? This isn't smooth enough. If you can see a layer line, if you can feel a layer line, its not smooth enough. Keep going. This needs to be the single smoothest item you've ever touched in your entire life.
KocourUS
Jr Member
Now we're getting into the fun parts. More painting! More primer! More bondo!
My process for joining larger pieces, which has worked so far, is using Weld-on 16 to butt pieces together, letting it cure for a bit, then securing on the backside with plastic staples. You can get a pretty basic kit for this on Amazon for not terribly much money. Make sure to clip down the exposed ends and file them. Wear eyepro when trimming the ends, one of these flew off hard enough to stick in my finger.
Go back over this with a soldering iron smoother tip, to further improve the bond across the seam.
My process for joining larger pieces, which has worked so far, is using Weld-on 16 to butt pieces together, letting it cure for a bit, then securing on the backside with plastic staples. You can get a pretty basic kit for this on Amazon for not terribly much money. Make sure to clip down the exposed ends and file them. Wear eyepro when trimming the ends, one of these flew off hard enough to stick in my finger.
Go back over this with a soldering iron smoother tip, to further improve the bond across the seam.
KocourUS
Jr Member
More progress. This time we're totally disregarding the shoulder buckles for something a little more functional! I sewed a triglide into one end of a length of webbing, cut some slots in the chest piece about where they would normally be, fed the straps up, through some cobra buckles, and back down, running them through the triglides and doubling them back once I was satisfied with the length. You can sew these this way of you'd like, but for now I'm gonna leave them loose for future repairs
Arithen
Well-Known Member
Great work! What does the JBL Go2 do?
KocourUS
Jr Member
Its a portable waterproof Bluetooth speaker. Mostly as a joke I've been talking about walking around cons with the ODST soundtrack playing...
KocourUS
Jr Member
My first print of the forearms, I tried to make them a solid piece, and that was clearly a mistake. Through a process of slicing, aligning, and making a mess of things in Flashprint, I split the left forearm into two halves, then mirrored it to make the right forearm. I'll add a slight lip using some ABS that I have laying around, and hold them together with a mix of hidden elastic and nylon bands, with more cobra buckles for that tactical look.
I thought I'd show how I use the plastic staples to secure pieces together once I've glued them together. Along the seam gives more traction than across the seam, and allows better distribution of stress.
I thought I'd show how I use the plastic staples to secure pieces together once I've glued them together. Along the seam gives more traction than across the seam, and allows better distribution of stress.
Jomgee
Member
An alternative could be using "3d gloop" I've heard it essentially bonds the plastics together like plastic welding does but without the welding part. I haven't tried myself but I've seen stuff on YouTube and instagram ALOT. I just use JB weld
SgtSaint
Well-Known Member
Do you maybe want to turn the speaker around so it points out at the other people instead of using your body as a sound absorber?
KocourUS
Jr Member
I was 99% just vibing on that, I more than likely won't even bring the speaker with me.
KocourUS
Jr Member
Starting to put the girdle together. I want this to be repairable and rebuildable, so for now I'm using 1" webbing and triglides. This should keep everything in the right position.
Next, I needed some way to keep the girdle attached to the breastplace. My first attempt was using a scrap chunk of aluminum angle from my Vacuforming project, but the glue didn't hold. Weld-On 16 works by chemically bonding plastic, doesn't work so great with metal. I tried to make a bracket out of scrap ABS...
but this is a connection that flexes a lot and the glue just didn't hold. In a fit of desperation, I reached for my drill and my rivet gun...
And that friggin' took care of it.
Next, I needed some way to keep the girdle attached to the breastplace. My first attempt was using a scrap chunk of aluminum angle from my Vacuforming project, but the glue didn't hold. Weld-On 16 works by chemically bonding plastic, doesn't work so great with metal. I tried to make a bracket out of scrap ABS...
but this is a connection that flexes a lot and the glue just didn't hold. In a fit of desperation, I reached for my drill and my rivet gun...
And that friggin' took care of it.
KocourUS
Jr Member
If this is all about building a character, then I want this armor to tell a story. This isn't Generic ODST #3. So, we need to add some more greebling. And by that, I mean shotgun shells and some pieces of flair.
And thus, we start to tell a story. More work on the Cricut and some proper research, plus some velcro shotgun cards and some 3D printed slugs...
And thus, we start to tell a story. More work on the Cricut and some proper research, plus some velcro shotgun cards and some 3D printed slugs...
Jomgee
Member
Oh it's beautiful!
KocourUS
Jr Member
I wound up making the shoulder straps out of EVA foam for the sake of comfort and flexibility. I did have to engage in some creative problem solving, mainly how to attach wedding WEBBING (thank you autocorrect) straps to EVA foam and PLA parts, but a few minutes of TinkerCAD got me there...
I also made the mistake of putting the backplate on upside down. Silly me.
I also made the mistake of putting the backplate on upside down. Silly me.
Last edited:
