Last night I actually had some help in the shop for a few hours, so I made quite a bit of progress. I now have mother molds for all three pieces of the torso armor.
Step one was to layer over the silicone glove molds with a bit of clay. This way there would be a void between the mother mold and the silicone. This void will later be filled with more silicone. Once the clay was built up, it was time to cut out all of the plywood flanges. These parts become a framework to build the fiberglass onto and make the various parts easier to separate later:
I made a similar framework for the chest piece as well. Then it was time to don protective equipment and start fiberglassing:
After some five hours worth of sticking to nearly everything I touched, I finally had the mothermolds completed:
The next step is to pull apart the mother molds, peel out the clay, re-assemble the mother molds with the silicone glove mold inside, turn the whole thing over, and pour more silicone in to fill the area where the clay was. Once that's done I will be able to pull apart the mother mold, peel the silicone off of the original parts, re-assemble the mother mold, lay the silicone glove mold inside, and start casting.
The problem is that I now have to take off and fly to Seattle for most of this week and I only have one day this month that will be available to work in the shop. So it looks like I won't be able to get to casting until the first week of April.
Stay tuned.