Thorssoli's MkVI Costume Buildup

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Quartermain3000 said:
Dude, is that a CNC machine for wood? :eek



My interest is also peaked.



From http://www.carvewright.com/



The CarveWright is a compact and powerful Woodcarving Machine which measures a mere 15× 18× 26" inches. It's rising-head and feed through configuration accepts work pieces 14.5 inches wide, 5 inches high, and with proper support nearly any desired length. Though considered a woodworking machine, it is also capable of working with other soft materials like foam and suitable plastics.



Seems like an awesome addition to the shop! Seems perfect to pump out molds for the more flat details in the undersuit (and weapons, brilliant!). And out of foam, no less. If you were to ship commissioned molds, wouldn't cost much at all, would it?



Get this man some high-res weapon files, stat!



Btw, your 6'7" friend Sam looks bad ass in that getup.
 
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Hmmmm... just mulling over the previous comments about height and wondering how that affects my own build.



I'm 167cm (roughly 5'6"), slightly overweight (treadmill time!!!) with relatively short legs. Damn these Asian genes of mine...



Maybe I missed a previous post but have the leg pieces been scaled and how do they feel to walk and sit in at the moment?
 
Darth Favre said:
Hey man I got the helmet! Thanks! Looks freakin sweet! Excellent job making it!. I can't wait to get it finished up.



When you do, please post up some pics of your finished helmet. I keep asking, but there's a shortage of pictures of my helmets painted up. Also, when you post pics, make sure you spell "thorssoli" right so it's searchable.



Spartan 051 said:
talk to drgon47 he has a nice reach ar in the works and been asking for any one interested in cncing



It looks like he'll be cutting it on his own machine. I'll touch bases anyway.



Old Trenchy said:
Hmmmm... just mulling over the previous comments about height and wondering how that affects my own build.



I'm 167cm (roughly 5'6"), slightly overweight (treadmill time!!!) with relatively short legs. Damn these Asian genes of mine...



Maybe I missed a previous post but have the leg pieces been scaled and how do they feel to walk and sit in at the moment?



For me, they're fine for walking, sitting and kneeling. For someone shorter they'll be a bit more restricting, but you might be able to get away with taking a bit of material off the top of the thighs.



Quartermain3000 said:
I'm so saving my pennies for one of those. Thor, you're a genious!



Progress continues on the larger torso. One of the main problem I had with the smaller torso was the cost of shipping the oversized packages whenever someone would buy a copy. I've decided to make the molds smaller by cutting the back along the seams:

4462298775_3ed82c460e_o.jpg




I will be making the little detail parts in the middle as separate castings. The plan is to set it up with some slots that will be underneath the detail castings so that you can pass straps underneath them. The back piece will strap on like a backpack, then the front piece will clamp on, so the entire assembly will move with your ribcage. The ab plate will be hooked to the lower strap and snap onto the undersuit so that it moves with your belly. So in the end, the torso armor will be made in fourteen separate castings. There will be the chest piece, the back piece, the ab piece, the vent details on either side of the back, the three detail bits, and these three shoulder pieces for either side:

4462298639_1e3afac9ae_o.jpg




The main benefit of separating the shoulder parts is that I will be able to control the thicknesses and make all of the vents and whatnot into actual holes that won't have to be cut out of each of the pulls.



I'm also shaping the insides of the chest and back parts:

4462298531_033f83dd7d_o.jpg




In the end, I'll be able to leave voids to fit batteries, amplifiers, radios, mp3 players, or whatever. When I'm done, I'll be making multi-part molds that will shape the outside AND inside of the chest and back pieces. This way I can just pour the castings and wait for them to cure. This should save me the usual backache at the end of trying to rotocast the huge chest armor molds. It's going to take a lot of silicone, so please keep an eye out for my pre-order thread if you're interested in picking up a copy. If you wait until after I've completed the molds, it will cost more.



Stay tuned...
 
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Sweet! Thanks for the handy tip, I might consider that.



That's what I love about this thread, bloody fantastic build and always helpful!



Your solution for the torso seems mighty complicated but you always seem to know what you're doing. Good luck with it! :D
 
Old Trenchy said:
Your solution for the torso seems mighty complicated but you always seem to know what you're doing. Good luck with it! :D



After all of the pain involved in making castings from my me-sized torso mold, I decided I'm better off spending more time on the larger mold so it will take less time and labor to make castings of the new torso. It will also mean controlled and consistent thicknesses for each casting. So a bit more work in the beginning will mean a lot less work in the end.



About the machine: I love it!



So here was the full process for the inner thigh parts. First, I spent about an hour finalizing the design in the carvewright software. Then I uploaded the file to the machine, lined up a chunk of 2" thick insulation foam, and fired it up. Unfortunately, the piece I was making was wide enough to block most of the vacuum dust collection port. Add to this the fact that the foam was inclined to build up a lot of static cling and hang onto every surface inside the machine. This meant that every half hour or so I had to go in and blow out all of the foam fluff with compressed air. Even so, it took four tries before I managed to get through the full carving without having foam bits gum up the drive belt for the vertical axis. Note to self: don't make pieces so wide that they cover the dust collection ports.



Here's the final (successful) carving of the inner thigh prototype coming out of the machine:

4467389583_7ca0d65a8b_o.jpg




And here it is dusted off and ready for final smoothing and prep:

4467389653_ed753e7c5e_o.jpg




It turned out to be a good thing that I had three incomplete versions of this piece to experiment with. I tried every kind of paint I had in the shop looking for something that wouldn't eat the foam. In the end, it took two solid coats of normal, water-based, latex house paint to seal off the foam to prevent the textured spraypaints from destroying the prototype. Note to self: next time use a more chemically-stable material than foam to make prototypes.



Here is the master all painted up prior to moldmaking:

4467389737_914554d56c_o.jpg




Making the mold was as simple as it gets (especially for me). Simply mix part A with part B and pour into the void carved around the prototype:

4468165286_1926a5e39c_o.jpg




Once the silicone cured, it was just a simple matter of peeling it out of the master. It came out perfectly clean, so if I want to I can pour more molds to speed up production. Awesome!



Making the pulls is pretty simple too. I'm using a 2-part urethane foam rubber (often referred to as "cold foam" because you don't have to bake it to cure it) with black pigment added in. The rubber gets poured into the mold, then a flat board with a piece of spandex tacked onto it is laid on top and weighted down to keep the foam from bubbling out of the mold. As the foam rises, it soaks into the spandex and the two become one reinforced piece. The foam I'm using has a 5-minute de-mold time. Once it's cured all that remains to do is peel it out of the mold, trim off the excess, and attach it to the rigid thigh armor.



Here's the first successful pull from the mold:

4468165340_5cb31b39e0_o.jpg




Here's me holding it inside one of the thigh castings:

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And finally, here's the money shot showing one of the foam rubber inner thigh parts taped into one of the rigid outer thigh castings:

4468165478_6087f31991_o.jpg




In other news (and I should probably start another thread for this part) I've started tinkering with weapon builds using this thing too. Because I'm overly ambitious, I've started slicing up bevbor's sniper rifle model. For my first attempt at cutting it, I made the muzzle brake out of 1/2" black acrylic. Here's the before pic showing my shiny black piece of acrylic:

4467390095_c9199133cb_o.jpg




Here's the after shot when the machine had done its business:

4468165654_1f4355f294_o.jpg




And here's the assembled muzzle brake:

4468165738_da0b761f19_o.jpg




Unfortunately, the acrylic sheet was a hair under 0.5" thick. As a result, the finished muzzle brake was not quite as tall as it was supposed to be. On top of that, I've got the same problem with static cling that makes the much harder bits of acrylic tend to get stuck in the tender working bits of the machine. It took two tries to get the finished, too-small piece cut out. When you factor in the cost of the material and the difficulties of cleaning up the finished piece, making masters out of acrylic is a really bad idea.



Realizing this, I made another copy of the muzzle brake out of a piece of 1/2" foam just for gits and shiggles:

4468165814_df62fa305f_o.jpg




While these experiments have been fun and educational, I'm thinking that my next round of prototypes are going to be cut out of plain, ordinary, medium-density fiberboard. Also, having realized that I should learn to walk before I run my first marathon, I'm going to start by making a magnum pistol instead of a 6'2" long rifle.



In the meantime, I need to come up with a suitable name for the machine. It seems like calling my robot shop assistant "it" is disrespectful. Any suggestions?



Stay tuned, I've got a lot of parts lined up for primer and there's plenty more to come...
 
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Wow, that thigh mold turned out amazing! I second the name Lopez, and Lopez is a cool little guy for helping you out so much. This will be the best Mark VI armor made ever when it's completed. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for more progress.
 
That's awesome, man. You're my hero... for at least the next hour or so.



There's a guy in the weapons forums making the SMG with his carvewright doodad. You made one heck of a purchase there, boss.
 
rdwombat said:
I gotta go with Lopez too, just too perfect. But what an amazing build. Keep it up!



I'd say Vera... but you're all probably referring to some Halo related thing, huh...
 
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Quartermain3000 said:
I'd say Vera... but you're all probably referring to some Halo related thing, huh...









More like Red Vs. Blue :p



GO SENIOR EL ROBOTO!!! :D
 
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I actually like Vera. I'll be making more than HALO gear on this thing. But for now...



How do you like them apples:

4473426058_e4f598f470_o.jpg




This was the end result of 7 hours and 26 minutes. I cut it out of MDF and the finished surface was surprisingly smooth. Now all I need to do is stick the pieces together, sand, paint, stamp the lettering into it, and make a mold. Here's a shot of me holding it with the pieces just stacked together:

4473426410_da142252ae_o.jpg




The digital model was one I found in the Google 3D warehouse. I don't remember who made it though. Here's a closer shot of the pieces all stacked together:

4473426226_3c88bbc936_o.jpg




While I realize that seven and a half hours seems like a long time, I have no idea how long it would've taken to make one of these by hand. On top of that, while this thing was doing the bulk of the work making my pistol, I was able to put my attention elsewhere. Among other things, I put primer and a base coat on a lot of my pieces:

4473425854_a434aedcc6_o.jpg




Before anyone asks, the primer was a two-part automotive primer shot with an HVLP gun and the green that I use for a basecoat is Rustoleum Army Green.



Stay tuned...
 
Yeah, 7.5 hours? Nothing. You see entire progress threads full of work of people trying to get where you just did.



Reeeaaally looking forward to see that thang cleaned up and cast. And maybe a run for funds? I know I'm interested...
 
Nicktendo said:
Reeeaaally looking forward to see that thang cleaned up and cast. And maybe a run for funds? I know I'm interested...



I could do a run, sure. If I do though, the finished product is just going to just be one solid block of resin. There will be no moving parts and I'm not going to spend the time to rotocast them. I'd rather spend more on materials than time lately. On the plus side, www.jgreer.com has some really nice, jet black casting resin now. So that will cut down on some of the finishing time for the castings.
 
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