Project : Aegis
Description :
After deliberating with a collegue/friend of mine, weve decided to start working on a multi-composite carapace armour that closely resembles, if not mimics the Warhammer40k Cadian Body Armour. The Aim of the project is to keep it as cheap as possible (Since i have no intention on buying huge machines to do it) and still be able to produce duplicates relatively quickly. MetalManic and I are still working out the details, and time constraints (Midterms at college) may make this a 2-3 month project. Were gonna take pictures along the way, maybe a video in the end of the armour in action.
The idea is to make sure the armour is VERY snug and moves with my body, if it is not perfectly snug, the armour will be bulky, and utterly useless, so accuracy and snugness is a must.
http://uk.games-workshop.com/downloa...es/ig1-800.jpg
Proposed Steps :
1) Get A Casting of my upper body, one full cast that splits at the sides.
2) create a mold using the plaster casting for another plaster casting to make a plaster upper torso.
3) Make a Vacuform table using those BIG rubbermaid storage bins, and pegboard (which we drill more holes in liberally ;p), seal it with caulking and make airtight, drill a hole on the bottom and attach a shopvac to the hole, and make that airtight too.
4) Using either a Heatgun, or a baking heater (which i managed to scrounge from a newspaper press) i slowly lower a lexan sheet over the font of my plaster upper torso, heating it as i go slowly. Flip over and do the backside
5) After the lexan is hardened, i remove the plaster torso, and cut off the excess with a vertical bandsaw
6) I make sure the carapace fits snugly together over my body with a little bit of space between for padding/gel padding etc etc. I hinge the top shoulder sections of the armour, so it opens kinda like a ladder and attach latches on the base of the armour.
7) I make plaster molds of my shoulder, and create a sutibly sized Shoulder Pauldrons (which ill design a little differently than the cadian one) which will attach and rotate with the armour (attaching it to cloth will make it feel like a bunch of stuff strapped together hanging loosely, so it has to attach to the carapace itself, how i havent figured out yet lol). Basically go through the same process with vacuforming.
8) I put a layer of fiberglass over the whole thing, inside and out (which is why the armour has to be made a little bigger than my body) This allows for me to make last minute changes to the shape or make more snug fits. Also allows for easy painting and repair if the armour ever gets damaged.
9) Line the inside of the armour with tightly packed foam, or gel padding, making sure its big enough to snugly fit me in my BDU but be tight enough that i dont feel bulky when moving, jumping or rolling, also thinking of adding some sort of cooling system to my prototype (otherwise ull make a sweatbox), dunno about MetalManic lol.
10) Paint, add emblems, cosmetics etc etc, make attachments for gear etc etc
Then all i need is an autogun mold and im good lol.
Members Involved
DarkAngel
MetalManic
Nothing is set in stone yet, the hope is that once we have a prototype, we should be able to use the mold to reproduce them easier. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas to improve the process, please post it. Were new at this and we wanna get it right. Hopefully, we can experiment and use this process to make different styles of armours and conversion kits (Im EXTREMELY Dissapointed that Posiden no longer makes the ESWAT Gun or Raisen conversion kits from Appleseed and GadgetTrial)