I have always been fascinated by armor and by Star Wars and when I met this guy who builds his helmets from cardboard I knew I had to try it. Below is the first helmet I made:
This is in the painting stage of the helmet. I made most of the helmet from cardboard and some techniques that I saw on YouTube.
Paint job first try. I realized that I had really messed up the finish on the helmt and so I decided that instead I should make it look at little more beat up to match the troubled exterior.
final look. I took advantage of the poor finish and added some blast and claws marks.
I spent my spring break designing some simple plate armor! I had really wanted to make a sword but the class had a pretty strict no weapons policy. I designed the armor on paper and then cut it out onto thick cardstock. Then I cut the metal plates to match the template using various saws and a plasma cutter. I sanded the edges down with an angle grinder. Then I folded the metal (mostly on the shoulders) and welded everything together. I added some decoration by spot welding dots around the edges to give it a rougher texture. I then used a stencil and a dremel to engrave the words and free handed the flaming skull.
Here's the finished product on a stand with my mando helmet:
I built SCAT for a open house event with the plan to drive it around and scare people while they were looking at the exhibits. I used a chassis from a robot from an old friend that used an RC conntroller, however I wanted to change it up a bit so instead I used a BBC Micro:bit v2 and a Keystone Motor driver. The motors are large DC motors and the wheels are custom made. One is an actual robot wheel that I added a strip of old belt material to give it more grip. The other wheel (not pictured) is made of old parts plus some more belt material.
interior (above). I used an rechargable RC car battery but I didn't get the power I wanted so I swapped it for a 6 AA battery pack. I controlled the robot with another microbit that communicated with SCAT over radio. I used the gyroscope on the controller so I could use gesture control instead of having to wire buttons. I coded most of it the the night before so the controls were a little messy, however it had the desired effect (as in I didn't scare anyone, but a bunch of kids got to play around with it and learn and little about robotics).
I found this iron man helmet onn printables by @Tomchill_4071806. It fit my head almost perfectly when I measure it in OrcaSlicer (Note! If you want to use OrcaSlicer head over to their Github by SoftFever. Only trust links from that github project.) I printed it out and with the intent to fit it with servos so I could have the mask open and close like in the movies. I printed it with a Bamboo Lab A1 mini and Jade White Basic PLA. I don't know why but this Jade White filament is WAY stronger than regular pla. It took a lot of work to get the supports off, something that is usually really easy with regular PLA. But hey, I'm not going to complain if my prints are 50% stronger than normal. After I got the supports off I sanded a little bit and used a old soldiering iron to remove the outer wall of the print to reveal the infill pattern. I plan to decorate so it looks like the armor was broken off and the interior wire and components are exposed. I sprayed a color filler primer and then taped over sections and hit those with a Rustoluem silver spray paint. The silver spray paint was too shiny so I used graphite powder to darken it. Then I used a spray on laquer to keep the graphite powder from rubbing off and to give it a shine.
I used the lens of an old pair of sunglasses to make the eyes. The inside is painted black because orginally I wanted the eyes to light up, but the lights would shine throught the faceplate. I ended up ditching the light up eyes because I couldn't figure out how to position them without blinding myself.
I prototyped some arms to see how opening the helmet would look like. I think that I will have two guiding arms and then a third arm on the servo motor to move the face plate. Now I need to figure out how to make arms that won't wiggle around and hit my face when it opens. I bought an Adafruit Metro Mini to control the servo and hopefully I can get away with a small AAA battery pack for power.
I have been making swords for a really long time and have thankfully learned a little about making them. I've gone from cardboard taped to sticks to full wooded and plastic swords and even a metal one that I made from a broom stick handle (it didn't last long because it got confiscated for being "too dangerous")
This is a fun PVC sword I made with a heat gun! I used old PVC pipe that I softened and then flattened for the blade. I made the butt of the handle by heating up the pipe and then twisting it (something I had seen in a blacksmithing book). I cut a tang on the bottom of the blade and inserted it into the handle. I bolted them together so that when I swung it it wouldn't go flying. To sharpen it and add the swirl design to the handle I used one of those table grinders.
GRIMREADER 2026 hand crafted with love