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Sunday, September 22, 2024

Starship Troopers Mobile Infantry Armor Part Two: Painting and Assembly

When I last posted about this project, I'd just done my first test fitting.  But something was off:First flexfoam casts

It was just a quick and dirty gaff tape test fit, but it proved the parts would work together as designed.  Which was good, becase by that point, we had a lot of parts starting to pile up:
20240410_220133

And before too long there were even more parts:
20240507_164427

I also went ahead and had some laser cut and folded brackets made to go with the foam cast armor:
20240410_170838

The first step in making the armor wearable was to paint all of the brackets with satin black spraypaint.  

The next step was to trim all of the excess flashing and fabric backing off of the foam cast armor.  This was slated to be a huge pain in the ass that was going to take me all damned day.  Fortunately for me, I have the perfect tool to make this easy.

That tool is Jeff:
20240827_171736

Once the excess was cut off, the next step was to use an old soldering iron to poke holes into the foam to make it easier to fit the rivets into place:  
Mobile Infantry armor strapping

The holes were poked everywhere we'd need one of the steel bracket pieces riveted on.  We used the brackets themselves as a template and marked the hole locations by poking a Sharpie through the bracket's holes, but I didn't take pictures of that step.  You get it.

In the end, we had all these holes:
Mobile Infantry armor strapping

Most notably, we also used a sharp knife to cut these slots for the straps to pass through:
Mobile Infantry armor strapping

Then the parts got painted with the same custom-mixed shade of greay paint (color matched to Pantone 425c) that we used for the helmets:
Mobile Infantry armor strapping

Then each hole got a dab of CA glue*, the metal strap keepers were placed, and a rivets were installed:
unicorn SST RCCC 012

NOTE: On the screen-used armor the rivets passed all the way through and had a square washer on the inside for a better hold.  We tried this a few times, but each time the rivet would pull the metal plate down into the foam, compressing the surface details and making it too tight to pass the straps underneath.  After experimenting with a few different options, we ultimately decided that the rivets glued into the foam before popping them gave more than enough holding power.  These plates are basically just belt loops that keep the straps in place, so it's not like they'll need to take any real strain.

The straps for the waist section were a little bit interesting.  The upper horizontal strap passes through a cutout on either side of the belly:
Mobile Infantry armor strapping

Mobile Infantry armor strapping

Mobile Infantry armor strapping


Then the vertical straps go into a cutout on the lower end of the belly:
Mobile Infantry armor strapping

These vertical straps get glued down to the inside of the waist armor.  This would be perfectly clear if Jeff hadn't strategically placed a bunch of stuff directly in the camera's line of sight:
unicorn SST RCCC 035

Dammit, Jeff.

OK, here's the glued bit inside the belly:
Mobile Infantry armor strapping

Once he had all of the keepers riveted in place and the waist straps installed, he went ahead and added the upper straps to the back plates.  These also went through a cutout:
Back armor straps

And both ends were glued into the inside of the armor, capturing the female end of the parachute buckles:
Back armor straps

The horizontal straps were cast into the back piece so they were captured in the foam from the get-go.

So at this point, we had the straps installed on the backs and waists and strap keepers riveted onto the Shoulders:
unicorn SST RCCC 033

To make the shoulders werable, we start by gluing the left shoulder seam:
Shoulder Seam Gluing

NOTE: only the outer 2/3rds of the seam gets glued.  The inner third is left unglued in order to make it easier to get the armor on and off over the wearer's head.

Here's the shoulder seam stucked:
Shoulder Seam

Since this seam will take some strain and I'm not willing to trust the glue holding a foam-on-foam seam, the backside gets reinforced with a scrap of 2" nylon webbing:
Shoulder Seam Reinforcement

Easy peasy:
Reinforced Shoulder Seam

Lemon squeezy:
Reinforced Shoulder Seam

For the little ration pouch that goes on the front left side of the chest, we bought these little guys LINK.

They're not perfectly accurate, but they fill the hole where they go:
Ration Pouch

Problem is, these are set up with MOLLE system straps and the Starship Troopers gear was originally made before MOLLE gear was really in use.  So the backside has this strap arrangement:
Unneeded Vertical Strap

Since it won't line up with the straps on the shoulder, we simply remove the vertical strap:
Strap removal

Then, after we rip the stitches that hold down the horizontal straps, the pouch is good to go:
Ration Pouch Ready to Go

To rig the chest, we thread the nylon webbing under the keepers and through the pouch straps:
Threading Shoulder Straps

Then under the rest of the keepers:
Lacing Straps

Before we thread through the last pair of keepers on the back, we slip on one of these tri-glide strap adjusters:
Tri-Glide Attached

Then thread it the rest of the way:
Strap In Place

There's no tri-glides on the front side of the chest straps.  No idea why, but that's the way they were in the movie:
unicorn SST RCCC 179

With the straps fed through, we install the male end of the parachute buckles on each end of the straps:
Male End of Buckles on Straps at Rear

Then feed the leftover tails back under the strap keepers:
Straps Fed Back Through Keepers

In the back, they get threaded through the tri-glides again:
Straps Tucked Under Keepers

but in the front they just get tucked back into the keepers:
unicorn SST RCCC 171

Male End of Parachute Buckles Installed at Front of Chest

Then everything is all neat and tidy:
Strap Ends Tucked Into Keepers

With that done, it was just a matter of buckling everything together and adjusting the straps for fit.   Here I am trying on a set of the armor before we'd trimmed excess length off of the vertical waist straps:
First Test Fitting

Aside from still needing to tuck in the strap ends, everything looked pretty good:
HERRRGH!

  Here's a set on a mannequin while the rest were being rigged:
unicorn SST RCCC 038

The neck ring was purchased from Katarra8 on ebay: LINK

For the helmets, the edges were trimmed off of the raw casts, the mold flashing was sanded off, and they were primed and painted.  Then we glued in the cheek parts: 
Cheek connections Installed

And the ear bits:
Ear Insert installed

Forgot to mention, I drilled a hole through the rubber cheek bit and installed a snap using a rivet since they don't make snaps with shafts long enough to go all the way through this chunk of rubber:
Snap Installed in Cheek Bit

The only really tricky part of the helmet to put together is the chin strap.  It comes in two laser cut pieces, a leather outer part and a foam inner pad:
Chinstrap Parts

Since we were cutting things on the laser cutter, we maked a bunch of them:
SST Chinstrap Parts Cut

To build a chin strap, we start by gluing together the ends of the foam bit with a tiny bit of CA glue like so:
Chinstrap Foam Step 1

Then butt the vertical part up against the edge like so:
Chinstrap Foam Step 2

And then we have us a foam chin cup:
Chinstrap Foam Complete

Then, we use contact cement to cover it with the leather like so:
Chinstrap Leather Step One


Finally, the center piece is glued in place on top to finish it off:

Chinstrap Leather Step Two

And that there is a chin strap:
Chinstrap Leather Done

All that's left to do is thread the ends onto the snaps like these: LINK
Chin Strap Installed

And just like that, the thing is done:
unicorn SST RCCC 078

We got three of these kits together in time for Rose City Comic Con in Portland, Oregon earlier this month:
unicorn SST RCCC 060

Folks seemed to like them:
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The best part about this costume is it's versatility for comfort's sake.  We ended up wearing the armor with and without the jackets, and also the uniform without the armor.  The whole thing is lightweight and reasonably comfortable and everybody we ran into seemed to get a kick out of it.

Naturally, we didn't get enough pictures, so we'll have to put together a bigger squad for another outing.  But we did get this winner:
unicorn SST RCCC 082

Stay tuned for more and better photos whenever I get around to that.


*"CA glue" is CyanoAcrylate glue, or basically superglue.  I once had someone who read one of my writeups ask me where to buy "California glue" and all I could tell him was "go West, young man."  It wasn't until days later that it occurred to me I was being kind of a jerk and no kind of help.  You can get youself a nifty taste tester** kit of the brand of CA glue I use here: LINK

**It's not actually a taste tester.  Don't taste the glue.  Don't sniff it either.  You won't like it.

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