Build Halo Armor

Step 9 Warnings and Common MIstakes

Also here are the 5 most common mistakes people make when building their first armor.

1) Not being patient. It can take as long as a year to build one suit
2)Don't fiberglass the outside of the armor, and when applying your veil use small chunks, not big ones.
3)Don't forget to scale the armor to your body. The real master chief you are not.
4)Don't forget the under armor. It can be as simple as dark colored long johns, or as expensive as fancy pressure suits.
5)Not reading the safety instructions. Dust masks and eye protection a must.

Comments

[keshiro]

how do you scale the armor in pepakura?

[mistdemon123]

you need the pepakura designer. you can download a trial version free, but some features are disabled. otherwise, it can't be scaled. you need desinger, not viewer

[hrodriguez7]

tell me, do you get a monthly bill or somthing
like that in the desighner vesion?
or do you just pay to download?

[ghostrider2]

you just pay for an activation key.

[bumpinthenight]

I'm going to build a suit, and I was wondering why you shouldn't fiberglass the outside. I've found fiberglass resin to be a lot cheaper and easier to find. Why shouldn't I use that? A reply would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[erictank]

If you fiberglass the outside, you lose a lot of the details that you made when you folded the cardstock. Master Chief's armor is supposed to be clean and angular, and it won't be if you fiberglass the outside. Resin the outside, FG the inside (for strength, the resin alone won't do it), and then use bondo to smooth and detail the ouside where necessary. You can make FANTASTIC-looking armor this way. Yes, it will be more expensive than buying the store-bought costume - but it will look FAR better, as well. If you don't care, then just go get the store-bought one. If you want to look like you stepped out of the game, or if you want to make an Iron Man suit which looks like you stepped off the movie screen, do it this way and take your time to get it right. You won't regret it.

[slawrence2]

question

what's bondo

a resin

and fiberglass the outside

do you mean fiberglass resin or fiberglass mats/installations

[erictank]

Bondo is a type of auto-body filler commonly used in the costuming world to smooth the exterior surface of costume armor - it can be carved and sculpted to create surface details, at least to some extent. Commonly available in auto stores, Wal-Mart, etc.

Resin means some form of 2-part chemically-cured adhesive - resin+hardener - which is applied to pepakura paper forms in order to harden them to allow them to be fiberglassed. It is also used in actual fiberglassing - see below. The resin can be applied to complex surfaces and be sanded and smoothed and painted, although using bondo on the outside surfaces can make it easier to make it really smooth. A surface which is JUST resin will be strong enough to stand on its own, but will be more brittle than a fiberglass piece and might break if dropped, which is why it is preferred to add fiberglass to pepakura armor parts.

Fiberglassing the outside (or inside) means applying fiberglass mat or cloth to a surface (inside or outside of an armor part - as I said, you want to FG the inside of the piece, so you don't lose outside details) and soaking it with the same resin mentioned above, allowing it to form a hard and strong form.

[slawrence2]

i bought fiiberglass installation- a pink puff thing

will that work for fiberglass mat

and fiberglass mat/installation supposed to be inside the armor and helmet

and what is foam padding used for?

please i need to know

i have most of the stuff

[erictank]

I don't know if the pink insulation batting will work or not, frankly. I'd THINK it would, but I've never heard of it being used. Besides, the smaller packs of FG mat or cloth are much cheaper, I believe. Pretty sure my baggies of FG cloth and mat (about 9 sqft each) cost me under $10US apiece.

Yes, you want to put the fiberglass INSIDE the armor piece and resin it into place, as that will help you preserve external detail.

Foam padding would be used after the armor piece is actually built, in order to fit the part to the wearer (so the helmet will fit on your head, for example), and to keep sharp/rough parts off your body.

I will *STRONGLY* recommend to you and anyone else looking to make pepakura-style Halo armor (or any other kind of paper/cardboard-based fiberglass armor, whatever it's intended to look like) that you go to the 405th Infanty Division's forums at www. 405th. com (remove spaces) and check out the Noob Forum, where there are LOADS of tutorials and stickied threads for you to read up on all the stuff you need to buy and to do in order to build your armor. It's all right there.

[slawrence2]

Thank you

can i ask more questions later if i need help again

[badideasrus]

i belive it is to keep those angular lines. its a pain to try to keep um flat with wet fiberglass....

[c14rocks]

how strong is this armor say, like will it hold up in an airsoft war? if it doesn't, is there a way to reinforce it? and how flexible is it? could i get on the ground with it and move around, like crawling or crouching? would i have to worry about it breaking if i got hit or fell on the ground?

[agr00m]

I've made a similar costume using the same techniques and using fiberglass on the outside you loose a lot of the angular detail.

I'd also like to note that for my first time it took me close to 8 months to build this. Granted I didn't work on it every day, but it much more labor intensive that you think. Each piece needs to be fiberglassed and you can only do so much at a time, cure for 2 hours, rinse repeat. Given I work 9-5, I could only do 1-2 curings a night and took me close to a month (working saturdays too) to get both coat down.

I didn't use the aqua resin, just the cheap stuff from Home Depot that's $15/gal. I used about 2 gallons of resin for the suit. Buy them in gallons at a time it's cheaper and you'll use it!

Also, when the fiberglassing is done, you'll need to sand the entire exterior of the suit. This was horribly tiring and itchy. You'll want to get a nice hand sander, old clothes that seal up completely (any dust getting on your skin will itch for days), goggles that completely seal around your eyes (bad news if dust gets in your eyes) and a good respirator rated for particulates, a simple cloth mask WILL NOT DO!