You, as Tony Stark, as Iron Man

Have you ever wanted to feel like the greatest technology based superhero of all time?  Then look no further! This Instructable will show you how I made my Tony Stark / Iron Man costume based on a particular scene from Iron Man 1.

This Tony Stark / Iron Man costume is different from others in that the armor plates are actually made of metal instead of plastic. Additionally, the armor and reactor do more than just light up; the suit actually fades in the LEDs in the hand RT when you tilt your hand back, looking as if you were charging up to blast one of Iron Man's foes!

Do you want to have a Tony Stark / Iron Man Costume or THE BEST Tony Stark  / Iron Man Costume at the party? Amaze all your friends, acquaintances, and random people you pass as you raise your hand and change up your hand repulsor! Very popular at costume parties, fraternity parties, or walking around at night.

Step 1: Materials

This costume has three main components:
1) Clothing
2) The Arc Reactor
3) The Right Hand Repulsor Thruster and Forearm Armor

Materials required for the costume have been divided into their respective partitions:

1) Clothing:
- a muscle shirt
- a pair of dress slacks
- a pair of dress socks (optional)
- a pair of dress shoes

2) Arc Reactor:
- Computer with image processing capabilities (design software like Solidworks is a better option)
- Surface mount (SMT - surface mount technology) LEDs (light emitting diodes)
- about 8 feet of thin gauge wire (22 - 24 gauge is fine)
- electrical connectors
- soldering iron and solder
- tape (masking, electrical, duct are good choices but only one type is needed)
- a wire coat hanger (preferably without the clothes on it)
- basic hand tools (hole tapping kit, drill, pliers, etc)
- aluminum foil (or anything reflective)
- glossy red spray paint
- scrap plastic (from food containers is a cheap source)
- scissors or cutting device
- batteries and battery holding device
- small electrical switch
- 24 gauge red magnet wire

3) Hand Repulsor Thruster and Forearm Armor
- gardening glove (latex glove not recommended because it will get hot and sweaty very quickly)
- computer with image processing software (design software like Solidworks is preferred)
- cardboard
- soldering iron
- craft glue (amazing goop, E6000, hot glue gun
- about 10 feet of thin gauge wire (22 - 24 gauge is fine)
- electrical connectors
- Arduino programming board and programming cable
- scrap plastic
- scissors or cutting device
- batteries and battery holding device
- small electrical switch
- resistors (1k ohm or less)

 Many of the materials and tools used in the project are shared between the other portions, so if you decide to build this it may be a good idea to read through the entire Instructable to know exactly what you will need.

Comments

[gcharlow]

How much will this cost

[simplebotics]

Truly amazing! Will you make the whole suit?

[silverassassin3]

This is so cool! dude, the repulsor thruster and forearm look so real, its awesome!

[mgingerich]

Awesome project! Your arm looks way more realistic than any of the other costumes I've seen

[Dreamer7]

How much will this cost and is this design still look cool if it didn't have a shirt over the top

[mb inventor]

what do you mean

[mb inventor]

this is awsome

[Dreamer7]

That's epic me and my friend are gona try make a complete suit but with lights and stuff maybe even some weaponry who nows but is it ok if we tryed to use it in our design?

[CaptainTal]

thats so cool! ive been wanting to make one i just havent gotten around to it.

[tpodger]

can you send me the plans. solid works looks to complex

[frndsfrll95]

really nice bro..............

[SimonArthur]

Nice work. I'd love to put this on the Big Blue Saw blog, with your permission.

[Jamo_G]

Of course! Permission granted!

Thanks for offering your services to the public!

[kunfumaster]

man thats AWSOME!!!

[raiden99]

because the costumer looks nice and incredible , i get everything from your instructions on how to make it , but how do you make that circular shape? did u use that so called big blue saw??

[raiden99]

hey Jam_G

how are you? I want to know if u please, where do you get the arc reacter part which u made from where? where I can get it with that circular shape , thx @!!!

[Harpes1]

He's the dude playin the dude disguised as another dude!
Excellent costume idea and well made too!

[Sethaulton]

Would a reed switch like this suffice?
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8642
or does it need to be insulated?

[chadula22]

I know alot of folks have asked for the .dwg files you used for this project. I am getting on that band wagon! If you need some free hosting for the files, dropbox.com is pretty good about public free downloads up to 2 gigs of space. In any advent the files would be fantastic!

Thanks!

Chad

[nrakoski]

Left you a mesage Jamo.

Thanks!

[beatmeistah]

Is there any way I could get those design schematics? I use Blender, but after a few hours of building one, It's not as nice as this one. Thanks for letting me know about "big blue saw" also. I'm not sure if I can use those pictures you have uploaded to upload to Big Blue Saw.

[Jamo_G]

Does Instructables support some basic file sharing? I'll put up the arc reactor parts by popular request.

Happy Holidays,
-J Go

[pwong7]

Would I be able to get the solidworks files for your arc reactor, please?:)
[e-mail]

[freerunnin1]

i use blender as well, but im not too keen on the new blender 2.53 beta interface :S im still sticking with 2.49 but i still have 2.53 installed :P

[sawula]

Cool, I did the same thing for halloween but less mechanical work and more software.
On click i had it fade up to 20%, then pause for a second, then burst at 100, for .2 sec and then fade down, but if you help down, it would strobe until you release the button. Double clicking would turn on the light constant until a single click turns it off. Great build quality by the way,

[d1g1t4l_daddy]

Now all you need is a voice synthesizer chip a speaker a arduino chip and some switches on glove to activate " iron man phases from the movie". Add to that some keys on another glove connected to LED on back of Iron man suit. You could really have some fun with that. lol.

[reywolf]

so i just was thinking of an improvement. when disposable cameras charge, they have leds that light up slowly to max, and also a nice capaciter sound much like the movie sound effects, and then when you take the shot a nice flash, so if you modify parts from a camera, they light charges you get the high pitched whine and BAM! everyone is blinded (truly making this a weapon) and if your clever enough you can make a polaroid built right into your arm and get pictures of people's reactions!

[d1g1t4l_daddy]

The capacitor in the flash holds enough amperage to kill someone so really not something you want to fool with.

[santy22]

That actually sounds like a plan, if you can manage to power a white led from the place the charging led is charged from.
Gweeeeeeee~ FLASH

[Dr_Stupid]

I could see an Asian "Son of Iron Man" spin-off...

[Ruslan_nano]

You are from Gatech xD

[cbadger85]

nice build! definitely going to utilize some of this stuff for my iron man costume. what reed switch did you use

[geekdude]

I found a real easy way to make a nice looking arc reactor. I took the coils from an electric motor that I think came from an old floppy drive, or maybe a cd drive. Idk i just had it lieing around, and then I took apart a vcr head from a dead vcr which i also had lieing arround. the top half was perfect for the body. then all I had to do was dremel out the middle of the coil so it would fit around the center and solder in some superbright leds. I used the coils as positive and the base as negitave. Its a bit small but real nice for the amount of effort involved. I thought of this the first time I saw him wearing the reactor. I was like he totaly has glowing floppy drive motor innards embedded in his chest. I would make an instructable but I forgot to take pictures of the process, and I don't have another dead vcr to take apart.

[Jamo_G]

Yup, I've though similarly. And the best part is that they come in all shapes and sizes. I'm sure there exists an device using brushless DC (the type of motor you probably disassembled) motors that provides an optimally sized stator (the structure made of laminated steel which has wires wrapped around it).

[Dy7lan]

Are you sure that's really just a prop?!? C'mon, you can tell us the truth. You ARE ironman, aren't you?

[Jamo_G]

Only on weekends ;)

[Ghost Wolf]

Good I need someone to iron out my shirts and pants when I'm gone on the weekends :))

[tobyscool]

nice one XD

[Jamo_G]

LOL!

[Madrigorne]

Good heavens and wow. You're my favorite super hero. Did I mention Wow?