WIP - ST Captain ALL 3D printed!

[BrinkHouse]

I think the strength is really based on how much infill you choose to print with. I'm sticking around 20% which feels very strong. At the end of the day, this is plastic cosplay armor that we wear in very controlled environments, I'm not too worried about it being able to take the abuse it would've really been designed for.

[ST79211]

Ok, small but big update! The back armor is finished printing and assembled! Woo! Lots of steps in this one, wish I had more photos but if you find yourself at this stage and need help or have questions, feel free to PM me. Thanks to Joel 'wannabeuk' for his help when I was confused, which happened more than once.

 

Real quick- I finished sanding the chest armor and I sprayed it with a few coats of the black base coat and then the satin clear coat.

 

 

While you see the buckles glued on here, I ended up pulling them off because I realized the locator pegs are positioned incorrectly in the design, which places the buckle too low. If you look at the real armor the inside bottom of the buckle is approx. 1/4" above the horizontal line of the center chest area. Decided to hold off gluing those back on until I've printed the straps and made sure those fit well.

 

And here are a few photos of the assembled back armor.

 

 

Need to add the hose greeblie to the inside of the left box and the peg piece to the outside middle but otherwise pretty happy with it! Of course had to tape the two halves and see it together. Note here the sides of the back armor have been trimmed, and the new side pieces glued on. Edges will be sanded and filled to blend the pieces together.

 

 

Got my Dissident shirt in the mail today from Amazon UK! The only option was a navy blue XXL, but the price was right and I don't mind a little modification, clearly. I'll give it a few (one so far, hence the pink color) bleach baths and then dye it gray. As for the size, it's actually only a size too big, as I think this shirt runs way small, so a good hot wash and dry should shrink it just about perfectly! I may give it to a costume designer friend to cut a section out from the bottom to create the vertical ribbing in the chest area.

 

Hi

 

First off, nice build. Out curiosity, how did you fix the vertical stribes on the chest of the undershirt?

 

I have a simular shirt, just another brand with horizontal ribbes.

 

Sendt fra min F8331 med Tapatalk

 

 

[BrinkHouse]

I made the neck gasket by cutting a panel out from the bottom of the shirt. I replaced it with a breathable knit fabric on front and back, which will help with our very hot weather here in Southern California. Here's a picture before it was cleaned up, I hemmed the sides to prevent fraying and make the whole thing look more professional. Also not shown here is that I also darkened this bit of fabric more than the rest of the shirt for accuracy.

 

[BrinkHouse]

Sorry for the delay here, work has been crazy busy and I kinda forgot to continue updating this as I worked!

 

Since I last posted, I've finished printing all the armor parts, as well as:

 

· finished dying the shirt

· had my costumer friend make the jodhpur pants for me (using a pattern from Butterick- https://butterick.mccall.com/b6340 and fabric found at Joanns)

· filled/sanded/primed almost all the printed parts

· fit and modified the ab and kidney armor pieces, added wider diagonal raised stripe on L/R sides of the armor.

 

This has to be a quick post so kind of light on detail but feel free to comment or message me with questions.

 

Next I'm working on final paint for all remaining parts, and then it will just be finishing the belt, making the hip armor, acquiring/weathering the boots, doing the strapping, and final weathering!

 

belt parts ready for sanding and more primer.

 

So much dust.

 

Layers of filler and then primer reveal print lines and defects that need further sanding. I get 90% perfect, the rest will be covered with the Sahara Beige which has excellent leveling/filling properties.

 

Here are the aforementioned ab mods, making the side stripe wider. It's just a 2mm thick strip of ABS glued next to the preexisting detail. The total width of the stripe should be 1- 1 1/4". More sanding to due still but it will blend in perfectly.

 

And the pants, which I think turned out awesome! Started weathering them with a few different colors of spray paint, as well as kicking them around the driveway, and adding a tiny bit of acrylic weathering powder for a dusty/muddy effect. They also have more jodhpur 'poof' on the sides than shown here, its just the way they are clipped.

[BrinkHouse]

Final update post coming shortly (teaser- I'm approved!!!)

[BrinkHouse]

Sorry for the cliffhanger, folks! Here is the final post for my build! Showing final modifications, weathering,  final assembly, as well as approval photos! I'm now deployed in Southern California Garrison, ST-21650.

So next I wanted to modify the chest armor to make it more accurate, as the three center stripes in Sean's files aren't quite wide enough. I masked off the area and went to town with my dremel, taking my time to get a nice straight edge. Then I filled in the now exposed infill areas with bondo and wood filler before sanding, priming and painting. I think it turned out great and highly recommend this step as it just doesn't look quite right otherwise.

Paint time (also hide all my sins time)

I used velcro to attach the sides together. 

Ab and chest together. It's important to compare parts throughout the weathering process to make sure they look congruent and the same tonally. This will ensure your entire kit works together seamlessly!

I finally was able to source some files for the shin straps (thanks FB Shoretrooper Fam!) and got those printed. I dunked them in some boiling water a few times and then while they were soft wrapped them around the shin and held until the plastic cooled. They are adhered with velcro. 

Next was the hip armor. I was pretty nervous for this knowing how detailed and specific the shape/curve was. Luckily you can find a template here on the forum as well as on the FB Shoretrooper Fam page. I printed it on normal 8x11 paper and taped it together. Then I bought some 2mm craft foam sheets and glued them together edge to edge with contact cement. 

I used the same template to cut the hard pieces from flat sheets of thin ABS from my LHS and glued them onto the foam with spray adhesive. Once that had dried I bent the sheet to the correct curve and using low heat on my heat gun slowly softened and shaped the armor to get what felt like the right curve. Then I glued the leather strapping pieces to the foam piece and secured the two with a 2" wide piece of extra belt material. This is obviously hidden from view as its on the back, and it helps the foam/plastic part hinge from the leather part which is secured under the ab armor with velcro. I figured this would help with flexibility and lifting my knees up and not having the hip armor flexing or tearing. All in all It's not 100% perfect but pretty close. I may remake this in the future to just slightly higher quality. This one will work for now though. Painted normally with primer, sahara beige, weathering, etc.

As you can see above I also got the belt complete. Sorry I dont have more info on that, I just used image references for the spacing, as there doesn't seem to be an exact distance between them. The boxes and detonator/pringle can were finished like everything else, filler primer> black > sahara beige > weathering. The boxes were attached with super glue to the belt. Super strong but can still tear them off if I need to. Because the prints are semi-hollow I actually think this is a stronger connection than a screw or rivet.

Because I'm not doing a side velcro or snaps on my ab (I just slide up into it) I decided to semi-permanently mount the belt to the ab with velcro and snaps. This makes it WAY easier and faster to suit up and also means I can do it almost completely by myself if necessary. The only downside to this approach is I'm not able to gain any weight. Haha!

Finally it was time to suit up and see it all come togther. After taking these I decided the helmet printed at 100% was just a tiny bit too small, and left too large of a gap in the neck area, so I printed another at 105% scale which ended up looking even better. I don't have photo of that with my armor yet but I'll update on my next troop so you guys can see the difference. The power of 3D printing your armor means you can get it just right for you.

New 105% scale helmet. Lens material is hobart replacement face shield from Amazon. $6, can't beat it and it's enough for 3-4 lenses. 

Also bought my Husky bin and gave it a proper paint job. 

And here's a fun photoshop of the Cap' on Scarif to close this thread off. THANK YOU ALL for reading and please don't hesitate to reach out or comment with questions, also join the FB Shoretrooper Fam page, you'll get tons of great insight and help no matter what the issue. Happy building, and happy trooping. 

ST-21650 

 

 

[ScaryGuy]

Congrats! Nice work!