I was looking at the gauntlet reference photos, thinking "what should I use to make the little bullet thingy?", when it dawned on me: "duh! the answer is in the question!" An actual bullet! (Well, more correctly, an actual "round", since a bullet is really only a part of a round of ammunition that is commonly and erroneously referred to as a bullet… never mind!). I raided my SKS ammo crate and got read my 7.62x39 round.
I began making the housing by drawing it on a piece of paper, then tracing it unto and subsequently cuttin out of .04 gauge ABS sheet.
Using a utility knife, I then made scrapes along the plastic that would serve as fold lines.
I then stuffed the SKS round into the assembly, and used plasticine and hot glue to secure it in place. No, the hot glue is not hot enough to make the round go BOOM, but to be completely safe, don't try this step at home, kids.
Next, I primed the assembly, used a small file to carve the accent lines, and cloned it using Rebound 25 (Rebound 25 silicone casting discussed here).
With the rubber mold done, I replicated the little rocket piece in cold cast resin (cold casting discussed in detail here), used a rotary tool with a grinding cone to drill out a hole, and used two wires wrapped in heat shrink tubing to make the rocket assembly connecting tubes.
When glued to the dorsal arm assembly, the whole thing looks like this.
Several Months later...
Once I got into CAD modelling and 3D printing, I realized the rocket assembly could benefit from a complete 3D printing makeover.
So, I modelled it in Cubify Invent (the CAD program I started with), and set it up for 3D printing.
Once the rocket piece was printed, I molded it in silicone and cast it in 65D resin.
The cable piece that runs from the rocket into the top of the gauntlet was done with craft foam from Walmart.
For subsequent builds of this armor, I decided to leave the rocket as an actual 3D printed part.
After printing, the rockets are smoothed using acetone vapour (whereby you dangle the parts over boiling acetone so that the vapour may smooth the plastic) which gives the surface a smooth, polished look.
Thanks for looking!
* * * * * * *
Back to Sith Acolyte Forearm Armour