Steel Vader Armor, WIP

Well my registration didn't go through over at the Prop Den, so I figured that I'd post this here. I'm currently putting together an ANH Vader costume for Halloween, the trick is I need it to be a lot tougher than normal. This costume will be meant for fast paced heavy deuling, and the last thing I want to do is shell out hundreds of dollars on fiberglass and plastic/resin parts to have them destroyed in combat. So, enter the idea of steel. I've done a small bit of traditional armor smithing in the past, so I thought why not try this with Vader.

The tools I'm using are very basic:
Anvil
Post vice
Various hammers
Forming tools (reshaped railroad spikes, ball hitches, etc.)
Bandsaw
Stump

And not so basic:
MIG welder
Angle grinder
Bench grinder
Polishing wheel








And here is the initial work that has been done on the chest armor. These pieces won't be exactly screen accurate, but they will be near enough to look good.



As you can see, it is still in the rough hammer work phase, and lacking the outer ridges. Due to the limitations of the material (more likely my limitations in skill) the ridge lines might not be as crisp as on a fiberglass casting.







I will also be doing the belt boxes, chest box, and remaining armor in steel. If time permits I also have a low quality cast of a 20th Century face mask that I'll be smithing a steel dome for.

Here is the start of one of the belt boxes. Just tack welded at this point.





And here we have the chest armor in a quick spray of black to see how it looks under my new Darth Stone helmet.





If you guys have any qustions or comments I'd love to hear them.

I love it! I think ive seen someone do a trooper armor once, while back. I love the worn medieval look. Id let it look old and metal, unpainted. Tbh, a metal helmet in the same style would be awesome! It could be a very, VERY cool Vader.

What activity requires heavy armor for dueling?!
That is like LARPing times x10! Great job so far.

NO WAY! Duude.. It's wonderful.

Try being hit at near full force with a thick walled polycarbonate blade. Costume armor easily cracks under that kind of force. We don't choreograph our duels, we just attack one another. More like full contact martial arts. The duels look better to, in my opinion, not so staged, they seem more brutal.

Beautiful work so far.. I wish I could metalsmith as well but don't have the supplies and never learned how. Subscribed

Whoah....cool! any weight issues with it? but it sure looks great so far! how about body armor under the bodysuit to absorb the blows? keep building..keep posting.

What gauge are you using?

The chest armor at this point wieghs 5.4 pounds, but after the final trimming and grinding it should be at or near 5 pounds even. All the metal components I am building are made from 16 gauge mild steel. The chest will have folded over edges to simulate the thickness of the armor as seen on screen, this will also help increase the strength of it as well. For padding I will be installing 1/2 inch or so closed cell foam mat inside the chest plate. That should be more than enough for protection (we usually don't have any armor on) and provide a good level of comfort.

Here are two examples of how the edges will be folded:

How heavy will this be when you are done?

Not sure about total weight right off hand, but if I had to make a guess on the individual parts I'd say: 3 pounds per greave, 1 pound per belt box, 1 to 2 pounds per pauldron, 3 pounds for chest box, as far as leather suit, boots, cod piece, and robes I really don't know. Maybe 15 to 20 pounds for soft parts, and I have yet to weigh my fiberglass helmet. I'd say total rough estimate would put it in the range of 35 to 45 pounds. For trooping it would be quite heavy, for armored combat it would be light to medium.

This looks like its gon be heavy!! you making the full body out of metal also? or is it just the helmet?

Just the body armor and boxes will be made from sheet steel at this point. I do have an extra face mask, but I don't know if I'll have time to craft a steel dome for it. A buddy of mine just started a new job doing welding, so in the future we may attempt to build a face mask. Though, with the complex shapes in the face it may prove to be to difficult a task for our current skill sets. I will just have to see how well this project goes before I even attempt something of that magnitude.

That's some skill you have!
Can't even begin to imagine working a sheet of steel into a three dimensional object.
Looking forward to seeing more.

This is goram awesome, Much respect for the metal work skills, Gonna have to keep tabs on this! keep it up man!

I think this was said already but a medieval vader armor would be really really cool! maybe even with some rust and stuff? I will follow this build!

Well, just roughed in the outer ridge on the right side of the chest plate. That was definitely hard work, being that it is closer to the edge and that the angle one must hold the work against the forming stake, all the weight ends up being supported by your off hand. I also refined the edge of the ridge a bit to see how sharp I might get them. Over all I think it is coming together nicely, though the ridges will be a bit thicker than the screen used version. In the photos though, the bit of extra thickness seems to give the armor good definition.

Here are a couple of pictures showing the progress made to the right side of the chest:







Here you can see the refined edge. This is much closer to how the rest of the armor will look when done.



I also finished up one of the belt boxes( minus its greeblies). I might do a little more finish work like sanding and smoothing, but I'm not sure that it is needed. Won't be putting holes in the lid until I get the rest of the parts. By the way, if anybody knows were to get the green lenses and mesh for ANH belt boxes, I'd be eternally greatful. The leather belt piece is a practice piece that I made to ensure proper fit in the box slots, and is close to what the final belt will look like.

Very neat idea - definitely subscribing to this thread. I want to watch this one!

Wow this is neat, I like the Idea. Any updates on this? If Vader can keep all his fiberglass parts intact during his dueling, I would think you can too...lol.

It has been awhile since I last updated this project, just to darn hot and humid out lately to get any real work done on the armour (need to air condition my shop). I figured that I would hold off on finishing up the chest until I rough worked the shoulder bells to make sure that all the parts mate up well.

Here is a shot of the tools used in dishing the shoulder bell


As you can see the stump has a couple of bowled out hollows in it, and the hammer is a medium weight ball peen hammer. When dishing metal , it is helpfull to mark the center of the curve and mark out guide lines that you can follow as you work the metal with the hammer.



It takes several passes to get a shape that ressembles the final piece. I'll have some photos of a shoulder bell in a more finished shape tommorrow.

Today I finished up the basic roughing in of one of the shoulder bells. Now the fun part begins, matching the bell and the chest armour together. Before I do that though, I have a bit more that I need to do to the chest armour. For one, it is way to wide for my frame. I think that I'll decrease the width of the outer ridge a bit and then trim along the edge of the shoulder with the grinder. I never noticed this before, but it seems that Vader's range of motion is pretty limited because of his armor. Second, I have near an inch that needs to be trimmed and rolled along the bottom edge of the front. So, we will see how that turns out. I also ordered some parts for the belt boxes, so they should be here in a couple of days. The green lamps are more accurate for ESB than ANH, but I figured they would do in the short term until I can obtain more accurate parts. Still can't find the right screen material, so I'll use the same stuff that will go into the helmet. If all goes well I might have the belt nearly complete next week. So, now on to the pictures.

Here are a couple with the bell nearing a shape that is recognizeable. The edges have taken on that beer bottle cap look. Thats a sign of the metal trying to compress and just folding instead.







Now after a little hammer work over a trailer hitch ball mounted in my leg vise, the wrinkles go bye-bye.



After trimming and mating to the chest armour, a bit of smothing out and forming the ridges of the cat's eye and it will start coming together quite nicely.

HOLY !@#$ This is amazing! Though I might add, the steel looks a bit thicker than necessary, what gauge did you use? How much does it weigh as of now?

Freaking awesome!!

Subscribing to this thread

Thank you so much for the compliments, it does me good to know you guys are enjoying this build as much as I am. I'm using 16 gauge cold rolled steel. I could have done it a bit easier with something thinner, but it was what I had on hand. The chest armour comes in at 5.4 lbs., and the shoulder bell is near to 3 lbs. Upon final shaping and cutting I might be able to shave near a pound off both parts. It will be heavy, but it'll be worth it.

This is simply amazing. I am thrilled that you are doing this.