mrcouchman
New Member
Hello, I'm a first time poster here - aside from communications/purchases made through the RPF Junkyard. Here's my Iron Man Rehab Project I did for my local Comic Con. (Rehab because I was restoring an existing suit.. not because I'm in rehab). I hope I'm doing this right, and posting to the right area. Apologies for the large post if that's a no-no... I'm pretty sure I read all the rules.. Its my first day?
I had a Mark III foam suit project that I had been working on - but in early July this year I saw an opportunity to purchase a Mark IV fiberglass suit from the Junkyard. I had ambitions to create a post at the beginning and updating it while I was making progress - but life got in the way of that (and also limited the progress photos). Here's what I can share:
Here's how I received the existing suit, seemingly damaged in shipping (not the fault of the RPF member I purchased it from - the suit was packaged well). The person I purchased it from had acquired it from someone else and it was already painted this grey/silver pattern. You can see that at some stage the suit must have been mostly red. The grey paint was pretty thick - I think part of it was brushed on as I could see some brush hair textures in some of the paint.
The upper-shin and knee pieces are shaped to be hinged to the thigh pieces, which are then hinged to the "butt/cod" pieces for lack of a better description. The lower shin pieces were held in with foam matting and hot glue. The upper arm Shoulder/bicep pieces were hinged with the forearm pieces and the wrist pieces were held in with foam and glue as well. Overall for the most part was held together with either hot glue or small screws. The upper chest/arc reactor and back were one solid piece minus the crack. The rib pieces were probably designed for someone skinnier than me - or were missing one plate in the back.
So this was to be the largest costume/cosplay project I have attempted - I ordered a bunch of supply based off how I thought the suit would operate and what I wanted it to look like. Basically I was going for the movie look, and wanted lights and also servo's to make the helmet open. I bought gold Chicago Screws to replace most regular silver screws, and a bunch of fiberglass repair stuff for the major crack in the chest piece. There were also chips and a lot of hairline cracks in several other pieces. I separated all the pieces, removed foam and glue and then labelled any pieces that may later be... confusing.
So then I started the process of getting all the grey paint off - keeping in mind I'm one guy who works up to 12 hour days with a limited budget - I decided to sand it all off with an electric sander and dremel combo. Here's the first pieces I tried sanding - haven't worked with fiberglass before, wasn't sure how it'd work out so I started with the foot pieces. The second pic is of the sander in the trash. It was my late father's - probably from the 80's and it didn't last long until something broke inside.
I purchased another sander and was excited to get back to work at first... little did I know sanding would prove to be very time consuming - would not recommend. Sanding all of the pieces took a few weeks of work (in my spare time)
After sanding I did a fair bit of fiber glass matting and bondo/body filler to repair the major crack and various hairline cracks. I also cut the solid upper chest/arc reactor piece into a front and back piece. I was running short on time before Comic Con... I could have sworn I had pictures of all the pieces once they were sanded... but I cant find any so unfortunately I have to skip to the painting process. I had a local air brush artist lined up to paint all the pieces for me with automotive grade paint. I was to prime all the pieces with store-bought spray primer and he was going to finish them all - but once he saw how many pieces there were he reluctantly declined the work. I basically put plastic on the ground, primed the side of each piece that was not touching the ground, waited for it to dry, then painted the other side(s). (2 coats primer for each piece). I found this to be... a time consuming method.
I didn't know my painter wasn't going to paint my pieces until they were already all primed. I had about a week and a half until Comic Con and considered just holding off until next year... In the end I decided to say nay to failure and just paint the pieces myself. I created a make-shift rack out of an old florescent light ballast to hang the pieces from, and did a little extra sanding on some pieces that weren't so great. (In fact many of the pieces aren't flawless.. chips/cracks/chunks etc).
I'm in Canada - and I was working in a somewhat heated detached garage but for ventilation I could only open the regular door, not the whole garage door simply because it would have been too cold. The fumes were not so great, I had only a dust mask at first (would not recommend) that I later upgraded to a proper filtered mask. I admit at first the fumes and probably the lack of sleep were spacing me out a little... so much red and plastic sheets... I went a little Dexter in this one pic.
Obviously most of the suit is red. I painted everything red first (2 coats) and then masked off the gold areas with simple painters tape and newspaper. I don't have pics of that process. The gold was metallic, and the red was glossy - I also clear coated everything with 2 coats of glossy clear coat.
I did not have time to install or even try out the servo's I had purchased. I used sunglass lenses for the eyes, covered in foam mesh matting you use for drawer liners and wired in some LED's with a battery pack all inside the helmet, which was to remain closed for this Comic Con. The original suit I purchased also came with an arc reactor setup that had a small circuit board wired to a set of LED's that had a dim and bright setting with a button and even rechargeable battery with wall-plug in to charge. So I just used that for the arc reactor. I wanted the LED's to be bright enough to see in a lit/indoor area so I ran a higher voltage that wound up probably being too high. One of the two LED's got toasted about 20 minutes into being at the event so I just turned them both off after that.
Here are the only other pictures I have of the progress - the suit as I was able to finish it. There are none with the eyes lit:
I had one of those red spandexy body suits under the fiberglass which probably was too bright of a red - but I already had bought it. The black near the cod piece was some thin rubbery vehicle matting I bought at a dollar store. It worked well, I should have used it on all the joint openings - just a matter of time shortage. There were several complications with maneuverability. I was unable to sit down with the suit on (I took the bus and stood). The arm pieces rub the main chest/back piece and operate in a certain way where I couldn't actually touch my own head/helmet and I had to stand with my shoulders forced back in a military type stance the entire time. The way the legs moved, hinged together at the knee and also to the butt/cod piece - forced me to take baby steps. Any larger steps or uneven terrain were very challenging. Luckily the venue had escalators and elevators. Wear and tear on the armor was pretty notable... the butt/cod piece actually started cracking (on the right side when looking at the photos you can see the crack). Luckily it lasted for the 4 hours I was there - if it had separated my legs would have fallen down much like pants falling down. I actually had bolted on regular suspenders under the armor that you can see the black strap of in some pics near the shoulders.. but they weren't really strong enough to actually hold the legs up all the way without the butt/cod piece being solid. The main foot pieces were Chicago-screwed onto the lower shin pieces that were then just left loose to slide inside the.. upper shin pieces. This damaged the paint.. you can see a light grey color where they were rubbing. I also had some discomfort from not padding the foot pieces enough. I used foam matting and shoe padding inserts, but forgot to pad the top of the foot pieces which dug into the tops of my feet after walking in it for some time.
I had one leg fixed to the butt/cod piece. The butt/cod piece opened on one side at the front of the piece with Chicago screws that had to be fastened once I was in it. Then I attached the other leg with a bolt, slid both "boots" on (feet pieces with the lower shin pieces attached), then put the ribs on. I have no great shots of the back right now but I filled the gap in the back of the rib piece with a foam piece that I added some fiberglass pieces to. I need to take photos of the back and also of how the chest piece was assembled to explain how that was put on. I had designed the arms to be held to the chest piece with velcro strapping underneath the armor but this proved to not be strong enough and I had someone hot-glue the straps in once I had the pieces on. There were solid palm pieces and solid fingers that came with the original suit. The fingers were simply slipped on each finger. Originally they were too wide to stay on my fingers so I filled some with a bit of hot glue but used too much and ran out of time. This resulted in most of the fingers not sliding on all the way - which explains the creepy long salad fingers.
There are all kinds of repairs and upgrades I want to do for next year. I have several repairs to do where the paint was damaged or things cracked or chipped. I may even go back to the sanding stage on areas that are pretty rough. I definitely want to re-design how all the parts link together and how it fits on my body. I may chop-off the parts of the upper leg pieces that connect to the butt/cod piece so they aren't hinged together. I need to fix how the lower shin pieces slide.. or likely make it so they don't slide at all. Overall I need to work out a better strapping system, or method for attaching the pieces. Also I'm quite tall and have longer arms.. as evident in the gap between the wrist pieces and the palms. I need to do something about that too. The main discomfort I had was the feet pieces digging in - even though the whole thing is fiberglass I didn't find it heavy, just awkward.
I got a really good reaction at the con, which was spread across several floors of the venue. I actually only made it to the first floor, and walked maybe 50 feet in, and then out when I was ready to go. That alone took about 4 hours due to the number of people stopping me for photos. (probably also because I couldn't move that quickly).
That's about all I have to share for now - thanks for reading, sorry for the long post. I appreciate the opportunity to share with this community. I hope to share more photos as time permits and I appreciate your feedback.
I had a Mark III foam suit project that I had been working on - but in early July this year I saw an opportunity to purchase a Mark IV fiberglass suit from the Junkyard. I had ambitions to create a post at the beginning and updating it while I was making progress - but life got in the way of that (and also limited the progress photos). Here's what I can share:
Here's how I received the existing suit, seemingly damaged in shipping (not the fault of the RPF member I purchased it from - the suit was packaged well). The person I purchased it from had acquired it from someone else and it was already painted this grey/silver pattern. You can see that at some stage the suit must have been mostly red. The grey paint was pretty thick - I think part of it was brushed on as I could see some brush hair textures in some of the paint.
The upper-shin and knee pieces are shaped to be hinged to the thigh pieces, which are then hinged to the "butt/cod" pieces for lack of a better description. The lower shin pieces were held in with foam matting and hot glue. The upper arm Shoulder/bicep pieces were hinged with the forearm pieces and the wrist pieces were held in with foam and glue as well. Overall for the most part was held together with either hot glue or small screws. The upper chest/arc reactor and back were one solid piece minus the crack. The rib pieces were probably designed for someone skinnier than me - or were missing one plate in the back.
So this was to be the largest costume/cosplay project I have attempted - I ordered a bunch of supply based off how I thought the suit would operate and what I wanted it to look like. Basically I was going for the movie look, and wanted lights and also servo's to make the helmet open. I bought gold Chicago Screws to replace most regular silver screws, and a bunch of fiberglass repair stuff for the major crack in the chest piece. There were also chips and a lot of hairline cracks in several other pieces. I separated all the pieces, removed foam and glue and then labelled any pieces that may later be... confusing.
So then I started the process of getting all the grey paint off - keeping in mind I'm one guy who works up to 12 hour days with a limited budget - I decided to sand it all off with an electric sander and dremel combo. Here's the first pieces I tried sanding - haven't worked with fiberglass before, wasn't sure how it'd work out so I started with the foot pieces. The second pic is of the sander in the trash. It was my late father's - probably from the 80's and it didn't last long until something broke inside.
I purchased another sander and was excited to get back to work at first... little did I know sanding would prove to be very time consuming - would not recommend. Sanding all of the pieces took a few weeks of work (in my spare time)
After sanding I did a fair bit of fiber glass matting and bondo/body filler to repair the major crack and various hairline cracks. I also cut the solid upper chest/arc reactor piece into a front and back piece. I was running short on time before Comic Con... I could have sworn I had pictures of all the pieces once they were sanded... but I cant find any so unfortunately I have to skip to the painting process. I had a local air brush artist lined up to paint all the pieces for me with automotive grade paint. I was to prime all the pieces with store-bought spray primer and he was going to finish them all - but once he saw how many pieces there were he reluctantly declined the work. I basically put plastic on the ground, primed the side of each piece that was not touching the ground, waited for it to dry, then painted the other side(s). (2 coats primer for each piece). I found this to be... a time consuming method.
I didn't know my painter wasn't going to paint my pieces until they were already all primed. I had about a week and a half until Comic Con and considered just holding off until next year... In the end I decided to say nay to failure and just paint the pieces myself. I created a make-shift rack out of an old florescent light ballast to hang the pieces from, and did a little extra sanding on some pieces that weren't so great. (In fact many of the pieces aren't flawless.. chips/cracks/chunks etc).
I'm in Canada - and I was working in a somewhat heated detached garage but for ventilation I could only open the regular door, not the whole garage door simply because it would have been too cold. The fumes were not so great, I had only a dust mask at first (would not recommend) that I later upgraded to a proper filtered mask. I admit at first the fumes and probably the lack of sleep were spacing me out a little... so much red and plastic sheets... I went a little Dexter in this one pic.
Obviously most of the suit is red. I painted everything red first (2 coats) and then masked off the gold areas with simple painters tape and newspaper. I don't have pics of that process. The gold was metallic, and the red was glossy - I also clear coated everything with 2 coats of glossy clear coat.
I did not have time to install or even try out the servo's I had purchased. I used sunglass lenses for the eyes, covered in foam mesh matting you use for drawer liners and wired in some LED's with a battery pack all inside the helmet, which was to remain closed for this Comic Con. The original suit I purchased also came with an arc reactor setup that had a small circuit board wired to a set of LED's that had a dim and bright setting with a button and even rechargeable battery with wall-plug in to charge. So I just used that for the arc reactor. I wanted the LED's to be bright enough to see in a lit/indoor area so I ran a higher voltage that wound up probably being too high. One of the two LED's got toasted about 20 minutes into being at the event so I just turned them both off after that.
Here are the only other pictures I have of the progress - the suit as I was able to finish it. There are none with the eyes lit:
I had one of those red spandexy body suits under the fiberglass which probably was too bright of a red - but I already had bought it. The black near the cod piece was some thin rubbery vehicle matting I bought at a dollar store. It worked well, I should have used it on all the joint openings - just a matter of time shortage. There were several complications with maneuverability. I was unable to sit down with the suit on (I took the bus and stood). The arm pieces rub the main chest/back piece and operate in a certain way where I couldn't actually touch my own head/helmet and I had to stand with my shoulders forced back in a military type stance the entire time. The way the legs moved, hinged together at the knee and also to the butt/cod piece - forced me to take baby steps. Any larger steps or uneven terrain were very challenging. Luckily the venue had escalators and elevators. Wear and tear on the armor was pretty notable... the butt/cod piece actually started cracking (on the right side when looking at the photos you can see the crack). Luckily it lasted for the 4 hours I was there - if it had separated my legs would have fallen down much like pants falling down. I actually had bolted on regular suspenders under the armor that you can see the black strap of in some pics near the shoulders.. but they weren't really strong enough to actually hold the legs up all the way without the butt/cod piece being solid. The main foot pieces were Chicago-screwed onto the lower shin pieces that were then just left loose to slide inside the.. upper shin pieces. This damaged the paint.. you can see a light grey color where they were rubbing. I also had some discomfort from not padding the foot pieces enough. I used foam matting and shoe padding inserts, but forgot to pad the top of the foot pieces which dug into the tops of my feet after walking in it for some time.
I had one leg fixed to the butt/cod piece. The butt/cod piece opened on one side at the front of the piece with Chicago screws that had to be fastened once I was in it. Then I attached the other leg with a bolt, slid both "boots" on (feet pieces with the lower shin pieces attached), then put the ribs on. I have no great shots of the back right now but I filled the gap in the back of the rib piece with a foam piece that I added some fiberglass pieces to. I need to take photos of the back and also of how the chest piece was assembled to explain how that was put on. I had designed the arms to be held to the chest piece with velcro strapping underneath the armor but this proved to not be strong enough and I had someone hot-glue the straps in once I had the pieces on. There were solid palm pieces and solid fingers that came with the original suit. The fingers were simply slipped on each finger. Originally they were too wide to stay on my fingers so I filled some with a bit of hot glue but used too much and ran out of time. This resulted in most of the fingers not sliding on all the way - which explains the creepy long salad fingers.
There are all kinds of repairs and upgrades I want to do for next year. I have several repairs to do where the paint was damaged or things cracked or chipped. I may even go back to the sanding stage on areas that are pretty rough. I definitely want to re-design how all the parts link together and how it fits on my body. I may chop-off the parts of the upper leg pieces that connect to the butt/cod piece so they aren't hinged together. I need to fix how the lower shin pieces slide.. or likely make it so they don't slide at all. Overall I need to work out a better strapping system, or method for attaching the pieces. Also I'm quite tall and have longer arms.. as evident in the gap between the wrist pieces and the palms. I need to do something about that too. The main discomfort I had was the feet pieces digging in - even though the whole thing is fiberglass I didn't find it heavy, just awkward.
I got a really good reaction at the con, which was spread across several floors of the venue. I actually only made it to the first floor, and walked maybe 50 feet in, and then out when I was ready to go. That alone took about 4 hours due to the number of people stopping me for photos. (probably also because I couldn't move that quickly).
That's about all I have to share for now - thanks for reading, sorry for the long post. I appreciate the opportunity to share with this community. I hope to share more photos as time permits and I appreciate your feedback.
