My fiberglass Jedi General shoulder armor. UPDATE ON PAGE 2!

[UltimateGBfan]

So after reading through defyitall's thread about his Clone Wars Jedi armor,I was inspired to finally get off my a$$ and get started on mine and my best friends.

So we went out on Tuesday and bought all of the supplies.

We tried to document every step of our adventures into fiberglassing since it was our very first time working with it.Needless to say,the first piece was a learning experience but the second came out very well.

Anyways,onto the part details.

We used defyitall's way of getting the Obi shoulder bells,we went and bought a standard sized football,and covered it in plastic wrap.Then we put on our layers of fiberglass and presto,we have a uncut shoulder bell.

So here are our pics of the process so far:

So is it fate that we are using MacGregor footballs to make Obi-Wan shoulder amor?

Everything layed out ready to go.

Me about to dig into our new supplies.

My friend going a lil pic happy by taking a pic of me putting my gloves on.

Doubling up on the gloves,never worked with fiberglass before so I was being prepared.

Me cutting the first piece of cloth.

Me reading the directions on the fiberglass resin.

So I will post more pics of our adventures in fiberglassing tomorrow.

 

[daska skirata]

Re: My fiberglass Jedi General shoulder armor.

Sounds like a funny idea, but it could be nice.

As far I'm looking at this project I've got the idea that the shoulders seems to get a bit pointy, but I don't know if ya wanna use the whole space of the football.

Fiberglass could be difficult to use, but as from what I've learned from my fiberglass projects: Be creative with the use of the harder.

If this doesn't turn out good, you could always use some cheap clay and make a form of it so that you only have to put some fiberglass on it.

Greets and good luck!!


Geert

 

[PadawanLearner]

Re: My fiberglass Jedi General shoulder armor.

hahahaha, nice! I love the idea of the football and thanks for documenting it! hopefully you keep up with it so we can all see your progress and hopefully learn from any mistakes you make :lol

 

[UltimateGBfan]

So I another small update on pics.

Our first piece,which was a major reject.

Just where we prepped the first piece of glass,that was the only time we used that area too.

Me doing surgery to the messed up glass,I was able to salvage most of the shape.

Was able to get most of the shape off the football,it cured fine but we didn't get enough glass down,this one will have a ***** ton of bondoing to be acceptable.

Me examining and holding up the rejct one.

Our next try we decided to cut the glass cloth into strips and then into smaller sections,literally dip it into the fiberglass resin and pretty much do it like you would a papermache project and it worked great.That's what's going on in the rest of the pics.

I will have to upload the scale down the rest,but I thought I would post another small update.

 

[exoray]

Re: My fiberglass Jedi General shoulder armor.

Since you are using mat and not cloth rip the stuff into smaller pieces rather then cut, this way the edges are feathered and overlap and interlock better...

In your failed one you never completely wetted out the glass, it should all turn to the clear color no white left...

Try this technique, get more disposable brushes... Rip the mat into a bunch of 3" - 4" chunks, and spread them out over the table for easy access... Mix up the resin and then brush on a liberal coat on the football, basically paint the ball, then with one hand pick up a chunk of fiberglass and place it on the wet ball, using the other hand grab the brush and using the brush push the fiberglass into the resin paint job repeated up and down motions, no brushing... If needed you can dip the brush in more resin to make sure that part is wetted out, but don't go overboard on the resin too much resin decreases strength and increases weight, less is better... Once that chunk of mat is clear grab another and lay it next to the first slightly overlapping and continue until done...

And for that shape, you can get a sheet of woven cloth fiberglass, and cut it to size like you did in the failed one, using the same brush on and push in technique you should be able to contour the woven cloth over the whole football without much trouble leaving a solid one piece second layer...

Also even though you are outside you should consider an organic respirator to filter out the fumes, the dust mask you are using is for all intents useless in regards to polyester resin fumes...

 

[UltimateGBfan]

Re: My fiberglass Jedi General shoulder armor.

Thanks for the tips exoray.

So here is the next set of pics:

Our second try,this one is comprised of smaller pieces and we used a similar technique that exoray suggested.

I have the second try still on the table and I've put another football up and started on a third as well.

Me laying glass down on the third shoulder piece while my best friend Justin dabbed in resin where needed.

Second piece totally laid and third was started but the mixed resin we had started to harden.

These next few are of the second piece in varying stages of curing:

Now the fun parts,cutting the freshly cured fiberglass football:

These show the main lines drawn onto the piece,that is my central point for the shape of the shoulder bell.

Now let's dig on into the cutting pics:

These last two are of the final piece totally cut,sanded,and ready to be bondoed:

That is where we are at now,I will be working on bondoing the piece this weekend,and as always I will take as many pics as possible.

 

[Jedifyfe]

Re: My fiberglass Jedi General shoulder armor.

That is a really good idea!

Brad

 

[UltimateGBfan]

Re: My fiberglass Jedi General shoulder armor.

Credit goes to defyitall,he was the one that did it first,I just used his idea as a benchmark for my own.

I may trim mine down a lil more as they seem to be a tad big,but I'm not sure at this point.

 

[foxbatkllr]

Re: My fiberglass Jedi General shoulder armor.

Nice to see someone else make use of my idea. It really works well as you could see from our thread.

 

[UltimateGBfan]

Re: My fiberglass Jedi General shoulder armor.

Indeed it does,I was very surprised when it came out very nice and the whole time I kept saying "I can't believe we didn't think of this."

Great idea man!

 

[daska skirata]

Re: My fiberglass Jedi General shoulder armor.

That's nice!!

I wondered from the beginning how you were going to use the shape of the football but that's all clear! It doedn't even cost you a lot of clay!

Greets and good luck,

Geert

 

[UltimateGBfan]

Re: My fiberglass Jedi General shoulder armor.

We have maybe about $10 worth of supplies in one shoulder armor so far,after bondo we will have maybe $18,so roughly $40 for a set of them.So I would say we were able to get really nice shoulder bells for a very nice price.

 

[exoray]

Re: My fiberglass Jedi General shoulder armor.

Much better on the new ones!n Looks like you are well on your way now...

 

[UltimateGBfan]

Re: My fiberglass Jedi General shoulder armor.

Oh yea we are,we learned alot off of the first failed attempt and improved on our second.

 

[UltimateGBfan]

Re: My fiberglass Jedi General shoulder armor.

I thought I would post a lil update.

Went out to the workshed earlier today,and filled the hell out of the outside of the first shoulder bell.

I should be able to sand it here in a lil while,then I will do some more filling till I can get a very nice uniform piece.

Here are the pics:

The wighead is a perfect stand for the bondoing,it keeps it up off the table and I am able to rotate it to where I need it to be.

Hope you guys like.

 

[UltimateGBfan]

Re: My fiberglass Jedi General shoulder armor.

So got it sanded,here is where we are at now:

We're starting to get there,got two more layers of bondo me thinks.Some of the dips and knicks left over make for good battle damage,but I'm not sure if I will keep any of it.

So what do you guys think?

 

[James Kenobi 1138]

It's out of context without seeing it next to the armor or a human shoulder.

Can't wait to see updates.

 

[Jaded Monk]

It's out of context without seeing it next to the armor or a human shoulder.

Can't wait to see updates.

http://i513.photobucket.com/albums/t334/UltimateGBfan/Clone Wars Jedi Armor/102_1223-1.jpg