Replica Apollo-era A7L Spacesuit Build Thread (pic heavy)

[AKurtz]

This is my first build thread but I've been following theRPF for quite a few years. What a great community and a tremendous resource for anybody interested in costumes and propmaking! I've learned a lot of tricks and techniques from the members here and I'm pretty excited to share what my wife and I have been working on with the help of my brother.

Like a lot of you I'm a big fan of NASA and space exploration in general. Right now feels like a really pivotal time for the field and I'm very interested to see where we go from here. With that said, the moon missions of the 60s and 70s have always been especially inspiring for me, and I've been interested in tackling this project since I first saw the archival news footage from the Apollo missions and movies like the Right Stuff and Apollo 13 as a kid.

I'd like to give a shout out to several members here at theRPF whose build threads have inspired us and have given us ideas (and continue to do so). A special thanks goes to Dark Jedi and Mr. Nagata for sharing their amazing work and resources and showing a bunch of hacks like my team what is possible.

Full disclosure, this project has been ongoing for quite a while and is very nearly complete, so if it looks like we're going fast, just know that we are skipping quite a bit of development time. As I'm sure other members who have taken on this suit can attest, this is a pretty involved project and not for the faint of heart. Luckily, we knew none of this going in or we might have tried something simpler. Anyway, here goes:

We started with the accessories:



For the EVA gloves, we began by patterning the fingertips in muslin and adjusting to get the correct fit until we were happy with the look and could finish the gloves. We then created a replica of the wrist cuff checklist from the Apollo 11 mission. For the eagle-eyed among you, you might notice that the rest of the suits follow the Apollo 14 model suits, which we eventually decided struck the best balance for us look-wise between the original Apollo 11 look, and the later A7LB suits from the last three missions.



For the Communications Carrier Assembly aka "Snoopy cap" we used eva foam to create the ear inserts, which was then, cleaned up and plastidipped, then airbrushed to match the other light blue suit components. The microphone props are made from shrink wrapped gooseneck tubing with a cast resin base and headbasket. The pattern was originally created using acrylic and bondo. The fabric portion of the cap turned out to be deceptively complicated, but ultimately we're really happy with how it came out.

Stay tuned...

 

[AKurtz]

The various connectors were scratch made using a variety of techniques, then molded and cast in resin.



The connectors were then painted and weathered before being attached to the suit.

 

[AKurtz]

To pattern the suit, we started with a painter's suit from lowe's or home depot. It was useful for placement but ultimately not as helpful as we'd hoped as there were too many significant differences.



To replicate the beta cloth of the Apollo suit we used a heavier nylon which, although not a perfect match to the original, has a great look and feel to it and seems fairly sturdy.



After selecting the Apollo 14 version as the basis for our suits, we chose to use the patch from that mission unaltered even though the crew member names were changed on ours. All of the patches on the suit were custom made for the project, even the flags.

 

[Funky]

* Calling Mr. Savage, Mr. Adam Savage...your party is waiting for you at the front of the store.

​@asavage

 

[mothboy]

definitely keeping an eye on this thread... i'm currently working on my own a7l and seeing others' builds is really helpful. thank you for sharing progress pics! -gw


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[AKurtz]

* Calling Mr. Savage, Mr. Adam Savage...your party is waiting for you at the front of the store.

​@asavage

Haha! Actually, I hear he's got a really really nice one.

 

[AKurtz]

Here's a look at some more of the hardware at various stages of completion:



The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and NASA itself have some great reference shots for a lot of these parts, but there's also a quite a bit of variation between individual suits on top of the obvious differences between the two suit types. Many of the original parts were revised multiple times by NASA contractors, especially between prototyping stages and the flown suits. Due to budgetary concerns, NASA seems to have reused some the flown components for later missions, leaving museums with no choice but to use a mix parts from various sources.

As a result, sometimes we have found it better to remake a part than to try to make one work that was based on reference pictures of what turned out to be an out of place part.

 

[asavage]

Drool. Super-awesome work AKurtz. Keep the pix coming!

 

[Lear60man]

Here's a look at some more of the hardware at various stages of completion:

View attachment 781599View attachment 781600View attachment 781595View attachment 781594

The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and NASA itself have some great reference shots for a lot of these parts, but there's also a quite a bit of variation between individual suits on top of the obvious differences between the two suit types. Many of the original parts were revised multiple times by NASA contractors, especially between prototyping stages and the flown suits. Due to budgetary concerns, NASA seems to have reused some the flown components for later missions, leaving museums with no choice but to use a mix parts from various sources.

As a result, sometimes we have found it better to remake a part than to try to make one work that was based on reference pictures of what turned out to be an out of place part.

Awesome. That buckle/camber that sits dead center of your chest is a bugger. The PlS RCU control unit is the other one that is a bear.

 

[mrbungle]

Awesome profress so far! Love space suits.

 

[AKurtz]

Drool. Super-awesome work AKurtz. Keep the pix coming!

Thanks for saying so - we're big fans!

 

[AKurtz]

A few more pieces of hardware nearly completed here:



There really are quite a few pieces needed for these suits, especially depending on the level of detail you're after. With any replica project the trick is finding a balance between accuracy and actually being able to complete the build. Hopefully, we'll find that soon

Most of the hardware has to be scratch-made but there are a few places where we can buy pieces that work reasonably well. I picked up this Speedmaster homage on ebay and we made a band for it based upon the original NASA specs.

 

[AKurtz]

Awesome. That buckle/camber that sits dead center of your chest is a bugger. The PlS RCU control unit is the other one that is a bear.

Thanks! I keep telling myself I'm not as intimidated by that OPS actuator as I when I first saw it, but I still haven't finished it, so who knows...

We enjoyed your A7L build, great job on your suit! I'm sorry to see your pics have been disappeared due to the photobucket thing.

 

[Lear60man]

Thanks! I keep telling myself I'm not as intimidated by that OPS actuator as I when I first saw it, but I still haven't finished it, so who knows...

We enjoyed your A7L build, great job on your suit! I'm sorry to see your pics have been disappeared due to the photobucket thing.

Member KenLandrum has a OPS lever and other parts on shapaeways. He knocked it out of the park. I got my Omega strap on Ebay.....some guy in England makes a replica with all the correct NASA markings on it.

And yea....Photobucket sucks.

 

[AKurtz]

We're still working on finalizing some of the pattern work for some of the accessory parts. Hopefully we'll wrap it up soon and I'll be able to post some of that work shortly.

In the meantime, here's a little more detail from the suit construction:

 

[BrianM]

Nice Work. Looking forward to the build.

 

[AKurtz]

There are a number of detailed pieces that don't like being sewn on a smaller machine, especially in the later stages. Due to the way the suit's patterns are layered, even simpler parts can be difficult when you have to rotate the entire suit through an 8-10 inch opening. Other parts just feel like trying to sew a lunch box onto a ski suit.



After running into this issue we starting wondering about the original construction process. We came across an archival photo from the original NASA contractor, ILC Dover, showing what looks like a much more efficient work table than ours. The workspace lighting alone inspired a little bit of envy.



We also learned an interesting bit of history/trivia. Some of you probably know this, but ILC Dover was originally a division of Playtex. Apparently they assigned line workers and seamstresses from their brassiere division to tackle the contract.

Hazel Fellows, pictured above, worked on the A7L suits, which, according to NASA, required that she could stitch with an accuracy of 1/64 of an inch without using pins.

 

[AKurtz]

No sleeves in this shot, but a better look at the legs:



We're particularly happy with the look and feel of the nylon fabric here. We've also fully lined the suit which gives it a bit more structure. Luckily, heat is never a problem here in Austin; we're actually still more than 50 miles north of the surface of the sun

The picture below shows the back after attaching the zipper cover flap, and sleeves. I really love the effect of the Chromel-R abrasion patch. It's a nice bit of contrast, even if aligning the material drove us a little crazy. It's almost too bad you won't see it behind the PLSS "backpack" once it's completed.



And finally, back to the front for a side-by-side of the lunar module pilot and commander suits:



stay tuned...

 

[AKurtz]

Activity continues, in spite of the lack of recent posts.

Next up is the boots (interior):



We replicated the pattern based on available pictures from NASA and other sources, which we then glued over a pair of donor shoes. It was a bit nerve-wracking but we managed to get through it. At this point we were pretty happy with the look of it, and I planned to move back to paint/prep work on connectors, but an unexpectedly cold (for Austin) winter front arrived and stayed awhile making painting conditions less than ideal.

I've always felt sorry for those of you in the northern climates who have to stop your work periodically in the winter months, but I haven't had to deal with that much here before.

With the weather not cooperating, we looked for another area to focus on and decided try to see what we could do with the boot soles.





First we traced the soles of the donor shoes, then we cut leather blanks for the soles and heels and glued them together using Barge cement. We used DAP caulk as spot filler for the edges, then painted everything a cream color that we felt was a decent match for the originals. We then stitched the layers together using what I can only assume was a pretty unorthodox method involving nails, a hammer and some kind of hobby store twine.



We then sealed the paint and leather using modge podge, and created the velcro and aluminum heel supports, which were glued down, also with Barge. It is my understanding that the NASA boot soles had velcro attached to the bottoms to assist the astronauts in standing during the descent/ascent phase while piloting the LEM.

Finally, our new "soles" were press glued to the donor soles to complete the effect. We are pretty thrilled with the way they turned out.

Below is a side by side comparison of ours to one of Al Shepard's Apollo 14 shoes:

 

[Lear60man]

Great work. I would have dropped off the boots at a shoe repair guy for the leather work personally. Its cheap to have shoes re-soled.