Thorssoli's T-60 Power Armor Build from Fallout 4

[thorssoli]

So how difficult is it to break down the different components in the 3D modeling program in order to make them into pieces that the CNC can mill?

That is also an interesting CNC machine. It looks like the MDF feeds through the machine similar to a surface planer, is that how it works?

It's actually not all that difficult to slice up the models. I'll be explaining that in the first video about this project whenever I get a minute to actually sit down and put that together.

The Carvewright is a raster-style CNC. The stock feeds through on the x-axis (like a planer) and the cutting head moves across it and up and down in the Y and Z axes.

Been following this on Lewis and Sky's facebook feed, fantastic work!

Love that you're going with the original rust and grime paintjob. Rust is so fun to do.

Looking forward to the paint stage and hopefully you'll be around to help out. For now, there's a lot of sanding, polishing, and moldmaking to be done.

UPDATE:

At this point, all of the large parts are carved. There's a few small bits that still need to be printed and I need to figure out what I want to do for the tanks on the back.

Molding continues on the handplates, lower shoulder plate, thigh fronts, and a few more pieces:


Here's the top of the codpiece all set for molding:


The buttplate mold is made:


Lewis has been helping out a lot with smoothing out the carved parts:




Mallory has been putting in a lot of hours too:


She may be well on her way to losing her damned fool mind:


In other news, I printed a handwheel:


It fits:


There's still a lot of prep work to do, but I'm capturing video footage at every step:


The most important thing is that the pile of parts to prep is slowly getting smaller:


Since this one huge project is nowhere near enough to keep me busy (or because I'm a masochist who can't sit still for two minutes) I've started work on this other thing:


Because it'd be silly to make the power armor and not make the minigun.

Here's the first couple of printed parts:


Then there's a box of everything else piling up:


Once I've got the molds done for the minigun, I'll probably end up offering a few kits in the classifieds.

In the meantime, since I needed to see something finished, I've made one of these:


You can download your own here: www.myminifactory.com/it/object/fallout-4-fusion-core-17423

One more thing. The other night my assistant Loki was in the shop screwing around with the stilts I'm building into the armor. So we told him as long as he's being an idiot, let's get the full effect. We grabbed the parts that weren't being molded at the moment and did a quick duct tape test fit. Loki is about 6'3" and way too tall with the stilts (which I was planning to use for my 5'7" height to look right, but here's the results:


Next time we'll do this with me getting dressed up so it won't look quite so gangly and goofy, but you get the idea.

Stay tuned for more updates. In the meantime, make fun of Lewis for holding the right shoulder backwards in that last pic.

 

[Daegurth]

Mmm, tasty. Gonna cut a delightfully imposing figure once it's done!

Finally getting my personal Fallout 4 projects underway here too. Love the fusion core, I might have to knock one of those out myself in alu- look simple enough.

Might also have to look into the idea of an infinite-x-axis fixed-gantry CNC router. How do the parts actually clamp in place on the Carvewright?

 

[thorssoli]

Finally getting my personal Fallout 4 projects underway here too. Love the fusion core, I might have to knock one of those out myself in alu- look simple enough.

Might also have to look into the idea of an infinite-x-axis fixed-gantry CNC router. How do the parts actually clamp in place on the Carvewright?

Yeah, all of the files that Daniel Lilygeen has posted there on myminifactory.com are great. I've been collecting them all and burning through tons of filament whenever I don't have something more important for my printers to do.

On the Carvewright, the head unit cranks up and down and clamps the material against the X-axis drive belts in the base of the machine. The x-axis is theoretically infinite if you have a way to support the stock feeding in and out of the machine.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

Looks good! I need some sanding girls in my workshop! :lol I hate sanding. My girlfriend says no.

 

[thorssoli]

Looks good! I need some sanding girls in my workshop! :lol I hate sanding. My girlfriend says no.

I need more sanding girls in my workshop. At this stage in the project, everyone sands in my workshop. There's much sanding to be done.

Here's Freddy sanding a piece:


And Sierra sanding a bigger piece:


Lewis has decided that the "bathtub" on the chest block as his own personal cross to bear:


I too sand things:


I tried to teach Leeloo (the dog) to sand, but she refuses:


Occasionally this kid takes a break from sanding to add spot putty:


But mostly, she sands too.

Believe it or not, the pile of parts to be prepped is actually getting smaller:

(One of those parts is supposed to be in a completely different pile)

The upper arms and the heel need a bit more polishing before they're ready to mold:


The handplate molds are laid up and ready to open up, trim, and polish:


Same goes for the lower shoulder plate mold:


The belly plate:


And the right thigh:


The left thigh mold is 2/3 done:


The codpiece is 1/3 molded:


So here's about where everything stands right now:


Soon there will be more orange than red, blue, and pink. Then things will really get interesting.

 

[RacerMachX]

I need more sanding girls in my workshop. At this stage in the project, everyone sands in my workshop. There's much sanding to be done.

Here's Freddy sanding a piece:
And Sierra sanding a bigger piece:
Lewis has decided that the "bathtub" on the chest block as his own personal cross to bear:
I too sand things:

I tried to teach Leeloo (the dog) to sand, but she refuses:
https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2860/33926464685_fa4d85b032_c.jpg

Occasionally this kid takes a break from sanding to add spot putty:
But mostly, she sands too.
Believe it or not, the pile of parts to be prepped is actually getting smaller:
(One of those parts is supposed to be in a completely different pile)
The upper arms and the heel need a bit more polishing before they're ready to mold:
The handplate molds are laid up and ready to open up, trim, and polish:
Same goes for the lower shoulder plate mold:
The belly plate:
And the right thigh:
The left thigh mold is 2/3 done:
The codpiece is 1/3 molded:
So here's about where everything stands right now:

Soon there will be more orange than red, blue, and pink. Then things will really get interesting.

Smart dog.
Love the look she is giving you.:wacko

 

[Staar Lord Maan]

I've lost my mind inhaling all that dust; no wonder I was holding that shoulder backwards

Next time we'll do this with me getting dressed up so it won't look quite so gangly and goofy, but you get the idea.

Stay tuned for more updates. In the meantime, make fun of Lewis for holding the right shoulder backwards in that last pic.

 

[joberg]

Love your "work sheet", I call it: organized!!

 

[thorssoli]

Here's a few more of the molds pulled so far...

The lower shoulder plate:


The handplates:


The belly plate:


The right thigh front piece:


Now we're in the process of cleaning, polishing and prepping the molds that are done:


While simultaneously continuing to sand and prep more pieces:


So the pile of parts to prep is getting a little smaller:


All of the 3D printing is done except for the fingers. Here's the round bits for the knees and the sides of the backplate:


Finally, I've gotten back to making a little progress on the helmet. The last detail was the shower drain thing on the front of the snout:


A little more cleanup and that beast will be ready to mold.

More to come, stay tuned...

 

[thorssoli]

Molds are now finished for the right thigh front plate, lower shoulder, belly plate, and the handplates. Now they're prepped and coated and I've laid the black gelcoat that will be the beginning of the new parts being made in the mold:


A lot of the other parts are just about ready to mold:


The shoulders I'm particularly proud of:


The backplate still has a bit more cleanup work before it's ready to mold:


The bathtub section of the chest box is causing Lewis no end of consternation:


But pretty soon he'll be happy with the finished product:


So right now, here's where we stand:


Sometime tomorrow I'll have parts out of all of the new molds. Hopefully I'll have the helmet body smoothed out as well.

Stay tuned...

 

[Psicorp7]

Wow! Great work so far. Those are some seriously weird compound curves on those pieces. I think your shop is going to go crazy getting them all smooth! :lol

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

I showed this thread to my 13yo nephew yesterday and he said "That is so awesome.... Can you build me one?" I said "Right, I'll just whip out my Dremel and get started." :lol I had to go back and show him all the equipment you had on this.

 

[thorssoli]

I showed this thread to my 13yo nephew yesterday and he said "That is so awesome.... Can you build me one?" I said "Right, I'll just whip out my Dremel and get started." :lol I had to go back and show him all the equipment you had on this.

YOU CAN DO IT! I wrote a book that tells you everything you need to know in order to build stuffs like this in your own garage. Or on your kitchen table. Or in the bathtub. The possibilities are endless.

Wow! Great work so far. Those are some seriously weird compound curves on those pieces. I think your shop is going to go crazy getting them all smooth! :lol

We're at about the 90% mark on all of the carved pieces. It helps to have guys like Freddy who, for some twisted reason, is perfectly happy to lay down on my filthy shop floor and grind away at all of the little imperfections:


Along the way he's losing his damned fool mind:

I didn't have the heart to tell him that he had the arms on the wrong sides.

I've also added this young lady to the team. She's been putting in a few hours polishing up the prototypes so we can mold them:


She's also been cleaning and prepping the molds:


I've even got a respirator small enough to fit her so now we're getting her up to speed on fiberglass layup. This will be a tremendous help in the next couple of weeks.

So while we've been making good progress on getting the parts smoothed out and there are a lot of molds in progress, I've been focusing on getting the helmet just right:


It's moving right along.

Here's the current snapshot:


This other thing is shaping up too:


So that's cool.

 

[thorssoli]

Most of the finger prototypes have now been 3D printed:


The forearms are nearly ready for molding. One is just a bit better off than the other:


The backplate needs a tiny bit of tuneup before I can start molding it:


It's pretty good, but there's a few tiny flaws that I want to fix:


It doesn't look like much, but I've been collecting a growing pile of fiberglass parts pulled from the molds:


Not shown is the other thigh front plate and the second copy of the lower shoulder segment which is still in the mold:


I've finished laying up the mold for the codpiece. Other than that, the upper arms, calves, toe, and heel are all polished up and ready to mold. So here's where it stands right now:


Then there's this other thing:


Which is pretty awesome.

 

[joberg]

Awesome sauce on all front:cool That weapon looks nasty!

 

[thorssoli]

Awesome sauce on all front:cool That weapon looks nasty!

Thank you, sir! I'd begun to wonder if anyone was reading this thread at all.

Progress continues as ever. The mold is finished for the codpiece:


I pulled the first copy too:


The first half of the two calf plate molds have been glassed up:


The second half is gelcoated and I'll be fiberglassing those shortly.

The helmet is almost smooth enough to mold:


I've still got a box of add-on bits that need prep work, but that'll go pretty quick once I get started on them.

Meanwhile, we continue prepping the rest of the parts:


I'm really glad to have Mallory in the shop when she's available. For some reason she seems all too happy to just sit and sand things smooth:


And Lewis, who has a deep affection for the chest piece which he has adopted:


It's a huge pain in the butt part with loads of tiny little compound curves and weird bits that he's been smoothing out. So far he's doing a great job and it's almost done:


So here's about where we stand right now:


Moving right along.

 

[thorssoli]

Almost a week an not one comment? Odd.

Progress continues on the dwindling pile of prototype parts. Right now the shins are the biggest thing that seems to be falling behind:


In other news, I finally printed the goofy brackets for the front of the ankles:


With the first copy of the front thigh plates out of the molds, it's become clear that I need to tweak the back of the thighs a bit in order to make them fit together nicely:


I've split the forearms lengthwise to make them easier to mold and cast. Right now the molds are still in the early stages:


The bathtub section of the chest is nearly smooth and perfect:


Which means Lewis can finally move on to other things:


And so progress continues:


Here's the current score:


Stay tuned...

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

Now you'll just need to build the power armor station to hang it from!

 

[undeadmith]

i only got one thing to say: you crazy

 

[joberg]

Man, lots of crazy forms and recesses and...but looking mighty good:cool Looking forward to see it hanging on a body; but that's another story.