SNL Undercover Boss: Starkiller Base

@predpaul

The original is backed with orange foam, making the holes hard to see. The new vest has black foam.

The guy who sells them said they aren't doing the orange buckles anymore. If that's true then there won't be anymore accurate vests coming. Instead of waiting for vests that may or may not come back in stock. I'm just gonna move ahead with this vest and see what can be done with it.

But I do agree that he should not sell them that way. I said as much earlier in this topic. I was very excited to be able to have a highly accurate costume, with all the correct found items. And that won't happen now.
 
Earlier this year I took out the Matt costume with a generic hunters vest. The vest was ugly. But the costume was a big hit anyways. I made a "rainbow" card from the files here in this topic. And I walked up to whoever randomly and handed it to them to read.

Tomorrow I'm gonna bring it out again for a local con. See how well it goes with an accurate vest.
 
There are 24 buckles on the vest, not including the front ones that snap together.

I picked up some automotive primer from Advanced Auto Parts. Dupli-color Primer, Self Etching. It's holding really well! I just need to paint over it with white and then with orange as the primer itself is a bit of a weird green tint. I think it's going to work. I didn't even need to sand the buckles, though I did sand one, but there's no real difference between it and the ones I didn't sand. The paint is holding fast.
 
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Well, #@$%$#... The paint STILL chips off easily. I'm so sick of this. If I had known I'd get all this trouble, I would have never have bought the vest or started the costume.
 
Egon Spengler said:
Maybe, but I'm going to try to mold a buckle, then cast 24 in orange. I'm so done with trying to paint these things.
Click to expand...

Would resin really be durable enough for the buckles if there is any strain on them? I would have them modeled and printed in orange plastic instead. If done on a FDM (plastic spool) printer with enough infill, they will be stronger than resin. Another option, which I usually don't recommend for most stuff, is to print them in nylon plastic- the stuff that Shapeways calls "white, safe flexible". I usually don't recommend that material these days it because the surface area is very grainy (think 280-260 grit sandpaper) BUT the porous nature of the surface means that you can soak paint or dye into it and it is also strong as hell. A few years ago, before I got my own printer, I made a few Cobra-lookalike buckles for a Dredd suit and they held up well.


As for the original buckles: You're essentially trying to pain a kind of plastic that is extremely "fatty" and therefore will not really accept paints, even with etching primer (which probably isn't etching into them at all because it's designed to resist chemicals). One thing you could have tried was 2-part automotive paint. You can get one-use spray cans of it made at auto paint shops. Then hit it with 2-part clear coats and it should hold up pretty well. It's still not going to be completely impervious to chips, but the paint will be almost as strong as paint on cars. If the buckles flex, you can have them add softener to the paint, which will make it more flexible. (It's what they use on painted car bumpers and grilles.) Also, the etching primers you get at specialty automotive paint shops is usually a lot stronger than anything you get at a hardware store or the like. This is likely because the good stuff is a lot more toxic, therefore only sold where there are more "experts".
 
3D printing the buckles sounds like a great idea! I even have some orange PLA, I believe.

Except my modeling skills are not yet up to the task. :( Is there an existing model somewhere? It's just a pretty vanilla 1" webbing buckle, right?
 
Decided against molding and casting these as it would be a pain as well. I did go to Maaco and see if they could paint them. They said they wouldn't but that they could give me some plastics adhesion promoter. So I dipped each buckle in that and painted on a light first coat. After over an hour the first coat of straight orange paint/primer combo paint seems to be holding well. Just put a second coat on it a bit ago.
 
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Egon Spengler said:
Decided against molding and casting these as it would be a pain as well. I did go to Maaco and see if they could paint them. They said they wouldn't but that they could give me some plastics adhesion promoter. So I dipped each buckle in that and painted on a light first coat. After over an hour the first coat of straight orange paint/primer combo paint seems to be holding well. Just put a second coat on it a bit ago.
Click to expand...

You will still have the problem of rattle-can paint simply not being strong enough to handle wear'n'tear once you expose the buckles to real-world stress. You should really consider getting a can of 2-part clear coat made for you at a place that sells professional auto paints. Hit them with that as a final step and you'll almost be able bash them with a hammer without cracking the paint. Almost.
 
I dunno, so far it's holding pretty well when i scratch at the light coats with my fingernails, even before it's dried/cured completely. I will look into that though. :)
 
I pulled my vest out of storage, caught up with the comments here, and realized I also have an inaccurate vest with black buckles. I was so excited earlier I never even realized. Anyway, I was looking into orange buckles and ladder locks. I found orange buckles on ebay (link). We never get a good look in the videothis is the closest I think we see. Because of that, I think any orange buckle that is more rectangular than round will be a good replacement. And then the ladder locks, I thought "it was super easy to find the buckles, those will be easy, too." They were tricky, but alibaba.com has some promising options. There's this item listing that has a different style, but is clearly available in orange. And then there's this other listing that is very similar, but is only listed in black. I've contacted that seller to see if they can be made in orange. The catch is that you can only buy them by the thousands, and we only need 24 per vest. There were a few other close matches on alibaba as well, and I sent a number of messages to various sellers asking for quantity reductions or color options. It doesn't look like all is lost when it comes to replacing these buckles. I'll report back when I get responses from the sellers.


Ladder locks - Screen Shot 2016-08-28 at 12.22.01 AM.png
Front buckle - Screen Shot 2016-08-28 at 12.40.59 AM.png
 
Here are my buckles :D I forgot to mention that not only did I dip them into plastics adhesion promoter, I first sanded them with 400 grit sandpaper too. SAM_1486.jpg
 
MrSouthpaw said:
@bback
The foam padding is also inaccurate. It is black, should be orange.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reminder! That should be much easier to deal with, though. I'm currently thinking about getting some orange fabric to slide in there, or wrap the black foam with. The mesh hides most of the details of the foam. Orange craft foam is another option.

Unless anyone has found a better alternative?

Got a response from these folks at alibaba, and they can provide the ladder locks in orange. Trouble is, they won't lower their MOQ, so I'd have to spend $50 to buy 5,000 of them. I'd be happy to do that and then sell the extras for the cost of shipping + a few bucks, but I'm not an approved seller here, and I really don't know what I'd do with FIVE THOUSAND of them in the meantime. I can take them to Celebration next summer and hand them out to all the Matts with this vest, but that's still FIVE THOUSAND ladder locks I'd have to store for seven months.

I can't even imagine what five thousand of them wouldlook like. How big would that package be?


QQ??20160829092435.jpgAnd then the people who make these ones can do zinc with orange enamel. I can't find a price for those, but it shouldn't cost more than $1/piece, most of their metal belt buckles were under $1 each. They do single piece orders on the plastic ones, need to check if the metal ones still apply. Right now, I'm just trying to get a picture from them of what the orange looks like. I imagine it would be too shiny, and prone to scratches, but we'll see.
 
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Alibaba came through. I now have 200 of these ladder locks. Near identical match. The actual color is a bit darker than this looks on my monitor, and is maybe just a bit darker than the vest itself.

Just have to spend some time getting the other ones off and re-sewing the straps.

2016-09-22 01.38.12.jpg
 

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