Hello everybody! I jumped at the chance to be a part of this build group because these guys and gals just look so cool and if we can field a whole unit of them to protect Kylo, instead of trying to kill him, that would be pretty epic. I chose the Samurai because I liked the double bladed weapon he has. I'm not crazy about his helmet, but it still looks pretty cool.
The first thing is that I ordered were the gloves and boots from Imperial Boots before they closed down again. These are probably the most comfortable shoes I own now. Certainly the most comfortable for trooping. The gloves are a L and are a bit tight, but I'm sure they will stretch a little with use.
20180430_141347 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
Our crack team of 3D printers and modelers have been hard at work in trying to get parts that will work and I volunteered to see if I could clean up and assemble the helmet for the samurai. Here are the raw prints for about 60% of the helmet. The flat top piece is still being created, so I'll have it in a few weeks.
20180505_124722 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
20180505_124725 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
20180505_124735 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
20180505_124739 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
20180505_124747 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
20180505_124750 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
The clean up involves removal of all these support pieces:
20180505_125720 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
And the clean up on the mask is a bit tougher:
20180505_130149 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
I used the back end of an exacto knife (ie not the sharp part but the back of that) to gently coax all the extra parts out and then used a very small file on the parts that were extra stubborn.
20180506_122456 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
The one "issue," and I'm not even sure you could call it an issue but more of an area that you need to be careful with is that some of the faceplate print came out a bit stringy and isn't quite all attached.
20180508_134343 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
Here's a demonstration. At rest:
20180508_134422 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
And moved with very slight pressure:
20180508_134431 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
I talked with Mike K and Luke who both have a lot more experience with 3D prints than I do and it was suggested I pick up Z Poxy as this is will sort of coat everything with resin and hold pieces together. I bought this stuff (the adhesive next to it will be used later).
20180508_125119 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
The nice thing about that Z Poxy is that it is truly odorless so I didn't feel like I was killing brain cells in using it (that's what whiskey is for!). The other nice thing is that it totally worked. I gave all the parts a coat and then let them sit overnight (drying time on the bottle is 2 hours, but they still felt sticky). I then gave them a second coat and let them sit overnight again.
20180508_144804 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
Then, today, I got to the dirty and powdery business of sanding them. Started with the 150 and worked my way up to the 400.
20180511_105201 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
2 passes with the 150:
20180511_113930 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
After this, I gave them a third pass:
20180511_135713 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
Then I used the other grits:
20180511_154023 by
Michael Halstead, on Flickr
Ended up at a pretty good point for now. My plan is to get these three parts glued together so that I can bondo the seams and get started on more sanding as I'm certain that I will need quite a bit more sanding once the seams are put together. Then, I need to do all the same with the flat top head piece.
Any input or suggestions are certainly welcome!