Make your own Stormtrooper Armor?

So you want to learn how to make your own Star Wars Imperial Stormtrooper? Good for you! This project has an unknown cost factor in both materials and time. Its a hobby! Cost is not a factor. You will need some skills, and practice. Don't expect your trooper gear to be cheap! At least the first one won't be. If you decide to make several version, remember, that vac-forming is easy, the hard part is making the first one! The second armor set will be cheap. Thats economy of scale working for you. There are several ways to make the molds, I like wood working, so thats how I did it. You could easily make your molds form clay, and then make palster molds/copies of them. The "wood" material I use is MDF. That stands for mult-density fiberboard and can be found in the plywood section of any hardware store. Get the thickest you can find.

The following skills are needed for this part of the project:

• wood working skills, not limited to cutting sand and shaping.
• Art skills to include drawing and sculpture and pattern making
• Engineering skills to include machine construction and reverse engineering existing vacuum form machines
• Patience and lots of time.
• A good workshop with the following equipment: Bandsaw, hand planer, files rasps, and sanders. A modest work area large enough for a vac-machine thats approx. 30" x 60".

Still interested?Then you will need the following materials to make your molds:

• 4'x8' MDF 1 inch thick. Don't get the laminated kind. I'd say you need at least 3 sheet for the molds, and one sheet for the vacuform machine.
• Carpenders wood glue. [get the large 1 QT size jug, not the gallon!]
• Bondo brand auto-body polyester resin. Get this in the gallon size.
• Bondo Spot and glazing putty
• Dupli-color Spot filler primer [lots of cans!]
• Dust masks, and eye protection.
• Tack cloth

Download the templates, and print them out to scale.

Video [pending]

Transfer the templates to the MDF board

Video [pending]

Bandsaw the MDF tracings

Video [pending]

Glue the MDF sandwitch together

Video [pending]

Shape the MDF sandwitch

The following is a series of videos demonstrating the MDF mold shaping technique using power hand tools. Please note, you will need Quicktime installed in order to view the movies. Visit www.apple.com/quicktime to download the free player.

MDF Molds [10.4MB mov] Intended for broadband connections only, this is about.

Broken down for faster downloads:

MDF1- Introduction [3.1MB mov]

MDF2- Using the power planer [2.7MB mov]

MDF3- Using the bench sander [1.9MB mov]

MDF4- Using the belt sander [2.6MB mov]

MDF 5- Making the Trim parts [pending]

MDF6 - Final sanding and painting [pending]