I have laser cut the 1\4 inch from Michaels for rc plane wheels. It cuts very well with c CO2 laser.
This is making me really curious about laser cutting foam…
It cuts fast and clean and is a real joy to cut compared to the hand cutting I’d done before I got my laser. Just after I purchased my diode laser, I did a bunch of layered signs using different colors of EVA foam. My shop is well ventilated, and I wore a respirator.
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I haven’t had a chance to do much this last week, life gets in the way sometimes. I posted a set of pauldrons previously - I had a chance to finish assembly on those and start some seam filling. I also cut out another set yesterday. I’m making these for a small theater production which has a knight and a knight-in-training as characters. So when it’s all finished, I’ll have made two of everything, but with some minor differences.
Cutting out the second set of pauldrons, along with a set of bracers. Unfortunately, I sized things wrong with the bracers and they had to be scrapped. Always disappointing to have to throw material away 
I’ll size them up and get another set cut in the next few days.
Both sets of pauldrons assembled and seams filled. Rather than use the EVA foam clay, I’m using DAP Kwik Seal on these. The clay works great with the rigid foam that I used for the chest piece. I cut these pieces from floor mats and they’re a lot softer. The clay cures kind of hard, so it wasn’t ideal for the softer foam. Kwik Seal is the goto for a lot of cosplay makers - it retains it’s flexibility after it cures, and it really easy to smooth out once it’s applied.
Hoping to start on the second chest piece in the next few days. I have the gcode files ready to go, just need to find some time to run the job. I still need (resized) bracers, another helmet, two sets of greaves (haven’t even started the design on those), and (the part I’m looking forward to the most) a couple of swords. I’ve got till July though, so I think I’m in good shape.
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Got the second chest piece cut out, glued up, and shaped!
Seams have been sanded, I’ll get started filling and smoothing later today. For the first piece, I used contact cement to glue it up and it worked really well. But, there were 2 problems - first, the fumes were pretty intense and my basement workspace isn’t ventilated (that’s on my list of summer projects). Second, the contact cement doesn’t bond instantly and takes around an hour to fully cure. Once it’s cured, it’s rock solid. But, the curved pieces of the armor had a lot of tension in them and wanted to pull apart. I had ended up using hot glue in a few spots just to keep it all together while the cement cured.
For this piece (and a few of the other pieces) I’m using CA superglue. Works great, bonds very quickly, sands down easily, but I HATE how it feels on my fingers! Oh well, we’re supposed to suffer for our art or something like that.
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Sorry, haven’t posted in a while, got busy with other stuff. After some reflection, I wasn’t happy with the helmet that I had made. I had sized it up about 10% from the paper template, and it ended up being too big. As much as I hate wasting foam, I decided I’d chalk it up to a learning experience and try again. Got two more helmets and visors cut out and assembled.
I think I’m going to have to retire my trust Dremel brand cutout bit though. My cuts are starting to show some signs of ripping out rather that cutting. Honestly, I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did.
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Started painting a few days ago. Did a couple coats of good old Rustoleum Filler Primer, did some wet sanding, and put on a little more primer. Totally forgot to take pictures of that process.
Today, I taped off the chest and back pieces and painted gold around the edges.
My seams are still showing a bit, I’m not exactly happy about that. But, I have a pretty large emblem that I’ll be cutting out and that will cover the seam across the bust-line. As for the vertical seams on each side, once I have all the painting done, I’m going to run a tape line up those seams and airbrush a faux “seam-line” and put some dots that will look like rivet heads. I figure the best way to hide the seam is to make it look like a seam.
I also painted the other piece of armor (the one that’s a single piece). That one doesn’t have any gold trimming, so I was able to paint the whole thing. No pictures yet, it’s in the garage drying. I’ll try to post something tomorrow.
My new helmets will be ready for primer tomorrow.
I 3D printed some hinges for them - they have magnets embedded to hold the visor in place for both the up and down positions.
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Got a second coat of paint on the smaller armor piece.
I painted it with Behr Hammer Effect Pewter spray paint, and I’m not completely happy with the result. It turned out decent, but I was expected a slightly more matte finish. I was also hoping the hammered effect would be more pronounced. I’ve used Rustoleum’s hammered paint in the past and I was really pleased with how it looked. My local Home Depot has been out of the hammered gray though, so I took a chance on the Behr brand. It’s good enough though, and once it’s had a few days to fully cure, I’ll go over it with a matte clear coat.
Also not happy about the seams on this one. No one’s going to be looking at it up close, so I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. However, for future projects I definitely need to step up my seam game. I spent way to much time on them, especially for how they turned out.
I also got a coat of primer on my helmets.
Tomorrow, I’ll do a little sanding on them and give them another light coat. As long as the weather holds, I’ll get a top coat on them this weekend and be able to call them done.
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Can’t wait to see the final set, they look amazing so far and just keep getting better.
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This looks great!
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Got some painting done. Still not happy with the hammer effect paint, but I really don’t think anyone other than me is going to care, so I’m gonna let it go.
Got the main armor pieces painted. I ended up going over the gold trim. I tried taping it off, but the tape was taking the paint right off. Metallics are notorious for poor adhesion. Ive got some acrylic gold that looks decent, I’ll redo the trim by hand in a couple days.
Pauldrons painted. I’m reasonably pleased with how they turned out.
Helmets and visors painted. I really should have spent more time working on the seams, but it is what it is. I’ll do some edge effects and no one other than me will notice.
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Haven’t made a lot of progress - the flu hit our house and knocked everyone down for a couple days. Then it caused me to get the worst sinus infection I’ve ever had (buckets of snot, just… buckets). Then it turned into bronchitis. I’m on the upswing now though, should start getting some new pieces cut out soon.
Did get a few things done though -
Got the chest emblem all cut out, painted, and mounted. I ended up hand cutting these pieces though. My smallest endmill is 1/8in and the inside corners on the dragon were gonna be a pain to clean up. After a little consideration, I decided that hand cutting the whole thing would probably be faster than going through the whole process of setting up the job and running it.
Got the helmets assembled and attempted to do a bit of weathering on them. I 3D sprinted hinges for the helmets with magnets embedded to they hold in place in the up and down positions. I still need to glue a little bit of padding inside of them.
Did some weathering on the other chest piece. My airbrushing skills need some work, but this is plenty good enough for stage use. Someday, I’ll sit down and practice with my airbrush, and buy one that’s a little better quality than the $25 Amazon cheapo. Someday. But not today.
I’ve got a set of straps that I cut out for the second chest piece, and I 3D printed buckles for them. The straps will criss-cross across the back, and I printed some grommets to attach them at the shoulders and the waist.
I’m planning on getting sword blades cut our soon (maybe even today if I’m feeling ambitious). I finalized a design for the blades and got a 120 vbit so I can get a nice consistent angle on them. I had toyed around with 3D carving the blades using the bits I had, but it was going to take hours for each blade. $10 later, it’s going to take 15 minutes per blade instead.
Thanks to everyone who’s been following along. I really appreciate all the feedback I’ve been getting!
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Wow! Great work. I’ve dabbled in foam also: Wasp. I did my cutting with the MPCNC and a dremel and/or laser. I used Inkscape for my patterns and Gcode. I’ll be following this post closely.
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Looks great! I would love to see more pictures!
Finished up some designs and started cutting out sword blades!
I’m using a 120 degree v-bit to cut the bevels. I mentioned before that I had looked into 3d carving the blades, but it was going to take hours for each one. The v-bit works great, and each blade is cut out in about 20 minutes (which includes a tool change to a straight bit to do the final cutout.
3/8’s dowel up the center, everything glued together. I have to hit them with the belt sander to knock down some of the fuzz, but no big deal really.
I have 2 cut out so far, one more to go. Next part is cutting out the hilts - I have the design and setup all ready to go, just need to fit it into my schedule.
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I’ve got two sword blades fully cut out, sanded, primed, and ready for paint. Sorry, don’t have a picture of those, I’ll post a few with my next update.
Redid the design for the bracers a couple times, finally settled on something I was happy with. Nothing fancy, but certainly good enough for what we’re doing.
Played around with my feeds and speeds prior to cutting this out and I’m really happy with the results I got. After doing some reading and watching some videos, I realized I was running my router way too fast. I suspected I was, cause I was cutting a LOT of dust and very little in the way of “chips”. Looked in the manual for the router and realized the setting I was using was around 25,000 rpm. According to the (surprisingly few) people who are cutting EVA with CNC machines, around 10,000 is where I should be.
I also cranked up my feed rate. I had been running around 18mm/s. On a whim, I just went ahead and doubled that. Immediate difference! All of the sudden I was getting “chips” and hardly any dust at all, and the edges were SO MUCH cleaner. On top of that, the machine didn’t show any signs of strain at all, so sometime in the next day or so, I’m going to experiment with increasing DOC. I’d love to be able to cut the 5mm foam in a single pass!
Bracers painted and laced with elastic. Once I get a chance to fit them on the actors, I’ll trim the ends of the elastic and tie them off.
Like I said, nothing fancy. Went with a simple straightforward design. Fits me snugly, so they should fit the actors comfortably.
Got elastic attached to the pauldrens. I have elastic bands to hold them on the arms, and an elastic cord with a small loop on the end that slips around a 3D printed grommet on the armor to keep them from sliding down. The grommets are mainly to attach the back straps, but it was a nice convenient attachment point for the pauldrens as well.
I wasn’t sure how well the foam would work as a belt, but they turned out pretty well. The buckle is 3D printed, and I plan to do some work on the design and reprint them. The design is functional and works well, but with a little effort, I think I can make them look nicer as well.
I finally settled on a design for the greaves. I poked around on Etsy for a while, but didn’t find anything I liked. So I bit the bullet and designed my own. I used a technique that I learned from Kamuii - I wrapped my leg in plastic wrap, then covered that with strips of duct tape. Did some drawing with a sharpie, then cut it all off my leg. I laid the cut pieces flat and took measurements to draw it out in Illustrator. From there, I printed the designs out on paper, traced them onto some poster board so I could tape them up and make adjustments. After a couple iterations, I had something I was happy with. Hopefully get those cut out and put together next week.
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Haven’t posted in a while, had a few other projects come up so I wasn’t able to work on the armor for a bit. Now that the dust has settled (literally and figuratively) I’ve been able to get back to it. Got greaves cut out and glued up. I’ll post pictures in a day or two.
I finished bulk of the painting on the swords and I was able to get them assembled. I still need to paint the grip, do some edge effects, and give them a couple coats of clear coat.
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Paint is drying on the last shield, and then I can officially declare this done! Well, I still have to do final fittings and adjustments, but close enough!
Here is our knight’s full armor:
Chestplate, pauldrens, bracers, greaves, helmet, belt, sword, and scabbard. I’ll post the knight’s shield once the paint is done.
Here is the knight-in-training’s armor:
And lastly, here is the king’s sword:
I had joked about making swords from pop culture and video games, but the producer loved the idea. We ended up agreeing on just using a generic design for the knights, but we felt the king should have something special, so I modeled this after the master sword from LoZ. Not an exact replica, enough that the nerds in the crowd will recognize but not enough that Nintendo will send a cease-and-desist (hopefully).
I’ll get some pictures of everyone suited up and post those sometime soon.
Really appreciate all the feedback all of you have given, it’s helped me stay excited about this project and keep my momentum!
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WOW!
Looks great!
Where did you get the design files for the helmets? I could use such for making one myself