Mandalorian Armor Project 9: Flak Vest

Prior to making my girth belt, I have never made any type of wearable clothing. Therefore, I had to do a lot of research on creating clothing, sewing tutorials, and vest patterns. Luckily, I found a thread on the Mandalorian Mercs costuming forum from a fellow named Pointoforigin. He created a phenomenal tutorial on how to create a custom flak vest.

Two hours after I started, I finished my pattern. Taking my own measurements was an interesting experience, especially because I didn't have string, or a sewing tape measure. The only thing I had was a length of aircraft cable. Actually, I found a ton of other uses for that cable, like tracing all of my curved lines.

 

These two pieces created one half of my vest pattern. Each piece would be cut out twice, to completely cover my torso.

By a happy mistake, I grossly over ordered material for my girth belt. I was able to pull my entire vest out of the spare duck cloth I had left over.  

This shows both templates, as they were cut out of the fabric. This time around, I remembered to include a half inch of allowance along each edge. This half inch would let me fold over each corner, ensuring that I would have a clean edge around the exterior of the vest.

This vest pattern was designed to be a unisex design, so the original pattern was a darted design. These cutouts are to allows for the maker to adjust the chest size of the vest without  affecting the size of the waist.

The first step of attaching these darts was to fold over the rough edge. 

As I was about to start sewing these pieces together, my grandmother looked over my shoulder and suggested that I use a blanket stitch to close it. The blanket stitch, supported by another row just below, held the seam very nicely.

As soon as I tried the vest on, I realized I made a mistake. The back section of the vest was too small! My grandmother, once again, came to the rescue. Instead of starting over again, she suggested cutting the back piece in half, and adding a panel to it. This extension fit perfectly, and gave me just enough clearance to attach a zipper to the vest.

So this is called a fashion zipper. I've never encountered one before in my life, and naturally, was very confused to find out that it didn't separate when it was unzipped. While this wasn't a huge problem, it makes getting into and out of the vest very awkward.

Mating the sides of the vest went smoothly, but the collar required a bit of modification. For some reason, the back of the vest sat 2" above my neck. I fixed this by folding the tallest portions under the collar and sewing it into place. I would eventually dart underneath each shoulder strap, so that the vest would sit flat upon my shoulders.

After creating the main body of the vest I had a few small tasks left. The first was to attach a pair of shoulders for the shoulder plates to attach to. The last order of business was to attach grommets to the front of the vest. 

The first step in placing the grommets was tracing out the placement of the plates. I threw on the vest and had my friend Jared trace around the edges of each plate. We started with the collar plate and worked our way downwards from there. 

Before I went any farther, I backtracked and quickly made a pair of shoulders flaps for the shoulders to mount onto. This involved tracing the pattern of the shoulder guard, and then attaching it to the vest.
There are two ways of attaching shoulders guards a Mandalorian's flak vest. The first style, Boba style, uses sleeves like you would see on a t-shirt. I chose to use the second type, Jango style, which uses the single flap.

Setting the grommets was remarkably simple. To put grommets into the vest, all you need is an awl, grommets, and grommet pliers.

First, place the awl through the duck cloth. I went approximately 2" through the material.

Then place the grommet through the hole. 

Lastly, flatten the grommet with the grommet pliers. You do need a specific set of pliers to properly flatten the grommet.

Repeat the process 34 times (yes I counted), and you have a functional flak vest. 

In Hindsight:
1) Put Fray-Stop around the grommets. Before putting the grommets through the duck cloth, put Fray-block along the edges of the hole. This will keep the holes from expanding, and will keep the grommets anchored in the cloth.
2) Don't use a fashion zipper. Common sense to most people...

Full album: Imgur

Next Step: Armor Plates

Mandalorian Armor Project 8: Girth Belt

I didn't originally plan on making a girth belt. When I first designed the costume, I planned on including an ammunition belt around my waist. The waist belt looked perfect but was just a tad too big. Because both Jango and Boba Fett wore girth belts, I decided to craft my own.

I started off with a roll of white nylon rope and began cutting it down to size. I cut my first two lengths of rope at 34", but then cut the rest at 38", figuring that I would probably need the extra length. I used 1" gaffers tape and put a ring around the end of each length. Afterwards I used the heat gun to melt the strands on each end.

Dying this rope required a bit of trial and error, but ultimately the result was very satisfying. I cut apart one my shorter lengths and used the pieces for testing. I used RIT's "Dark Brown" dye. In order to dye nylon, they suggest mixing the powered dye with very hot water and mixing in a cup of vinegar. It is an excellent idea to lay down a drop cloth, or place the dyeing bowl inside a sink. Dyeing fabric is MESSY process and the dye will get everywhere.

After dying the first few lengths, I found my rhythm. I would completely submerge two lengths for nine minutes. Afterwards I'd pull them out and then rinse them with warm water. As the water started cooling, the dye became less effective and I had to leave each piece in for longer and longer. Ultimately, I ended up mixing a second batch of dye, and redying the final few pieces.

This was my final pattern for the girth belt. I planned to have extra material to overlap the belt's buckles. Did you know that nylon rope shrinks as it dries? Because I sure didn't! 

Each rope shrank about four inches, which barely left me enough material to go around my waist. Some other costumers spray paint their ropes to keep the nylon from shrinking afterwards. If I were to remake this girth belt, I'd probably spray paint the nylon and avoid the headache of the dying process.

A quick trip to Joann's Fabric brought me 1 yard of duckcloth. I traced my pattern onto the material and began cutting out my belt. A word to the wise: Don't use Sharpie markers to trace your pattern. It bleeds through to the opposite side of the cloth, leaving you ugly traced lines on one side, and obvious trace marks on the front.

Once I cut out my duckcloth, I started sewing the nylon ropes onto the belt. If it isn't blindingly obvious, I had never sewn anything in my life before this. After I had sewn my first rope (the one on the right), I learned the best way to stitch the ropes onto the duck cloth.

Immediately after I attached the remaining ropes onto the belt, I realized I needed to consistently attach them at the end of the belt. Right after this picture was taken, I removed the six ropes on the far right and sewed them to the line. For the ends of the belt, where the duck cloth overlaps the nylon, I folded the last .25" of the duck cloth. This hid the frayed edges of the cloth, and gave me a consistent line for the overlap.

This is what the overlap on each end looked like. These overlaps covered the stitches on each side of the rope. In hindsight, I would probably make these larger in the future. Each overlap could extend another .5". I would also increase the side flaps' length to .75". These extensions would help close gaps, and give me a slightly larger margin of error.

I didn't have access to a sewing machine for this project, so everything here is hand sewn. Sewing everything up to this point took almost 36 hours. Needless to say, my hand was quite unhappy the next few days.

After I sewed the batting in place, I started to seal up the exterior edges. Because I'm sewing an outside edge, I was able to loop the thread around the exterior edges. In hindsight, I should've used a blanket stitch to properly seal this edge. A blanket stitch would hold this edge much better than the whip stitch I used here.

This was my ammo belt placed over top of the girth belt, just to see the color comparison. Overall, I'm very happy with how it looks.

  

Before I start stitching the exterior of the belt, I needed to attach my batting. Batting is used as an extra layer between the front and back of the belt. When making blankets it's used as an insulating layer, but in this case I'm using it to pad the belt. Because nobody is going to see it, I'm using some sports mesh I had left over from an old project. Because the batting would fit inside the belt, I needed to cut it slightly smaller than the belt. I cut the batting a half inch shorter along the top, and a half inch on either side.

Because I don't want the batting to slowly sink to the bottom of the belt, I needed to attach it to the exterior of the belt. Using a pen and my tape measure, I traced a zig-zag pattern along the back of the belt. After tracing out my pattern in pen, I realized that marking my lines in chalk would've been a better idea. So in hindsight, use chalk to trace your lines, not pen.

This section took a long time to sew by hand, but overall, I was very happy with the result. The diamond pattern securely held the batting to the duck cloth, which meant that I wouldn't have to worry about it shifting while I wore it. This is what the batting looked like on the opposite side:

Once I finished sewing up the ends of the belt, the last bit to sew was to the large seam that ran along the top of the belt. I inadvertently left myself very little clearance between the two flaps along the back. If I were to redo this piece, I would definitely leave myself an extra half inch of material to sew into.

My next step was to attach the straps that would hold the belt together. I picked up some 1.75" nylon strapping from the local Army Navy store, and some 2" parachute buckles from Joann's Fabric. The nylon strapping is heavy-duty material and was very difficult to cut. I had to resort to use my aviation snips to cut through it.

I needed to complete hide the parachute buckle, so I inset it behind the outside edge by .5 an inch.

I cut a 10" inch length for the female parachute clip, and a larger 12" length for the male side.

These straps would have all the strain of holding the belt together. To keep this from falling apart, I doubled the stitching between the strapping and the belt. I sewed both ends of the strapping together, and then double stitched the entire piece to the belt.

The belt's other side was done slightly differently. Because I wanted this belt to be adjustable, I only attached the lower strap to the belt. Threading the stitches for these straps through the front's ropes was incredibly tricky.

When the belt was buckled, I ended up with with a 1" gap between the two ends. To hide the strapping beneath, I covered the gap with another strip of duck cloth. The end was attached with strip of sew-on Velcro. In hindsight, I probably wouldn't use nylon strapping to attach the belt. Next time, I'd install grommets along either end of the belt. This way I could lace the belt together. How does the saying go? Hindsight is 20/20...

Full album: Imgur

Next Step: Blogger

Mandalorian Armor Project 7: Gauntlets

The first step was to measure and cut the PVC tubes for the gauntlets. I cut two 10" lengths of 3" solid core PVC piping for the bases of these gauntlets. 

I wanted to customize my gauntlets a bit, so I decided I wanted spear shaped gauntlets towards the elbow. To make sure I was cutting my lines straight, I placed two masking tape lines and traced along its inside edge.

Not too shabby. After cutting the gauntlets into the right shape, I needed to sand the edges I just cut. PVC takes a long time to properly sand down, especially if the cuts were messy.

In order to make room for my arm to fit in the gauntlets, I turned to my heat gun. The heat gun is essentially a hair dryer on steroids, with heat settings at 750 and 1000 degrees. After gradually baking these pieces at a low temperature setting, the PVC was incredibly easy to bend.

Fun fact, when PVC is heated up at high temperatures, it smells really sweet. Apparently, that means it's releasing a toxic gas. So if you try this project yourself, wear a respirator. Seriously.

These top pieces are from SoaringHammer's Star Wars Galaxy gauntlets. They have a great set of pepakura files and tutorials there. 

To test fit the gauntlet's sizing, I used gaffers tape to attach the gauntlets together. Unfortunately for me, I made the tops of the gauntlets a bit too small. They don't overlap enough to properly cement them together, which means I'll have to redo them.

Luckily for me, I have lots of extra material. I traced out the size of the first piece and added an additional two inches to its overall width. Two inches should've allowed for plenty of overlap. 

When dry-testing the fit of the cardboard cutouts, they seemed like a perfect fit. Therefore, it was time to go back to the sawing-board!

Same drill as last time! The pipe is mounted into the vice and securely clamped in. The cardboard templates were then traced onto the pipe. Because the majority of the necessary cuts were straight cuts. I was able to use my PVC pipe saw for this entire process.

Once I cut the pieces out I tested them for the general fit. In my haste, I accidentally put the new piece backwards on top of the gauntlet. And I really liked how it looked. In fact, I liked it so much that I changed the gauntlet's design for this configuration. 

The step of making gauntlets was the two part process of priming and applying the PVC cement. Oddly enough, this was one of the most unpleasant tasks I experienced during this project. The first challenge was opening the cans. 

Seriously.

These caps were practically welded onto the cans. I tried opening them by hand, with a strap wrench, and even fashioned a rubber lid-opener-pad to open these things. I eventually resorted to running them under hot water and banging the lids against the sink, until I managed to open them. So that was an adventure...

The process of priming and cementing the pieces wasn't much fun either. This is, hands down, the most awful smelling material I have ever worked with. The odors are noxious and sting your eyes, even with the fume hood and a pair of safety goggles. The purple primer liquid stains anything it touches, runs all over the place, and has a fairly short working time. As soon as I painted on the primer, I had to apply the cement.    

Thankfully, I had access to several bar clamps. These let me securely clamp the gauntlets in place, without having to worry about holding them in place myself. 

As much as I despised working with the stuff, PVC cement really works. I tested it on a pair of scrap PVC material, and was able to drop, kick, and throw it without it coming apart. Consider me impressed...

After the cement cured overnight, I started sanding the gauntlets with the palm sander. Sanding ensured that the following layers of primer and paint would adhere to the surface of the PVC. I began with a middle-grade 120 grit paper and thoroughly scoured the entire surface. Another pass with some 220 grit paper eliminated any serious scratches and gave the PVC a pleasant, flat finish. A final, cursory pass with 440 grit paper cleaned off any remaining burrs.

This is how each gauntlet looked after priming and a quick sanding with 440 grit paper. Once the primer was dried, I immediately noticed bits of debris from the sanding. The ultra-fine 440 grit paper did a wonderful job at cleaning up the entire surface. The next step will be painting them!

Part 8: Blogger

Part 7 (Full Album): Imgur