I may or may not fangirl over the scale and number of deathwatch at one time. Great continuing work buddy.
It's possible this project got a little out of hand. When you see us, make sure you get some photos.
UPDATE: LOTS OF NEWS
First off, I've come up with the plan for the girth belts. I started by designing a flat version and carving it out on my
Carvewright CNC machine:
The flat recess in the middle will help to keep the ammo belt in place:
Once the whole thing was dusted off, I soaked it with three liberal coats of primer to fill up the porous wood surface:
Once the primer had dried, I gave the whole thing a couple of coats of gloss lightish red:
The next day, with the paint dry, I filled the whole thing with silicone:
The next day, when the rubber had cured, I peeled it out and it looked like so:
I filled it with an expanding flexible foam, covered it with a strip of black fabric, and clamped it between a couple of boards. Two hours later it looked like so:
Here's Matt peeling it out of the mold:
The color wasn't quite right on the first one, but it looked like it would serve its purpose otherwise:
For the second and subsequent castings, I tweaked the pigment blend a bit and came up with a color I like a lot more:
Leeloo approves:
In other news, the prototype for the base of the alternate center rocket is done:
Here's Colin getting ready to pour his first-ever silicone mold:
Trimming parts:
Yesterday Dani spent the whole day doing the itchiest job we've got and nothing else:
Daniella did a lot of it too:
Matt's been laying up more parts:
At this point, we've made all of the chest armor, codpieces, gauntlets, helmets, backplates, shoulders, and "version 1" jetpack nosecones.
Still a handful of jetpacks left to lay up:
All told, there are 117 parts left to be made. That doesn't include the sewing. We've got all of the neck seals assembled, most of the coveralls modified, and a huge pile of gloves and balaclavas.
Hopefully we'll have the first fully-assembled suit sometime in the coming week. Then seventeen more shortly after that.
And I've still got my other projects in progress:
Progress continues screaming along.