elkamino

I heard it is possible to vacuum form carbon fiber. I have not been able to find any information on this. Can any materials experts chime in? I'd love to know operating temps and what the best configuration , thickness, etc. of carbon fiber would work. I though it'd be kinda cool to make a carbon fiber trooper.

Please excuse me if this has already been discussed. When building my armor, my take on the attached photo was that not all the ab buttons were the same size. I used some standard snap buttons for the large center panel and then some concrete anchors (I used bolt cutters to snap the heads off) for the off center and kidney panel buttons. Any input?

Tough luck mate. If I may add two cents, you said you used air dry clay. Bad stuff for making molds. You'd be better making a sculpt in plasticine clay, then making a negative casting in Plaster of Paris (cheap way which works if you are very careful), then creating a mother mold from the negative using a mixture of Bondo and fiberglass resin painted on, a second layer of Bondo, then filling the entire cavity with Plaster of Paris. You can even skip the Bondo and resin parts to create an all Plaster of Paris mother mold, but it won't last more than a few pulls. Nice thing is, if you get some good woodcarving tools, you can "fine tune" your molds. Keep at it, you'll get the hang of it. Best way to learn is talking to others and making mistakes.