Vacuum Formed Stormtrooper Costume

For Halloween/FreakFest 2019 I made a full set of First Order Stormtrooper armor from Star Wars. Most of the armor pieces were vacuum formed using the Formech Newform 16:16 Thermoformer that I won from the UW Makeathon competition last year. This has by far been the most ambitious and time consuming costume project I have ever taken on. The entire project was started and completed within the month of October just in time for FreakFest and took up a majority of my free time for roughly three weeks.

 

 

 

 

---

This project would not have been possible if I had not joined The Bodgery, a local makerspace on the East side of Madison. As the first project I’ve made since becoming a member, having 24/7 access to a full woodshop and a place to store and operate my 165 lb “desktop” vacuum former has been very nice to say the least.

My process for creating the molds or “bucks” for vacuum forming took a lot of trial and error. Due to time constraints, most of the pieces were 3D printed from files found on Thingiverse, filled with expanding insulation foam and wrapped with aluminum foil/tape. The pieces which were too large or not worth 3D printing were sculpted out of pink EPS insulation foam and covered with aluminum foil. Certain pieces were covered with a slab of clay which was then further sculpted to add details.

Most of my issues came from the heat of the .08” ABS plastic sheet melting the foam and 3D printed PLA plastic parts and being crushed by the vacuum. My success and failures with materials for vacuum forming bucks is as follows:

• “Leather hard” stoneware clay (Good surface finish, withstands heat very well, good for smaller pieces)
• Stoneware clay over sculpted EPS foam (Works just as well but saves clay, good for larger pieces)
• Aluminum tape over EPS foam (Ok, but seams are visible and you must be fast to cool and remove or else it will wrinkle)
• Aluminum tape/foil over 3D Printed PLA filled with expanding foam (Chunky surface. Not great but doable in a pinch. Only really good for 1 or 2 pulls as it tends to deform. The 3D printed shell should be thin or have a high infill)
• 3D Printed PLA filled with foam, no aluminum (Pretty bad. Surface starts to melt and the infill shows through)
• Just EPS foam (Melts and sticks to plastic)
• Unsupported 3D printed PLA (Melts and collapses, don’t do this)

Trimming and strapping was done referencing various build guides and the Costume Reference Library of the 501st legion, an organization dedicated to building and wearing replica costumes from Star Wars. While my costume is far from being screen accurate, joining the 501st is a possible future goal if I decide put in the effort to further complete the armor in the future. For now I am very happy with how it turned out and look forward to using my newly developed vacuum forming and costume building skills in the future.

May the Force be with you!