You may find that cutting the thickness of the foam off of a connecting edge will help reduce this. This is because these parts were made to fit together as thick as paper, not foam. You also may have noticed that because of the thickness of the foam parts don't exactly fit well. Withe them dry-fitted you should know about where the parts should connect, if not take a look at your 3d model. Use a knife to trim off the excess and fit the parts nicely. Now that the parts are cut, dry-fit them together to make sure that there re not overlaps or size differences between pieces that are supposed to connect to each other. Make relief cuts so that you don't get stuck in a maze of lines, otherwise you can always cut your way out. If you have used your scroll-saw before, just trace over the lines you drew on the foam with the blade. For A scroll saw: This one should be pretty self explanatory. You can always sand them down correctly with the dremel later. This will allow you to make angled connections with foam easier. With this, you can miter your cuts by angling your hand while cutting.

They have snap off blades and cost less than 10 bucks, Probably the most helpful tool exempt the dremel. For a Carpenters Knife: I highly recommend getting one of these. Remember to go slow but not so slow as to burn the foam. For Hot-knife users: Slowly trace the over the lines you drew on the foam with the knife to cut them out. This step may vary depending on what you are using to cut the foam. With the parts you need traced onto the foam, you are now ready for the cutting step. In this step, try to keep the parts you trace on the foam close together to save some foam space, you will go through the stuff quickly enough, trust me haha. For curves you can trace the paper directly, as a that's a little tough to do with a ruler. To trace he templates in the neatest and cleanest way, simply use a pen to put a dot on each vertex of the template (where the inner lines meet the edges.) You can then connect them with a ruler for neat, clean, straight lines. If you have a symmetrical thing to make, flip the piece over after you trace it so it yields the mirror side. I usually cut them out as I need them to stay organized.Īfter you have the pieces cut out, lay them out on your foam. Keep in mind however that cutting out all of the pieces may get confusing, especially if there are many similar ones. It also helps to take pictures of the 3d model from a few angles so that you have a reference as well as the templates. If you file was not foam-ready, you may need to do some editing to your templates as you go along with this process. You may cut off the little flaps/tabs as these will not be needed. Once you have the parts printed on paper, you will need to cut them out with an exacto or scissors. Excellent, these will be your templates to trace on the foam. When all is done, you will have something like a pile of pages filled with polygons. Ok, once you have the file, open it in the viewer and hit 'Print'. Once you have the model you want to be foam (Keep in mind that you can find these all over the net by searching say 'halo armor Pepakura' If you can't find what you're looking for, it most likely hasn't been made into a 3d model yet. The viewer program which allows you to also print can be found here: The Designer program, which lets you scale the parts to you can be found here: If you ever need help printing/scaling/anything with Pepakura, simple search the web (There are tons of tutorials for that) or simply ask me and Id love to help.

If you're not sure what Pepakura is, it is simply a program that takes a 3d model and makes it into a net so that the 2d parts can be printed, and assembled in real life. Now that you have got everything, Lets Begin!Īll over the internet are 3d models, some in Pepakura form that are craving to be made. Harbor Freight->Thinner foam that bends easily, has a hatched pattern on the reverse side Lowe's-> Thicker foam that doesn't bend as easily, very durable and has a hatched pattern on the reverse side Home Depot-> Thinner foam that bends easily, has a diamond pattern on the reverse side. And of course.the foam! I typically use EVA foam from three retailers which are all a little different in terms of composition. Hot glue & Glue gun (I prefer one with low/high temperature setting so that you can quickly join parts and avoid burns) A knife (carpenters or hot knife, or even a scroll-saw) Here is a list of needed materials for foam armor. For the purpose of ease, I will be showing pictures from both suits to help show how a suit of your own might be made. Due to a few requests, I have decided to make a fairly detailed tutorial for my foam armor. This is my suit create last year from foam, Its my second suit of armor and I am currently working on my third.

Enclave power armor eva foam