Monday, January 14, 2013

Infinity Gauntlet - Assembly & Completion




Alright, so after you have the LEDs wired up and ready to go you're ready for the next steps.  I don't have many pictures of this because I did it all in less than 24 hours to make sure I had it ready and wrapped in time for Christmas, but I'll try to walk you guys through the steps the best I can.

Now that you have your rivetspaper prototype, and LEDs ready to go the next step is to actually assemble the gauntlet using your metal....right?  Nope!  I did it with poster board and ArtEmboss Aluminum!  I don't have any pictures of a few of my products/materials I used for this process so I'm going to link them up here below.



*Note*: For the Acrylic Gems I ended up buying 2 bags in store.  As the description in the link says, the bag includes assorted colors so you don't know what you'll end up with.  Purple was very hard to find so I sat there in the store trying to flip the gems around in the bag until I could get a clear view of what color they were.  I ended up buying 2 bags because 1 had purple and 1 had red.  

Also, since there is no yellow gem in that pack, I used a yellow fabric for the back of the white gem and a yellow highlighter....It'll be our little secret, okay?  I think yellow nail polish could have worked too.  The backside of the gems are silver metallic which I sanded off with sand paper.  I probably didn't need to do that since the LEDs are so bright they could have shown right through it, but I like how it turned out.


You can start by tracing out the template onto the poster board and cutting it out.  (Note: I did make a armguard piece and modified the brace trim and Thumb Piece 2 so they were not a part of the original template.  I have pictures of those pieces later on in the blog post.)  Make sure to include all of the same guide dots and directional arrows from the template onto your poster board.  Once you have everything cut out, you can start working on "gold" plating them.  

The ArtEmboss Aluminum comes in a roll so just roll it out and lay out your poster board pieces upside down on the backside (silver side) of the aluminum and trace out the shape leaving about a centimeter of extra space.  You want to do it this way so that the gold will be facing right side up.  I found this easier to do piece by piece so I could keep track of which shape goes where.  

Cut out your gold and wrap it around the poster board piece.  Start by wrapping any flat edges.  (See knuckle plate 2 images down for a better idea on how to wrap the gold around the poster board pieces.)  NOTE: You don't have to cover all pieces completely with the aluminum because they're going to be face-down on the glove anyways.  I list a few items below that do have to be covered completely though.  Use the single hand 1/8" hole punch to punch the holes through both the gold aluminum and poster board at the same time.  I picked the 1/8" hole punch because it seemed to have fit the rivets in perfectly.  

Follow the template instructions to continue assembling your fingers.  Since you already made your paper prototype you should have marked the spots for the rivet that goes into the gloves.  Use the leather hole punch (about 1/8") to cut the hole in the glove.  For the hole at the base of the knuckle you can actually fit the glove between the clamp by putting it in the glove.  For other parts, like on the finger, you have to clamp it from the outside.  Place the clamp on the edge of the glove finger piece and only do a half circle so that you end with a full circle.  (I'll see if I can retake pictures for this since it is a bit confusing.)

Make sure for any pieces that will be exposed (and not face down onto the glove) to be covered completely.  You can see how tacky it looks on the finger tips.  

There may be more than the ones listed below, but I feel that the parts that should be covered completely are:
  • Thumb tip
  • Finger tips x 4
  • Arm vambrace 
  • Brace trim (since the piece is really small)
  • Thumb 3 & Thumb 4

After you finish up your fingers, you will start on the knuckle piece.  For the gem circles, I traced the acrylic gem first, and then I made a smaller circle as my cutting guidelines because I wanted the knuckle brace to sit on top of the gems and not let the gems fall through the holes.  I used the Xacto blade to make little cuts in the circles then snipped it a couple more times with the scissors to make sure it wraps flat.  Where there is a curve, make a small snip down the gold at the curves mid way point (or where it seems to curve the most.)  



Take the LEDs and hot glue & tape it into place on the glove how you would like it situated.  I thought I wanted the battery pack to be on the top (Pictured above on the left) so I can hide it under the hand and wrist pieces, but I was wrong.  I ended up moving it under the wrist instead (Pictured above on the right).  The battery pack is help on by painters tape.

After you have the LEDs situated you want to connect your gems to your knuckle plate.  I ended up placing the knuckle plate down on a piece of paper and traced the open circles on that paper.  I glued the gems onto the paper and then cut out the strip of paper and glued that to the knuckle plate.  Once the knuckle plate is ready you can rivet it to your glove and other pieces.

Continue building the gauntlet and wrapping the aluminum pieces according to the gauntlet instructions.

Here's a piece I made to cover up the battery pack on the bottom.  I also included a hole for the on off switch for the battery pack.

Make sure it's lined up properly.  Rivet the piece to the right to the bottom hand piece rivet.

I found these in my Mom's old sewing box.  ^_^  You'll need this piece to allow for the battery cover to snap on and off in case you need to change the batteries for the LEDs.

Take a snap fastener with the prongs and push them against the gloves.  They won't actually go through so just mark them with a pen. After that use the leather puncher to punch the holes.  The hole size is smaller than the current size you were using for rivets.  Press the snap together for the bottom snap.

Bottom snap should look like this (it's the silver piece on the left side of the battery pack).  This is the male snap piece.

Female snap piece goes on top.

Here I made the vambrace trim have raised squares so it looks similar to the trim on the Infinity Gauntlet.  You can to rivet the center of each square with the exception of the first and last square - you'd want to rivet those closest to the edge of the trim to better hold it in place.


I believe in David Guyton's video tutorial it calls for a hinge piece?  Since I had a snap piece instead I just used an elastic cord to keep the vambrace on the arm and not flopping around.  I would suggest buying brown if possible and passing it off as leather ;).  

Loop the elastic around the rivet in-between the vambrace and the trim.  Knot it up and cut up any excess cord.

It should come out looking clean and should look as if the elastic was clamped in with the rivet.

The next couple of images are highlights of changes and adjustments I made or needs to be made.

Here's the reason why I suggest you cover up the whole Thumb Piece 3 and Thumb Piece 4 with the gold aluminum.  You can see the white side is still visible and should be covered up.  

My Thumb 2 design is a lot bigger here to accommodate the gem.  I also had placed Thumb 3 a little too low so I was accommodating for the gap.

And here are the final product photos & video!







3 comments:

  1. could you send templates?

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  2. Hi, you can purchase your own template from the owner & creator here: http://www.davidjguyton.com/gauntlettemplate.htm

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