Adam Savage from tested here and you know how much I love spacesuits
I am standing next to the spacesuit the og this is what my brain thinks of when
I think of spacesuit this is of course Neil Armstrong's iconic suit he went to
the moon and back in nope this isn't the actual suit spoiler alert this is a
magnificent fiberglass and resin replica made from high-res scanned data from
Neil Armstrong's original suit it's part of a program called Apollo at the park
in which 15 of these are being constructed right now to be displayed in
ballparks around the country as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the
moon landing so that every American can come and see Neil Armstrong's suit and
as much glorious detail as they want the scan has been done to the exact specs of
the original suit as it will be displayed this summer at the Smithsonian
and we're going to learn a little bit about how something like this comes
together now I said that Neil Armstrong's suit was built from scans
those scans were turned into a digital drawing which then was output and this
is the output this is actually 3d printed I'm used to 3d printing but like
on scales like this not this Lisa how does something like this come into being
well this was a fun project and so whenever we start a new project with
certainly with a client like the Smithsonian we say to them first
question where do you want to be at the end of the day and then we work
backwards from there to come up with a solution that's typically a sweet swap
between technology and craftsmanship so we knew we needed to get the ultimate
out of the 3d scan in a 3d print so what we chose was a machine called a voxel
jet it's relatively new the spacesuit itself was built in 16 sections so it
was split pretty much right down the side and then the front-to-back
were Oh 16 different sections so eight on each side perhaps just to get the
right amount of volume for a print and then also anytime you're running up
print in general you want to kind of use up as much as the build envelope as
possible so you want to nest those parts in there and so that you're building
them all at the same time and hopefully not making you know not wasting material
and what's unique about the voxel jet although it isn't it's an acrylic powder
so some 3d printers produced resin mhm and some have a filament which is
basically a resin that's then heated and melted but in the case of the voxel jet
it's a powder that's fused by a laser and it's it's when you look at the
machine it's it's an entire bed of powder which looks and acts a lot like
plaster so it's supporting the whole thing as I silts right it provides a lot
of topological fidelity with overhangs and things like that so they're really
difficult for filament printers to take care of well yes it does and also it
gives it structural Integrity's so we have to somehow keep the part from
collapsing onto itself being built so the build layers themselves were a
hundred and fifty microns whereas a typical build for some of the high
resolution prints printers for small things might be 15 microns yeah so but
it's still very very very large I mean that's a very large print and then we a
full build is three thousand three hundred and thirty three layers it's
really three three three three three three three three that's me and also the
resolution the fidelity of the print itself is about 650 microns so at that
level we're able to pick up stitching we're able to pick up we were able to
pick up the actual lettering that you know that was there from the patch you
know here it's now it's been there's a release agent on here to facilitate them
fasting but we got everything in here I mean it's it's I mean I'm standing next
to it and it feels like I'm looking at a piece of cloth until I touch it minutes
it's absolutely written but it's incredible how much detail you like you
said yeah individual stitches are all really visible yeah I mean and the other
thing to note is that the data itself the finished scanned data was 5.3
gigabytes of him for me just for the search as for this suit and
it was it was made from a combination of scanning methods which which is a
brakeman structured light scanner those are aerospace quality machines they're
not laser and then it was some of the details of the ports and things were
done with a Ferro touch probe okay so there was multiple types of skin I'll
put all the data together amazing and so it was this is the monolithic first 3d
print fully assembled finish sanded primed and after this it was cast is
that right after this was cast and then when we assembled it there are actual
grooves and each piece that were engineered into the individual parts so
we could have complete 100% assurance when we were putting it together
oh so you built keys right into the files so that the 3d prints could be
assembled exactly and then because it was going on to casting we also wanted
to give it even some additional structural integrity so there was a
support structure kind of a honeycomb support structure that was also built on
the inside of it that was engineered prior to the build
even happening so we made sure that final assembly was stable yeah so when
the build was happening it was building the exterior the suit that was building
those grooves and it was also building that honeycomb support structure fast
yeah very very cool project
this is roto molding I know it looks crazy but it is in fact the most
efficient way to get a uniform coating of resin across the entire inside of the
mold I admit I have never seen a roto Mulder this large and these guys built
this beautiful machine here on site sometimes when you want to innovate
there's no one that makes what you want you got to make it yourself and this is
fresh out of the mold jazz I'm amazed that you guys cast this monolithically
as one entire giant piece can you walk me through that process yeah when the
the this came up has to be molded our whole idea was to do as much as we can
in one casting and not having to go back and join stuff together because the
resin is not a good medium where you want to glue them or join them right you
have a lot of if you've seen finishing all that's gonna kill you in terms of
time plus you know there was so much texture here of the fabric we wanted to
keep that intact so when your hair yu-san you take it off so the process of
casting it as one piece was also to make sure it was this accurate as there
easily yeah so all these ports they are all one piece so all we're doing is a
little bit of the mold lines that are there which are very minimal there we
were take taken off now it so this is you made a large fiberglass and silicone
mold I assume and then how do you cast the resin you to pour it in well yeah we
poured it in and there's a few processes that we have we go through okay and it's
built a layer by layer and it's and it's roto molded that is amazing you have a
roto molding machine big enough for something this big oh we can do twice as
big yes Wow and then you also had to choose a
resin that was dimensionally stable yes that was a little bit of or indeed on
our end based on how much detail were capturing we kind of blend our casting
material okay so here there was a lot of detail so we had to blend it thinner so
we captured at every turn right right right oh yeah
well I mean I look at things like these thin these thin walls and these cut in
everything silica motifs they're peeling it off that's got to be really careful
work to make sure you don't already break the silicone or the res yes yes
yeah there takes three guys really to actually take this piece out in one
piece so just getting out of the mold is in
and of itself in the receiver yes such incredible craftsmanship yes yes okay so
it'll spend a few hours in here getting its sanding and getting finished and
then it moves on to to priming and painting
you never know what you're going to discover when you go on to site to do a
story and here we are covering the Apollo suits casting and it turns out
that Jazz's company Westco makes one of my personal favorite products they make
this stuff magic sculpt which is sort of like a two-part epoxy putty well it is
not sort of it is exactly that kind of like plumbers epoxy only much much
better because it's been formulated specifically for sculptors and artists
how do I know cuz I've been using this stuff for over 30 years yeah you never
know what you're gonna find I'm so glad I have met the source of one
of my favorite projects okay my favorite part the painting no Paula and Chris
after jazz is finished putting the final coat of white on the castings you guys
get it and you take it the final ten yards can you walk me through the
process of the finishing that you guys do on this if you did a lot of R&D to
begin airbrush it are we gonna hand-paint it what paints are going to
use what colors are we going to use making sure the textures look right and
these are all anodized aluminum these are all hard hard colors to get right
yes and they take many coats and some of them are enamel and some of them are
acrylic well one of the things what we start with is putting green tape on tape
off all around these ports okay so masking to get them attached because we
don't want paint going on other things and then we do multiple layers like for
example this red do coats of a basic red and then a pearl red yeah and then the
the gold is actually an enamel and and then this of course has to be painted
red on the inside silver here four coats on here it just
takes a lot of attention to detail yeah to get that right because we want it to
look authentic now one of the hardest things to replicate in my opinion is the
look of the chrome L the metal mesh that makes up the gloves and you guys got
this amazing texture did you make a color chart of a whole bunch of
different attacks on getting that metallic look by different
and we settled on a pewter uh-huh that just captured the look and you also did
a template so that we could do the stitching is that drawn on wow that's
brilliant a little custom template for both of those yeah we even do the
threading on here with a little pen that is beige yeah so that that threading
sticks out a little bit that is amazing and then of course there's the decals
these are applied up on top is that correct yes this was the beta cloth is
what these were made out of originally yeah and I was able to find a beta cloth
for this one but had to do some photoshopping to get these oh you don't
see it here but there is a cheat sheet here oh right yes the risk checklist
yeah and the way these were done we ended up it was a process trying to
figure out how best to do it but the way we ended up doing it was with the
t-shirt maker oh oh can use an epoxy to apply them I see so then it conforms to
the shape right that was the hardest part of getting that we tried other
adhesives but ended up using epoxy in what also I you also have to make all of
this archival right it's gotta be ultraviolet stable and all of that
that's another whole layer of finish with an auto spray so that it can be
weathered outdoors right and then there's the moon dust you have to do
this very subtle weathering pass am i right yeah yeah I started doing it with
an airbrush and then we decided you could do it back there even better
yeah so you just sprayed it and more at the feet and just kind of very
artistically done really well I mean it really comes through it must be for me I
find painting to be my favorite part to me you have the most fun job because the
whole thing sort of comes to life under your hands doesn't it yeah yeah so there
you have it a brief insight and small visit into the large number of companies
ingenuity and craftspeople it takes to execute a project of this historical
importance and this level of complexity this is part of a program again put on
by the Smithsonian called Apollo at the park these beautiful suits will be
displayed at ballparks all across the country leading up to the
reveal of Neil Armstrong's original moon suit back at the Smithsonian on July
16th the 50th anniversary of the launch date for Apollo 11 see you on the moon