Hinging the Gauntlets

This tutorial is based on using the Plastic Arms Dealer kit or 3D print files, but it should work with any gauntlets.

The Mandalorian gauntlets are made in two peices, a top and bottom. If you can easily fit your hand through without opening them up, you may just want to glue the two halves together. But for most people having them hinged so they can be opened up to put them on is a much better option.

Why didn’t you add a mechanical hinge? That is a good question and we tried. Here is the problem with a mechanical hinge. Its visible. The way the two parts go together you would need a more complicated invisible hinge that allowed the two halves to bend apart but when you do this there must be a gap to allow this hinge to work. We don’t want gaps.

But don’t fret, there is a simple way to hinge the two halves and not have this gap. You make the hinge out of elastic.

Start but cutting 4 strips of 1″ wide elastic band.

Put the two halves of your gauntlets together and add two small pools of CA glue (I recommend the thick variety so it doesn’t run) on the inside of the gauntlet in the spot where the hinge is to be installed. Make sure you do not get any glue in joint and keep the glue back at least 5mm from the joint. Take a piece of the elastic and press it into the glue and hold until it sets. If you have accelerator, you can spra some on the elastic before you press it into the glue. There should not be any glue on the elastic in the middle 10mm. If there is, then the elastic won’t stretch.

Add 3 more of these hinges the same way. Doing the other end first.

For the other side, we are going to add two velcro strips. One at each end. We start out by making these strips by gluing velcro onto some 1″ webbing as shown.

We are going to attach one of these twoo each end of the gauntlet. These will be glued in by the webbing as shown below. You only want these at each end, because you are going to need to get your finger into the gauntlet to release the velcro. If you run it along the whole length, it will be very hard to get the gauntlet open without pulling the velcro off.

Now you need to add the loops on the inside opposite the hooks you just glue on.

You can now open up your gauntlets and easily put them on and close them securely with the velcro. To open them back up, stick your finger into the gauntlet and put it between the hooks and loops to release the velcro. Try not to just pull them open. This will damage the velcro and it will loose its effectiveness.

Magnets? While these are great for some things. They don’t like to work in situations where there are impacts. I like to actually troop in my costumes and get down with the kids and shake hands and high five etc. This means I like to move. My Death Trooper gauntlets are done in the same way and I have over 50 troops out with them and they don’t give me problems.

I hope you enjoyed this quick tutorial. I am a small family owned shop and we get most of our business through word of mouth so if you enjoyed this please share it with others.