Thanks to the Carolina Garrison member Ernie Ruffin he pointed out “something” wasn’t “right” about the codpiece. Even after making my own kidney armor I still wasn’t satisfied with it. And GalaxyCon was a couple of weeks away. So I set out to make my own codpiece.

In the past year I finished rebuilding a 1973 MG Midget which gave me plenty of bodywork experience working with Bondo, plastics, etc.

The base was from a 12-gallon Rubbermaid trashcan ($11). I caked it with Bondo and as soon as I tried to mount the kidney armor the Bondo all cracked off. So I cracked all of it off and just went with the plastic.

The bad thing about the plastic is that paint does not want to adhere to it very well. So when you use tape to mask areas the tape will pull off the underlying layer. Even after sanding/scuffing the plastic it still would not stick.

The “crotch shot” hole was fiberglass fiber and resin sandwiched between the Rubbermaid plastic layers. The “tuck” piece at the bottom was a challenge. I started trying to heat the plastic and bend it but it would not stay. I also tried wire mesh with Sculpey which was a mess. I finally ended up using the rounded corner of the trashcan and glued it to the backside which made a very good bottom for it.

The entire build took about a week. Suffice it to say MinuteFett’s armor is much easier to work with.