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Todays mission was shoulder bells...used my TM:s as a guide and well not much to it, draw a line, cut, sand and glue som elastic and you’re done And that’s it, time to shower and head home to watch football or soccer as some of you call it - it’s a derby - veeeeery important game

The best thing to do when marking out where to cut for the joining strips is to cut your joining strips first and place them onto armour close to the flat edge, then mark the middle of the strip. I do not advise measuring out 8mm from the top and bottom end for your 15mm wide strips because the edges are not straight. This is how they are on the original ANH armour and TM armour too.

So, starting a thread for my TK build. I have a ton of questions, and hope I will find my answers here! Questions and some pics coming soon! Glad I'm here! Here are some pics so far.... Kit unboxed and ready to build... Both arms mostly finished... Glued... Screws painted black... First thing I have finished... I think... Let's work on the bucket for a bit... Progress...

Fixed the E-11 rear bracket. I had it on backwards. Rather than rip it off, though, and risk more damage than good, I filled the "serated" edges on the front edge and added them to the rear edge. Also, as suggested, I have taken photos of the front and rear of the belt to better show the various attachments. As always, thank you for the keen eyes and suggestions!

Ah, thanks Dan! Truth be told, I'm taking my time with the helmet as a way to avoid all the tedious trimming that is waiting for me.

As little as possible of the raised/flat edges, try not to rush though and look at other builds here and I can recommend TM:s Hero build on FB and of course asking questions

Hey Craig - we’re happy to have you here

We installed the TM mictips again! Speakers still works And the belt: I hope everything is all right now . If not, please let me know

Nice work. :-) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Woop Woop! That's awesome! Thanks guys Will make the necessary adjustments. Don't suppose anyone has any thoughts on how to get the belt to sit higher? Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk

Well done, Tom. See you at Centurion. :-) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Congratulations trooper

Hey Andrew, thank you for your EI application, lets take a look. CRL and EIB Application Requirements: All submission photos are present. Great work on your armor Sebastian, it's obvious you have taken great pride in your build and it shows. That said, your armor displays all the necessary elements to qualify for Expert Infantry. Congratulations Trooper! Other-Armor Fit/Assembly: In this section we review observations made by us and your fellow troopers. If there were any suggested corrections they would be made here. We only have one suggestion, and that is to rotate your shoulder bells forward and closing down the gap between them and your chest plate. There is a slight gap also at the top of the bells and the shoulder bridges, that could be as simple as shortening up the two top straps. This will also help close that gap at the front. Reference image Centurion Suggestions: In this section we prepare you for Centurion. If there are any areas of concern they will be discussed here. We are delighted to say, we have nothing to add here. Congratulations on a well deserved Expert Infantry badge

Looks much better! WTG!

And done!

Found some time to work on my helmet again today... happy stormtrooper day (TK 4-21). I had no idea that was a thing until today. Anyway. I think I finished my paint blemishes and I fine tuned the shape of the brow some more. I still have to finish shaping the ears and cut some length off the brow. I found this on someone’s SWAT application - used it as a partial check list Here are mine. The lighting isn’t great and you can’t really even see the large run on the top, but weathering should bring out some detail. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Good luck! I just got approved with my TM kit (had him build my bucket too). There are several TM build threads here, including mine if you're interested. When in doubt, just ask on your thread or PM somebody. I've had nothing but good responses from people here. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Great progress, Stu.

Yep, I concur that you should be good for basic, and with a few changes you could easily make EIB with that suit. One thing I would do is bring the butt and kidney closer together, ideally you should not see any black there. Looking good trooper, hope to see you joining the ranks soon!

You should be good to go for basic approval so I say send your application to your GML and see what happens To improve the overall look I suggest try and shorten the shoulder elastic and see if those shoulder bells kan come in closer to chest/back plate and by removing some of the return edge (a little at a time) on the thighs they might come up a bit, starting with the inner halves

So I just bit the bullet and went ahead with the defacing of a perfectly good TK bucket. I mixed up some ABS paint. Which is essentially coloured acetone, and proceeded to slop it onto my helmet. This will take a few attempts and some sanding and polishing, I’m sure. It is just a few drops here and there, but still nerve wracking. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So something that's finally sinking in is just how BIG the FOTK is compared to the OTTK. I got really discouraged last night because I decided to try on the chest and back, and they just looked silly on me. It looked ok when it was just the armor: But on me, I was swimming in it. I really wanted to just give up on the whole project, but I spent some time today looking at some builds photos on the KB Facebook page, and there were a few troopers who also had slim frames who somehow managed to make the armor work without doing any major surgery on the kit. I recalled everyone saying that the gaskets would add some bulk, so I decided to just try it. I have a set of custom gaskets coming from Teresa, but in the meantime I have a too-large gasket set from FN armour that I decided to try. I started by trimming and taping the ab/kidney. The chest/shoulder gaskets were so big I couldn't even get the biceps on, but once I had the chest/back/yoke on top of the gaskets, the abdomen, and added the helmet, I dare say that everything actually looked pretty ok: When I'm not wearing the ab, you can see how small my body actually is in the armor: Nevertheless, tonight was the first time I actually felt a bit of confidence that I'd be able to pull this off.

Picking away at things. I’m upgrading my TK right now for a big troop in a couple weeks, so not much time left for the TD. I got the ears rough trimmed and on for my first of many rounds of seeing where I need to trim. This guy has spaces, so I don’t need to close the gap. Here are the ears. The tape are reference markers for paint blemishes on the original. The original has a very roughly painted surface. I won’t be replicating every bump of course - just the ones that are seen onscreen or have been pointed out in previous SWAT applications. Of course, SWAT applications are notorious for becoming more strict every application. I did consider painting the helmet HDPE-like green and then painting over with white - but I didn’t want to do that for the whole suit. Plus, I want the whole thing to still look good in person to the general public. I want it to look like how they think they remember the armour looking, if that makes sense. I’m trying to test how I’m going to add the paint drips. Just using white paint doesn’t work well - it is a warmer white and just interacts with light differently than ABS. So I’m planning on using ABS paste. Really runny ABS paste as it turns out. Paint is on the right. My first attempts at ABS paste on the bottom. Final test on the left. Should work. You can’t tell from the pick, but I was able to fine tune the locations of the blemishes by overlaying pics in photoshop. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Please note that there are certain online sellers (including Europe) that are selling FAKE E-6000. The genuine product is clearly marked Made in the USA, and has a batch number on each tube. They do not sell to distributors in China or Hong Kong, so if you try to save a few bucks by ordering from a seller there, it is probably not the real stuff. If you have any doubts, you can contact the manufacturer at www.eclecticproducts.com, and they will let you know where to get it. The fake stuff is absolute garbage.

Haven't had any catastrophic failures yet. Several small cracks though, which i've reinforced with fibreglass mats and resin from behind. This armor requires upkeep and is a bit of work sometimes. But I guess you have that with every armor? Still think it is the best looking kit right after ANOVOS, if you can get your hands on that

Congratulations Great job on the assembly

I noticed in your gallery that you plan to close your drop boxes with flat covers. Note this section from the CRL: "Drop boxes must have full inner drop boxes to close the back. Flat covers are not allowed." This is a centurion requirement, so for basic you're fine, but this is one of the simple things that is pretty easy to get right the first time, and will save you the stress of redoing it if you want to go centurion later. Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk