Confessions, Part... something.
Man, I hate typing this out. But here goes.
When I got the help sizing my ab+kidney, I barely even looked at the positioning before scoring and snapping. A bad idea. I know. Well the size itself was fine, but I realized later that one side seam was further towards my back than the other. It wasn't HORRIBLE because you'll never see my right and left sides at once to compare but it was noticeable, at least to me, and it put the seam under a snap plate too. (How that didn't tip me off before I cut it, after all the measuring I did to make the snap plate locations even, I cannot say.) Well anyway I decided to rectify my mistake, and had fortunately saved all the snapped off pieces so I could tell exactly how much to add back to the kidney and remove from the ab to keep the overall size where it was.
A clean cut at least. I CA glued them together and ran a bead down the back with some accelerator to solidify it.
Then I slathered some ABS paste over the whole dealio. Figured I'd have a nice lesson in shimming. I haven't done enough sanding yet in this build, anyway.
That was yesterday. Today I cut the shim down to size (hence the smallness in the next pic) and wrapped some 180 grit around a paint stick and wet sanded the mess. And now I have this dark line running down the middle and I can't figure out why.
Was there pencil graphite on the seam that I didn't notice before gluing? Is it a shadow? An unfilled crack? Most importantly, WHAT on EARTH can I do about it now? Best I can figure is to carve it out, or sand it down past (???) the darkness and build it back up and sand it back down again.
It's been a quick process so far so I'm not too worried about it, just bewildered and highly disappointed in myself. So. Any advice greatly appreciated, as always. Y'all are the best. Just think - after this I'll know how to help somebody else who gets into the same situation! *forcibly shifts paradigm*
Now nice things! I hot water bathed many items yesterday. My chest tabs are bent down for a closer fit (front/left is current, back/right is original):
And the side wings are bent in too.
Boy, was that a pain. One insisted on curling at the end. I ended up clamping it between two paint sticks with binder clips for the rest of the work which flattened it well.
My shins were a bit off as well. The cover strips weren't lying flat.
But now they do!
And I finished my holster, which was awesome. More on that later.