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For whomever is still out there and looking at this thread for is my approved build Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

Decided to ad some neck trim. Before After

Submitted my photos this morning for 501st HWT approval. May shoot for EIB once I get cleared. Here are some other random photos we took for fun. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I bought a big bag of them from Home Depot. Here's what it looked like whilst clamped:

Armor build is almost over , just need to wait for the belt/pouches to arrive and put velcro in some parts

Nice work

You are absolutely correct, in my liking how well it was turning out, I forgot to fill in the non needed details, gonna fix and repost some new pics....we can call this WIP

Thanks so much! :-) Today was leg day! Last night I got the front of my thighs connected via the inner cover strip. I'm thinking I'll glue on the front finishing strip too before I close them at the back, just to ensure maximum sturdiness along the way. This morning, I got started on my shins. I trimmed them out and fitted them. They fit quite well by following Mark's trim lines at the back and trimming to a 20mm raised edge along the front. After that, I cut out and installed the inner cover strips. For the front of the shins, I'll be using a ~15mm strip as normal, but I cut 25mm strips for the backs. I'll be closing them with velcro, and plan to install velcro to both the outer and inner cover strips at the back of the shins. I'm hoping it'll be an extra strong connection that way. I also made sure that I was gluing in such a way that my velcro cover strips will "overlap" towards the inside, as per the CRL requirement. Lastly, my tab and slot system had finished drying and I was relieved to find it worked as intended! Now the ab and kidney close quite evenly together. Huzzah! More updates to come later. Thanks everyone! :-)

Oh look I've gotten caught up on one thread I've been following with great interest. Looking great Lorelei. Sent from my VK815 using Tapatalk

Now that all my adulting stuff has finally been taken care of, I can resume working on my TK Hero. Back in October, I thought I was pretty much done. But believe it or not, based on ShaSha's feedback (as well as scrutinizing over the pics of the back of my kit), I ended up tearing the entire kit apart so I could get some better shaping done on the kidney and butt plates. This TK has been in pieces on my floor since October. Gah! Thankfully, I still have my stunt TK in good working order for trooping in the meantime. At Christmas I trooped in the Atlanta Christmas Parade, and I was so proud to represent the Empire in my shiny white (and very wet, extremely cold) armor. And I wasn't the shortest TK in the squad, either! This is the first time our garrison has marched in formation in years. Years I tell you! So excited to have been a part of this. And with that weather, I couldn't resist recreating a scene from one of my favorite movies! Okay, so back to continuing this build... Since I'm simultaneously working on this along with my husband's RS TK, I thought now might be a good place to show some comparisons of sizing/shaping of certain pieces. Here, I'm comparing butts. Butt plates, that is. The only trimming alteration I have made to my butt plate is near the snaps at the crotch. I had to make it more narrow for my size. The rest of the butt plates are identical. Any difference in sizing is due to hot water bath and curving the butt plate to better match the lower curve of the bottom of my kidney. Here, you can see my butt plate inside of my husband's out-of-the-box butt plate. The curve of the kidney on the left side is much more significant on my kit, thus you can see more curve on the left side of the butt plate at the return. And you can see how I curved the area near the snaps inwards to reduce strain on the strapping. From the sides: So even though my butt plate looks smaller, it's not. It's just got more curves to it. On the left is my properly fitted (curved) kidney with the unaltered butt plate. The right photo shows my curved butt plate with the same kidney. My suggestion to other vertically challenged individuals is to refrain from cutting the sides of butt plate at all until you've properly curved and shaped it. Trimming may not be necessary at all, but instead, just some gentle hot water sculpting. After reshaping the butt plate, I noticed that I needed to move a bracket on the right butt plate return. Grrr. So now I wait for ABS paste to cook so I can patch up the screw holes and drill some new ones. So another tip to those who are sizing down their kits: wait to drill your bracket holes until everything is shaped correctly! Once I patch things back up, I'll reassemble the back half of the armor, then reinstall the split rivets on the ab/kidney. From there, it's just fine-tuning the armor for length. I'm still shooting on earning EIB/Centurion on this kit. More progress pics to come!

Congratulations Eric

Congrats and welcome to the Centurions!

Congratulations and welcome to the centurion ranks trooper

First experience with E6000 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes a cutting mat is very gentle on the tools and daves you fron sharpening them too often as well. As for the boots..If you are going to scrub them with an alcoholic solution, be sure to tedt it on a small patch first. Obe can never tell hot the material reacts. Especially if it's uncertain what form of tanning it comes from.

Both AM and RT-Mod are specifically designed for larger troopers. AM - [email protected] RT-Mod - [email protected]

Pretty lucky first cut. I taped off the detonator tube where the caps and wrap were meant to go, of course a bit of dust stuck to the paint as there was a wind gust as I left the shed. But it seems to only be on the underside out of view. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

BBB day for me and thus starts the journey to making my ROTK Everything was packaged well and in good order I also ordered the undersuit from Jimmy and it looks very well made. I like having a specially made undersuit for a TK instead of just whatever black clothing I can find. The neck seal is a little big on me but everything else fits perfect. I sent over the measurement he asked for And it was all very reliable except as I said the neck. I'm not happy with the visibility of the zipper on the back of the neck but because I have so much room to work I can re cut it with something else to make it as I like it. The construction is very good and I'm excited to work with this material instead of ABS. The finish is good inside and out. I was reading about how the fiberglass inside would be unfinished and wear gloves while packaging but that's not my experience. It's all finished up and ready to start fitting. I am very impressed with the level of detail that Jimmy has produced and with how much is necessary for the ROTK version. Some sanding and filling yes but over all the finish on this kit looks very clean. So many pieces to put together. my first concern is the forearm pieces and how they will overlap. The material is thick so simple overlap looks funny and butting it together will be week. I will encounter this on all the pieces but the forearms are exposed at the wrist so easy for people to see if it's goofy. I believe that all the pieces are to be Velcro shut on the back or under side even the forearms which is different than my ANH TK so I can make them tighter and still be able to get in and out I also have another hole on the backplate that isn't on the reference photos. I see the small circle over the right shoulder but not the oval on the left. I'm assuming it's for a different version like the crystal trooper? I'll probably have to fill it shouldn't be a big deal. I am very excited to get started but want to take my time and do it right so I'll post pics as I get things done

Trimming is mostly done, starting first piece, the TD. Using Ukswrath's photo for reference on sizing I started final trimming

Very good, detailed build!

Thank you! I will look into whether they sell those in the UK

Just wanted to mention an issue, that surely many users had: When writing a new comment, the soft-buttons for 'Insert other media' and 'Submit Reply' are so close to each other, you can easily hit the wrong one. No big deal if only type text, but really annoying if you want to add photos and suddenly your comment went live. Idea: move the 'Submit Reply' button to the opposite side or add a pop up window 'Are you sure you want to post this now?' (or something like this). Just an idea, as I have no clue about webpages and how difficult this is. I love the FISD so just wanted to suggest something to improve the page a little bit.

No problem. That was an easy question, once the BBB comes the good questions start. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So first off your gonna wanna check this out. https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/11538-the-various-types-of-armor-and-where-to-find-them/ From there your honestly going to have to contact manufacturers to find out prices. They vary but stick around the same price. Expect to pay $700 or more to get started then add on everything else you need. I have AM armor cause I’m a bigger guy and love it, but you can’t go wrong with any seller on the list. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thumpy, thank you. Update, My master must have been more porous than I thought because the urethane straps I pulled got some black dust in them and I cannot get it out of them. I have tried everything rubbing alcohol, acetone, soap and cold and hot water, etc…. Nothing seems to work. So, I figured I needed to smooth my master and make a new mold. I sprayed some gloss clear coat on the master and made a new mold. The pulls were not as clean as the previous mold and I think it’s a combination of both the old silicone I use to make the mold and the fact that the clear coat was not as smooth as I wanted. So, I took the opportunity to make a new set of straps with Velcro embedded in them. This time I used jut the Velcro and no nylon webbing. I have tried several types of glue to adhere the soft Velcro to the top flat portion of the straps. The only glue that seems to work is the Bison glue. Smooth-on does make a urethane adhesive but its $50.00+ for a pint test kit. The Bison seems to work well, and the only drawback is that it that it is a off white yellowish color. This is not a real issue since it should not be seen but I am still in the development stages of these, so I will continue to investigate. I have a troop this coming Saturday and I will test out the straps. If all goes well, I intend to make a new master in the coming weeks and get some new silicone to make new molds and hopefully I can come up with a cleaner mold to produce cleaner pulls. That’s it for the update. Thanks for the interest.

I'm going to share a little secret you, are you ready? Get a little closer to the screen so you can read this carefully. Ready? Ok here we go, shhhhhh quite, ok here it is...... . . . . . . . . . . . They don't have to be perfect, and were never meant to be

Geez, you guys, get a room.

Update, Ok so I got around to casting the shoulder straps in Simpact 60A. his stuff is an off white urethane rubber that is fairly stiff. I added Smooth-On’s white pigment to the mix to ensure a proper white color. Mixing and set-up is fairly simple and no need to gas the product. I poured the first one and demolded it 2 hours later. I placed it on some wax paper and let it cure for a full 24 hours. It was a little tacky but I figured out that was the mold release. I washed it with some warm soapy water and presto! One complete flexible shoulder strap done. So, I made another one, then I made two with a piece of Velcro sewn to a piece of white nylon webbing and imbedded them on the back side of the shoulder straps. After the straps were cured, I used my hot knife to cut the excess webbing off and I think they came out equally nice. The webbing adds some stiffness to the strap, but I really don’t think it is needed. My primary goal with the nylon was to have a surface for the Velcro. I will see if any of the silicone based adhesives I have will stick to the urethane. If they do I will add Velcro to the other two straps. Once I have the process down, I will be offering these to whomever wants to purchase them. I am not looking to make any real money on them so they will go for just a bit over the cost of materials and shipping. I am figuring about 30 bucks for a set of two shipped to the US and Canada. Elsewhere the shipping may be a few bucks more. Regardless, once I get all this sorted, I will post the straps for sell in the proper forum. Thanks for the interest.

Okay, so the cuts have been made, and interior has been temporarily strapped with gaffer's tape. Remember, the only cuts for my height have been to the chest and back plates (the ab/cod/kidney/butt are full size in the pics!). I have to say, I'm kind of pleased with how the front is coming along! I still may do a little more trimming at the neck and move the chest plate up a little. But on the right track, methinks! And the back view... Hm. I'm trying to get that back plate to sit more square on the kidney. Looking closely, I can see it's not the back plate that is the issue. It's the kidney. Now, I have done nothing to the kidney aside from heat shaping the curves on the sides. That kidney is taller on the left side than on the right, which causes the back plate to shift up a little bit. I've sanded the back plate down a bit on the left side, and that seems to have helped square up the OII box. In that pic, I still hadn't trimmed down the top of the back plate at the neck yet (this also causes the back plate to look a little 'off'). I ended up trimming the back plate at the shoulder straps to shorten things there, too. The whole back plate in general needs some heat adjusting for sure. And I'll be doing some more shaping to that kidney. Even though the torso as a whole fits me, the kidney is still too wide for my liking. I know I can get it tapered in a bit. Time for another pot o' Trooper Stew!