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I re-cut a lot of my plastic bits for the feeder plate because I wanted the pieces to have a beefier look to them. I snagged a sheet of 1/8" white ABS off of Amazon, which is more than enough for my needs. It took using a cutting wheel to initially cut them because the ABS is so thick. A sanding drum and some hand sanding later, and the parts were done. I glued it all together today. I don't think it looks all that bad. After that, I chose to work on getting the stock together. I needed to sandwich the support in a channel between the two halves. I traced the outline of the support piece on each half. Don't worry if you think I carved a channel into both halves like this! I flipped one half over and re-traced things before beginning. If you plan on doing this as well, remember to wear a decent respirator! Or else all this powdery nastiness will go into your lungs. An hour later, and the channels were carved out! Each channel is approximately as deep as one layer of EVA foam (6mm). I simply sanded with a large sanding drum until I began to see the second layer appear. Then I applied a liberal coat of contact cement all over each half, carefully lined things up, and.... Taaa daaa! Here you can see how thick this blaster is. Let me tell you that this stock is super- and I mean super- lightweight. With the support firmly in place inside the foam, it feels really strong and stable. And it may not look like much now, but I can assure you that it will begin to look more like a real T-21 very soon!

You'll notice on Luke he has a small gap, I would trim a little off. Just remember it's easy to trim more off later than try to add it back

Really depends how they are sitting once on, ideally the front should have 1 large and 4-5 small ridges attached. A nice thread full of detail pics can be found here

Both Alpha and Beta kits were considerably inaccurate and required a lot of extra work to make them right. This latest version is no different. What's new? Despite Anovos's obvious shortcomings I'm not aware of a single FOTK armor supplier that has an "out of the box ready" product that only needs assembly without painting. Is there something new on the market?

Thanks Draco, yes, i thought, when you are holding the blaster normally, you will not be able to see the power level indicator if it is on the backside. You look at it from the top, that is why i put it there. Today, some more little updates. Added some green stuff to cover the plexiglass. In addition to that i added the power level indicator led as well... Have a great start in the upcoming week ! Marko

Thanks for that, I thought I would check before making taking the final step.

Nice job on that cover strip fix, Eric!!

Congratulations Lars, welcome to EIB!

You made the right decision and it will make your BBB day all the sweeter.

Such a neat and tidy build, you will smash EI and Centurion if that's the direction you intend to take.

Some great progress, I am so happy for you the way those boots turned out. Keep up the good work.

My pleasure, better images below: Also a good go to guide on elastic sizes https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/26477-what-we-know-about-strapping-snaps-rivets-etc/

No real issues with either, I've not had them stretch as yet and I used 1". If you want to be a little more accurate you can go 2 inch

Congratulations Lars! Welcome to the Ranks!

Looking forward to the progress

I’ve see quite a few methods for latching the right side AB to kidney plates. Nylon straps, elastic straps, special brackets and hooks and so on. I’m trying something new…at least to me because I haven’t seen it yet. I’m using the same system as I did on the shin latches, magnets. I’m going to build and install these in the HOPE that they’ll work as planned, plan A…there is a plan B that is similar but without magnets. Here is the thre parts that will be attached to the kidney plate. I made an ABS strap with a hole to fit the magnet in and a cover plate to glue the magnet into. The magnet is thicker than the ABS strap so it sticks out a bit. This is perfect because it will sit in the saddle piece that will be glued into the AB plate. Some E6000 and clamps to assemble it, and two more to go. All set, ready for some light sanding to smooth it out. I don’t want it snagging the undersuit. I used two ABS plates for the saddles. Here you can see how the saddle is taller than the magnet. The strap magnet will sit in the saddle effectively locking it in place while you wear it, same as the shins. Here is the three straps with the saddles glued and predrilled. I used the step drill bit to drill out the saddles. They will be sanded smoothe and the strap side of the ends will be tapered to make it easier to feed the straps into them. The straps are smoothed out a bit already. Here are the ends sanded at angles that should make latching nice and smooth. Im only gluing a section at the end. This will allow them to bend up and act as a spring to seat them. The magnets will provide holding power. I painted the area that spans the ab/kidney joint. I don’t want white strips showing through. The paint is nice and dry by morning, SATURDAY!! So I marked the kidney plate where I want them to go and glued them in. There’s no real set measurement as to where I set them, I just tried to space them evenly. I used magnets to secure them while the glue set. Actually the only thing I can say that might be considered a set measurement is how far they protrude into the ab plate. I set them all roughly in line with the Han snap. The inside view. Remember, only the end section of the latch gets glue. This is a pretty simple setup. The latches are glued on the inside of the kidney plate and they make the ab plate fall right in place. All I had to do was line up the top edge and clamp it. A couple magnets help hold the latches in place too. I put a little E6000 on each of the basses and installed them by lifting the latch and putting them on the base magnets, which are on the latch magnets (as they will be when latched). A couple extra magnets help squeeze down on the base while it dries. Once they set I’ll open it up and permanently glue the magnets into the bases. Here they are. The saddles all glued and magnets glued in. They work really nicely on the mannequin so I’m looking forward to how they work on me. There’s still potential for slight modifications to make them better for mobility if I find I need it. Ok…these worked great on the mannequin but just wouldn’t hold when I put the kit on. So, back to the drawing board. I’m thinking bigger is better. I still have the large magnets that I used to clamp the pieces during glue drying time. I have a 6” space to work with so I’m using three large magnetic latches (6 magnets in all). This pic is the idea but I had to change the layout a bit. Here is what I engineered to do the job. The four pieces from left to right are 1) the kidney platform 2) the kidney mag-latch 3) the kidney magnets cover and 4) the ab mag-latch. The kidney half will slide over the ab half and the magnets will align and hold them together. The magnets are all flush with the surfaces so they may slide a bit but should realign easily. The hole at the top is to fit on the Han snap. No snap will be on the latch though. It’s more of an alignment and guide dowel really. It might even provide a bit of anchoring. Here’s how it goes together. With all the pieces assembled as they will sit on the armour…measured and marked the location from the Han snap…I glued all the kidney parts on. The ab half is on only there to ensure proper alignment. The kidney half is complete. Neat and tidy. I glued the ab piece in, the magnets went in a little after and the assembly set for several hours. Once it was all pretty well set I hung it on the mannequin. An absolutely perfect seam and plenty of pulling power. I can hardly wait to see how well it works on me. Hoping I won’t be disappointed. Note: the magnets seen are only there to provide clamping while the E6000 dries more. Slight change of plans…you’ll find that happens more than you expect…as it turns out I’m still a bit bigger than I want to be. During the test fit it almost stayed closed all the way but the magnets slid (as I designed them to) and it opened up so the magnets were visible. This was with the ammo belt off…Weight Watchers is working so it’s just a matter of time. So here it is. I added a small elastic and snap and I drilled the hole large enough to fit it through. It works amazingly. The top stayed tight and with the ammo belt on it doesn’t even move. Here it is closed. The snap is very easy to pull in and attach. A good view fo the slight stretch to snap it closed. This is a vid showing how it draws itself together to latch. Sweet.

Nice work, looking forward to the progress

Very nice painting skills, well done

What he ^^ said - an excellent build altogether Looking forward to your EIB and Centurion submissions

I'll just wait until I have enough for a full kit from AM. Not worth the trouble and worry.

I have a small compressor and spray gun it's a great help when you want to try get a shade closer to a particular armor, it still takes some time though to get the right mix and of course trying test samples as the paint dries differently. All I can suggest is either taking to a automotive paint supplier and have them colour match or trial and error and try mix the paint yourself.

What piece did you lose?

600-800 grit and keep it wet. Make sure you get wet-sand compatible paper otherwise it will fall apart. Try leaving it in the sun for a while as that can fade it a bit too. There's a good chance your armor has changed over time. Worst case, go to a reliable paint store and take a piece with you. Get them to colour match it. We sell SICO paint where I work and the matches we can do on "whites" are pretty amazing. Only thing is that it would be a latex acrylic, so you'd need to sand and prime the piece first and then wet-sand the crap out of it to get a good shine.

Try eBay - I just ordered from here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Roamers-Unisex-Leather-Gusset-Jodhpur-Horse-Riding-Boots-/321885207533 because they have EU sizing and UK men & women sizes are different.

They look great, going to buy a pair for myself - nice find

From this point on I will be editing the posts each time I have the next step in the build ready to post. This will keep all of the build process in one section so it’s easier to follow. Some of the replies will show after the build post but may have been posted before the build is complete, and might seem pointless so I’ll try to respond accordingly to minimize confusion to future readers. Ok, time to start on the leg armour. I’ll be starting on the thighs. The shins are going to get some special work done so I’ll do a whole section on them after. Here we go… These are the AM thigh pieces un touched as they came. They are huge. Look at the width of the back. I like that they don’t have vac-formed ridges to fight. This will allow any amount of trimming to customize right to my leg because the cut won’t have to follow the edge line or cross over a raised area. The front has the raised area and it’s huge. Hat. Will do here is find the right amount to trim off…an even strip in line with the raised edge…and then do a rough fit to estimate the rear side cut. It may or may not be cut square with the edge, we’ll see. Look at the girth on these. For all the bigger troopers out there this is the armour to buy. You can almost park a land-speeder in that. Here is the total raised front width. 100mm. I’ll find the right amount to trim off each so that the cover strip is centred on it. I used a pencil to trace the inner corner of the return edges then scored along it a few medium passes. The pencil line really helps because, believe it or no, the inner corner disappears in light and shadow when you look at it. The defined line makes cutting simple. Nice and neat, ready to sand smooth. You can can see the top return edge is gone as well. Because the thigh pieces are huge…around and tall…I might have to trim the top for movement, spacing or both. When they are how I want them I can use my heat gun to soften the top edge and ‘curl’ it inward slightly to give it some depth…up to 1/8”. With a quick test fit and a couple pencil marks I estimated the fron raised edge should be 30mm left on each side. I taped the halves together on those marks. It’s a nice straight line top to bottom. Another quick fit and I estimated the rear areas to mark, taped them and tried it on. It fit really nice. You can see how the back will not be right in line with the edge. Much more is coming off the bottom then the top. Again this is a rough estimate of the back. Here is where I notice something I didn’t like. The outer cover strips for thighs should be 20mm. I used some ABS from the bicep trimming to mock up a strip. Then I drew lines to see how it would look with a 60mm raised area. YUCK! I’m tall but not terribly wide so I really don’t need that much area to cover my thigh. The raised area is 60mm so I drew lines at 20mm spacing. With the mock shim clamped on I can see that 10mm on each side isn’t too bad. I could cut 40mm off one to leave 20mm… and 20mm off the other to leave 20mm for a total of 40mm. I used the mock strip to mark down the inside because it’s easier to use the strip as a pencil guide and just slide it down the channel. Before I cut these I’m going to try marking and setting the front at 30mm. With any luck I can eliminate all or most of the raised area beyond the cover strip edges. Marking the left thigh with the mock strip on the inside. Sliding it along the inner ridge makes a perfect line all the way along. Ready to trim. With the both sides trimmed to 20mm I put them together by overlapping them. Don’t panic, this is for test fitting. I taped the back sides the way they were lined up before and pulled them back on for a fitting they felt great like this so the next step is to mark the rear cut lines to as close to the center of the hamstring as I can and trim them. I’ll trim 10mm off each raised edge on the front and a cover strip will cover all of it and have clean butt joints on the back. Victor Matts at AM contacted me before shipping and asked if I’d like the knee ammo/battery belt bent to roughly the correct shape. It’s so close to perfect that I’ll only need a slight adjustment. That’s customer care folks. So back down I go the next day and cut 10mm off each raised edge on he right thigh. This is how it looks just taped together. That’s gorgeous. Below are the strips I cut off. Here I have the mock cover strip taps on so,I can see how well the fit is. It’s going to look perfect, the raised edge with a strip on top really adds character. This is a 20mm trimmed edge from one of the previous cuts. I trimmed another 2-3mm off so it will sit flat in the channel. I like using the trimmed pieces as inner support strips because they fit so nicely. The channel is the same depth as the thickness of the strip so I’ll have no raised edge inside to rub my leg when trooping. Ok everybody flip…good job on this pic, no? This is the inner strip trimmed to 17mm. You can see the deflection below the tape measure, it goes to 18mm even farther along. I’m not overly picky about the inside as it’s not going to be seen all that much, but when it is seen it will show the human touch as opposed to precise machining…my personal taste. Here’s why I really like using trimmed off material on the pieces they came from. They have the natural shape and curvature of it. Setting these in place is easier than strongarming flat pieces in and less stressful on the armour. That’s exactly what adding strength should do. A bead of E6000…I found white E6000…and a pile of clamps to set the inner strip in. A view of the outside. All clamps are in place to apply the force in the right places. Close up. If the gluing process shifts the strip outward, or if it’s too far out and causes a gap between the halves, it can be sanded or trimmed to fit. Next day. The first inner strip is set so I glued the outer and inner halves together. It’s a bit awkward trying to mate them with the glue on and secure them in place. A couple clamps to start with, then I used tape to keep them set once aligned and lots of magnets to clamp them evenly mated while drying. I trimmed the left thigh raised sections to 10mm each. The inner strip on the left leg outer half is glued and setting up now too. Tomorrow I’ll repeat the process and mate the inner half. Ok back from work, down to the building table and off with clamps and magnets…OMG it shifted. The two halves were about 1/4” offset. Damn it. Pulled it apart, cleaned off all the glue and redid it…double and triple checking just to be sure. Since the strip was ready on the other one…and a new batch of magnets came…I glued and set it too. Voila. Thigh Armor that fit me perfectly…I tried them on. From the back you can see how straight the butt jointed seams line up. Odd angle cover strips would look awful so take the time to line everything up with pencil marks before cutting up the armour. It pays off in the end. Heres a trick that I found many people already knew. E6000 can be safely rubbed off or loosened enough to remove by rubbing with bare hands if you scrape at it with some scrap ABS. Remove any excess glue before laying the cover strips on. The rear cover strip goes on very nicely. The surface is flat and clean and requires only single magnets to keep it flat while curing. The front cover strip has the pronounced arc. The strip lays on it nicely but just to be sure I doubled the magnets at each spot to add clamping force. I don’t want it lifting at all. Tomorrow they will be completed and ready for final sizing and edging. It’s tomorrow…today…and here they are. I got nice legs. All set for trimming, sizing and edging later.

Continuing with the arms, this is the right forearm with the final trim lines marked. I put the undersuit arm on and did a quick fit to see how much I could take off. There will be about 1/8” left as a return edge. I’ll likely fill the gap with ABS paste I have on hand. Made a 15mm cover strip for the outer forearm. Just having a look because…well because I just want to. Something I do before gluing is rough up the gluing area with a couple passes of the sandpaper. It makes a little better bonding surface. Time for some bicep sculpting. With a little help I did a quick fit and mark for cutting. The AM Armour is plenty deep…Dwayne the Rock Johnson might not need to trim it…and it’s proportional to the arm. Even cuts off every edge and another quick fit and they’re ready for inner strips and glue. I made the inner strips from the cut pieces. Gluing them on to one half first makes it much easier to set and glue the other half. This is the nice surface to set the other half This is why I like the inner strips. When the pieces are glued together after trimming they don’t always line up square the way they came. When this dries I’ll pull the pieces together, glue and clamp them to set up. The inner trip will add strength to areas that are naturally somewhat stressed. Here it is with the inner strips holding. The back half is trimmed and the other half will be trimmed to match. Sanding will finish it if needed. Time to start the right side. Again the inner strips on one side first…the back half this time because I can. Once the inner strips cured enough on the remaining bicep and forearm I glued the halves together. This pic is of the final edges being joined. The bicep was very easy and needed only normal clamping to set the edges straight and even. The forearm was a bit tougher to bring together. I preset a strap with clamps to set it up. Once set I removed the clamps and slid the strap down to open the arm up. I carefully applied some e6000 to the strip and slid the strap back into place then clamped it. There was a couple uneven edges so I added the magnets (2 sets of 4in/4out) to set it right. Time to let it dry. I’ll make the rest of the 15mm cover strips while it cures. Notice the wrist end of the finished forearm in the pic. Some trimming and smoothing will be required. I’ll do this once I’m ready to test fit with at least the chest and back armour assembled. I’ll know better then how much wrist clearance I’ll need for decent movement and minimal gap between the parts. Here are all the parts glued and set with inner strips, and one outer because I just had to see it. Got a little first order supervision happening. The left forearm looks like a pretty straight tube but it’s not really. The red on the wrist is not blood. It’s marker I used to make trim lines. I trimmed the left wrist back flush now because it at a good length for my arm as it is. This arm will be the most extended which the blaster so I’m hoping to cover the arm with minimal gaps between the sections. The cover strip didn’t seat as nicely as I’d like. There were noticeable glue bubbles showing under the edge. I ran a bead of white E6000 down that edge to fill it in and tidy it up. E6000 grabs dirt and really stands out so if this dries as nice as I hope for I’ll put a little white paint over it to seal it. 15mm cover strips ready for the left forearm. It’s fun how plans change. I was going to leave the cover strips until later but I just can’t get over how strong the one I did is. Notice the clamp on the right arm. I wasn’t happy with the way the glue set at the wrist. The halves weren’t flush at the but joint so I pulled them apart slightly, about 2” up the arm, and removed some glue. (This is where the benefits of E6000 are evident…it’s easy to work with and redo,if you’re not happy with your work). I squeezed some new glue in and clamped it. Should be better tomorrow. One strip glued on. Again the magnets set it squarely down. Both strips glued, clamped and set with magnets. Heres a close up view of how the magnets really pull it together. I had to put this pic in because you can really see the quality of the AM kit. The surface is like a mirror. Bicep cover strips, 15mm, are ready for when the forearms are done curing. So these came today. From PropsEmporium in England. A bit tight on these big hands but they work. Nice surprise that they came ready to wear. The left forearm is done. Both cover strips are on. The strength that inner and outer cover strips add is incredible. The right forearm has only one outer strip on and it has much more flex with a squeeze. Last strip for the right forearm. Lots of clamping power to keep it on the contour. Left bicep gets the outer cover strips. I should have shown this earlier but I just didn’t occur to me until just now. The marks you see there are to center the strip when the clamp is on. You can’t really see if it’s centred with the clamp on it so I use the strip to mark each end and adjust it if needed with the clamp in place. All pieces glued and drying. A view from the Death Star. All return edges will be trimmed later. Once these are ready I’ll move on to the leg armour.

Starting work on the limbs. First is a forearm. There are two distinctly different forearms. Not sure which is left or right. The difference is one is slightly longer with a deeper cut into the inner forearm piece. I’m told they are interchangeable so, based on movie stills, I’ve decided to use this piece on the trigger arm. It will be my right arm piece. The reason is that this arm will generally be bent farther when holding the blaster so ideally for comfort. So this will be the left forearm. I matched the left and right inners with their outers, trimmed off the lower return edges and did a fitting on my bare arm. I marked the inner forearm for trimming. Only the inner pieces will get trimmed because the outer pieces came trimmed properly. I marked the cut lines with a pencil and made the first cut…oh me nerves…which is the edge that will be on top and the straightest cut. The second cut cut is on an angle that will give the forearm the taper it needs to fit the arm nicely. After the first cut I taped the cut edge to the outer arm and fit it again. You can see the old line has been replaced with one that works better. I use the aluminum ruler to score straight lines. A few passes with the blade then I snap it nice and cleanly. I usually do some light passes in the groove just to make it a nicely trimmed edge. I use tape and magnets to set it up and try it on. You can see the trimmed edges and the taper. I line up the return edge end, at the elbow, and will trim the wrist end for a nice smooth line around. I’ll be using inner and outer strips to complete it. The cuts are really straight and mate nicely with the outer arm. No sanding has been done to the cut edges. Notice the stack of magnets on the left…it picked up a screw bit as I moved it across the table. The bit was still there from the bucket build. Put your stuff away when you’re done with it folks. It’s neater, you won’t likely lose stuff or damage stuff. Left forearm trimming and fitting. First the wrist end return edge goes. Again a quick fit and marking for the sizing cuts. Here we can see the difference in the two forearms. Right forearm has a slight taper at the top. Left has a fairly straight, 90 edge at the top. From Victor Matts, maker of this armour, of AM Armor: The right forearm tapers at the top as this allows the right arm to be bend more easily when carrying a blaster, while the left arm extends more straight, holding the barrel of the blaster farther away from the body. The strips run up the top and bottom of the arm so this cut should run this line. With the cuts made an the halves taped I did a test fit. Everything lines up nice and it’s ready for the inner and outer cover strips. Some troopers only use outer strips but I like the strength the inner strips add. The first inner strip ready to be glued in. I applied E6000 to the strip and secured it with clamps at the ends and these very strong magnets in the middle. Inside view. I doubled the magnets inside for better pullin power. The strip will seat perfectly flat to both halves. I’ll be doing inside strips only to start with to form the pieces. The outer strips will go on once I’m satisfied with the final fit.

Here it is. Outside is done. I was told that it’s not symmetrical and I can clearly see that. The imperfections add personality.

Decided to paint the inside of the bucket. This is the first coat. Yes it’s a brush on not a spray. It’s called Gun Metal. The second coat really looks like I want it. Most will be covered with padding and fans etc. but it will look great when done. May as well do the Hovi mic’s. Mics drying and screens ready.

Grandtrooper.