Well, it’s been a few months, but I’ve managed to get a bit more done. Huge thanks to you @MoSc0ut! I really appreciate your help with everything so far.
The big challenge for me was just figuring out where to trim everything to, and getting over the fear of cutting something wrong! With continuing to pour over all of the ref, Jim’s help, and the new TK build YouTube tutorial series from Rob at RS Propmaster’s, I feel like I have a good picture of where I’m going now.
Spent a nice afternoon just before Christmas at @MoSc0ut’s house boiling armor, and got the shoulder bells widened out to fit.
After showing me how, Jim was kind enough to let me take home his canning pot so I could make my kidney, butt, and ab plates fit a little bit better.
After that, I finished trimming and gluing the arms and biceps.
Next, I started trimming the shoulder bells that we’d shaped, but I’m a little worried that I trimmed them back too much in an effort to get them properly rounded, so I set them aside for now...
Following the RS YouTube series, I next finished up trimming and sanding the torso pieces, got my 3mm drill bit, and drilled the holes and installed the brackets for the strapping.
Once I had the brackets installed, I had to do a test fit with tape to make sure everything lined up Pretty happy with it so far!
I thought it was interesting that RS puts the two outside top brackets of the kidney plate right in the bend where the return edge meets the outer face to minimize bending...
Now, working on cutting/gluing some spare bits of abs to the return edges for reenforcement as I have been advised to do by several different troopers!
Next up, getting the torso strapping sorted! Working on deciding how to approach the kidney to ab strapping in a more robust way than the screen accurate webbing. I’ve seen some good ideas so far from heavy duty strips of rubber to thicker more immobile webbing, but suggestions are more than welcome! I have some nice scrap leather lying around so was even debating using that.