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Truly you did not do anything wrong. The photos I supplied in this thread are of my own centruion-approved AP armor. You do not need to punish your body with these return edges and you did not harm anything in their removal. All of the cuts you did were fine and you have been doing fantastic work in making the armor fit your body. There's no need to second guess and no need to stress. No need to go backwards either. You were sorting out the belt. Best to move forward with that IMHO. If you're doubting things, look at this. This is not remotely wearable. It needed to be fixed. You fixed it.

Think of it this way: there's many ways to skin a cat. Every way that ends in a fresh cat pelt is valid and correct. Nothing you've done has barred you from centurion level and there's likely more work to be done in the future to achieve it. You're still on the right path. I mean some folks have to move bolts to be locations for centurion. Others have to splice in sections of abs to make their armor fit at all. The material is very forgiving and there are techniques to do all of this without destroying the armor. Anyways, back to getting you some basic approval.

Big brown box set to arrive first or second week of January (decided also minute to also add the blaster kit). Thanks for all the great advice so far

Welcome Marc and thank you for the great introduction! It gave me all the right kind of feels! When you build a costume yourself - you usually don't need to spend an unrealistic amount of money, and it sounds like you really want to do it! To start with, we can just take a look where we are... The FISD! One of the best places I know of - such a nerdy, helpful, active, engaging and rewarding place to be! Some people drag the build process out over some years and others do it in just a few weeks. There is only one way and that is your own way, and which ever way you choose, we will be here for you! Getting into the whole progress sharing with the community is such a quick flow to get into as you've already started by making this post! And thank you for that! If you would get to the point of starting to build an armor, everything would be asked and answered in a build thread and the ball would be rolling onwards after that! Regarding what armors to get, in the Swedish Garrison at least, it is pretty much split 50/50 between RS and TM (Troopermaster), and we have at least one SDS armor that I know of but we do not recommend those kits, as will the people buying those kits tell you since they have to do much extra work to get approved. Just to get a taste of what you would eventually be getting into: Imagine that you finally get to kick the legs up onto the couch at home after hours upon hours of waving, high fives, fist bumps, dancing, marching, taking images with people, feeling like a celebrity, people giving compliments on your armor thinking you look sooo cool, hearing sad stories and feeling great at heart after you realize you've made their day, collecting money for charity, meeting new friends that are just as passionate and nerdy as you are, sharing tips and helping troopers, put someone's shoulder bell on and be loved forever, getting compliments on your armor by troopers, and in the end knowing you have stood on a row as 1 of 10 TK's that has made a crowd speechless. This is currently what I'm thinking about as I've just arrived back home from a troop! I'm looking forward to follow your thought process and journey! Welcome to the FISD and initiating the first steps of one day hopefully becoming a TK!

At the end of the day that's what count's Terry. Whether it be building armor or a weapon you have to have some fun! Yeah, sometimes it can get a little frustrating, but you got some great practice in for when your next E-11 project arrives. It turned out pretty darned nice overall.. I'm not sure what the 3D print lines looked like before you started, but nice job on smoothing those out! One small thing that I noticed was that you have the U-tracks upside down. The open part should face up. The devil is in the details, so what I would suggest in the mean time is to check out some of the threads here and be sure to post up lots of photos during your build. This is especially important when you have a question or issue. Looking forward to seeing your next journey!