pandatrooper

Looking pretty good! I'd lower the biceps a bit. Definitely ad that strap for the cod to butt, it will straighten it out a bit. See if you can extend the chest down a bit. Good work so far, trooper.

Yes, that's how I trimmed mine. I found that ATA sometimes has the "bumpy lines" left from the molds / buck. You can usually follow the line. Try maintain as much of the return edge / rounded corners as possible.

I would trim that neck line more. I use lexan scissorsm, then some sandpaper to clean up the edge and take the sharpness off.

Congrats Tiffanie, it turned out great! Nice work!

Happy birthday to one of the sharpest looking troopers around. All the best on your very special day, Pablo!

I have tackled the bucket first and I am taking my time. I have done the bulk trimming and sanding, now I am on the details eyes and teeth. Personally, I would suggest working on other parts first. It will get you experienced with all the tools you need, and if you make a small mistake, it will be less noticeable on something like a bicep. If you cut too far on a helmet, it's harder to fix. My questions are: Eyes - to get the bubble lenses to fit properly and to get as accurate as possible do I need to trim more out. I think I do and I have put a pencil line there, which isn't really visible. I just dont want to take out too much and have it look strange. Yes, I think you need to trim more. Use the pictures from Starwarshelmets.com as reference. Teeth - Do I need to make the holes a bit larger? Do I have the tape in the right place for painting or do I need to take it further down? Your pictures are a little too blurry to make out. Again, use the reference from SWhelmets. There should be no grey on the "lips" of the mouth, only on the teeth themselves.

Can you take some pics?

I've used a flat chisel / Dremel cut off wheel and use it to grind / cut along the seam to break the bond (make sure to put most of the "damage" on the snap plate - not the armor), then carefully pry it off. Sand the area down, make a new snap plate, re-glue it into place.

I think it's your cotton suit doing this. I've had 3 sets of armor now, 2 ABS and 1 HIPS while wearing an Underarmor style suit with no issues, and I've been trooping a lot lately. There's always going to be a little wear and tear on the edges but the discoloration seems to me like it's coming from your suit.

Great detail and clarity as always Mark! Thanks for doing this. Pinned and closed.

Tom, I'll send you a PM and hook you up. They will be cost (what i paid retail) plus shipping.

Yes, that would work. I used black elastic and rivets. You could use rivets, snaps, jeans rivets, etc. I think Firebladejedi said the outer heads are about 11mm in diameter. I suppose you could use Chicago screws, but there's not a lot of thickness there, just plastic and elastic. If you are using them , make sure to use loctite so they dont come loose.

Tandy Leather makes them, you want line 24 size - they work really good for snap plates. By coincidence, I have a set of 100 extra line 24 snaps if for some reason you don't want to buy them from Tandy. I ordered 100 which was all I needed, but they goofed and sent me another 100 and billed me too! I was going to return them, but if you want to buy some here - I could sell you a set for your conversion.

You don't need a return edge on areas you may have trimmed for Legion approval or EIB that I know of. The people that do it tend to do so to return cut areas to original / screen look, or if there was one at that spot before. But I don't think its required. Also, keep in mind that you should know where you want the return edge to be before you trim the armor. You want about 3/8" or so extra to create the return, then trim it to even it out. If you already trimmed it and then do the return, it will be shorter than the intended length. I tend to do at least a couple passes with the heat iron. I don't use the heat gun on the area first because I find it results in uneven heating ( one area becomes really soft and the area next to it is still hard. Work on small sections as a time, I only heat about 2" at a time. You don't need to apply a lot of pressure, just hold it against the surface to heat it up, and keep the iron moving.

Here's a couple of good threads on tools required. An AM kit will also come with instructions that describes their method of assembly and tools used. Of course, you can use other tools to make the process easier, more detailed, etc. http://whitearmor.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=11760&st=0&p=145584&hl=tools&fromsearch=1entry145584 http://whitearmor.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=9809&st=0&p=124652&hl=tools&fromsearch=1entry124652 I use a heat gun (from any hardware store) and a heat sealing iron (for heating RC model airplane wings).

Hey Kirby, it’s not really a big deal. The area you circled is the notch I was referring to. It doesn’t matter too much what that looks like since the bicep covers most of it up. Regardless, your other bicep looks fine. One thing you can do if you want to fix the first one is just cut the “notch†at an angle to make the transition from the inner bicep to outer bicep a little smoother. Again, it’s not a big deal IMO. A lot of people tend to have their cover strips extend beyond the edge of the armor slightly, so that at a glance, you can’t see how it’s joined or any potential imperfections. Also, something that might add a nice touch is rounding the corners slightly more on your cover strips. Just take the sharp corner off and smooth it with sand paper, don’t make it round like a popsicle stick. Hope that helps.

Thanks for the update Jim. I think you’re providing a great service by making these amps available, and at a very reasonable cost. I don’t really understand why people would want to undermine that. You also provide great service, support and communication with your products. I hope that these other members can see the light and understand that what they are doing isn’t right. T.

I used midnight blue for the buttons, check this thread here for more info ----- Either color is fine for EIB The AM ab button plates are attached with the metal buttons included in the kit, they are threaded and bolt / nut inside. There are instructions included with the kit on how to install the plate. Some advice going forward: most of your questions are addressed in various build threads on the forum and in the instructions that come with the AM kit. There’s several AM specific build threads that have yielded great results, make sure to review them for reference during your build. My AM build thread is here and has many photos. -----

The screen used armor rarely if ever had return edges on the wrist area. Just cut it off. For the lower legs (do you mean shins?) you can just leave the backs open with cover strips attached to one side, and close them with Velcro if you want to. You flex them open to slide over your shin, you don’t need to cram your foot through them. Put them on like soccer shin guards Check the Academy site for info on thighs / shins ----- To remove excess E6000 on ABS or HIPS, I score the glue gently with a sharp xacto blade, then run a popsicle stick with a V shaped end to "rub" the glue off.

I say leave them as-is too. If you're super picky, you can use an Xacto blade and cut the glue under strip, and run it along underneath, then redo them, but that's a lot of work. BTW: there's a detailed tutorial here that describes how the thighs are assembled and the exact same issue you encountered and suggestions on strip sizes. -----

So... they proudly outfit people around the world and use the 501st name frequently, yet they sell 2 types of boots, neither of which would even be 501st approved? I'd also like to know what "501st original replica" means.

You actually don't need a backpack to be 501st approved for a sandy. It's optional, since not all sandtroopers wore backpacks. It would be required however for MEPD deployed.

You don't really need that notch at the top, but it's covered by the shoulder bells anyways so it doesn't matter too much. I would join the halves, then put the cover strip on top to hide the transition. Take a look at other builds on the forum and copy their approach. Just a tip going forward: a lot of people ask for feedback on the forum and we're here to help. But to help you get things right - if you're not sure about where to cut or glue something, post pictures with drawn lines of "where" you think you want to cut, and ask for help before cutting. Same with gluing. If you say "should I glue this like so?", we can help. If you've already glued it, it's going to be hard to fix or potentially not fixable at all. Remember the old adage: Measure twice, cut once!

The snaps are not must haves for EIB, they are "should have'". You can use rivets that are approx. the size suggested buy the EIB guidelines, or use snap heads approx the same size. Some people use jean rivets too. I'm confused as to why you cut the Ab plate at an angle like that? All you need to do with the AM kit put the ab / kidney section on, find out where they overlap, and make a vertical cut on both the Ab and kidney where you want the seam to be (it should be on your "side"), and they should match up just fine. Judging by what I see, the front Ab section is the right "depth" if you didn't cut it already. I can just see a little bit peeking out the bottom. If you haven't cut the side of the Ab yet, use that as your vertical seam on the ab, and just cut the kidney to meet up with it. Then do your snaps on both sections. However, I can't see what's going on with that angled cut you made. If you cut it at that angle all the way along that line - sorry to say, but you made a big mistake. You would either glue it back on and patch it from behind or something and maybe try and hide the glue seam, or buy another Ab piece.

nice work! Is that PVC pipe? How on earth did you get that hinge to work?