silverBoyd

Here are some first pics of me fully suited up in my AM armor and MTK helmet....still need a few tweaks but overall I think I'm done and satisfied with it. I still need to add my shoulder ammo pouch, attach my mortar tube / radar dish to the backpack, add some foam inside my left shin to keep it from rotating when I move and also I need to attach some sort of velcro / elastic to help keep the chest pulled down over the top of my torso armor.

Hey....I'm about 3 straps away from being 100% done with my assembly. No pics of me wearing it but here are some more weathered pics as well as the wiring of the helmet fans I just spent an hour on... Here's a picture of my armor (roughly) laid upon the floor to check for weathering consistency....I think it's pretty good

Thanks! I think a TD is the way to go. It just has so much more detail and depth. If you do you'll still have to get a backpack, pauldron, get rid of Ab buttons, get rid of ribbed plastic shoulder straps and change the sniper plate on the knee

if they are 1/8" rivets....take an 1/8" drill bit and a power drill and carefully and (slowly at first) drill out the center of the rivet head. Once you drill into the rivet head a bit it will release itself.

Started weathering my armor...here's a little peek at my shin armor after weathering...

i had trouble with my thighs too...that's why I saved them for last. If you can get them to taper slightly on the bottoms that would look much better on you. As they are now they have that "swinging bell syndrome". I suggest trimming one side in the back straight down and cut the other side with a slight taper. The slight taper will help bring in the bottoms just a bit. But cut off a litte at a time. One thing I can see is the pre-molded "covers strips" in the front of the thighs look funny when they're wider than your actual cover strips that you place on top of them. I assume you used the butt-joint method to assemble the armor? If so, I would take off that cover strip and cut down the front "pre-molded" strips to the same width as your real cover strip. Better to have a wider cover strip and shims in the back rather than a super wide cover strip on the front that looks like it's got 2 ridges. Here is a picture of what mine looked like....similar to yours now. Now after taking off the cover strip and trimming down the thigh fronts it looks more screen accurate Also I see you mentioned using the hook method for the shins? I would just go with the industrial strength Velcro to fasten them closed. It's very simple to do

i am just finishing up my AM build and I own an MTK helmet. It's a great helmet kit

Thanks Isaac...I like the advice about the snaps being held in place by rivets. Didn't think of that. I'm still re-doing my thighs. These things are giving me such a fit. I'm glad I saved them for last. I got my front sized properly with the cover strip but now I'm assembling the rear thighs and I am having to add in a shim to get it to fit now that I've had to trim down the front butt joints. I think my rear thigh cover strips will be a bit wider than normal but I've been told that it'll be find since its the back. Plus...since I'm going Sandy my backpack will distract from people noticing the backs of my thighs. Here are some pics from tonight's fitting along with the shims taped in place... I had to trim off another 1/4" or so from the top of the backs because my butt was allowing it to not be pulled up high enough. I think I need to shorten my suspenders to raise up my torso. I think that will help the front of the thighs from rubbing the crotch of the armor. Here's a side view. I can see in this last pic that I need to somehow get rid of that logo on my undersuit that's reflecting in the light

Although it's not part of my actual armor build...I thought I'd share how I attached the MP40 pouch to my belt. I cut off the angled belt loops, stretched them out and reattached them using a combination of rivets along with extra strength hot glue. Seems like an odd combo but it's very strong and has held on nicely. I wanted to keep things simple. The hot glue reinforcing is sort of messy looking (who's going to see it) but it works And here is the pouch w/ the belt going through the straps on the back. I like the end result Also, anyone have any tips on how to keep the belt attached to the torso? I had a few male snaps through the ab armor to help but one of them has ripped out. I'm thinking of keeping it simple and just using a few strategically placed Velcro to help hold it up. It's pretty light and the Velcro should hold it up. Any thoughts or other ideas? Oh yeah...decided to cut open my thighs to resize the fronts to make it look closer to the screen armor. I'm pleased. Looks much better and I was able to salvage the ABS cover strips I had already cut for the thighs.

I'm going to have to redo my thighs. Not looking forward to it but I didn't trim the fronts enough which would make my front thigh cover strips about 2 1/8" wide..it just won't look good, agreed? Check out this picture showing what a very wide cover strip would look like using some scrap material. The good thing about the fix is that I've only glued together one thigh so far. Better to fix one than fix both.

yeah...i knew he sold some...I just really didn't want to spend anymore $$ right now. Since I'm going Sandy...do you think I could get away with using FOR SALE sign (possibly 2 pieces stacked and glued together) to replicate the ABS strip? The color of white is not even close but since I'm going to be weathered and dirty, do you think it'll be noticeable?

I thought about the FOR SALE sign route. I have plenty of it too. It's going to be dirty so do you think anyone would notice the material difference? I could maybe even use a few layers glued together to make the strip about the same thickness as thew ABS strips are....this might be my quickest option.

awesome advice....i may to make my strips closer to 30mm too. Can't believe I did this. Oh well....i will definately redo the fronts. Any idea on what I can use since I don't have anymore ABS to cut strips from?

So after glueing down the front cover strip on my thigh (using E6000) I'm worried that they aren't cut wide enough. I have the thigh fitted nicely to my body but the cover strip I have now is around 20mm (roughly 1"). Even a 25mm strip wouldn't be wide enough. Seems that I may need a 2" to 2 1/4" front cover strip. If you look at the pic below you'll see that the way it is now it looks like I have "extra" ridges on the front of my thigh. But I don't have anymore ABS strips to re-cut front strips. Any thoughts? Any other material I could use rather than ABS? In the first picture you can see that my rear thigh cover strips look fine. I'm pleased with the way they turned out.... This next pic is of my front thigh strip. I edited the picture so that you can see the areas on either side of my cover strip. I think I may have to redo these. It looks odd to me. Luckily I have only done this to one thigh piece. This is AM armor which means that the pre-molded "cover strips" were meant to be overlapped. I have muscular legs and the amount I took off at the front and backs of the thigh pieces are the absolute most I could trim away. I decided to build my armor using the butt-joint method which has turned out to look better and be more comfortable. But now that all I have to do is finish up these thighs and I'm finished w/ assembly and now I'm running into this problem. Wish I hadn't glued the front strip down yet. I don't know what I was thinking. Any suggestions on what I should do? And is E6000 easy to remove once dried?

Got my suspender system setup nicely and now the chest sits closer and lower. Feels better when trying it on too Spent the morning attaching my ammo belt to the 3" canvas belt I received from Mike over at Trooperbay. He makes great stuff, has a great selection and has great customer service. I started by drilling out the 1/8" holes for the rivets, put on the armor and having my wife help mark the hole placement on the canvas belt. I used 1/8" rivets and rivet washers to fasten it all together. I also added some female heavy duty snaps to the belt that will attach to some male snaps that I have fastened into the Ab armor. These snaps will help keep the belt up and in place while wearing it. **EDITED 07.12.12 -- I ended up removing the male / female snaps for the belt...it did not hold. Instead I fastened the front of the canvas belt to the front of my ab armor. with 4-5 rivets and washers. Holds like a champ now and is always in the correct spot when wearing it. Once everything was all setup I glued on the rivet covers. I'm happy the way the belt looks when attached / wrapped around the armor but I may take the heat gun to the ends of the ammo belt. It seems to flare outwards just a bit when it's on. Anyone ever experience this with their ammo belts? Something else I wanted to show...for my shoulder straps I wanted to use the sew-on snaps to connect my shoulder bells with since I think that is what was used for the Sandtroopers in the films. My wife sewed them on between the two pieces of fabric (of one snap) so that you cannot see any stitch on the side of the shoulder strap that you can see while wearing it. I think it turned out nicely.

Added my male snaps for the crotch strap as well as the single male snap that is seen on the top right side of the Ab / Torso armor

Received my Trooperbay belt a few days ago. really great quality

I know this isnt part of my AM armor but I just received my latex hand guards and black gloves from Mike @ Trooperbay. I've ordered from him before and highly recommend his stuff. Also received my canvas belt from him which also has some nice thin plastic sewn inside of the fabric to help keep the shape of the belt while wearing a pouch or holster. I also ordered some custom stickers from him as well to decorate my armor carrying case. Something I did tonight was attach a hook on my bicep sort of like the one Han Solo has on his armor in ANH. It'll also help to keep the elastic band on the bottom of the shoulder bell in place. They will be painted white soon. I'll see how they work out. If these don't work out I make replace them with a piece of bent ABS plastic if I have any leftover that hasn't made it to the trash yet. **EDITED 06.08.12 - After installing the hooks on the biceps, they really hold the shoulder bell elastic bands in place nicely like they should. Very happy with the install** Also put on the (3) plain white buttons on my Ab armor...part of my Sandy requirements.

no not yet....it's just temporarily clipped onto the ab right now. I'm in the prices of hooking it up inside the ab armor. Thanks though. I feel like I work too slowly but I think it's looking good too. I can't wait to turn this thing Sandy. That's what it's been all about for me anyways.

I'm going as a Sandy...can't wait. I already have my pouches, helmet built, pauldron, backpack and T21 blaster built. Just need to finish up my thigh builds and dirty the armor then I can go for approval. Isaac is right by the way....trim the molded shoulder pieces on the chest / back. Trim...test fit....trim...test fit. It will def. make the chest sit lower and not be all up in your face. Allowing your helmet to be able to turn comfortably.

spent the morning widening my bicep bottoms, trimming off some more bicep return edge from the top-insides areas and also assembled a connection of wide elastic via heavy duty snaps to connect the forearms to the biceps. Feels comfortable and I'm able to now lift my arms up to put on / off my helmet and I don't get as much pinching in the inner elbows as before. Think I'll leave it all alone for now until I troop in it. Then I'll make more adjustments if needed. Here are some shots of the arms all attached. **Ignore the shoulder straps that look mis-shaped. The shoulder bells haven't been attached via the sew-on snaps and therefore the masking tape is the only thing holding them on in the place. I hope to get the sew-on snaps finished in the next day or so** Also, I threw on my armor (except the thighs which have the cover strips still curing) just to see my progress so far. I don't think it's too bad. Ignore the alligator snaps and the bottom of the chest piece riding up. Once I get rid of those alligator snaps on the suspenders and possibly add snaps or velcro to help secure the chest down on top of the torso I think I'll be in business. Also notice that I haven't installed the crotch strap. That'll help to not have any sagging pants material in that area. The undersuit I have on is really fitting so don't think it's oversized.

Isaac...I trimmed off the area you highlighted in my picture. Seems to fit better as well as go up a bit higher. I still had the problem with the bottoms being still too oval-shaped. Once again I busted out the heat gun and slowly (and carefully) zapped the area below the "thumbprint" as well as the opposite side with the heat. Once heated up enough, while still squeezing the biceps...dip them into cold water to cool. After working on them this morning I fell like they pinch me much less if at all and are a bit more rounded rather than oval-shaped.

Thanks Issac. I'm going to move my biceps up to almost touch the should straps. I put the heat gun on the biceps but it's still giving me a fit too. Perhaps more heat and a prayer to make them feel better. My biceps are ok when holding a blaster or have arms at my sides...but once I lift them up (especially to take off or put on my helmet) they pinch so badly. And they are as high as I can get them. How do you have your forearms on? I'm planning on snapping elastic between the bottom of the bicep and the top of the inner forearms. I already have the snaps in place.

Finally got my straps fastened to my chest and back. I've spent around $25 on heavy duty snaps (for all of my armor) rather than using Velcro but I really like the feeling of knowing my armor pieces are secured in the right spots. I'm pleased with how the chest / back feel when wearing it. Now to just add the Velcro and elastic on the sides.

Thanks...I decided to go with the E6000 to fasten the elastic band to the inside of the shoulder bell. Think I may also install the little hook thing on the bicep too to keep the elastic in place better.