theunemployedstormtroopers

Ive been so caught up in building that i have forgoten this thread....heres a pic of me(left) and our bass player Josh(right) We have both trimmed out our left forearms for added movement and yes we can play guitars in these things!!! touching the ground is another story....lol Last night josh split his cod piece in hopes of being able to bend over. it helped but didnt quite do the trick. Our drummer is doing heavy trimming at the moment. its getting kinda crazy!!! im kinda worried that his stage armor will not pass 501st or EIB requirements but if he cant play in it whats the point right? Next Week will be gluing and fitting. Our other guitar player is still in the trimming stages. Bieng 6'4, skinny and the biggest calve ive ever seen is taking a bit more thought. we are using a 40 mil cover strip on the calve!!! We havent even started to think about how we are going to keep his other shin over his prosthetic. But we do have 4 heads working together and tons of help from everyone in forums.

in five months at 6 hours a week weve gotten 2 suits of armor fitted and assembled and one trimmed. still have to do buckets and paint. with the right tools i could see a suit being fitted and painted within a 40 hour work week. Three 8 hour shifts would be one heck of a challenge!!!

Allright... i finally got a test run in my armor!!!! Our bass player has been assembled and fitted for about two weeks now and i had been busting my butt trying to get caught up by halloween. I had plans for trick or treating with the boy and some adult time with his mother so it was important that i was star wars themed for the occassion. So after 4 days of trimming sanding and glueing i finally had my armor ready for its first trial run. I go to the first halooween party 2 hours late and before i even made it through the door i lost a snap plate for the elastic strap in the shoulder bell that hold the bicept up...so that was ripped completely off along with the other side, lol!!! As i walked in the door jaws dropped. ppl at the party had been waiting months to finally see me wearing the armor and they were all impressed to actually see it happen. after an hour of standing i thought i would try to lean my butt against a bar stool, then ping another snap plate popped. this time the elastic strap from my butt plate to the back of the thigh. to even things up i yanked out the other side as well. Then i started to feel a little nauesous. thinking it was my chest plate rubbing against my throat i found a razor blade and did some on the spot trimming. After the party i had to meet up with leia for some tavernackling. I found myself lacing up in 40 degree weather wearing only my spandex. we hit up 3 bars with many pictures, free drinks and good times with only one additional snap plate breaking. The next day as i suited up for trick or treating the plate on my inner shoulder strap came loose inabling my to keep my shoulder bell attached. luckily i had some crazy glue and a lighter cuz i was not about to let my sons first halloween be ruined. He got his candy, we got some pics....perfect!!!! This weekend worked out great. Halloween was a perfect time to test out my suit and work out the kinks. Having armor fall apart while trooping an event for the first time would have been embarressing. Couple things that are on my drawing board....Bigger snap plates with more plastic surface area for bonding, Fine tuning of openings for fitting and movement, split cod piece, straps for forarms to bicepts and of course primer and final paint. Current Status: 2 sets of armor wearable, 90% complete, 1 set of armor trimmed ready for assembly, final set in trimming stage. one bucket assembled and ready for paint and decals

alright...low pro velcro from walmart did it. It seems that i have fat thighs and chicken calves. i just trimmed down the velcro strips and did the over lap like the anh suits. how is it that i can take 8 mil off the calfs but have to add 20 mil to the thighs? either way we are good to go now!!! thanx all!!!

Alright, its been time for an update. the project is going way slower then expected but we did manage to drink 6 times as many beers then we thought. one set of armor has been completed, shoulder bells and bicepts pieces were squared away with an elastic strap with a snap attached to the inside of the bicept. after that we had to split the forearms. they looked bulky so we brought them down to movie spec. Big note on fore arms!!! We had tried to make the seems bigger thinking that it would ease our big hands through....but really its about the opening at the end. the widest point in the opening is from top seam to bottom seam were your thumb knuckle and bottom of hand slide through. widening the seam doesnt make the opening bigger just wider, and with more bulk to the armor. Unless you are Popeye i would recomend keeping fore arms at movie spec and if you cant get your hand through go back and sand down and open up the wrist at the seams. Suit number 2 has legs(super fatty thighs) and arms glued, tonite i am sealing up the last of the snaps and rivets for the midsection. a night of glueing and tomorrow will be final strap assembly and hopefully be final fitting!!!!

i think the cover strip is inevitable. im gonna check into the low pro velcro at corporate dethmart. ive seen pics of the elastic closuer system. id like to here more testimonials on that method

shooter's big V back. i glued the front of my thighs last nite. i too am going to be doing the big v backs in my thighs. Im trimmed, shimmed and ready for glue. years of motocross and skateboarding have left me with monster thighs and i cant get any where close to anh specs. i like shooter's cut out in the back of the knee to avoid pinching... gonna try that one also.

on the left shin which is anh style you can see the 23 mil (custom to fitting) over lap with the closeur being velcro. on the right is the over cut shin that only has 12.5 mil left on each half which is short of the over lap method

Some how the backs of my shins were over trimmed. i still have 12.5 mil on each side which i could butt together with a cover strip on top but i need the backs to still open. the cover strip kinda takes velcro out of the picture because the 2 parts of the velcro will push the trim out an aditional 5 mil when closed. im also thinking about 4 elastic strips on the inside under the finish strip... at this point im open to all and any ideas on this before i finish these bad boys up

One thing that i could see being beneficial to a garrison with doing the "pay to troop" concept is keeping a garrison "Cash Kitty". almost like paying really low garrison dues. Garrisons would be able to keep small amounts of cash on hand to help out with such things as booths and rooms at conventions and events. its important to keep it non profit, but if as individuals in the garrison keeping a little garrison petty cash could come in handy....maybe even help fund garrison parties.

a few more pictures. The first suit we put together was a mock up for test fitting pieces for each suit. we had some pieces that ran 15 mil butt joint seems and some with 20 / 25 mil joints so we had stuff to compare bieng that we are all different sizes. when we had a full suit we could try on different pieces and sizes to see what modification fit best. We finally have 1 suit almost complete minus attaching the knee ammo belt and the belt. all snaps and harnesses are really close to where they should be. e6000 all around. the last things to plague me are the arms....we pulled the forearms as close as we could with being able to still get our hands through....this ended up utilizing 20 mill butt joints/strips rather then the anh accurate 15 mil. once the forearms are on there is a hell of a gap in the wrists. im sure gloves will take up the slack but im looking for a beter option. now the last of my arm troubles deal with the bicept and shoulder bell...it seems that if the bicepts are not snug that the shoulder bells tend to push out and shift, im working on tightening up the bicepts and shaving down the return to pull the plastic closer to the flesh and then shaving out a little of the inside bottom of the bell to allow it to sit tighter to the bicept piece. some armor i see has a lot of white and very little spacing between pieces. we are trying to keep some nice solid seperation between pieces to aviod the "white out" armor look

ive been searching for clear info on this..... ive read 30mm for the fronts of thighs and legs. backs of thighs and legs are whatever is needed to make your armor fit. 20mm for the fronts of forearms and bicepts with whatever is needed in the back for fitting. there was a great thread that went into detail about this but i cant find it again for the life of me. there must be sum sort of standardized spec for the front seem/finish strip for both legs and arms

I finally got a test fitting with armor and helmet, the thread is under te2 derrived armor, 4 set build

The band was the primary objective. our intentions are to build these to meet 501st specs. The band and myself plan on trooping every chance we can and as a band we would love to perform for 501st functions and be involved in the 501st...further more the band would love to help promote the 501st and F.I.S.D. On the other hand i am not E.I.B. or 501st, yet. Im taking my time here and soaking up as much advice as i can in order to do these suits up rite rather then have our armor end up like chinced out fan made armor. many ppl have been super helpful in these forums and even though im only at my first full mock up, i would have never been able to do this with out the F.I.S.D.! I do believe that a build is a rite of passage and is part of being a stormtrooper similar to the 1st building of a chopper motorcycle. damn, im like an old AMC....just a Rambler!!!