bm459

Sounds like you already have other options, but do they have Dollarama in your neck of the woods? They sell a variety of sizes of black cleaning gloves in their hardware section.

Well, no pictures from today, but I adjusted my suspenders, installed some garter straps to keep the thighs higher and installed some straps to hold the shoulders and biceps in line and it feels much, much more comfortable already. (As an added bonus, I find the upper body armor much easier to put on now that the shoulders, biceps and upper armor pieces are connected by straps.) I didn't have time to adjust the kidney piece yet and I want to replace my side straps on my torso with the velcro strips that were recommended. I think that'll improve things even further. With the straps holding the thighs up higher, everything seems to fit better. I'm still not sure if they're too small... they seem to be going up about as high as I could make them, but I'm wondering if I opened them wider if they could come even further. I intentionally left excess material in the back of the thighs so that I could let them out if needed. Any idea how to (safely) remove E6000 glue? Not sure if I'm going to need to, but I'm thinking about it.

Thanks for the feedback. I really, really appreciate it. I'm going to try to make some more adjustments tonight. If I get anywhere today, I'll post some more pictures. I'm starting to get really excited... things are really coming together and I appreciate all the help I've had along the way

So, I've got all the pieces trimmed and most of the straps and snaps in place. It's starting to come together. I still have to attach the shoulder strips, glue on the front thigh cover strips, put a bend in and assemble the belt and put the little belt around the right thigh. I put the pieces I've got on and took a couple of pictures: After I took those pictures, I installed some elastic straps under the shoulder bells (I hope that will keep them more aligned) and installed some snaps in the thighs so that I can attach a garter. My thighs are sitting really and I'm worried that a simple elastic strap won't be strong enough to keep them in place while I'm walking. Any suggestions on how I can improve the fit here? I think they're trimmed alright; there's not much space in there, I think they might actually have been sized too small and my muscles might be pushing the thighs down. Another problem I'm having is with the butt and back. The butt seems to be pulling oddly upwards and out while the back piece seems to be tilting towards the front. Here, check it out: I've got straps attaching the abs plate to the back, but it doesn't seem to be working out very well. I'd appreciate any help on this, too. Finally, I can't seem to keep the sniper plate on top of the thigh piece. I'm hoping once I adjust the thighs higher that this problem will go away, but the thighs are always slipping over the sniper plate. Any suggestions on how to remedy this? Here's a closer picture of the problem: I'd appreciate any feedback I can get. I'm hoping to get the kit together good enough to take it for a spin on Halloween. Once I've spent more than 20 minutes in my full suit, I'm hoping I'll have enough of a feel for it to know where I need to adjust, figure out what's working, etc. Thanks.

Thanks Brian. That makes more sense.

Thanks for the tips. I'll skip the home reno store and check out the hobby shop this weekend to see what brands of paint they carry.

Question: Does the ab plate fit in to the back plate, or does the back plate sit in the ab plate? I assumed the ab plate would go on top of the back plate, but in some of the screenshots I'm looking at, it looks like the back plate should float over the ab plate.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply to my post. I'll keep posting stuff as I work on it. I've put out some feelers to my local garrison and I've already been given access to post in the non-501 area. It's a small garrison (Capital City Garrison, Ottawa, Canada) and so far they've been good to me in their forums :-) Thanks. I think I came across that site during my research and it looks like a good one. I'm planning on using snaps mixed with a nice pair of suspenders that I picked up. I can't wait to apply for my TK ID. I remember feeling that I might not bother as the personal satisfaction of putting together my own suit might be enough... but now that I'm getting in to the whole thing... reading the sites and getting a feeling for the community ... it really seems like something I want to do. Thanks :-) I can't wait to get the full suit on. I'm expecting my first full-on trooping experience to come on Halloween... if I can get my stuff together by then, that is. My daughter's real wants a Stormtrooper escort for her Princess Leia costume :-) So, you know I'm motivated.

I made a little progress today and got all the upper body pieces trimmed. So, I decided to try a test fitting. I used tape to hold the pieces together, so this is very rough trail run. Here are some pics: I'm kind of ... I don't know... feeling 'meh' about this so far. I can see right away that my biceps are on sideways. My right shoulder bell is obviously falling forward; that should be an easy fix when I get proper strapping. I think the proportions are looking pretty decent, but the photos (from cellphone) aren't the best to judge that. I find the armor pinches around my neck a lot and I wonder if something needs to be trimmed better there. I think the abdomen piece needs to be pulled in tighter around my body. I hope the belt will remedy that. The biggest problem I've got is that I feel like i can barely see out of my helmet. I can't look down at all. The chin is basically resting on the chest armor and my downward vision is terrible. I feel like I'm constantly stretching my neck to see out the lenses. Is this normal? Do I need to trim something to fix this? Anyway, I'd really appreciate any feedback that I can get at this point. I'm going to try to get the lower body armor trimmed by the weekend. Things are going faster than I expected so I'm thinking I might be able to get this all together in time to use it as a Halloween costume this year!

I've been putting off assembling my thermal detonator because I keep forgetting to pick up some paint for it. My armor assembly instructions say I should use Rust-Oleum "Hard Hat" gray, but the store that's most convenient for me doesn't carry that brand, only Krylon paints. Can someone recommend a good color from the Krylon line? Thanks.

Nice, I really like that heat sealing iron idea. I've never even heard of that tool before. Looks awesome. I was thinking of using a heat gun, but I may have to go out and pick up one of those irons. I'll post pictures of my results, once I get around to trying to fix it.

I glued together one of my forearm pieces last night and I'm not entirely happy with the results. I have an AM kit which has the nice folded-over lip to give the illusion of thickness. Problem is, I had to trim a lot of the forearm piece to fit my arm nicely. I cut about 1.25" off the inner piece. Anyway, the pieces don't match up very nicely anymore, mostly because the lips don't line up and it leaves a pretty big gap between the parts. So, I'm looking for some suggestions/advice on how to make the piece look a little more uniform. Take a look at the pics to see what I mean: ---- Thanks.