Nihilius

Haha, Thanks Mathias. I had some E6000 on the sides of the knee ammo belt but it apparently came loose at some point. Snaps between the belt and ab plate is going to be a must. The belt seemed to be working great till I holstered the blaster, then it just wanted to sag.

Just submitted my pics for 501st approval! I did a quick little photo shoot yesterday and despite the minimal trimming around the joints I have pretty good range of motion. I mean I can sit and kneel without any real difficulty. Other than the shoulder pads that keep wanting to rotate back and the slightly oversized butt plate I'm all ears for any suggestions!

Slowly but surely I'm getting this armor done. However, due to laziness I went ahead and hit the vocoder with gloss black (I didn't want to do a hobby store run for a single paint pot). I think it looks pretty good! I just won't be buffing it any time soon. I also fabbed up a couple TD clips out of a strip of 1" x 1/16" aluminum. They are attached to the PVC tube with no.10 flat head wood screws. If they ever pull out or anything I'll just drill out the PVC a little more and use machine screws w/nuts.

Dang... Hmmmmmm... Anyone know any enamel paint strippers that won't damage resin mic tips?

Hmmmmm, I was pretty sure that the ANH vocoder and hovis were gloss black and I already painted the mic tips. I think I'll stick with that so they match (though I definitely prefer satin black as a general rule). Maybe on the next build!

The stuff I have is like a 2 part putty that you knead together. It came in a stick of white putty wrapped in a grey/silverish putty. I think it heats up a bit when mixed but not enough to melt the abs, and I'm hoping it's workable enough to give it a little style along with function.

Thanks for the heads up Steve. Mike from my garrison hooked me up with a some two part plastic jb-weld type stuff that I'm going to use to back the mic tip area of the helmet. I was even debating trying to sculpt it to look like the backside of a breather filter or something techno-y. Man... I've been having too much fun with this. I want to start building another kit and haven't even finished this one yet!

Thanks guys! I did end up riveting the snaps to the belt and was able to spend a few minutes painting the helmet. Just need to install the mic tips, paint some stripes, paint the vocoder then the outside of the helmet should be ready to rock!

Woohoo! I found a local leather guy that hooked me up with some 4-5oz black dyed through leather and some 6-7oz veg tanned for straps. I ended up with enough for 2 holsters and gave it a go tonight. If you ignore the wavy stitching I think it turned out more than acceptable! My biggest issue was that I had to run the sewing machine full throttle to pierce the leather but it was a real trooper and got the job done. After that, since the sewing machine was already out I decided to do another belt since I didn't like the first. This one is 4 layers of white canvas (duck cloth, whatever) with a single strip of 3" white elastic in the middle. I quickly realized after this that my snap pliers can't reach the center of the plastic belt. We'll see... I would still like to be able to disassemble the belt without drilling out rivets. I think I'm very close to submitting for 501st approval!

Haha, the tube stripes weren't too bad. I'm more nervous about painting the tears and temples. Free-handing those straight lines is definitely not something I'm looking forward to. Okay, I am really looking forward to it but it's still going to be nerve racking since I don't want to use templates. Last night I used a sewing machine for third time ever. The first was in middle school, the second was a poor attempt at a TK belt and round three turned out this little zippered neck seal. At work we set up the tube cutter for the first time in about a year so I figured I'd take advantage and cut a set of DLT-19 and E-11 barrels on the off chance that I decide to build a more substantial blaster. I didn't have any aluminum tubing on hand so they're just made from 1.5" ERW. I'm getting pretty close to submitting for 501st approval. I still need to paint the helmet detail and ab buttons, build a thermal detonator, assemble the belt, stick on one final thigh cover strip and get my hands on a holster (Tandy would only sell me huge pieces of leather so it wasn't cost effective to make it myself ).

I had no problem heating and narrowing the torso and kidney and I will probably bring them in a bit more. The butt plate was going smooth until I hit the warping temp of the plastic. Right now I'm trying to use doubled elastic and nylon web strapping to pull the butt plate to match the kidney though I've found that starts to limit my movement (sitting). Once all is said and done I'll probably heat it again after it's completely trimmed and just be really careful with the heat gun.

It's been a while since the last update but I've made some progress despite being out of town. Most of the build will be in a later post but I finally started detailing the helmet and was so stoked that I had to post a couple pics. I picked up some Meguiars Ultimate Compound and went to work on the helmet. After it was all polished up and cleaned I went about masking the tube stripes. I referenced a couple pics on starwarshelmets and layed down some 3M painters tape for the tops/bottoms of the stripes to keep them nice and even. Once I was happy with the position carefully pressed the edge down with the shaft of the paint brush to prevent paint bleed. I found that I had about 3" of space to work with and marked the tape every 1/4" for a total of 13 stripes. Starting with the front I began painting the stripes. The front few stripes I leaned forward and progressively made them more upright as they approached the ears. My brush was a little to thin to do the stripes in one strok and it took two coats to get complete coverage which is why the stripes aren't an even width. I did strokes both top to bottom and bottom to top to get the paint flush with the painters tape and give the stripes a crisp edge. My painting skills aren't nearly as clean and even as they used to be but I like how they came out. I hope they're in about the right position. I believe in "Ready... Fire... Aim..." as much as "Measure twice, cut once". To be continued...

You're right Travis, the bells do need some trimming. Once everything is together I'm going to have a dremel day and take all of the return edges down to where they need to be.

Thanks Eldrik! Your build looks awesome. I'm amazed how quickly everything came together for you seeing as how it's your first build. I've been keeping an eye on your E-11 build Solcar and it looks great! Can't wait to see it painted.

Thanks Nick! That's a bummer about the kitchen. I've only had one boil over and thankfully 5 gallons of beer lasts me a while, especially with options! I got the itch to get my armor hanging off my body and made some good progress. The torso is about 80% strapped. I need to connect the bells to the shoulder elastic add a happy strap between the cod and butt and finish the but to kidney and it should be just about good! I'm going to leave the side velcro for a little while and see if I can make the suit fit better before adding the split rivets and snap. Sidenote: The Hyperfirm E-11 I picked up is a killer piece of hardware. That's all for this week! I also want to thank everyone here at the FISD. There's so much good information available that I haven't had a reason to start any question threads! I think that's hurting my post count...

Life's always busy but I've been plinking away at the armor as I get the chance. I've put heat into most of the parts I'm working on to slim them down a bit and tonight I've decided that sweat pants are super convenient while fitting the torso/cod piece without needing to get crazy with the masking tape. Anyway, I thought I'd throw up a couple pics to show my progess. The right bracer was coming out very large compared to the left so I decided now was as good a time as any to play with the heat gun. Thankfully the under/rear half of the ATA right bracer was straight and featureless making it much easier to heat-shape than the much more shapely left bracer. On the bottom half I completely removed the rear molded butt-joint flat (I figure this is the most discreet location) and used the heat gun to flatten out the swooping edge to allow the cover strip an even surface to attach to. Now that I'm looking at the picture below I notice it's not the most attractive thing but it is sized much better to my boney wrists and I can always tweak it with a little more heat later. 1930's built-in mirror, TK upper body, oblivious expression and a few empties ready for the next batch of home brew. I wasn't going to post this pic but it made me laugh. Nothing I'm wearing here is currently strapped (most notably the biceps) though my pauldrons are taped to the chest piece shoulder plastics. Thoughts/suggestions? One of these days I'm gonna drag my lady over for a TK fashion show but until that happens you all will just have to live with mirror cell phone pics. And here's some terrible other pics. Man I do not look happy here... just ignore the scowl, I am honestly super stoked with where I'm at right now though I still think the torso and chest may need to be narrowed further. How much space should I have in the torso? Without cutting the cod should there be room to bend forward or do most people use the straight backed "bend at your legs" approach?

Welcome Jason! I just joined myself and started my ATA build a couple weeks ago. Have you stopped by www.southerncaliforniagarrison.com/ and introduced yourself? There have been talks of some armor parties coming up in February.

Thanks for the support and feedback guys. Now that I've bumbled my way through most of the helmet I figure I'll turn back to the armor. I've glued the fronts of the biceps (15mm cover strips and probably 17mm wide "flats") and taped the rears such that they are about 60% of the width that they should be. I could probably still fit 10-11mm cover strips though. Both biceps still have around 3/16" return edge. Anyway, as I type this i'm already thinking of pulling the fronts apart and bringing them in a hair. The return edges I can trim with a dremel then give it a nice round edge with sand paper. For now I am just hoping to get some feedback before I do anything silly. My garrison is planning to do a few armor parties in February which will help a lot, but for now I defer to all of the experts that frequent the forum here! Anyway, feedback on the fit? Should I go a little larger? A little tighter? I plan on leaving the oval bicep with that oblong shape and I think the length of the armor is perfect, bordering on long. And I apologize for the terrible pictures. The lighting here is just no bueno.

On the right ear you can see quite a bit of rough mold, particularly on the back. I was debating trying to use a sealing iron to try and smooth everything out but I'm sure that would end in a complete disaster. Do you guys think I need to open up the teeth more?

Spent a little more time on the bucket and while I'm not completely satisfied I think it's good enough for now. Spending more time on them right now would just be frustrating. I can always go back and do more trimming or do some work on my second set of ears.

Thanks guys! I'll probably be putting in the upper screws to see where I need to do my final trimming tonight, then onto the right side.

Thanks for the feedback all. I actually started trimming my backup ear but got the idea of lowering the brow trim to make up corner gap. I don't see any real problems with doing this so long as it's level(ish) and I glue the trim in place. Here are a couple pics with the old and new position and a little more trimming. I think I can get a nice tight fitting ear like this. Is there anything I missed regarding lowering the brow trim? Trim in it's natural position Trim dropped 3/16" You can see the little gap between the cap and the trim from the rear. I can probably close that gap with a little glue at the end.

My short attention span kicked in this afternoon and had me jump back to the helmet. I think it's coming along nicely but like everyone else's first build the big question comes down to the ears. Here is my first test fit. (note: this is a mirrored pic) The brow trim seemed a little too uneven so I drilled out the rivets, trimmed the brow line and re-assembled. Looks much better in my opinion. It could be leveled more, but I'm satisfied as is. I've moved on to trimming my ears right now and was hoping all of you experts out there could offer some feedback. Is the angle and position here about right? The back seems to be good for now. I'll just keep trimming it as I work on the front. My concern is here. That little inside corner. Do you guys think I can keep trimming and make it fit or should I just start over with some fresh plastic? Thanks all!

Thanks Bobojuice! That is exactly the kind of comparison I was looking for. I had been thinking about airflow and was trying to figure out an intake and exhaust setup to keep fresh air flowing but two exhaust fans might be the way to go! Set up right it could keep cool air in the bucket without it feeling like a tornado.

Thanks for the thoughts all. What specifically led me to this fan was that it was a mere 15mm thick and pulled only 0.7Watts. There's 20mm thick version pulls 1.5W which would give you 1/2 the battery life but would also blow double the CFM. I may pick up both and see which I prefer.