Zaphod

Spats (6A, 6B, 6C, 6D) So I went about these a little different. I decided to try to make the greeblie clips somewhat functional on their own. I used E6000 on these pieces together. There will probably be a lot of bending involved putting these on and trooping in them. I also reinforced the front of the spats as recommended by some in the Alpha group. I used a heat gun to warm up the greeblie so I could bend it to fit the curve of the spat. I then sanded the long side a little so that I created a 'Lip' between the long part and the short part. Then using the heat gun again I put a slight bend into the other side of the spat so that when it is slid under the greeblie it almost snaps into place. My hope is that friction will be enough to keep it closed. If it doesn't work out, I can always switch and use snaps, magnets or Velcro to hold these together. I guess I'll find out pretty quickly on my first troop. -Zaphod

NO WAY! Your build is Awesome! Troopers helping Troopers be as accurate as we can be. -Zaphod

Hey there Tyler. Nice build thread so far. I like what you did with the gaskets. You may want to take a second look at the spats; I think the greeblies may be on the wrong way around Check out the pics in the gallery http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/gallery/image/3788-spat-tk19191-2/ -Zaphod

Like cycle shorts. Not sure about (wet look) I think they look just like regular compression under armor. If I want the wet look, I suppose I could piss myself [emoji12]. Sorry, beer is good! -Pete

Yes. My shorts have a shamrock on them, but the cod hides it nicely. Lol -Pete

We will at least need to wear something like spandex shorts. I picked up Under Armor Compression Shorts and Tee. -Zaphod

Hahaha, I know the feeling. "Think boxes" it is then. -Zaphod

Yessir Boss!

Spotted a typo. .... I highlighted it in red It should be "Knee" Knee Gaskets For 501st approval: Gaskets shall be rubber or a shiny black material with ridges The elbow gaskets must cover all exposed areas between the thigh and shin Also on the shins, the two verticle boxes are "think" boxes? Is that what they are called? The wearer's left outside shin includes two vertical think boxes that are seamless. Nice job though, well done on all the hard work that went into creating this CRL. I need to get busy finishing up my kit. -Zaphod

BACK/YOLK Assembly (1A, 5A, 6E) This part I had a little problem with. The back 1A and yolk support piece 6E didn't fit together very well. I thought if I glued the Yolk 5A first I could figure out something with the back. I used E6000 on the larger areas of guleing areas. Update When trimming the yolk, try to save as much of the scrap as you can, with the aim of reinforcing the return edges of the wings. The scrap pieces have roughly the same curve to them as the yoke. The update below in this post will explain why you may want to reinforce this area. 24 hrs later and I was ready to glue the back to the yolk support. It isn't very noticeable, but to the left in the picture above, you can see a slightly wider gap between the back and yolk compared to the other side. I was more concerned about getting as much of the seam as tight as possible, I figured "I'll be filling it with ABS Paste anyway" and continued on. I squeezed CA glue into the gap to stiffen it up a bit and now the ABS Paste. I had to mix some more because I had a feeling I was going to need a lot for this piece. I used so much ABS Paste in this piece, I left it for a good week to 10 days before I even considered working on it. After sanding I was left with a lot of holes from bubbles, and I was not happy with the edge. In the picture below you can see where the gap was, resulted in two edges, (or a wide flat edge) instead of a narrow sharp edge. On the other side, I was much happier with the edge I got... I decided to apply another layer of ABS Paste to try to even out and sharpen up the seam between the back and Yolk into as sharp an edge as I could. After sanding So while I have a nice sharp edge, in the last picture you can see that filling the gap resulted in the back standing about ¼" from the yolk compared to the other side. Sanding this down to be the same as the other side would remove material from the back and not just ABS Paste. That could ruin the whole thing, so I guess I’ll just have to live with it. Who’s going to notice. (Besides me and everyone reading this). Ready for Bondo and sanding. -Zaphod UPDATE!! It happened. I was trying everything on with the gaskets; to get an idea of where to put snaps for the internal harness/strapping system. I wanted to get this done before painting, so I wouldn't mess up the final paint job. While taking off the back/yoke it split, right in the same spot that most people have experienced a split; right where the support piece ends and the yoke wings start over the shoulder. This is the only shot I got of the split. After a long outburst of profanity, I immediately set about reinforcing the edges on both sides with strips of ABS and CA Glue. I used pieces of scrap I had trimmed off the yoke; these had roughly the same curve to them as the yoke. Do yourself a favor and plan to reinforce this area right from the start. EDIT: This fix ultimately didn't hold up tp trooping, it cracked again. I put in a fiberglass layup on both shoulders. So far so good. In order to try to avoid it happening again, I also trimmed the ends of the wings to widen the gap. Hopefully this will allow more room for my shoulders and reduce flexing of the yoke. Before After Something I also noticed while trying everything on was the overlap between the back and chest. I had a good inch, enough for a strip of Velcro, until I tried it with the thermal detonator in place. Overlap gone. I added the shims to the back rather than to the chest. There are some details on the edges of the chest I didn't want to lose, and the back sits under the chest anyway, so any imperfection on my shim job should be mostly hidden. I used a piece of scrap for the shim rather than the piece of ABS that shipped with the kit. (I believe the scrap pieces I used came from the thighs). The reason I used scrap is because of the difference in thickness of the vac-formed armor compared to the extra piece of ABS. The scrap piece had the same thickness as the armor and I used the extra ABS sheet for the support behind the shims. This mod added about 2 inches, which gives me plenty of overlap for Velcro now. I used CA Glue, and of course, ABS paste to hide the joint. I don't have any in process pics of this. I was rushing to get into the paint booth before I ran out of warm days. Here are some after pics These side pieces can be bent open easily without risk of breaking, which hopefully will reduce the need to bend the yoke wings when putting it on and taking it off. At least, that's the plan. -Zaphod

Not cutting off 'glue tabs' is a good start. Good luck with your build. -Zaphod

You didn't answer the question......... I always get "These are not the droids you're looking for" Anyone got a good response for that? Besides playing along

Excellent work Tony! I'm following with great interest. Love your yolk back assembly. -Pete

AB Section (1B, 2B, 9E, 9F, 9G, 9H, 9I, 9J, 9K) CAUTION! THE KIDNEY SECTION HAS GLUE TABS DO NOT CUT THEM OFF. So this is another part of the build with seamless joints. Both sides of the AB, where the AB meets the Kidney are seamless. I cut the Kidney in half right up that nice line that's there in the center of the back before I started. I figured it would be easier to handle and position half of the piece rather than the whole piece. Because the sides are seamless I used CA glue to glue the Kidney and AB sections together. This is a lot of surface area to glue and with just one or two seconds to line everything up, I enlisted my wife and son for clamp duty. We had a couple of dry runs; I'd pretend to apply glue, then line up one end, yell "CLAMP" (like I’m a surgeon), line up the seam all the way to the other end, yell "CLAMP" again. After we got all the giggles out, we were ready to go. I don't have any pictures of the gluing process, but we did it twice and it turned out well on both sides. I lost the skin off a couple of my finger-tips using my hands as clamps (CA glued them to the sides), but you can sand skin off plastic easily enough. ABS Paste time again. This is a big area to cover and requires a lot of paste. The aim of all of this is to avoid the cracking that some of the Alpha people have encountered using Bondo. Barcoder used Plastic Weld and seems to have gotten good results. The AB section is going to be stretched, pulled and bent every time I put it on, and from just moving around while trooping. So something that won't crack is the best choice. And since I have plenty of time, I'm exploring the ABS Paste route. After I applied the paste I tried brushing Acetone directly on to the paste to try to smooth it out some more. I did this before and I'm not entirely convinced it helped all that much, I'll be sanding it off anyway. I saw no need to ABS Paste the box sections 1 and 7 on the AB. These will get covered by the boxes so I figured why bother. After sanding, I think it turned out pretty good. I'm pleased with the results I'm getting with the ABS Paste. As before, I went over the whole seam with Bondo Glazing Putty, to fill any air bubbles or low spots. Now time for the AB Boxes, or 7 little 'ears'. If you are unsure of the cut lines, look on the inside of the boxes. There is a lip that should help you locate the correct lines. When I sanded these, I sanded parallel to the side I was sanding (without sanding the actual edge of the piece) so I had almost a knife edge when it was done. I then knocked down the sharp edge with some light sanding with 120 grit. It took a little more light sanding to get the boxes close to the contours of the AB. The boxes are not seamless, as we have learned, go there will be a small gap anyway. I just tried my best to minimize the gap. Now how to glue the boxes, without gluing the boxes, if you know what I mean. I thought of using a block of some sort to glue to the inside of each box, then glue the block to the AB. Each block would have to be a custom height to get the box as close to the AB as possible. I thought of making the blocks out of built up layers of ABS strips, but then I thought up this idea. I got a Vinyl Baluster from Home Depot (It came out of a returned, open box, Fence kit or something). I cut pieces about ¾" wide off and then cut those in half, making two interlocking C shapes. The plan is to glue the backs of these, one to the inside of the box, the other to the AB. Then using E6000 glue on the legs of each half, slide the two together. The box bottoms out on the AB and the legs get glued wherever they stop. I think I'll glue box 1 and 7 after I've primed the AB section to make sure none of the bondo paste can be seen. Speaking of box 1 and 7, Krista (kme1682) said she (or heard of some Alpha) had issues with these popping off, probably due to the amount of flexing going on there. So I included a safety system to try to avoid losing a box if one does pop off. There is just enough room inside the two 'C' pieces for these tethers. There is a set inside each box. Now, if a box does pop off, the break will probably happen at the E6000 glued legs and not damage the box, and the tether will keep the box attached so I don't lose it. Here's hoping I never get to find out if it works. -Zaphod

The build instructions came in the form of an email from Anovos. I'll try to pm you the template pdf. No it isn't rocket science lol, but every little bit helps. -Zaphod

Well, we didn't get Paul's armor built in a day. 8 hours on Saturday (we didn't start until 2pm), and 5 on Sunday, and all that's left is the internal strapping (ran out of snaps ). So close to getting it done. Edit: Paul did get to troop on the 15th in his new TK armor (unapproved.....shhh!) More updates on my TFA TK Thighs (3A, 3B, 4A, 4B, 10M) CAUTION! THESE PARTS HAVE GLUE TABS, DO NOT CUT THEM OFF! The Thighs have nice big glue tabs on them, and cut lines are again easy to find once you realize that. The trickiest part will be the Holster Base Plate (10M) that gets glued to the outside of the right thigh. I glued these with E6000, mostly because I wanted the extra time to line up the long seams correctly. The CA is so fast, (almost instant), I didn't want to chance it on such a big gluing area. These are easy, no seamless seams to worry about, so no ABS Paste. Clamps and magnets and 24hrs later, they're done. Next the Holster Mounting base. (10M) I carefully sanded it down. Follow the curve of the cut lines, there is a different curve on each side of the piece. Sand, fit, sand some more, fit again, until I was satisfied with the fit. I then held it in place and went around the edges with CA glue and Zip Kicker. I used the CA glue to fill the seam and sanded it as smooth as I could. I think it is a little harder to sand than ABS Paste. The holster base plate is the only seamless part of the thighs. (Edit: There may be a different opinion on whether this is seamless or not. I'll try to get better info and update this thread). I will go over the seams with Bondo Glazing Putty before I paint. Shins (3C, 3D, 4C, 4D, 10K, 10L) CAUTION! THESE PARTS HAVE GLUE TABS, DO NOT CUT THEM OFF! The Shins also have nice big glue tabs on them, and cut lines are easy to find once you realize that. The inside joint is not glued, like regular TK shins; you will need to get your foot through. The trickiest part of this was the two boxes (10K, 10L) that get glued to the outside of the left shin. As with the thighs, I glued these with E6000. Clamps, magnets, time and they're done. The two boxes that get glued to the side are different, pay attention to that. These are another set of "ears" I had to deal with, with this kit. Follow the curve of the cut lines; there is a different curve on each side of each piece. Sand carefully, fit, sand again fit again, until I was satisfied with the fit. Then I held it in place and went around the edges with CA glue and Zip Kicker, just like I did with the Holster Base. These two boxes are the only seamless part on the Shins. The inside seam I will probably keep closed with white Velcro. I will go over the two box seams with Bondo Glazing Putty before I paint. Thermal Detonator (10A, 10B 10C, 10D, 10E, 10F) After my success with the chest, forearms and biceps, I thought the Thermal Detonator should be less intimidating. It wasn't. It took a lot of work. I went very slow on sanding and fitting. Even with being as careful as I was I still ended up with gaps bigger than I would have liked. But, they will all get filled with ABS Paste so, no big deal. One thing I should have done was to tape the end caps inside the TD while I was fitting the two pieces together. I had a gap on the underside of the TD I could have avoided if I had done this. With the TD held together with tape I started to apply ABS Paste to the insides of each joint, and then put paste on the outside of each joint. I left the tape in place until the ABS Paste dried. Then I removed the tape that held it all together while the ABS Paste dried and applied more paste to the empty spots left by the tape. After sanding it looked pretty good apart from the odd bubble here and there. (Wouldn't you know I forgot to take a pic of the sanded TD). I used Bondo Glazing Putty to smooth the imperfections on all the seamless joints. It looks like a lot of Bondo, but it sands off easily. With everything sanded down smooth, it was time to glue it to the TD Plate. I held it in place and glued it with CA glue all the way around. I decided I wasn't going to use the glue to fill the gap. I think ABS Paste is easier to sand. More bubbles again, I must be slapping it on too fast or something. A little more ABS Paste, let it dry. Then glazing putty and sandpaper and DONE. The worst part to sand was the joint between the TD and the TD plate. With a bit of patients and persistence I think I got it looking okay. The TD bracket, I'm not even sure it will be enough to keep the TD in place, so I will be using Barcoder's Idea of adding straps and snaps. Edit: Update from Barcoder's first troop. He said the bracket dug into his back the whole troop, and he would probably end up removing it. I may do the same if it does the same to me. And thats the dredded Thermal Detonator DONE! There certainly are A LOT of tricky pieces to work with in this kit. I say tricky rather than difficult because by taking it slow, sand a little at a time, fit, sand a little more, check the fit again, (like TK ears) it is very doable, just need to be patient with it. AB section is up next. That should be a breeze after the TD, right? -Zaphod Edit 2: Update I removed the bracket and replaced it with straps and snaps. The bracket didn't work too well and held the TD too high IMO. -Zaphod

I have not. My guess is that if it does crack with ABS Paste, it would have cracked anyway. I think the ABS will stand up better than Bondo at any rate. I will be posting another update sometime this weekend hopefully. I have to tidy up my workshop; I have a member of the R2 builders coming down with his ATA Kit. We are going to try to get it built in a day so he can troop on the 15th . Wish us luck. -Zaphod

The hardest part of my TK was the ears. I'm discovering all of the "ears" this kit has, lol

Chest Resin Cut out upgrade I was a little reluctant to cut into the chest of a brand new set of armor, with no telling if or when I would be able to get a replacement piece if I messed up. But I figured I'd do it for the better good of the FISD community. There will be others that follow who will need to know what works and what to avoid. So here is what I did. I put the resin piece onto the inside of the chest right over the buldge from the vac formed cutout. It was able to move around a bit so I just tried to center it a best I could and traced around it with a pencil. Time to cut. I cut just inside the line. I wanted as tight a fit as possible. Well, no turning back now. I did have to sand down the edges a bit to get the resin piece to fit in. Using pieces of ABS cut from the sheet that came with the kit, I made some brackets. Put ABS piece in a vice, heat it up with a heat gun, then bend it over. Repeat 6 times. I put painters tape across the hole to support the resin piece while I positioned the brackets with magnets. Each bracket was removed one at a time and heated up with the heat gun until I got the angle of the bend just right. Then using the CA glue, I glued the brackets to the resin cutout. I used CA again to glue the whole thing to the chest plate. DOUBLE CHECK to make sure you are not putting it in upside down! I almost goofed. Time once again to take out the ABS Paste. I taped off the work area, and got to work spreading the ABS Paste. Remove the tape immediately and leave it to dry. I have been leaving everything I use ABS Paste on to dry for about 5 days to a week. Once dried, I started sanding with 120 grit. You can see I put the paste on pretty thick. Those bubbles will fade away with more sanding. And the bubbles are gone. I finished with 120 grit. I can't feel where the armor ends and the resin begins when I run my fingers over it. I will sand again with 600 and then go over the area with Bondo Glazing Putty, just to be sure I catch every imperfection. Well I am pretty pleased with the way that turned out. I think I'll do something a little less stressful next time. Like the Thighs and Shins maybe. They look simple enough. (Notice how I keep putting off the Thermal Detonator, I'm sort of dreading that piece.) -Zaphod

Thanks Barcoder. I am following your thread with great interest. You have given me some good ideas. -Zaphod

Before I move on to Forearms, I thought I'd share how the Biceps turned out. Here they are after being sanded down. The gloss sheen of the ABS is gone after sanding with 120 and then 220 grit, naturally, but so is the seam. Pretty pleased with that. On to Forearms Forearms (7A,7B,7C,7D,6K,6L,8A,8B,8C,8D +resin greeblie x2 + shims x4) Be careful trimming the wrist opening of the forearm. There is a detail that needs to remain. Keep this detail intact The Forearms have 9 pieces each to them (if you include the shims). There is a template for the shims to be used on the forearms. The two side pieces (cut from 7A) are glued to the bottom (7B) with the shims and these joints need to be seamless. The belt sander gets those edges nice and straight Time for ABS Paste After the ABS Paste had dried, I sanded. Pleased with the results on these parts too. So far so good with the ABS Paste. Repeat for the other forearm. The top piece of the forearm (7C) has a resin "Railroad" greeblie and a two piece box (7D,6K) that gets glued on to it. The box bottom (6K), will need a little creative sanding to get it to sit in flush inside the upper box. Glue the resin piece on before the box. Everything to this point I glued with Zap-A-Gap(CA). The top piece itself in not glued all the way down the length of the forearm. This is so it can flex open to allow your hand to pass through the narrow opening at the end. You will glue approximately 75% down the length of the top piece on both sides, starting at the elbow going towards the wrist. I glued the first 50% with CA, and the last 25% with E6000. My thinking here was, the lower part of the forearm will be flexing every time I put my hand through; I'd be okay with breaking the E6000 bond rather than having the piece crack because the CA bond was too strong. Time will tell. More to come, thanks for watching. -Zaphod

I did too. I'm using more paste to see if it will fill the holes left after sanding the bubbles. If it doesn't, Bondo Glazing Putty will do the job. -Zaphod -Pete

Yes. It can take quite a while to set up. I was busy with other parts of the build while it dried. I think I left the Back/Yoke sit for about a week before I dared to take sand paper to it. This is the main reason the Alphas went with bondo, no time to wait for ABS Paste to dry. I'll share pics of the biceps all sanded down in my next post; they turned out great. And wait until you see the new resin chest cut out. I'm particularly proud of that. -Zaphod

Time to make some ABS Paste I cut up trimmed pieces of ABS into tiny bits about 1/8" x 1/8". Put them into a clean baby food jar, and poured acetone over the pieces until just covered. Put the lid back on and left it for a day or two while I cut the parts that will have seamless joints. Biceps, forearms and Ab/Kidney. Biceps (9A, 9B, 9C, 9D) Easy to identify cut lines again. Score close to the line; score a couple more times to deepen the cut, and then snap it out. CAUTION! THESE PIECES HAVE GLUE TABS. DO NOT CUT THEM OFF! This is where the Belt Sander shines. The length of the sanding belt gets the seamless joint edge nice and straight, minimizing the gap that needs to be filled. Come to think of it, I used the belt sander to sand down all the pieces to the cut lines. You get a lot of control when you can grip the piece your sanding with both hands. And just cleaned up the edges by hand with 120 and 220 grit sand paper. Huge time saver. The kit came with a template for the shims (see pic). I used Zap-a-Gap again. This joint has to be permanent, so E-6000 won't do. I glued the shim to one half, then glued the other half This stuff sets up so fast I didn't have time to take a pic. Just kidding, I forgot. The other side of the biceps has a nice big fat glue tab Ready for the ABS Paste. I taped off each side of the joint to contain the past and hopefully limit the amount of sanding I would need to do. The ABS Paste I made was not soupy or lumpy, smooth but not as thick a peanut butter, more like honey on a cold day, I'd say. If you think it's too thick to spread smoothly into the seam, add a little more acetone and give it a stir. It starts to set up fairly quickly, not as quick as CA. You spread it on, smooth it out as best you can, you have less than a minute then it starts to get sticky/messy. I tried smoothing it out even more by using an acid brush dipped in acetone, and just painting the ABS Paste seam. It kind of worked. I'll be sanding it off anyway so... And done That will sit for at least 24hrs, longer depending on how thick you put the paste on there. Next time, Forearms. -Zaphod

I really like this. I'm going to do my TD the same way I think. Don't forget to let us know if something doesn't work out. I'm not too sure about the Spats. Do you thing the resin greeblie is strong enough for repeated open and closing of the snap? Nice work by the way. -Zaphod