rhapsodyred99

try the 30-32 inch waist you need for screen cast armor! I wear 36 jeans and 38 dress pants, my side armor on the RS leaves about 4 inches on each side, so I would need a 30 inch waist to fit. Not many American Males are going to fit that anymore.... I challenge armor makers, or at least one armor maker to make a "big Boy Buck" for the kidney! make it 8 inches on each side longer than you normally would which should give most people plenty they can trim off to fit! I bet you would make a mint. I would buy 2 of them!

I got mine from TKleper but seems his sale is closed, you can still try sending him a PM.

That is one nice thing about the hook system, the elastic allows the grieve to flex as you walk which works quite well. The down side is that the grieve does not close as tightly as when it is held with velcro. you can see what i mean in this pic of my intermediate fittings:

Grats! I am still waiting for my email... I may do as you did on the right side as I did a 100% original strapping method I only have the one strap on that side as well, and noticed the same thing was happening to my armor. I guess in the screen used suits the belt and the fact they were tiny guys and the armor butted against each other helped to even it out. I kinda hate to add another non original strap there, but I may have no choice.

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/5642-modded-rubies-supream-tk-armor/ is a thread on the extensive mods needed. I agree with the above poster, cut your losses and sell it and get a quality suit from one of the makers here.

I found some nice ones that look almost exactly lik ethe ones RS and CFO supply with their armor in the paint Isle at walmart for around 3 dollars, downside is they only have large. http://www.walmart.com/ip/Firm-Grip-Long-Cuff-Neoprene-Gloves/20918588

I just got mine today and was playing with it, and I can definately say that mic HAS to be right on your lips. I used PTT and its hit the PTT button count to 2 and start talking loudly with the mic right on my lips to get anything. On the upside the static bursts work a treat. I am not sure about keeping the mic on my lips though I would rather not have to do that. maybe the condenser mic is the better option.

how are the fans as far as noise level? It is hard to hear in my bucket anyway, I was afraid a fan would make it impossible.

I have an RS suit and I think its great, I am larger than the traditional trooper, at 6 foot 1 and 230 lbs, but the untrimmed kit had plenty of plastic left over on the arms and legs so fit with no issue. The sides wont close, and there are some larger black gaps, but really the RS kit is a wonderful thing and the guys are good to deal with. Its the one in my Avatar, and there is a thread in the ESB build section if you want to see how it looks on a bigger guy, who had no experience building armor

I love mine, its amazing how light and indestructible they are, yet still look great.

I begin to understand the popcorn emote in the first reply... I am guessing more than the shims for RT would be that it is overlaping build not coverstrips, though I understand he can send you strips, just not sure it would pass the new Centurian level since you would probably need to glue them over the overlap. If you trimmed the overlap off they would probably be too small. On a side note I actually have an RT kidney piece, he said it was the default size and the way the buck was made it could not be made bigger. I had hoped since RT is for bigger guys I could sub out the RS kidney and not have to worry about shims. I was wrong it gets it about an inch closer but it still leaves a 2-3 inch gap on each side.

I think the only way for guys like us is to potentially hose our armor by trying to bond the shim directly to the kidney plate. Even a well done patch looks like a patch to me and is more distracting than the black space IMHO. If bonding is the only option I may have to forgo the program if I cannot make it look even remotely ok on some scraps first. I wont be destroying my RS or my TM trying it that's for sure. Maybe we can storm the RS offices and demand they make a "fat boy" Kidney buck Maybe we can take up a collection and convince TM to make one too? On the upside it seems side shims are not required for ROTJ, so maybe we can just all go ROTJ. We need more ROTJ builds anyway

No joke! this guy looks like hes marched through hell and could still kick some an impolite person! Love it!

Mine was rough. I was afraid to get them to pretrim it as I knew I was bigger than the intended actor, so wanted the extra plastic which worked out great. Most here are going to be untrimmed or rough. get some lexan scissors and a good xacto knife and its not nearly as hard as you think to trim. I was a wreck trimming down my return edges at first I was so nervous! One word of caution, the helmet comes with some pencil lines on it. Do not trust those lines without checking! I blindly cut mine following the lines and screwed up my right side assembly by trimming too much off the cap n back which meant I had to cant the ear to the rear to cover the seam, which left more of the sunken cheek tube on that side showing than it should have. The helmet is a bit wonky(as is the real one) so be careful there! I seem to be the only one that has had that issue though so maybe the template slipped on them when they were penciling my lines. My helmet is not god awful, but other RS lids look much better. They were nice enough to send me a new ear (I had also blindly followed the pencil lines there) and I was able to better hide my mistake, but I plan on getting a new lid sometime to replace it. Dudesideous has a great build thread, and searching these forums will help you with coverstrip sizes and strapping.

That was my plan if nothing else presented itself, but I figured knowing my luck it would turn into a warped mess, so I was hoping for alternatives that did not involve my dubious skill.

I got an untrimmed RS kit, and I had zero experience building armor. It came with no instructions, but I pored over lots and lots of build threads (a few on here from RS themselves) that helped immensely. There are also tutorials and lots and lots of screen caps to help you out. That said it took a ton of work. Mainly because of my lack of experience I did things the long way around I am sure. Advice I have is to use E6000 the long cure time is no fun, but it is very forgiving and can be taken back apart if needed, and the excess just cleans up by rubbing it. Think of it as heavy duty Ribber cement. If you use glue and put too much it could melt your armor. if you use glue and later realize you messed up, you could be screwed. E6000 prevents all that. RS takes your measurements, they build the suit to you, so it 'should" fit, but as Mathias says if you screw up a measurement, or something needs repairing in the future you could be out of luck. The other downside of having them build it is time. They told me they had a 13 week backlog back at the beginning of summer. I have had a finished PP lid on order with them for 3 months... Not saying they are dragging thier feet, just reminding you they are really only two guys that have a lot going on and craftmanship takes time. If you were ready to go like I was you can get the unfinished kit, with the strapping pack they supply and be building in a week. It took me about 4 months to finish my kit working when I had time, experienced builders can do it in a week...

Just make sure it actually fits your endcaps! My RS endcaps are super tight on the piece of European pluming pipe they sent me (i understand the original suits used those so not sure how they fit american standard pluming). I would take your trimmed end caps to the store with you to make sure they will fit.

I have some extra plastic Mark sent incase I needed shims, So I may try my hand with those.\ the problem s under the new rules they have to be inner boxes not just closed, so Ill have to try to form an inner box somehow, might be easier with the for sale signs you mention. Wonder if there is a small gift box that would fit...hmmm.

Anyone make CFO drop box backs?

Well done, love the stand, is that from the master replica?

The way I stopped my sniper plate from going under the thigh was to add some foam to the front of the calf. It worked to move the plate forward and stopped the calf from rotating. it worked so well I am going to put some in the other calf. (I noticed they tended to rotate outwards as I walked). This was pointed out to me in my suit up thread. My first suit up looked terrible compared to yours! The thigh ammo belt looks to be squared? you could round the bottom for a more screen accurate look. Nice job, I am awaiting my GMLs responses on my armor as well so good luck!

the parts on the right are for covering the rivets that attach the plastic belt to the canvas belt you cut them out the TD looks to be missing the gray pipe you would cut the controls out and glue them to the gray pipe then put the end caps on, here is a link to an rs build (from Desert's centurion post) that shows the TD assembled around the gray pipe.------------

the Rs Suit also has them face mounted, though I put mine on the return edge. http://www.whitearmo...oper-anh-build/ check out post number 6.

That should be the snap for the side clamshell? That is how my RS closes my snap is just a little more away from the edge...

So I recently finished my ESB RS propmasters build Seen here: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/21427-rs-props-pvc-first-suit-up-pics/page__fromsearch__1 , and I built it with original strapping and split rivets, as I was going for as close to Prop Replica as I was able. I also have A CFO suit that Mark got about 3/4 done for me (I need to size and finish the legs). I also Have a TM built suit on the way for my ANH hero/stunt suit. The problem I have is that all those suits have a gap between the ab and the kidney. Not a surprise since I weigh more than those lil actors those suits were built for. The problem is that the only thing that should keep me from the higher levels of certification are about 4 inches give or take on each side of each suit. (I'm guessing on the TM as it has not gotten here yet, but based on the RS). I am not a fan of shims, the armor has gaps other places, I do not see why the sides should make a difference, but rules are rules so I understand. The problem is how to do them. IS it permissible to have the shims not be joined via abs paste to the armor parts? I have seem some real hatchet jobs trying that, and even when done well it is noticeable. I am thinking of cutting spare plastic and having it set on top of the side straps, and under the ab and kidney, but I am not sure if that would pass muster. Most of the centurion pictures I look at are either Smallish guys or guys who have abs pasted to varying degrees of success. I really do not want to destroy expensive armor trying to do that, but it seems a shame not to go EIB and Centurion just beacause of a few inches on the sides. Any pointers would be appreciated.