Techne

Good luck Tom, and hello back at you from Syracuse, NY!

Good luck, Stacy! Feeling terror and doubt are par for the course. Opening that box is always a scary feeling--but it is exhilarating too, once you start to get some work under your belt. Just take it step by step, and remember the old saying: measure twice, cut once. Feel free to ask us all questions and for advice. We all started at the beginning too. What kind of kit did you get? I don't know much about the femme-trooper style of armor with the female chestplate, myself.

Congrats, snazzy lookin' armor there!

Good luck...and if I may suggest, perhaps consider building to EIB or Centurion? When you go for those guidelines from the beginning, it's not much extra work and gives you some very satisfying results.

Looks sweet! I think it's interesting to see this kind of helmet build. Do you have some armor as well?

Congrats on your EIB, it looks great!

Great interview and love the t-shirt!

Foam is good, or you can run a strap from the biceps to the forearms, that will keep them at the right distance all the time.

Looks pretty good to me, taking into account the things you mentioned you're waiting on, like the white belt squares. Very quick and methodical build. Your right forearm could potentially go up an inch, that may just be the way you're wearing it in the pic though. In terms of matching the top of the ab plate to the kidney plate, yes I would probably do it that way. Take a look at some of the EIB and Centurion applications and see how they did it though. Are you going to go for EIB?

That's great! Good to see it all complete! Looking forward to the EIB.

Pretty much. The force and lots of glue and maybe a heat gun to get it into the right shape. I got my hovi mics at Trooperbay, and they were fine; I believe there are also others you can buy them from here on this site.

Right on!

Yeah, EIB is nice because you feel like you lived up to a consensus of what a good set of armor looks like and reached a clear-cut goal. The most detailed parts of the EIB application are related to the helmet (although they're not hard), and then there's getting the sniper knee fixed, which is a pain. Other than that there's not too much different from the basic level of approval. The reason I was worried about the helmet was because I wasn't sure how well I'd be able to correctly cut out and shape the teeth and eyes. One screw up there and you're done for. But it looks you did a really nice job there.

EIB and beyond! Excellent! Here's a picture of my thighs with two versions. Again, I didn't have the angle problem, and my shells did meet, but the width of the raised ridge in the back was way bigger than normal. So on the left is a cover strip that covered the whole raised ridge created by the two shells coming together, and on the right is a cover strip that is the correct width. The one on the left looked too wide, and the one on the right looked too thin, in proportion to the rest of the armor. So eventually I ended up (with some gentle persuasion from Gazmosis, who I have to agree was right) making strips that were in the middle, and matching the width of the strips on the back of my calves, which did have a gap between the shells, so those strips couldn't be any thinner. I'd recommend you try something like this-- potentially adapted based on whatever your actual distance and angle between your shells is.

Nice work so far--I am always impressed by people who take on the helmet first, I was so intimidated by it that I waited to do that last. It will be a great thing to have all done and staring at you while you do the rest of the build! Have you given any thought about going up for EIB or Centurion? As long as you take the guidelines into consideration as you go through the build, it's not much extra work.

Looks like it's coming along nicely. I had the same experience, I would spend 2 or 3 hours working and it seemed like nothing got accomplished...but you get there eventually! I assume based on your hand guards that you're going for Centurion?

I love the disco trooper. In regard to the back of the thighs...I had similar problems, as have a few others. There was some discussion about this, but the end decision was to use cover strips that were as close to the official width as possible, but still wide enough to cover and bridge whatever gap you may have between the two shells. Mine weren't coming together at an angle like yours, so that's an additional difficulty you may have to deal with. But I would basically go with shims and cover strips, and then if the gym option works out (I"m working on that myself) then you can always slim your cover strips down later. Are you going for EIB? It's not hard to get your build to that level if you keep the requirements in mind as you go along.

Congrats and well deserved. Looking forward to the Centurion!

I was going to comment on the white paint on the cod, but I see you took it off This is totally picky but there's a pretty long frayed string hanging down from your belt. I don't think it should affect your Centurion status but I would just trim it and any others off with scissors. Otherwise looks good and good luck!

Nice work! Congrats!

Looks great, nice build. Fun action shot. Am I correct that the number of black rank stripes on the ears is not specified for EIB, and so it is OK to have the back 2 painted black as they are here, but if she wants to go for Centurion only the one stripe can be painted?

I hear you when it comes to the bicep/forearm positioning. I agree that the biceps look too high in the top pics. But as an ATA owner, I have what sounds like a similar issue to you. I had high biceps, but when I tried to lower them by using a longer strap than I had originally, it didn't work as well as I had hoped. There was basically a sweet spot where the biceps just wanted to click in place inside the shoulder bells (withor without a strap), and even with a longer strap the biceps wouldn't go lower without being pulled down--and when they were pulled down, then suddenly they would sort of pop all the way out, and that looked even worse. It was real loose and clanky. It was a real struggle. Eventually I managed to get a strap that was the exact right length and tension to hold the biceps a little lower than they "want" to be, but won't let them pop out easily. Still, it's a little limiting for my movement, if I move my arms too wildly they can still pop out below the bells. I think you just have to work on the straps through trial and error.

Looks pretty sweet. I'm always amazed at how many awesome builders there are out there.

I don't know if this is necessarily a requirement, but the snaps/rivet that attach the strap between your crotch/butt are usually unpainted, not white.

Congrats on both awards!