Techne

Understood, thanks. I'll go for trimming the ends of the belt and fixing the buttons before I put up the Centurion app then. Thnaks Glen!

Wow, that was fast! Thanks! That's very gratifying. I appreciate the comments. I can't argue with anything you said, since you picked up on exactly the same things that have been nagging me myself! Good to know my instincts were right, I guess. I can definitely make the ab buttons smaller. I thought I had probably gone a little overboard. The belt corners are one of the only things in the build where I knew I had made a straight-up mistake. I was looking at the 3/4" measurement from the center of the button to the edge, and accidentally used that for the corners instead of the correct 1/2". But after I did it, I didn't think I could do much to fix it. So do you think it's better to cut the end down flush to the edge of the square button, even though that makes the overall end-of-the-belt-tab shorter than normal? I guess I'm asking which will look worse--corners that are cut too large, or a tab that's too short and cut flush to the button? This is where you're talking about making the cut, right? It would make the corners the correct 1/2": In terms of Steve's questions about the side shims and the thigh and calf cover strips, I can only say that they wouldn't fit without them. I tried to fit the torso pieces together with no shims, and they just wouldn't come together. (I have a 36 waist but a bit of a gut.) Now, I've lost 5-10 pounds since then, to get into "Stormtrooper Shape." So it's possible that after I lose another 5 pounds or so, I may be able to lose the side shims. But when I first made it, I tested it by sucking in my gut in so my stomach was concave, and it still didn't fit. So I don't know if even losing weight will help. From what I can tell, my ribs are just too wide, which is weird, but I it's just one of those "every body is unique" things. The legs are kind of the same thing. I couldn't fit the thighs or calves without cover strips of that size. I know they're ridiculously big, especially the thighs. And my thighs aren't overweight or anything. They just seem to be thick. I do a style of kung fu that specializes in low, strong stances, so maybe that's built up the thickness of my legs. So when I realized they wouldn't fit, I made them based on advice I've seen others get on the forums--I made the front strips the canon size, and altered the back strips so they'd fit. Even with those size strips, they were really tight when I first made them. Losing weight has seemed to make a difference there, and they feel a tiny bit looser now, despite my whole kung fu theory. So again it's possible that I could eventually switch out to a thinner thigh cover strip after I lose some more weight. But that's a maybe, I'll just have to see how it goes over time. Anyway, I'll take care of the ab buttons, and if you still think cutting down the edge of the belt is the best approach, I'll do that too. Thanks again for the comments.

Name = Chris Wildrick ID = TK 31198 FISD Name = Techne Garrison = Garrison Excelsior Armor = ATA Helmet= ATA Blaster= Doopy’s full resin, built by me Height = 6’1†Weight = 190 lbs Boots = TK Boots Canvas belt = Trooperbay Hand Plates = Trooperbay rubber Electronics = I have an Aker amp and ROM/FX Raw, and two hand-built squirrel fans, but don't currently use them Neck Seal = Trooperbay Holster = made by me Here are my blaster and armor build threads, if anyone wants to see them. I plan to apply for Centurion after this, so any comments and suggestions in that direction are appreciated. I've had a great time making this build. It was a real challenge and it was very satisfying to finally complete(?) it! Thanks to the very many troopers and their threads that I've followed in order to build this, obviously I would have never been able to do it without them. Here are the pics. I have others, and can always take more, if you want to see anything else. Front Back Right, Arm Down Right, Arm Up. I have 1" shims of ABS on both sides to close the side gap. Right, Arm Up, Detail. The upper-ab snap is partially visible here, I will show details for Centurion. Left, Arm Down. I'm embarrassed to say I forgot to take this pic during my most recent photo shoot, so I am substituting this pic from the previous shoot. I didn't make any major changes to the armor between shoots, I just didn't like how the green-screen cloth reflected green onto the armor. Left, Arm Up. Left, Arm Up, Detail. 3 split rivets on both sides of the ab and kidney plates. There's a bit of a space between the kidney/shim and the ab plate here. When I normally wear it that's not usually there. I must have left my belt a little looser than normal (although I see it in the green-screen pic too, strangely). Again, I can take pictures again to show how those parts are normally flush, or show other older pictures, if necessary. Ab Detail. The paint colors are Testor's 1138 grey and Humbrol French Blue. Action Shot Bucket Off. Lower your chin, TK-31198! Argh. Cod and Butt Plate Attachment, Outside and Inside. 2 snaps and a split rivet. Interior Strapping Kidney Is Separated from Butt Plate Arm strapping detail, so you can see the black strap that goes around my arm from the shoulder bells, which isn't visible in the main picture. Shins close in back using the hook method. Helmet Front, including Hovi mic. All helmet details are hand-painted. Helmet Back Helmet Left. Both ears have 3 screws and 4 bumps. Sorry my neck seal got all bunched up here. And I see my shoulder strap elastic came off. Very slick of me. Helmet Right Green Lens Color Scuffed boots Black Gloves with White Rubber Hand Guards (will show flexing for Centurion) Blaster, Left. 6 total T-tracks and 2 power cylinders. Blaster, Right. The center painted bolt section looks kind of gold in the light here but is actually silver. Blaster, D-ring Blaster Mods: working trigger, moving selector switch, moving bolt Neck Seal Thermal Detonator. It has black pan-head slotted screws and aluminum 1" clips. Belt and Holster, with 3 squares and 45-degree cuts on belt. Holster Close-up of the holster attachment from front and back. I used split rivets that go through the outside, but connect to a snap on the inside, so the holster can snap on and off, but it looks like a rivet on the outside. Also shows the drop boxes are closed in the back and attached by one rivet. Holster reversed to show the snaps. And I believe that's it. Again, if you have any questions, or would like me to explain something in greater detail, or want more pictures, please let me know. Thanks!

I'm very excited because I've officially been accepted by the 501st, I'm now officially TK 31198. It's been a long road getting to here, even if the build itself has only been a handful of months long. So that's very gratifying. I first saw the 501st at an appearance a few years ago and was totally impressed by the members' armor quality, so it's exciting to finally become a member myself. In terms of my build, I did paint those tabs as 5thHorseman suggested, and since I realized I never showed a picture of them in the first place, here they are: My GML also suggested trimming down the tops of the cover strips on the back of my thighs, which made sense to me, so I did so. Here's what they looked like originally, with a couple of options I had for cutting in red and blue: Here's where they are now: He suggested cutting the right one down further (at more of an angle), so they're more symmetrical. Which makes sense to me. But on the other hand the armor itself isn't symmetrical; the reason they're not symmetrical now is because they follow the actual armor's angles in each leg. Anybody have any thoughts on this? Currently I feel like leaving it but I could be persuaded otherwise. I want to apply for EIB and Centurion, but I am leaving town for a week starting Wednesday, so I may not get a chance until I get back. Hopefully I can at least get the EIB thread started.

TK 31198 requesting 501st access. Thanks. http://www.501st.com/members/displaymemberdetails.php?userID=16321

Thanks, I did wrestle with the forearms' size. The left is a bit thinner but not much. I agree that the helmet is high compared to most other people's armor, and it is because I added extra padding...but I had to do it so I could see out of the eyesockets. Without the extra padding, my eyes were too high up in the helmet to see out of it, unfortunately. And that is a great idea for those tabs. Sometimes I think about things too much and miss the easy solutions! Thanks again for the input.

Alright, here's what is hopefully my last test fit, or close to it: So....opinions? Things I should improve? It looks like one of my plastic shoulder straps ended up underneath the back plate; that's just an accident and not the way it normally fits. It's possible the biceps could go down a bit farther, I don't know. I did already lengthen the strap between the shoulder and bicep. The shoulder and biceps kind of lock together physically though, so even if I lengthened the strap, I'm not sure it would go much further. Also the horizontal strap that goes around the bicep from the shoulder wouldn't still go over the bicep by much if I lowered it much farther. But I think I feel OK with how it looks at this point. The other possible question is the way I connected the kidneys and abs. There's a square tab, attached to the kidneys, that fits between the top and middle straps, and keeps the kidneys from popping out too far to the sides. But you can occasionally see a bit of the tab. In these pics, you can't see it on the left side, but you can see it on the right side a little bit. This seems to be because the two plates are aligned at a bit of an angle on the right, while on the left they're more parallel. I'm not sure if this is an accident of how I randomly tightened the belt, or if it looks that way on a regular basis. I could have sworn I had taken a pic of this tab, but I guess not. I can show a close up if anyone wants. Let me know what you think, and based on what I hear, I'll either make changes or go for 501st approval soon.

Hey, slow and steady...you've got it, taking your time is not a problem.

I've been spending the last week or two fixing and cleaning up my gear after it got pretty dirty wearing it around for a week. I took a whole series of before and after photos (dirty and cleaned), but then I realized it made for pretty boring pictures. So for brevity's sake, here's a pic of my trunk after I got back, you can see the black rubbed onto the back, which was pretty typical on a lot of the parts. Lots of dirty scrapes in the forearms and shins. I tried cleaning it off with water, but that had no effect. Then I used Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, which was recommended on several other threads, and I'll be darned if i didn't work like magic! It was really easy, got off really dark grime. Then I sanded and polished a lot of scrapes and gouges (from wearing it, but also stuff I never got around to dealing with from when I was building it). I used sandpaper all the way up to 2000 grit, and also Novus and Meguire's Ultimate Compound for polish. Now it's back to nice and smooth. Not quite as sparkly as the original finish though, I'm going to continue to experiment with that. I fixed a couple straps that I hadn't been happy with, fixing them or optimizing their lengths. Then I made a second holster, using the new, thicker leather I had gotten. I got it off eBay, from this guy: http://www.ebay.com/usr/bobkitchener I only mention it because I looked all over the place for thick black leather that was dyed through and sueded on the back and couldn't find it anywhere else, except in huge rolls. I only needed about 16x20", and found a perfectly-sized piece on one of the guy's auctions. He seems to sell a lot of medium-size pieces like that, and for what seem like reasonable prices to me, so if you're stuck like I was, I would give him a look. I got 8/9 oz, and that may have actually been a bit too thick, 7/8 may be more typical. But it worked, and I extremely happy with the finished product. This holster may actually be the piece of the armor I'm happiest about. Here's the leather. You can see how much thicker and stiffer it is than my first holster, which was shown in an earlier post. I used these two tutorials, especially the second, and of course Troopermaster's diagram, but I had to make some of my own variations. For instance, I made it about an inch longer, to make sure my gun didn't poke out of the bottom like it did with my first one. I cut it out and marked the holes for sewing, using my daughter's Swiss Army Knife leather punch to make the shallow holes . Then I attached the front and back together with double-sided tape, as suggested in the second tutorial, so I could punch the holes all the way through. I honestly thought the tape wouldn't work on leather--I got a basic scotch tape version--but lo and behold it really held it together very well. I tried to use a sewing machine, with a leather needle, and on a manual setting, to make the holes go all the way through, but the leather was too thick and it didn't work. So I ended up having to drill the darn holes. I didn't really want to, and was worried about ruining the leather, but it worked fine. And it was probably for the best anyway, because the holes were then big enough to easily get the thread through. Here's the thread I used. Thick and waxed, to make it easily go through the holes. I've never done any leatherwork before, but I have done a lot of bookbinding, so this part was right up my alley. I used a heavy bookbinding needle, and used a variant on a standard stab-binding (a.k.a. Japanese binding) sewing technique. Actually, before I sewed it, I put on the front snap. This was a problem, because the leather was thicker than the length of the prong on the back of the snap--it didn't poke through far enough, so it couldn't connect to the other half of the snap. So I had to cut out a divot in the back of the leather and inset the snap into it, so that the prong of the snap would protrude from the leather. This was a major pain in the a$$. Cutting a nickel-size depression less than an eighth of an inch deep into the leather took a ridiculous amount of time. But it worked, and I put the snap together. This is the main reason I say that my leather was too thick. I cut a hole for the handle strap, and once again inset the snap into the leather. Then I finished it off by adding the belt straps, using some tan leather scrap from Tandy Leather Factory. (They have cheap small scraps, but nothing [that I could find, anyway] that was the right size for the holster itself, thus the use of eBay for the main piece.) The leather was so thick that I had to get some 1/4" long rivets to attach the handle strap (going through 2 layers of leather plus a washer) and 1/2" rivets for the belt straps (3 layers of leather plus a washer). I was sure they would be too long and I'd have to dremel them down after I stuck them in, but amazingly they were exactly the right size. Then I was done! Here's some pics of the top and bottom, showing the thickness. I'm just fascinated by how much more sturdy it is compared to my first one. It feels awesome. And here it is, with my blaster inside and on its own: I'll do a final test fitting in the next day or two, and put up the pics for some final feedback. Then hopefully I'll be ready to apply for general approval and above!

Wow this is great information. I wish I had this when I started instead of when I am just about done! Athough in a way it's only now that I could really understand some of these details.

It's hard for me to know where to start here. I've been doing a lot. I finished up my build and wore it for almost a week at a festival, so I've really gotten to know it. It held up surprisingly well and I only have a few tweaks to do to fix up minor problems. I wasn't too happy with my audio, which I'm sure is just how I set it up, and I can work that out. I didn't install my fans, and will try that out later. Right now it's dirty as hell, so I've got a lot of cleaning to do! When I've done that, I'll take some final test fit photos to see if anyone has any final comments, then submit for FISD. Anyway, here's what I did before I left: I forgot to take pics of my shoulder straps before. Here they are with their elastic. I believe the originals sewed their thin elastic to a hanging snap, but that seemed kind of unnecessary to me, so I just sewed it into the loop made by my existing snaps. I had enormous extra trouble with my hand guard paint job. I had tried to use the printing ink (shown in a post above) and thought it worked, but it rubbed off pretty easily. Then I figured I might as well try the same white enamel I used on the ear screws. This seemed good, and flexible, but wouldn't dry. It had dried quickly enough when I used it on the screws, but was still not dry after days on the hand guards. I did a lot of research and there was a lot of random internet advice about this. It seems enamel doesn't really dry, it cures, which is more of a chemical process. But I'm not sure why it wouldn't cure on the handguards. Anyway, I thought one possibility was that I hadn't mixed the paint enough, so I stripped it off with paint thinner and painted it with white enamel spray paint instead, figuring this would certainly dry quickly. But despite the paint's directions, it didn't dry either, even after a day and a half. It was still very sticky. The heat gun didn't do anything. So, relying again on the ol' internet advice, I stuck it in my over for an hour at about 175 or 200 F (which is as low as my oven goes). Then I let it cool in the oven as the oven cooled. This worked perfectly! The paint was hard and dry and smooth. Perfect. Over the week, it has cracked and flaked somewhat, but overall it's still not bad and I can repaint it when necessary. Sorry this pic is over-lit, I'll take another one later. Here's some pics of my helmet. I repainted the outside black lines to be about half as thick as they were before and I think it looks much better. I also touched up a few other lines here and there. Also, a pic of my ab buttons. The main thing I put work into was the back of the drop boxes. I didn't like the seam I had, it looked hack-y. So I finally made some ABS paste. I cut up teeny fragments of ABS (I've been saving all my cut-offs), and barely covered them in acetone. I covered the bottle and waited about an hour, and it was perfect. I filled in around the backs of the boxes. I probably put on too much, but it was hard to control the application. Then I sanded it down after a few hours, using 400, 600, 1000, and 2000 grit. I'm not exactly sure how the whole wet sanding works, I just did it dry. I tried the Novus, but it didn't really get the shine back, but then I tried this stuff from Pep Boys (forget the name, I'll check it later) and that worked better. I had to sand/shine the fronts too. Overall I was very happy with how this experiment worked out. Also I got the new, thicker leather to make a new version of my holster. I'll start making that soon. I got a Sterilite trunk from Wal-Mart to pack my armor. I was able to get the whole thing in there, including helmet. I didn't bring my blaster along, but I think I could have gotten that in there too. Actually this pic shows the electronics in there but I eventually took them out and brought them on carry-on. And finally here's one pic of me during a test fit before I left. I made more changes after this, so I won't post the rest from this fitting, I'll take another set of pics when I've got it all cleaned up.

Hey congrats meanders, I really enjoyed your thread.

Those weddings are just fantastic.

Some very nice touches here, like the details on the belt and eye scrim.

Hmm, you're right, they are thicker than the originals now that I look at them again. I've seen some fan versions this thick, but I should probably thin them down. That's no problem. Thanks--I'll be interested to see yours when you're done. Your inner drop box lids came out really neatly, mine were kind of rough. I just filled in the edges with ABS paste and it looks good now, but it would have been nice to just leave them, like yours.

Yeah, I've had several fail just putting it on, so backups seemed like a good idea to me! You're right, the boots will probably put the shins in the right place. I did put some foam in there anyway just so they don't klonk around. Thanks for the thoughts on the arms, I am going to try to keep that in mind. I had already painted the teeth, so I may wait a bit before cutting them down more. And I also agree that a wider strap would have been better on my thighs; I was lazy and didn't want to buy what seems like the tenth kind of strapping. But perhaps what I will do is sew on a second layer of the same kind of strapping, to make it less flexible. I appreciate the feedback. That's what I was thinking. But then I figured that if it was to hold the two pieces together, there would be four of them. But I guess you could use just the two of them plus the ear screws and it would all be steady. Well, what I've been working on recently is mostly the holster and helmet. For the holster, I made it, but it's only going to be a temporary place-holder until I get different leather. I really had no idea what kind of leather to get or where to get it. I got some nice brown leather for the straps (top left pic). I ordered some bookbinding leather, but the back of it has all the suede shorn off and I didn't like the look (top right pic). Then I got a leather coat at a thrift store for cheap, and cut it apart. The back gave me a perfectly-sized piece, and the back looked good (bottom two pics). However, it turned out to be very thin and flexible, even stretchy, and what I quickly realized is that it was not optimal for holding up my heavy blaster (top left). So, my lovely and amazing wife mentioned that you can buy iron-on fabric stiffeners. So I got two of them--a fairly stiff white, and a less stiff black/grey to cover up the white--and ironed them on. This worked reasonably well. They ironed on easily, and they did stiffen the holster so it held the blaster up better, but still it sort of crunches up (lower right). So I went all around trying to find better leather. All I could find in my area was giant hides, like 22 square feet, for hundreds of dollars. That was a no-go. I talked to a leather guy and he said what I should use is "belt leather," which is obviously the leather used for belts, and is the right thickness for this kind of project. It's also called 8/9 oz leather. I still had a hard time finding it even on the internet, at least in the right size and color. But eventually I found some on eBay and hopefully I'll win the auction I'm currently in! Don't bid on my auction! But while I'm waiting I decided to finish the original one, just for practice. My wife sewed the side, and I put in the various rivets. When it comes to attaching it to the belt, I went with the technique of putting snaps on the holster straps, and snaps on the inside of the belt--but attaching these snaps on the belt using a rivet, so the rivet head shows from the outside, and it looks like the whole thing is riveted instead of snapped. I was going to use a regular rivet but it wasn't thick enough to hold the snap in place, so I used my leftover split rivets, which worked fine. Once it was actually hanging on the belt, it held the blaster in place better than it did before. I think the straps helped hold it flatter somehow. So it's not perfect, but a good first try. The tip of the blaster does peek out of the end though. I assume this is not correct? I've put most of the stuff inside the helmet. I have a small head, and the star foam I got wasn't thick enough to hold the helmet at the right level for my eyes, so I put in some extra grey foam at the top, then glued the star foam on top of that. I've used E-6000 for all of this. Then I put in the eye piece, the straps (which I attached to the bottom screws--I believe the originals may have been attached to one of the upper screws, but when I tried that it didn't hold my head in the right place) and the s-shaped black rubber. Most of the painting on the helmet has been pretty straightforward. Just FYI, I had bought a couple jars of most of the paint colors, but it wasn't necessary, one jar of each color was all I needed. The traps and tears all went pretty smoothly, I just hand painted them with a wide brush for the grey and a thin brush for the lines. The teeth and ears were also fine. The tube stripes I obsessed over for a long time. I looked at everyone's stripes (original and other builds), I studied the correct direction for the bend, I tried to figure out the measurements from measuring the pics of the originals and using various tutorials. Finally I drew them out on a Frisket mask, making them 9 cm long and 17mm high. I can't promise this is perfectly accurate but it's my best guess. They're a pencil's width from the side. I painted through the Frisket with a layer of white to plug any gaps in the mask first (as recommended by Bob-o), and then two layers of blue. Unfortunately the frisket couldn't flatten down perfectly due to the complex double curves of the tubes, and a fair amount leaked out underneath regardless of the white layer. I thought I was going to have to wipe them all off and start from scratch, but I gave it a shot cleaning it up, and it actually worked. Using a toothpick, q-tip, small brush, and paint thinner, I got them to look pretty darn good, and then I painted back in a few details that had lifted off. I was honestly amazed by how well I was able to fix them. So here it is, my pretty-much-complete helmet (except for painting the screws): A few more minor details, then another test fit to come.

Wow, really nice in every way. I'm so impressed with the painting, and I like the idea of using letter dies to make the letters.

I totally understand, I'm in a rush to get done for an event myself.

OK, like I said I don't really know about the ear markings, I'm just basing that on what I've seen. And yes, the shoulder strapping color is only for Centurion, I wasn't sure what level you were building for. (Just some comments from a guy who's at about the same stage as you and is thinking about these same details)

Just a quick update. I've fixed a lot of the strapping problems I had. The chest/abs now fit together perfectly, the shoulder bells are fitted better, as are the thighs. Basically I added a second snap in the middle of the existing straps, and snapped that one to the existing snap plate on the armor. Then I added another snap plate on the armor and snapped the original snap onto that. The effect was to shorten the strap distance and also strengthen it by having more snaps in one spot. I have been coming along pretty well on the helmet and ab painting. I just need to do the black lines and the tube stripes on the helmet. I have to check and see how many lines are in the black line sections. The major part I am now unsure about is the forearm location, as I mentioned above. The forearms are too high up on my arms. I can't lowe the biceps much, since their bottom edge is more or less at the elbow joint. So I would have to lengthen the bicep/forearm strap. But it is my understanding that (1) it's supposed to be pretty short and (2) the shortness is a major anti-armor-bite deterrent. So I am loath to lengthen it. But I don't know what else I could do. Again I do have long arms so I may not have many other options. I'll show another pic when I do another test fit soon, probably after I finish the painting and install my helmet foam and shin padding.

I don't know what level you're applying to, but I believe for Centurion at least the fabric that connects the chest and back at the shoulders is supposed to be white, not black. "The plastic shoulder straps need to be held down in the back via a white elastic band to the white fabric that connects/bridges the chest and back piece." Also, when it comes to the rank stripes on the ears, I thought the only options were to paint the back line or the pack two lines. I haven't seen the way you've done it before, but I could be totally wrong here.

I got mine at Lowe's. It's cheap. They have a whole section of various flat pieces of metal. Home Depot should too.

I'm going to start painting tonight. So anyone with feedback on my teeth, let me know now, before they're painted! I did the ears, and I have to say their difficulty was not overstated. Here's the best I could do, with some fairly clear gaps. I know the originals had lots of gaps, but I would have liked to have minimized them more than this. In retrospect, I would have cut the ears' shape down before riveting the helmet, and in fact before doing the final cut of the helmet shape. It would have helped if the cap's sides came forward just an inch or so more to the front; I had to force the ears' positions to cover up the border between the cap and back. Shaping them was a fairly tough ordeal, but oh well, they're done. Here's my first real test fit. There's still work to be done. I knew, for instance, that the chest/abdomen connection was a problem, and so are a variety of straps. Anyway I'll show the pics and then pick it apart! The pictures, I should note, are by my 8-year-old daughter. But it was my genius choice to take them so they're all back-lit in front of a window. And, I just noticed, I put them in the wrong order The helmet still needs to be painted, there's no padding, and the lenses are only temporarily in there. I didn't bother centering my thermal detonator, and I'm obviously barefoot...I realized I should have put my boots on after my legs but before my torso. Once I had the torso on I couldn't sit down, and the left calf is too tight to put the boot on without a lot of work. I got a heat gun today to deal with that. In terms of bigger problems, I need to use shorter straps on the shoulder bells, which are too far from the plastic shoulder straps. I also was really surprised at how much of my wrist you can see--the lower edges of the forearms are really high up. I intentionally used short straps between the forearm and bicep partly because the examples I was looking at were short, but also because I read that if they're short, it reduces armor bite in the inside of the elbow--which is true, it doesn't bite me at all this way. But now, looking at it, I think I probably need to change this. The biceps could go down in theory, thus lowering the bottom of the forearm, but in reality the bottom of the bicep armor pieces are pretty close to the bottom of my actual biceps. I do have pretty long arms. So I guess longer straps between the bicep and forearm? The thighs actually look decent to me here, but I think they need to go up higher, their bottoms are halfway down my knees. I need to shorten the straps that hold them up. The shins also need to be held up, I guess by some foam padding? The connection between the back and the kidneys is better than I thought, I'm happy with that. No weird spacing or angled ends. The main problem, obviously, is the connection between the chest and ab plate. It's been doing this since I made it--the chest doesn't go very far down past the abs, so the abs often pop out. Now I later realized that in this pic, one of the straps between the chest and abs popped off its snap. But that's relatively irrelevant, it's been doing this regardless. I think the solution is to shorten the straps between the chest and abs. This would pull them closer, and force the abs to go under and not in front of the chest, obviously. It has room in the crotch to go higher, so I think this will work. Hopefully I don't have to make suspenders to hold them up, that's more internal structure than I'd like to have. In any case, I decided on a new solution to shortening the snaps--instead of doubling up a portion of it and sewing it together, I'm going to put a second set of snaps on the straps, closer to the center, and then add new elastic snap plates on the torso, so they get double the snap connection as a redundancy. It looks here, at least, like the left side of my ab/kidney connection looks OK. The right side opens up towards the top. So I may have to shorten those straps as well. Any other critiques on the fit? Or solutions to things I've already noted? Here's a close up of the chest/abs just to show that when I'm careful with it, it can look right, but then all of a sudden, POP out it comes! Anyway, fire away!

Wow, you are seriously an artist with an iron and sandpaper...those teeth (or lack of them) are amazing.

Thanks! Will do! One of the next things on my list. First, here's my torso strapping...nothing special, pretty much the standard. I moved on to my bucket. Out of all the things that intimidated me on this build, this was the most, and I waited until the end when I was sure I could deal wth it well, since it's the most visible part. I think it was a good idea to wait. However, like almost everything else that intimidated me, this turned out to be not SO bad once I got to it. It took some work and some of the judgements on where to cut etc. were as hard as ever, but with all the great source images here on FISD, it worked out pretty well. I am drawing heavily on the builds by Pandatrooper, bluetric450r, Minuteman, Aosen, Mac Bragg, Moose, and TK-4510. Here's pictures of my cut lines, although I drew the lines in pencil, so you may not be able to see them very well. But basically I just marked where the mold was and cut about a quarter or half inch away from there just to be sure at first. I used scissors to cut off most of it, and a dremel for the eyes and teeth. It was exciting to be able to finally hold it up in front of my face and see through the eyes! Then here is the refined cut stage. I did all this work with the dremel, and then sandpaper. The one section I was not really sure about was the back/bottom of the cap (maybe best seen in the 4th pic down on the right). Does it ned more cutting? That's an area where it's less clear to me whether the bumpiness comes from the excess of the mold, or if it's supposed to be like that. Also, what do you think about the cutting on the eyes and teeth? I know that the shape of the teeth is pretty key. I've looked at the collection of teeth on the archives. I've definitely interested in hearing opinions on this. I could easily make them bigger but didn't want to cut too much away. Then I took the big step and clamped it all together and rivited the mask and cap into one piece! I used washers inside the rivets. Exciting. It feels like a huge step. I think it looks pretty good myself but I'm happy to hear input. The main thing I'm worried about is whether the bottom ear scrw ends up being in the same spot as the bottom rivet. Oh, and a question. The ATA kit came with helmet hardware. There's a set of 6 brass screws for the ears, plus their washers and nuts. There's the aerators, and their washers and nuts. Then there's two thick short screws with washers and nuts. Anyone know what these last ones are for? I was thinking it was for the ear-attachment site (where I used rivets), but then there would be nothing for the lower attachment site. And of course the self-pic, with silly looking eyes peeking through! Next up, the ears...the most intimidating part of the most intimidating part! Let's hope it ends up being as unproblematic as the rest.