welshchris77

Yeah they don't make things like this anymore, cast iron body, weighs a ton!, its so easy to use too and if the electric goes I can still sew under candle light

I took some more pics of my strapping as I couldn't find the others I took, I have gone for Tandy line 24 double snaps on everything and its really strong!. I didn't want to be pestering someone to do all the sewing for the strapping and didn't want to borrow a sewing machine from a friend either incase anything happened to it so was thinking of buying one but they can be expensive and I have been told that the cheaper ones are just not worth it, then my partner reminded me of her her late mothers old 1920's'hand operated' singer sewing machine in the shed, I dug it out and the base had fallen out and most of the attachments had rusted up but the machine itself still worked so I spend a morning fixing it up and oiling it. It works great for sewing the strapping as the hand crank gives a lot of control over the stitch. I really need to give my work station a clean

Looking good Richard, I used my soldering to burn holes through the nylon webbing for my snaps, holding it over a scrap of timber with a hole underneath it but sewed the nylon to the elastic first, also had a wet rag ready to wipe any melted plastic from the soldering iron tip between doing holes

Good luck with your submission Kalani, your armor looks great

Thanks guys, yeah I know what you mean about balancing out the 'gaps'!, I will adjust the thighs and take some more pics

Thanks Kalani, its great to finally see everything start to come together, yeah if I can get the thighs down another 1/2" to 1" it would help with the knees gap but will create a bit of a gap at the top of the thighs, don't know how much gap is acceptable there, will see if I can get Tony to chime in on this!, it may just be trade off though!

Been a while since I posted anything about my build so thought I would show some of my progress. The strapping has taken up lots of time but I can't seem to find the pics I took of it so will take some more next time I have the camera out and post them!. Spent the last few days trying to adjust the strapping to close up the gap between the shins and thighs as I had a 'huge gap' there due to long legs, I dropped the back and chest as far as I could with out it looking too low and extended the abdominal/cod down as far as I could without the ab popping out from under the chest in an effort to lower the thighs so decreasing the thigh/shin gap, I can't really pull the shins up any further as they are up as far as I can get them without my boots popping out but I could potentially drop the thighs a little bit further to gain a bit there but not sure how much of a gap between ab/cod and thighs is allowed for centurion. One option I have been looking at would be to get a set of TM's 'extra long' shins from the UK but I can't really afford it right now but if push cam to shove its still an option. Another option I have been thinking about is too join some extra abs onto the bottom of the shins and filling with abs paste and polishing but I can envision myself getting into trouble trying to attempt this! If anyone has any other options please let me know! I guess this is what happens when trying to make armor fit that was designed for British extra's who were 5'10 and I'm trying to make it fit my 6'1 frame. Shoulder straps and ab buttons not fitted yet by the way until I get everything fitting right first!

Well done

I guess its personal preference really, try one way and if it doesn't work for you try a different way, whatever is most comfortable and works for you !

secure your cover strips with masking tape before putting the clamps and magnets on, E6000 is notorious for moving as it dries!

Maybe try 'preheating' it in an actual bathtub of hot water, then find the biggest pan you can find (or lobster cooking pot), even if you can fit half the shin in you could turn it over and dip the other half!

On a side not I'm not sure how E6000 will stand up to a hot water bath!, my front shins are 'welded' with abs paste.

Don't use a heat gun on your shins unless you are 'really experienced', Im quite experienced with one (so I thought) and still managed to slightly wrinkle one of my shins at the back, hairdryer is a waste of time on the slightly thicker plastic of the shins as it just doesn't get the plastic hot enough, your best bet is boiling water, tape them into position with some electrical tape, quench in cold water to 'set' the plastic in place and clean up with white spirit (mineral spirits) when finished to remove glue residue from the tape.

Yes I knew I had seen something similar somewhere and it was in your posts! Your Idea worked great for a single snaps but I was having trouble making it work with a double snap plate so I came up with the soldering iron technique I didn't mention in my post but I also did a series of crimp lines around the snap post before setting it to help it along. I have to add that of all the double snap plates I made I did have a few fails with some of the thinner offcuts I used but was able to repair them with a little abs paste, seemed a shame to waste them as they can be expensive little things.

Thanks Tony

Countersinking Snaps I was experimenting with countersinking snaps and thought I would share my results. I had heard of people heating the plate with a heat gun and pushing a socket from a socket set over the top so I tried that first but the results were not great, maybe I'm not doing it right but I found it hard to get the plastic evenly heated without it distorting too much. Here are the results:- The results were 'ok' but the snap doesn't really sit flat as the plate ends but being distorted. I thought for a minute and found a much better way, maybe this has been done before I can't remember, but anyway here goes. I used my soldering iron pushed against the hole on the back of the snap and held it there until the snap had heated the surrounding plastic. When it was hot enough, you can tell by poking it gently with the soldering iron, I held it against the corner of a piece of timber and gently pushed it out to the desired position, I then held a damp rag over it to quickly cool the snap and plastic to 'set it' in position. Take care not to push it to much or you could risk a 'tearout' as I did with the first snap. I used the offcutts from my anovus kit by the way, which can vary in thickness, the thinner ones are more prone to tearout so just be careful. Here are the results:- Its a bit tedious but worth it for the results I think Hope this helps anyone countersinking their snaps

I believe other makers do longer shins, can't remember which one but that maybe an option for you, its a bit of an issue for me also by the way, if someone else knows they could chime in, If you find out you could send them a off cut sample of the anovos kit to see how the colour matches up

Been doing a test fit of the arms but I think I may have to leave a bigger gap than the suggested 1/4"(6mm) gap between the forearm and bicep pieces as that seem too small for my arms. I think the gap will need to be a lot more for two reasons; firstly if I bring the bicep just under the shoulder bell then the forearm doesn't cover enough of my wrist, and secondly If I bring the forearm down around my wrist, the top of the bicep isn't covered by the shoulder bell. I wonder how much gap I could leave and still be passible for possible centurion (if I go that route)? Has anyone else had this problem? I noticed when I was test fitting that my biceps pieces are way too wide also so ripped them apart earlier and trimmed them down which will help bring the shoulder bells in closer to the chest armor when the time comes. I cant see a bicep clip working with the way things are fitting at the moment either as it looks like it wold end up being too long.

When I said 'did the original', I was actually referring to vacuum forming and assembling them, not the original sculpts

If the backplates are cracking then the plastic really wasn't hot enough, I had mine is boiling water for a few minutes until it was soft enough to bend without damage, the only danger with boiling water is on thinner pieces, the backplate is quite think. Use abs paste to reinforce the back where it is cracked, blob it on there and leave it for a day or two to fully cure before sanding it back, take your time sanding too as it seems to heat up faster than the existing abs for some reason

Thanks Kalani

I used a circle stencil and a sharp pencil then used the pencil line as a guide to paint up to, oh and a good quality brush too!

This lid has many faults yes but the general consensus is that Ainsworth did made the originals. The ones he makes now bear little resemblance unfortunately and are definitely not from the original molds

Ab buttons painted last night, Happy with the results

Maybe it would depend of the type of paint, I might experiment with lightly sanding the back of a snap, priming it with a metal primer and testing some E6000 on it and see what happens. Im sure the tape method will be fine though, I'm probably over thinking this