maxsteele

While we're on the topic of measuring, the return edge at the top of my ab plate is 10-12 mm. Should that be trimmed down at all, or does it not matter? It will certainly make the ab fit different if I were to cut it down. I'm fine with leaving it where it is, but if it should be thinner, now is the time to do it. EDIT: Now that I think about it, that return edge is what's fitting the armor to my body just as much as everything else. If I were to trim that down at all, that would bring the ab closer to my body, which would push back the line between the ab and kidney, and I'd have to take more off of the kidney in order to keep the line centered at the side of my body. I can't keep taking more off of the ab side, because the line would move forward and it wouldn't close up properly. However, if I make the one modification I'm considering now with that bent kidney edge, and if I gain too much weight, I won't have to change the closure of the sides at all. I can just trim down the return edges on the top of the ab and the kidney, and that will give me the room I need. I'm not expecting to gain weight, since I've dropped 20 pounds from when I started this build, but that would be a solution to keeping the sides the way they are while creating more room for me to fit. I'm going to hold off on trimming the top return edge of the ab plate.

You know, with the extra I took off from the tops, I can bring the torso in more. In fact, I think I can bring it in just enough to get rid of that curved part along the vertical end length of my kidney on both sides. Here is how it fits when I overlap the side of the ab with the kidney over that bend: Yeah, that's looking better. I think I'll get rid of that bend part along the vertical edge of the kidney. I've also noticed as I'm making these little trims, the bottom of the ab and the bottom of the kidney are starting to line up more. Almost like it's supposed to be that way.....

Big difference in both the alignment of the ab / kidney and the rivet placement. Here are shots of the rivet placement, and rough placement of the belt:

Thanks Germain! I see the measurement is 15mm up from that line where the ab / cod meet, not the very bottom. I'll also look at getting that top line straight across where my left and right ab/kidney joins are.

Here's a rough placement with the belt. It seems in my current rivet placement, the belt will cover up the second and third rivets. Not sure if that's bad or not. So on the left side, that bottom part will be covered up by the holster. On the right side, it's not even noticeable. My concern is with rivet placement now, because of covering the middle rivets with my belt. Maybe I should do 10mm from the top and bottom, and split the difference in the middle?

Here's my marks for where I want to place my split rivets. I measured the ab positions first - 15mm from the top, 15mm from the bottom, and 10mm from the edge. For the measurement, I measured where I thought the edge of the rivet head would be, not from the center of the rivet head. Then I held up my ab plate, lined up at the top, and made marks 10mm from the edge on the same horizontal line as the ab rivet marks. On my kidney, there seems to be a slight bend at the end which could almost be a return edge, but it's not quite bent enough. I measured from the very edge of the kidney instead of where that return edge bend is. I don't want to cut that sort-of return edge off, as I've already measured and cut the sides of the ab to fit to my body. If this pic is too blurry, I can try to take another. I think I'm going to do split rivets with the strap on the ab side attached on the other end of the rivet, and then snaps attached with the split rivets on the kidney side. I can also see that my kidney does not line up with my ab at the bottom. I think my belt will cover this up, so I don't think it matters much. I'll go lay my belt across where it should go and make sure it is covering that up.

Always interested in seeing how another NE build is put together!

Thank Anthony. I think the big issue is the length of the strap between the chest and back. Your length is going to be different than mine, because of body type, height, etc.... Getting that spacing and fit there makes the rest of it fall into place. Ty - Yeah, the placement seems to stay the same for the snap plates, but what I realized last night was I can line up the snaps for the butt and kidney plate because of the rectangle design on both pieces. However, when it comes to lining up the back plate with the kidney plate, there is no mold reference like that. The only way to know where to place those snap plates is to wear the back plate and kidney plate properly, then have someone mark where the edges of the back plate line up with the kidney. That will let me line it up when it's off my body and find a common location for the snap plates at the bottom of the back and the top of the kidney. Thanks Paul for the info on those bracket plates. I've already invested the money and time to doing snap plates, so I'll be continuing down that road. But also, even with that bracket set you used, you still needed to measure and create some type of strap system for back-to-chest, which wouldn't have been able to come pre-measured just for you in that kit. If you did receive elastic for that connection and you did nothing for modification, you were very lucky.

My anxiety is definitely rising with the snap / strap system. I've put in snap plates at the shoulder areas, the bottom of the kidney and the top of the butt plate, and two at the bottom of the chest. I believe that's all I can fit until I have a second person that can help me put the pieces on and determine how long to make the chest-to-back strap. When I have that, I can start to see how the back lays on my body and where to put the snap plates to properly line up for the connection between the back plate and the top of the kidney plate, and where to put the snaps to connect the chest plate to the ab plate. After I get that squared away, I need to start thinking about how I'm going to measure and install strapping between the shoulders / biceps / forearms. If I go with the snap system, it's another guessing game to get the lengths of the straps correct. I don't want to throw $100 in the garbage from creating straps that are too long / short. If I glue the straps in place, I'll have to tear it out and make it smaller / longer. I'd be interested in making adjustable straps for the white elastic for the chest / back, and for the shoulders / biceps / forearms. I just have no idea how. I'm pretty sure I want to use the smallest straps possible between the back / kidney, kidney / butt, and on the sides for the kidney / ab clamshell connection. That's simple enough for me to conceptualize and make. The variable lengths for the back-to-chest and the shoulders / biceps / forearms are freezing me up. I know I second guess and question myself a lot, and then another night goes by pouring over thread after thread of builds with no work done. Big props to the people who had never built a set of TK armor before and had no one in person to assist.

Hi David, I'm glad you have found my build thread informative. I will say that I have done very extensive research on these forums, and I've been able to take details from ATA, RS Props, and Trropermaster to help me out with this build. It is certainly nice to look at other build threads of the same armor type, because although similar, different sets will have their own quirks. I have received the most of my info build-wise from Redforce. I believe he has the only Centurion NE build, and his threads have helped get past some blockers I have had. I have also used Haribon72, tk 69169, tmorrow182, obey wann, evoxpilot, and emile1138. Those have all had good details specifically for NE armor. I have just been trying to document every bump and block I hit with this build to both help myself out and hopefully help others if they run into the same issue. I highly recommend searching for the build threads of the people I listed. They have some good info too!

Yeah, that makes sense about the type of elastic. I just won't know until I use it. I'll go with exact length and then I'll see how it goes. Thanks everyone for all the suggestions! I'm continuing to glue in my snap plates, and I'll get over to Raintrooper's place soon to get all the rivets installed (Congrats Jason on 501st membership!) Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

I finished gluing my parts together and I'm starting on the strap and snap system. I used one tube of e6000, and I've started a second tube. Home Depot or Lowe's have a 'bag o' clamps' with several different size plastic clamps for like 10 bucks. I got two bags of those. Magnets I shopped around on Amazon. If you have a Prime membership, that's the best place to buy most accessories like the magnets and scissors. Joann Fabrics has tubes of e6000 for 5 bucks. Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

Ah, ok Nick. I got similar advice from gazmosis as well. Because I know where my ab is going to sit from the fit of the cod, which will then show me where to place the kidney, I can get the bottom of the back plate flush with the top of the kidney. Then, I can put on the chest, because I'll know where to line it up on the ab plate. And that will give me the distance between the chest and back for making the right length elastic. I wonder if I should make the elastic a little shorter than the measurement, since it will most likely stretch from the weight of the 2 pieces? Or if I should go with the exact distance measurement? I definitely don't believe I want to go longer than the measurement.

Wahoo! Way to go!

Yeah, I thought it was too until I started researching. Original suits all used elastic for internal strapping. If you use webbing, the stress of moving around in the armor gets put on the snap connections, which can cause snaps to fail. Elastic lets the armor move with your body and spreads the stress out on the elastic straps. For all the rest of the straps (chest to ab, ab to kidney (on the sides), back to kidney, kidney to butt, cod to butt, thighs to belt) I am going to make the straps exactly long enough to connect from snap to snap with no gap and no tension or slack in the straps. That way, all of those pieces are held in place with no gaps, and if they need to stretch out when moving, they can, but will get pulled right back into place. This is simple for me, because I can measure the exact length of each strap by where the snaps glued to my armor are situated. The chest-to-back straps are the only ones I'm really concerned about, because I don't know exactly where on my body the chest and back plates should lay. If I make the straps too short, the chest and back will be up too high. If I make the straps to long, the chest and back will be too low. And every time I have to re-make those straps that's wasting a length of elastic and 8 snaps. I really don't want that kind of waste, but I'm not sure I have any other choice but to guess at the length and hope it's correct.

Well, I guess it's just trial and error then.... Jonathan - thanks for the suggestion! I do like the idea of having the straps completely adjustable with snaps, so I'll probably just stick with that method. It certainly does make adjustments a little pricey with having to re-attach snaps if you want to change them. Nick - I'm definitely going to double the elastic for the chest / back straps. The white elastic I have is think and doubling it up will give some extra strength. Paul - Wow - you glued your doubled elastic over? It almost seems like you turned your elastic into webbing. Yeah, it looks like I'm going to have to wing it when it comes to length of the straps. I was hoping someone had a system where they're able to determine the length of the back-to-chest straps. No such luck, it seems.

Now that I have the snap plates installed in the chest / back area, I need to make the elastic straps. What I'm wondering though - how do you determine the correct length to make each strap? If I make the strap too long, then the chest and back will sit lower than they should. If I make the strap too short, the chest and back will sit higher. The thing about that all is - each strap takes 4 male snaps. If I need to adjust the strap length, then that strap is useless, wasting 4 snaps. Does anyone have any tips on how to determine the best length for chest-to-back elastic lengths without wasting snaps on strapping that is too long / short ?

I'm not sure it matters, Ty. The drop boxes are a loop of elastic that wraps around the canvas belt, and then riveted to the back of the drop boxes. Seems to me you could simply thread the elastic around the belt after you have the belt plastic riveted on and attach them then.

Here's some shots of the belt plastic with the ends cut, corners cut, and rivet covers trimmed down so there is a gap between the last box and the cover. This isn't attached to the belt yet, I'm just laying it all on top of it for fitting:

This was the lexan scissors set I bought: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007KN0RQM/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 The reamer tool is really nice for starting holes in ABS when you're cutting out the teeth in the helmet.

I believe they have the d ring as well. Thanks for the feedback! Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

It can be difficult to maneuver straight lexan scissors around curves. What ends up happening ifs you'll get ABS 'burrs' that you need to sand down. The curved scissors will cut cleaner around curves. Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

I'm looking to buy an E11 from THG Props, and wanted to check if this gun is approved up to Centurion requirements? http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/23598-thg-props-rubber-e-11-build-thread-pic-heavy/

Yep, you'll need a canvas belt, a holster,a neck seal, black under suit, white Chelsea style boots, and black rubber gloves. Make sure to do some research on those items to get the type and style you need. Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

Yeah, the main thing is in the Trooperbay videos, he's using super glue with an accelerator. It's highly recommended to use e6000, And like Jim said, that's where you'll need clamps and magnets, in order to keep pieces together for the 24 hour cure time. The lexan scissors are for pieces that you can't just score and snap with an xacto knife. They will come in very handy cutting curves around the flashing and for cutting out the helmet pieces. If you're going to make snap plates with ABS, you'll need the scissors for cutting those plates. The ruler is for scoring nice straight lines when you're cutting out finishing strips or need to make straight, precise cuts. Getting a metal ruler lets you bend it to conform to some of the bends in the armor to get a nice consistent line. I also would tape the ruler to pieces to make sure it didn't move when scoring. Sandpaper will help to even up edges and any stray nicks you might put into the ABS while cutting. The dremel is good for some sanding and for drilling holes in the helmet and the armor. If I had used sandpaper to get some of the detailed removal I did, it would have taken much longer. Other people use the dremel for sanding and shaping other armor pieces, but I used the scissors, xacto knife, and sandpaper on all the armor. I will use the dremel to drill holes for the thigh ammo belt, the ab / kidney rivets, and possibly the snaps to keep the belt in place.