maxsteele

Yes, I have the return edges removed on the wrist end and have a bit at the elbow end. Oh dear, a heat gun... I was hoping to avoid using that. It makes me nervous because there's a very real chance of messing up the plastic. Guess I need to get a heat gun.... Should I see the gap close up while I'm using the gun? I have never purchased or used a heat gun before. What type should I get? Also, when you say: "Along the other seam" , do you mean the other side of the finishing strip that has the gap, or the other finishing strip where both sides have already been glued together?

I have a gluing issue.... I am working on my left forearm. The front was cut to the proper lengths to take a 15mm cover strip (7 1/2 mm on each side), and the back cut to fit around my arm. I have glued down both sides on the back cover strip, and I have one side of the front cover strip glued down. I'm now trying to join the last side to the other half of the front cover strip. I'm using c-clamps on each end (with an ABS protective piece), then a couple of clamps, and then 1/2" n48 strength magnets, stacked three on each side along the middle of the forearm on the cover strip join section. This is my issue: See the big gap from clamp-to-clamp? I haven't tried to apply glue yet, because I wanted to make sure I could get a tight fit along the whole cover strip. I don't have enough pressure along the length of the forearm strip to close the gap. I'm not sure what to do next...

Yay! I've wanted to have a reason to use this smiley! Please post some pics of the ears attached or held up to your helmet, and we can have a better idea of what's going on.

Terry - I see exactly what you're talking about. Thank you for stopping me from painting the traps too large. Steve - Gah, I think I used an incorrect term which is confusing things. I am not going to use the pin striping tape, if that's what you're referring to. I said pin stripe only as a label for the thin black border that goes around the gray. Mostly on here I have seen people paint the strong black outline first, with the black painted down a bit into the tear / trap first, like so: And in that above pic, you can see them starting to paint the gray over it. Below shows the gray over the black, leaving a thin black border: I have also seen the other direction, where the gray is painted in first, and then a very steady hand is needed to paint a black outline on the edge of the gray. It seems to me painting the gray first raises the difficulty factor up higher than painting the black first.

Sure, I can try a longer bristle brush and see how that goes with practice. Do you suggest painting the black line first, and then cutting in the gray, or painting the gray and then creating the thin black strip? Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

Nah, I'm not going to use pin striping. I've moved on from that idea. I was masking it because I don't believe I have a steady enough hand to do straight lines for the black. I'm not sure what you mean by the black shape will be too big. I masked it so the tape comes down to the indent of the tear. That's where I'd be putting the black outline. Both tears have an outward curve halfway down that dips back in before the raised part on the edges. I have the tape edge dipping down into the first little valley before it goes back up again. Here's where I have the tape edges coming down to: (sorry for the large images - that's all I had right now) Is that not where the black outline should go?

Alright, I have masked off my tears to paint in the black lines. I think I'm going to go for the "paint in the black, then fill in with gray" approach. How does this masking look for making the black outline on the tears? I'm not sure how I'm going to paint the gray in and keep a nice straight black line. I might mask over the black line a bit the way DroidHunter did. It seems like that would be easier on the traps, but I can attempt it....

This is how you trim your button plates: Here are what my button plates look like after trimming:

Opinion needed before I continue with my forearm gluing. Is this finishing strip in the proper position? I have the right side of the strip glued down, and I'm holding the left piece in place with clamps to show where the left side of the finishing strip will land. This is the left forearm.

Did you use decals for the traps and tears as well as the tube stripes?

Oooh - it looks like you lined up the forearms at the wrist end and cut off the extra at the elbow end. You wanted to line up the forearms at the elbow end and cut off the extra at the wrist end. Redforce did a similar thing in his build: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/23285-ne-armor-build-thread/?p=293568 To add a little more reiteration on the thighs and shins - the front should always be cut to take a 20mm finishing strip. That means measuring and cutting at 10mm on each side in the front. Have you trimmed any from the backs of the thighs / shins? And if not, are you having a tight fit already with only what you have trimmed in the front? Generally, once you trim the fronts to take a 20mm cover strip, you take off any excess you need to make the pieces fit to your body from the back. NE armor has *a lot* of extra, so cutting the fronts down to 20mm shouldn't have an issue getting around your thighs / legs, unless you have also trimmed in the back as well.

What I find interesting about that site is there is no mention of ATA....

Holy 5 year necro post....

I can only hope that my tube stripes look as good as yours when I paint them. Also, those little glitches on the stripes can be fixed by scraping them away with a toothpick. Practice on some spare ABS to see how the paint reacts when you scrape it, and then you can try it on your helmet.

Thanks for that! My main concern with masking was getting the curve at the top edges of the black and gray. I found that even after the Testors paint dries, you can use a toothpick to shape the paint. Any little pieces you don't want can just be scraped away. I had done a masking of a trapezoid on a spare piece of ABS. The top edges had very obvious points to them. After it dried, I scraped the curve at the top edges with a toothpick. What I wasn't sure about was how to get that curve with the gray, since I'd be scraping gray and black at the same time. The 'swoosh' you show will most likely work for me. I am getting the full template kit from Trooperbay, as I want to paint the tube stripes as well. The template kit also comes with a vinyl cover for painting the grill lines on the rear traps. http://trooperbay.com/stormtrooper-helmet-masking-templates/

Finished biceps! I haven't decided if I'm going to cut straight across on the bottom of the biceps yet. I've seen some builds here where they left it, and others where they cut it. I did have some separation of the finishing strip on the back side of the right bicep. It was much more than the left one. I took some Krazy Glue and squeezed it inside the gap, then clamped it down for a few minutes. That seemed to do the trick.

I gotcha. Thanks for the tips! I will order this pad kit and try it out.

Describing the positioning of the pieces definitely helps. What are the velcro pieces? Are those the black circles I see in the pics? And if so, are they just an adhesive on one side that you stick to the helmet? Also, do I stick the circles in the top middle / around the top middle ? The way I have my lens, I have it as one big piece that is held on by holes on each side that fit over the ear screws. I don't think I'd be able to use the 2 squares in the position you are referring to with that setup.

Is there any kind of pictorial that shows how to place these inside a helmet? I have an ATA helmet and am in the final stages of it. I'm looking for padding solutions and this seems like a good way to go.

1 - are you referring to the return edge on the inner part of the bicep? I can certainly trim that down to a hint of a return edge. 2 - Which part of the bicep are you referring to when you say "the top" ? Is it the top of the finishing strips, or the top of the bicep piece itself? Are you suggesting that I cut / sand down along these lines:

Here is my completed left bicep! Now, I noticed that the strip that doesn't have the curve in the bicep has a little separation on one side. It's a pretty small separation, and the rest of the strip is well-glued. Is this something I should be concerned about? If so, any tips on how I can glue that separation back down?

I'm going to use velcro to close my shins. This is what I got: http://www.lowes.com/pd_184416-388-90595_0__?productId=1052615&Ntt=industrial+velcro&pl=1&currentURL=%3FNtt%3Dindustrial%2Bvelcro&facetInfo=

It has been suggested to me that Tap plastics may have the ABS sheets you need. http://www.tapplastics.com/

Would you mind writing up a tutorial on how you hand-painted these? I know you said you used masking tape, but I'd like to know how and when you used the tape and the method of painting.

Biceps gluing in process!