Kadows

Hi! Thanks for asking! I haven't made much progress, no. Not much left to do though. Pretty much only need to attach the ammo-pack and sniper plate. Then the belt. I've been kind of procrastinating because I'm nervous by the belt, don't really know how to do it. Sometimes I over think stuff and then its better for me to put it out of my head for a week or two and then go back. So I've been working on another cosplay project! I hope to get back to this maybe next week and finish it up! Good luck and I hope you enjoy your build! If there is anything I can help with, just ask! P.S. Suuuuuuuuper cool that you work at NASA!! I've been a space nerd since I was little and its always been my biggest dream to work at NASA. Unfortunately I live in Sweden so its not very likely though!

Amazingly helpful and kind people here. Deserves every donation. I sent a little something too!

Ah, great. Thank you. I have already put my on and it feels good to wear. I'll try it out a bit more and if I don't like it I will change! ^^

I see. I used the tube for the thermal detonator to make it curved. I think it looks good, I will post a picture later. Thanks for noticing.

I'm not sure, do you mean the rounded corners? And yes, the butt plate has been adjusted since the picture was taken!

So here is my ammo pack, how do you guys think I should align it? At the first picture it is level, that is how I think I should do it. There is a bit of a gap above, but I could fill that with ABS paste. There is a bit of a gap above, but I could fill that with ABS paste. I kind of like the look, resembles the original here: Of course I could angle it up a bit like this: It looks a bit misaligned but you get the picture. So, what would you do? Thanks!

Finished up the strapping for the thighs today. Here is how it looks: I also shorten the straps to the back plate and the straps at the sides. It all feels a lot better now although one strap to the back plate could probably be a little bit shorter. For some reason my chest plate looks really crocked, I might have to look over the straps at the shoulder. Also my butt plate pops out. Going to try to shorten the straps to the kidney plate and see if that helps. The arms are more or less done, just had to re-glue one cover strip so tomorrow I should be able to put those on too. I got mostly details left. Sniper plate, ammo pack, button to pain and of course the belt! But I'm getting there!

Here is today's progress! I did something that I have been fearing for a while... making holes in my armor! Put in the split rivet and the two male snaps. I think it turned out ok, first time I ever used a split rivet! I also fixed some bicep hooks, I don't know how the will work out, I'm afraid they are a bit short. But they are easy to remove if I have to so it's not a big problem. I can't try them out until Monday because I have to go and buy some more elastics. I also plan on putting elastics between the forearm and the bicep and I have looked at a lot of reference pictures to figure out where it is suppose to be, I might be wrong though. Here is how I think it will be: This is my left arm so if I'm standing with my arm down the elastics will be towards my back, right? I plan on using snaps. I know the originals glued it right on but since I will be traveling a lot with my armor I need to be able to take everything apart and put in a box. Also, what size of elastics should I use? I got these two: They are about 4 cm/1.5 inch or 2.5 cm/1 inch. Thanks!

Yes, part that but I also want to tighten it up so it fits my body more snug. Its very loose right now and kind of wants to fall down. It will of course help to shorten the straps between kidney and back plate too.

Hey! I'm working a bit on my strapping so today I did a new suit up test. A lot less of the pieces are held on my tape this time! Please give me all of your feedback! Here is what I can see needs to be done: 1. Make the ab plate and kidney plate tighter so that the kidney plate don't fall down. 2. Make the room between the kidney plate and back plate smaller. 3. Put strap between legs and fix the but plate. I'm happy that the space between forearm, bicep and shoulder looks good, no room when the arms is down. I tried to tape the shoulders on as good as I could, they are a bit tricky and they will be tricky when it comes to the straps, but it looks like there is hope. Other than that the room between the back plate and kidney plate needs to be filled, how do you guys think the back plate and chest plate looks in relations to each other? Any other input? Feels awesome to see something that actually looks like a stormtrooper! Thanks!

Hi, Just wanted to post a little update. My thighs are all glued up and finished except for the ammo pack. Will look into that later. I glued the first part of the lower legs today, I don't have that many magnets so I will have to spread it out over a couple of days! I also got my belt from TKittell so I figured I'll get started on that while the legs are getting glued. I can't seem to find a good guide on how to attach the belt and how to get it aligned! I spent all last night looking trough threads here but didn't find any detailed explanation! If anyone knows a good one, please do share as I don't really know how to proceed! Thanks!

Thanks for the input guys! Tomorrow I will glue up the thighs and then get right to the lower legs! I have also done some experiments with ABS paste on some scrap pieces. Preparing for fixing the space on my sides. I do want to show my helmet! It got the chance to finish it today! I have not painted the screws because I don't have any white paint at home, and the rank bar on the ears will be the last thing I do on the armor! When I started this I of course did a lot of research here on the forum and I quickly got the stupid idea to hand paint all of the helmet, I never liked the look of the decals. That was a stupid idea since I have never in my life painted anything. I have now spent lots of time training on scrap pieces, then painting the helmet, fixing the paint, removing, painting again, more fixing and so on. I now think it looks OK. I will probably try fixing it a bit more later on, but it's at least good enough that I don't feel ashamed to show it! And hey, I guess it looks hand painted like I wanted to! So here it is! My complete, hand painted helmet! What do you guys think? Thanks!

Yeah, might get a picture of that later. I'm aware of the cover strip, what I want input on is more the fit of the thigh on my leg. Do it sit high enough? Is the room between thigh and ab plate good enough?

That's masking tape, protection for the clamps and magnets!

Hey, I'm back and I need some input! I got the tip to strap up the torso to be able to see where the thighs will end up, so that what I've done. Here is the result and I just wanted to see what you guys say. I have glued the strips on the front like 4 times now. I can't get them better than this. I have tried to glue them in different ways, but the area that the strip sits on just isn't straight! What do you guys think? Will this do for basic approval? If so, I will go ahead and glue the back. There are some glue that sticks out I haven't removed yet, ignore that. You can also see the space between the back and ab plate. The AP is really made for some skinny people! This is the biggest reason I'm not going for EIB now, ABS paste feels way out of my skill-level. But what do you guys think of the thighs? Thanks!

Can anyone explain the benefits of doing these snap plates as opposed to gluing piece of nylon wrapping straight on to the armor? I tried it on a piece of ABS and had no problem. I even put on extra much E6000 to see if it would warp or anything.

Hi! Since you live in Belgium I can recommend this: http://www.stormtrooperundersuit.com I was too looking everywhere for an under suit and I wanted to avoid buying from the US because of shipping and so on. I got mine from that site just a couple of weeks ago and I'm really happy with it, I'm going to order another one soon. Don't get their neck seal, I didn't like that one. Good luck with your build!

But don't you think my last pictures look pretty good, there I aligned them properly?

I did a quick test fit again. This time I overlap the back as if I were to remove the ridge. Like this: This time it looked a lot better! Last time i tried this I pulled the thighs to high I think, making them feel tight and uncomfortable, because I didn't try them with the abdomen plate. This time I just held them up so it was comfortable and I could still walk. I think it looks good, what do you guys think? Should I go ahead and cut?

Thanks for responding. If I remove the edge I'm afraid it won't fit very well. Maybe if I do like this, with a big inside strip? :/

I did a new test fit of the thighs and I think I made them fit a lot better. I still don't know how to do the cover strip, see my post above. If anyone have any tips, please. On another note, I started working on a simple strapping system! Doesn't look like much but it's something! My plan is to make it go over my shoulders and hang the ab plate and lower back on it with snaps. I also made some experiments with gluing bits of nylon webbing with snaps on to scrap ABS. Seems to work out just fine. Strong, and still possible to take apart if misplaced. Thanks!

Made some more test fitting of the thigh and I'm a bit worried. First of all, in order to get the thigh high enough I have to pull it really hard up, making it really tight at the top. It feels OK standing still but I can barley walk. Have a look at my test fitting here: I've pulled it really high up and still there is a lot of the undersuit showing. Doesn't really look good, does it? Picture from the back: I'm not sure how to do the cover strip in the back. On all other parts I have a raised edge on both sides, and I cut half of each side to fit the cover strip. But the back of the thigh only have a raised edge on one side. Please excuse my drawing: Red being the cover strip. How should I do this so it looks goods. Too make the thigh fit at all I have to align the edges at the top and then pull it in down so it doesn't get to big at the knee, this makes the back cover strip look crocked. See picture from behind above and here: Any input would be great as I don't know how to proceed. It's kind of freaking me out. Thanks guys...

So I've moved on the legs! The rough trimming has been done and I just wanted to post some pictures and get some feedback. The thighs are pretty tight. They feel good, and I can walk around without problem, but they sure are tight and trooping would probably be hard. Right now I haven't trimmed the cover strips. I have just followed to mold lines so they are overlapping in the front. Once it's trimmed it will feel a little better of course. I want to try to keep the 25mm on the front and if I have to make it wider, do so in the back. As you can see in the picture, the top of the thigh in the back is to tight to follow the mold line meaning I will probably have to have a wider strip. On the other hand, the lower part I have to take in a bit to make it fit nice and avoid it looking like church bells! I kind of like the way it makes the thighs look. Wide in the top, narrow at the bottom. Next problem is bending my knees! I can walk around without problem, but I can't climb stairs! The picture below shows how little I can bend my knee! I would like to cut the lower back like on the picture below, at the red line. I don't know if that is ok? The lower legs feels perfect. They fit nice and snug, I can barley feel I'm wearing them when walking around! Does anyone have any input before I move on and start trimming? Thanks!

I really need to do this on my thighs too, anyone that knows for sure how this will effect application? I went trough a couple of AP Centurion requests and it seems like some of them have done this too.

Have a look here. http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/11538-the-various-types-of-armor-and-where-to-find-them/ EDIT: Too slow.