AsBlondeAsLuke

You're right. You likely won't have to do nearly as many modifications to fit into yours, but it's great you are doing so much research while waiting for those boxes to arrive. You will be prepared for anything you need to do and will have amazing looking armor as a result.

Yes, it is the perfect solution for places where you can't use a ruler and want something more precise than "winging" it. Put your thumb on the bottom edge as you move along and you can trace the shape of even the difficult pieces like the bottom edge of the chest piece.

Hi Jason- Thanks so much for the recommendations. Great list. Mmmm... a TM build. Perfect choice.

TK Boots had my size in stock so I was stoked. And, hey, those RS Boots convinced my husband to join the ranks so everybody wins. Now, we need to figure out what kind of armor to get him. Something new and different for him to build... This set is almost done. Next build thread, he can write it.

Strapping came with it's own set of challenges. Trimming down to the chest plate meant a new return edge had to be recreated. "So, just use your heat sealing iron/wood block/heat gun method," I said. "Nope," husband said, studying the chest piece. "Won't create a nice enough return edge on this piece. Need to build something different." So, off he went to the garage. (Or, the shed, or one of his man-cave places.) He came back with this invention, crafted out of a spare piece of wood. He once again taped a pencil to his finger to create a perfectly matched curved line. Then, combined the chest plate with the... ah... chest plate strapping jig. The result was a terrific return edge... Except for this little spot here that's slightly krinkled, so trying to figure out how to perfect it. Bondo? Sanding? Strapped legs. (He looks so pleased with himself.) Completed shins (view from the inside.) It is the RS Strapping with some customization to make it easier to put it on and off. It latches on to the edge.

All the newly glued pieces need sanding. My job, apparently. A good activity while watching the Olympics. The odd shaped pieces like the chest plate take longer. The DustBuster has become our best friend cleaning up the work area, (which in this case is my lap.) ABS dust gets everywhere during sanding. We use plumber's grit sandpaper, which is easy to vacuum off with the DustBuster and immediately use again. Keeping the area clean has become important as the job has gone along. We especially don't want to lose any tiny brackets, nuts or screws now that we are strapping.

Merci Germain! We'll give that a try. I seem to have become the designate sander in this house, so I'll give it a go. Thinking 500 grit would do it.

It has been an incredible way to bond. The munchkin' is a little young yet to begin trooping. We'll give him a few more years. He takes a lightsaber martial arts combat class with us and that's good for him at this age, (also a great family activity.)

Glue. Sticky. Ooeey. Gooey. Glue. There's E-6000 for the patient builder. Great stuff. A very wise choice. And, then there's Zap-A-Gap. And... my husband. The glue dries very quickly so one has to be a confident builder to work with it. There is no room for error. The small time window creates a great deal of pressure. Or, in the case of our household, colorful language and magnets and clamps flying everywhere. However, other than two forearm pieces that needed to redone and a humorous thumbprint glued into the armor, the Zap-A-Gap worked well for us. "Glue quickly now. No time to waste." The race to get clamps and magnets in place. Magnets seem to love to jump out of place. Hence, the colorful language. At some point, a finger got glued down. There's a great thumb print on my armor and at least one layer of skin. Now, I can sell him to cloners. Three clamps together make a terrific tri-pod. These hold up your armor pieces while they dry. Truly, you can never have too many clamps. And, done! He hasn't looked this pleased since we had our son. And, the shins are glued. Etc. Etc. It was a late night... So, by the next day, everything was glued. No strapping system. So everything is hanging on by "the MacGyver Method." I coulda' played Imperial Boloball in this suit. Total linebacker shoulders. Now, of course, with every fitting you find flaws. Even after the gluing. As you can see from these beautifully drawn red arrows, the forearms are fitting too loosely. No worries. We can fix this. Put the building music back on! A careful incision... Removing the cover strip. It was a very easy fix. We simply removed the entire strip on either side, which made it smaller by 5/8" on each forearm. It was enough to make the arms fit snugly. And, fixed! Need to take new fitting pictures. And, then, we started discussing boots... I commented to my husband how my boots are too big. Ever the logical one, he said: "Then order new boots." Flawless logic.

Thanks for the feedback on the boots. So great to get the sizing translations from men to women's sizings. And a correction on my post above. Just double-checked my RS Boots and realized I was wrong about the size. They are a size 8. Not a 9. They fit my husband perfectly and he normally wears a men's 8 1/2. So, this would mean the RS Boots actually run small, (if you're a man.) I think they forgot to take into account I was a woman when they sent the boots. No worries. My husband is rocking those boots.

Thanks for the recommendation! Just added it to Pandora. Listening to it now. We needed some fresh music with the hours we've been putting in. "Music to Build By." That could make a great thread in and of itself.

Woo hoo! I love you! That's exactly the information I needed. Thank you. I bought a pair of RS boots with my RS kit but they are a Size 9, which of course translates to 10 1/2 women. I have the exact same size foot as you. 8 1/2. The size 7 TK Boots will be perfect then. Thank you again for taking the time to post the picture. It was extremely helpful.

Germain, thanks for the feedback. OK, we are going to glue then. Funny. Before I was so freaked out about the thought of gluing the pieces. Now, I feel like I can always just pull them apart and redo it. Not a big deal. We're almost done. Maybe it is all the glue fumes and the great music we're playing, but we're getting to the point where we're having a lot of fun.

I had to ask husband what Tim Horton's was and his eyes lit up with delight. "Tim Horton's! I told you about Tim Horton's!" Hmmm... must be good. We eat (overly) healthy in this house so he must love it when he travels and can finally consume something that doesn't look like a poster for the Farmer's Market.

Hi Jenny, thanks for your great picture of your foot. Looks lovely on my screen. I noticed you bought a TK Boot Size 7, and I heard these boots run big. So, how does this size 7 compare to your regular shoe size?

Ah. That is excellent to know about the rattling noise. I was definitely hearing that tell-tale rattle during all of the fittings. I walked around the house, and up and down the stairs, and it was noisy. Once we finally got the fit correct on the thighs, which took days, the noise went away. The other thing I noticed was as soon as we got the fit right, I could suddenly walk in the pieces, too. I was really struggling before and wondering I'd ever walk comfortably in my armor. The whole time we were doing the fittings, I had this image in my mind. I'd seen this YouTube video of a trooper running up this building with all these stairs in a race for charity. Maybe it was in Boston? But, I remember telling my cousin Walter about it and saying everyone should have armor that fits that well.

Getting over the fear of building was the hardest part. Ah yes, the overlap is gone. At the beginning of the day, the armor was measuring out to 39 inches around. My waist measured 29 inches. It explained why it wasn't fitting. We trimmed, did a fitting, measured, and did it again. (We still left some breathing room in case I decide to go for a mad rampage at Krispy Kreme.)

Thanks so much for the great reference pictures on recreating the notch for the kidney plate. These will come in very handy, especially since husband seems to have conquered the heat sealing iron.

Shims. They are things you add to the sides when you need to make the armor bigger. And, they are added to the underside of the arms and legs to reinforce the armor. But, it turns out they are also good when you trim too much on the interior return edge and need a place to hang the brackets for your strapping system. Yes, you know how folks are always warning you not to trim too much? Well, that is very very good advice. Because if you do trim too much, you have to add pieces back on again and it looks like this... Hmmm.... I think husband needs to add a few more clamps to this one. Yes, there are not nearly enough. If you are missing a clamp, odds are, it is over at my house. It's like a little clamp fiesta going on there. Husband thought he'd tackle the belt next. But, as it turns out. He and the hand riveter are not friends. So, the belt is not done. He said: "What is this fascination with rivets anyway? Why can't we just use screws and paint them?" I shook my head and pointed to the CRL. He sighed and said he'll figure it out. This is his: "I'm thinking very hard look..." Our reference binder has been invaluable. Looking up our research before proceeding to the next step. Test fitting the shins. They feel fine, but they look big. The fit of the thighs is still not perfect, but it's better. Gah. These thighs are tough. Still making laps around the house in them, trying to figure out if they're comfortable or not. Read a good tip that you should be able to fit three fingers in the front and the back if the fit is correct. Eh, I could stuff my cell phone down there. So, perhaps useful considering the lack of storage in a TK, but it might explain why I'm still having problems walking around. Well, that and the lack of a strapping system. So, this is too much space. Adjusted it again. Now, the thighs felt comfortable and I could walk. All strapped together. Whew. We were exhausted by the end of the day. Spent eight hours straight building on Sunday.

Back to work. Using a wood block to create a new return edge. "Hot! Hot! " Husband sounded a bit like Han Solo in Empire Strikes Back. Can't say I minded. Starting to think there is some merit to this wood block idea. (Ignore the eskrima stick underneath. We use that for sparring practice. Hey, need to exercise a little bit in-between all this armor building.) More test fittings. We've also taken out the overlap on the sides. It is a much better fit.

Ah, good things always come in brown boxes. Saturday we were anxiously awaiting the arrival of our heat gun so we could do return edges. Almost as soon as the doorbell rang and the box was deposited in our hands, we got to work. We immediately got started on creating a return edge on the ab plate. We'd watched PandaTrooper's two excellent videos on creating return edges. But, we probably should have started with a less curvy, complicated piece. Our return edges were not pretty. OK, no, that's an understatement. The result should've been on an episode of heating irons gone bad. "Husband felt it was "fine" since the return edge was "on the bottom" and "nobody would see it." Uh huh. Yes dear. But, I would always know it was there an it would forever bug me. So, having read on the boards that you could fix most anything with sandpaper and Novus, I started sanding. And, sanding. And, sanding. By the end, parts of me were so covered in ab dust I could have been a sandie. Or, maybe a snowie. But, it looked better. Parts of it will probably always look like I stepped too close to an ion reacter. Thankfully, it is a bottom piece between two plates. And, it does show what a lot of sanding can do. Good tip, though, practice first before going crazy with the heat gun. So, while I was sanding, husband announced he wanted to try again and do another return edge. However, this time he decides to practice first on a spare piece of ABS. Ah, that would have been wise to do the first time around. Practicing with the heat gun on spare ABS. The smell of burning plastic begins to fill the kitchen. I hope the same thing doesn't happen to my beautiful armor. I start to imagine other parts of my RS turning into a pile of melted goo and my dreams of becoming a stormtrooper dissipating like an action figure melting in the hot sun. But, if this second one is a disaster, too, I figured I could always sand that one like crazy, too, and try to sand it back to life. I think I've sanded off my first three layers of skin. It's OK, though, because I still have four left. The new return edge... Hmmm... you can't fault success. It looks like a return edge. I put the sandpaper away.

You are most welcome. Figured it would make easier for you to plan your build.

Hi Albert- Glad I was able to help. With regards to tools, there is an excellent list here. http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/11760-basic-tools-needed-for-armour-building/ Be sure to check out the other resources in that area. I somehow overlooked this page at first. The info in here is invaluable. http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/forum/4-assembly-mods-and-painting/ With regards to the strapping system, I photographed it the best I could for you, sorry if the lighting is not the best. Strapping for the shins. The elastics for the shoulder straps. The lens and mic tips are included with the RS bucket. The ears weren't shipped with my bucket and arrived later. If you have any other specific questions about your RS, you can also PM me. Good luck with your build.

Help! Dealing with some serious overlap on the sides. On the costume requirements, there is a lot of talk about gaps and shims between the ab and kidney plates but nothing about overlap. Here's what I'm dealing with on the sides. So, I need to figure out where to trim further so these pieces sit exactly flush against each other. If we cut the abdomen plate any further, I think this piece will sit too far forward, (i.e. the area where these two pieces connect would be closer to my front than my side.) So, the logical spot to trim would be the kidney plate. However, if we trim, we will loose the “notch†detail on the bottom of the ab plate. Is this an important detail? I can't find it listed as a requirement anywhere in the approval specs.

Yes, ever since you came over to build, I've been hearing about that bucket everyday. Have to admit it does organize all the build supplies beautifully.