AsBlondeAsLuke

Thank you, Germain. You were also wonderfully patient with all of my many questions along the way. Kyle has told me the armor is never truly finished, which is good because I already have more questions on how I can make the armor even better...

Having you as a mentor made a huge difference. Thank you.

Ha ha. Oh my, yes, you never fail to give me a good laugh. Nothing worse than helmet head. I still contend those chemical gloves are identical to the Rubbermaid ones I use for washing dishes. And, thank you, Germain. You have been endlessly patient with all my questions. And, I certainly have come up with a lot of questions along the way. Mille mercis.

Thank you, Derrek. Great advice! And, thank you for all the help in getting my armor ready.

OK, so the armor is finished, and we'll be taking the application pictures this weekend outside once the rain stops. Any advice beyond what is printed on the main website? Any stories/wisdom from when you went through the process?

I had some issues with a little paint getting where I didn't want to go. I discovered by accident that the white artist's eraser takes off paint. I was just trying to remove a pencil mark and it also took off a bit of paint. I tried it in other areas, and it worked to clean up everyplace I had a smidge that I wanted removed. The white eraser on the back of my Lowe's pencil also worked. It was easiest when the paint was relatively fresh and only a single coat, but I was also able to take off a little spot where I had a double coat with more elbow grease.

No worries. It was just fine the way it was and a great reference. The drawings were really helpful, as were the step-by-step instructions and the little warnings interspersed throughout. We actually ended up using pop-rivets, too, since it was also all we had on hand.

Actually, yes, I can read French. And, you thought you could hoard those wonderful belt diagrams...

I was surprised the belt proved so challenging. I thought it would be an easy, last minute job. Our alignment issues with the snaps on the belt came about because of tension due to the ammo pack. When we originally measured for placement of the snaps, we did so without the ammo pack in place, (with just the canvas belt itself.) Everything lined up perfectly. But, once the ammo pack was added, it put additional tension on the belt and pulled everything over just enough that now the snaps wouldn't hold. I've learned that snaps have to be in perfect alignment or they pop like little powderkegs. Anyway, it is fixed now. Could you resend your diagram larger? I am curious as to what you and brother came up with but I cannot make out the detail. Yes, I am so glad I decided to hand paint rather than use the decals. I didn't think I had a steady enough hand to paint since I have no skills in painting and no experience. But, it wasn't difficult to do, especially with following the videos. It does take time, though. You can only do one small section at a time, since everything has to dry a day before you can move on to another section. If you touch anything with wet/dirty hands and then touch something else on the helmet, you're doomed. Definitely not a project you want to start if you are in a hurry.

Steve, you're too good to me. An excuse to get more paintbrushes? Sweet! My ab buttons came pre-painted from RS. Not sure if this is standard because I noticed in his build thread that Steve (WideAMG) received unpainted ab buttons from RS. I'll head out this morning and find a long bristled, 3/4 inch long, thin brush, as per your advice, to do the pin striping. Thanks for the tip.

So, it's been a long journey but we're just about done. Spent the past week finishing up all the final little details. Painting all the tiny little parts that have to be painted. U/V Rays probably aren't good for the armor, but I love working outdoors. Plus, all of the paints and glues have warnings up the ying-yang about odors, fumes, cancer, death, tidal waves, global warming, etc, so I figured it is probably safer to work outside whenever possible. I originally used a Sharpie to darken the panhead screws on the T-det. But, didn't like the way it came out. RS pre-assembles the clips on this part. But, it was easy to take apart. Once it was disassembled, it was easy to paint using Humbrol black paint. Much darker and deeper color penetration than using the Sharpie. One of the issues that had frustrated us the week before was snaps that wouldn't snap. So, it was time to correct them. We purchased replacement snaps and simply added in new ones. We had snap failures on the belt. The replacement snaps worked perfectly. The new snap is actually Zap-A-Gapped on top of the old snap. It is not going to win points for inner beauty, but it snaps perfectly. Since it is on there with Zap-A-Gap, those two pieces are now married for all eternity. We had an alignment issue with the snap on the other side of the belt. Yes, who knew the belt could make for such drama? At one point, my engineer said: "Do you really need these snaps? Can't you just wind it around your waist and use the velcro? What is the purpose of these snaps anyway?!" I shooed him out of the room and told him I'd figure it out on my own. I discovered the original measurements were off by 1 cm. on one side. Now, this was before we'd actually purchased the replacement snaps so I had to forage around for a snap. There were none. We were totally out. And, it had to be the right size to match the rest of the RS snaps. The only one I could find was a "test snap" we'd punched into a piece of ABS plastic. So, I carefully trimmed it out and glued it into the correct place 1 cm. off from the other snap. I nicknamed it "the hamburger snap." Sure, the other snaps are laughing at it, but it snaps beautifully. And, my belt holds perfectly now, exactly where it should be. So, those were the noogly little projects of the week. My favorite fun project of the week was handpainting the helmet. And, this project, funny enough, started out with something that didn't go right. And, it ended up being my favorite part of the project so far... We were placing the decals on the helmet. Most of them went on OK, except for this one tear. It looked... blegh. Wrinkly. Bubbly. Husband wanted to leave it. He just wants to be done. But, seriously? A wrinkly tear is like having a huge zit in the middle of your face. How can you ignore something like that?! "There's tiny little bubbles in the paint. There is no fixing it," he said. I raised up my eyebrows. Oh. Things can always be fixed. He headed off to do his engineering thing. I dug through the box that contained my RS bucket, (still unbuilt.) I pulled out the handpainting templates. Hah. I'd already ordered all the paints because I knew once I finished my armor, I was going to build that other bucket. It's on my future "to do" list. There were two sets of templates. Seriously? It was like shouting: "Hey! Paint the other helmet, too!" I watched all nine of TrooperBay Mike's videos on "Hand Paint a Helmet" I love that guy. And, then I started painting, and watched the videos all over again while I painted. I guess I'm what you call a "visual learner." Those videos are pure gold. Painting the traps. I had thought that handpainting the helmet would be terrifying and difficult. It was exactly the opposite. I did one small section everyday and absolutely loved it. So much so that when Kyle told me I had to do redo one small section I was thrilled. Woo hoo! I get to paint it again? Yeah! More painting! So for anyone who has been thinking of peeling off those decals and handpainting their bucket, do it! Be gone nasty decals! I put on my headphones and had the nicest week ever with my bucket. Never would have happened with a bunch of decals. And, those decals come off easily as long as you go slowwwwwwly. My handpainted tears came out looking like the decals which are supposed to replicate handpainting. (I haven't pinstriped yet.) I took this as a good sign, though, that I got the look right. I did get some minor bleedthrough everytime I peeled off the templates. Of course, since I like my painting so much, I was like: "Woo hoo! An excuse to go back and touch up the paint!" And, it is super easy to touch-up those little stripes using a number zero paintbrush. Sigh. I'm just sorry I don't have any more to fix. Admittedly, I got a little obsessive about my paintbrushes. I had to have one of every brush that TrooperBay Mike recommended in his video. Maybe more than one. It was just so much fun doing all that little detail work. And, if you make a mistake, just keep a Q-Tip handy. When the paint is still wet, you can brush it right off like it never happened. It is like an eraser to a pencil. One thing that is absolutely key, though, is obsessive hand washing. You must keep your work area and yourself absolutely clean. If you got a blotch of black paint on your hands and then touch your helmet, you will end up with a fingerprint on the back of your head. So, I got totally OCD about washing my hands. That's OK. What's one more compulsion to add to the list? Tomorrow, I'll finish pin striping the helmet. But, we're running out of things to do. Very strange.

Thanks, Germain! Good tip. Because we used Zap-A-Gap, (ugggh,) the straps can't be pried up without cracking them. However, we did find another solution which worked very well to drop the straps forward and pull them off the back plate. It was easy to yank up the elastic straps on the inside. For some reason, elastic and Zap-A-Gap happily separate with kind words and pretty persuasion, whereas plastic and Zap-A-Gap are bonded for eternity. Once we adjusted the elastic on the inside, it pulled the straps off the backplate. We will make sure to trim down the left thigh front cover strip before Centurion. We'll set some time aside to make sure it gets done.

Actually, Scootch, your timing is impeccable. We're planning on working on the bucket this weekend. We hadn't thought to use 800 or 1200 grit. These tips are invaluable. Thank you again.

Thanks, Germain. A clever solution. We haven't trimmed the arms yet, but we'll work on the armor some more this weekend, and hopefully finish it. Famous last words, right? Below are the fitting pictures I promised. We haven't had a chance to try the bicep hooks yet or attach the holster. Wondering if perhaps the biceps might also be too big? Everything else feels OK, other than the arms. My husband told me to walk upstairs so I could see how it looked in the full-length mirror in my son's room. I laughed at him and said: "Is that some sort of test to see if I trip going up and down the stairs?" I didn't trip, but I certainly wasn't going to win any points for speed, grace or style. Shoulder straps still seem to be touching the backplate, too. Might have to adjust those a tad.

Whoa. I am amazed by how much you know about all of this.

Thank you for the feedback. Forgive my shiny lack of knowledge in these matters, but what is a Simon's holster?

So, I could use some guidance on the belt. The reference diagram here recommends approximate placement of the holster at 3/4" from the edge of the ammo pack. However, the RS belt has a marking on the back marking the holster at 1 3/4" from the edge of the ammo pack to the placement of the holster. This is what the holster placement would look like if I followed the above reference diagram. Pictured below is the RS marking "dot." This is what the RS placement of the holster would look like. This looks very much like the RS reference photo from the album: "RS Suit. Photo References." by Locitus So, which is the correct positioning? Do I split the difference?

Kyle told us the other day that the hardest parts of the project are starting and finishing. This seems to be true. It is the little finishing up details that have proven to be challenging. Missing parts. Pieces that aren't lining up perfectly. Snaps that won't snap. Great anticipation for me, but a few grey hairs for my engineer who is also under a lot of strain from work. I give him a lot of credit for staying with the project to the very end.

Hi Germain- Thank you for the suggestions. I will try the bicep hook and see if it helps. I noticed there was an excellent tutorial on how to create a bicep hook. With regards to trimming at the wrist ends, I was wondering how much more it would be OK to take off? We are getting close to the detail at the end. I know there needs to be 11 bumps on one side, and 12 on the other. I was worried about cutting into any of these and losing any of this detail. I did find a thinner foam and pad the inside by the wrist section to try to ease the scraping on the wrists. This is also Velcroed in so it can be yanked out at any time.

There were plenty of foam choices at the craft store. Conveniently, it all came in white. Since my arms were very oversized at this point, I decided to start with a bigger cut of foam and knew I could always trim it back later. I attached the foam with Industrial Strength Velcro so I could easily yank it back out if it annoyed me. There was still something nagging me about the arms, so I kept looking up a lot of arm reference pictures as I was working. Yes, some people watch the news or soap operas. I stare at pictures of stormtroopers. Yikes! Why didn't I see it before? As I was stuffing the padding in, it suddenly hit me what had been bothering me about the arms. The cover strips lined up on one side, but not on the other. We didn't see it with the fitting because my arm pieces were falling off. Well, the good part about the arms being too big is they could still be yanked apart and these pieces made to match up properly. And, hey, then they might actually fit better, too. Good thing the padding wasn't actually glued in or I'd be ripping out foam right about now. I did add in a piece of foam to the bicep so that piece would at least stay on. But, this piece was also added in with Velcro so it could be yanked out and moved if necessary. This past weekend, my engineer worked on cutting open the arm pieces and getting the strips to line up properly. I focused on finalizing the other pieces, sanding off any rough edges. Love the plumber's sandpaper, (courtesy of cousin Walter.) Yes, I had to be vacuumed by the Dustbuster when I was done. So, the piece was corrected and the strips line up on both sides, but I'm still concerned about the length. I'll put the full kit on today with the body suit so I can your opinions today on the overall fit on everything. But, it still feels to me like the arms are too long. I can move my arms like I'm holding my blaster and reach my arms up as if I'm putting my helmet on, (which Kyle said is an important test of fit.) But, the edges of the arms are hitting my wrist bones and that is both annoying and painful. I'd like to trim the arms back some more, but my engineer is worried we'll make them too short. I promised to consult the collective wisdom before we did anything. I did mark a possible trim line at the top. Advice, please?

Yes, and I have to admit the paint on the helmet came out looking great. The engineer knows his stuff. We're still wrestling a bit with the arms. Been harder time to find work on the armor lately as schedules have gotten busier. So, we've been hunting for little free minutes to try and complete the project. Last fitting pictures were taken nine days ago when the strapping was completed. Now, the belt wasn't done yet, and the snaps for that are not in place. And, the arms are sitting all wrong, hence the great arm debate. Here's the pic from the back, unedited and marked up with all the areas we knew we wanted to fix. 1. The shoulder straps are too long and are touching the backplate. This is probably due to my height. I trimmed off "one rib" from the back and resanded. Will try another fitting today and see if they are still touching. 2. Because my biceps and arms were much too big, they wouldn't stay on unless I kept my arms crooked at all times. This is fine if you are constantly holding a blaster, but meant I could never straighten out my arms. I asked Kyle how to solve the problem. "Eat more protein?" Wise guy. He then said others with the same problem have fixed it with foam. Ah. Now, that is helpful. Will go shopping foam. Right after I finish this enormous nerf steak. 3. Belt. Blegh. Working on it. Kyle warned to be careful about the positioning of the snaps on the abdomen since so much else was resized on the armor. Have not placed the snaps yet. 4. Thigh pieces sitting too high and are hitting the butt plate. Readjusted the thigh pieces down and they still hit the butt plate. After the first full test fitting in the armor, I did the first full test walking in the armor. "Uh... is it supposed to make that much noise when you walk around?" my husband asked. "No," I said, laughing. I sounded like the garbage compactor scene on the Death Star. "Keep walking and let's see if we can figure out where it is coming from," the engineer grabbed up the curved Lexan scissors and started chasing me around. There were two primary areas causing the "rattle." The first area was the thigh rubbing up against the buttplate. My engineer trimmed it slightly so it followed the contour of the buttplate. It immediately quieted things down considerably. This is the type of fine tuning adjustment where you absolutely need another person. The sniper plate was also hitting the lower leg when I walked. My first thought was heat gun, (as always), but we actually decided to try something else first. This is the piece that already looked like it took blaster damage to the clamp incident. While this might add to the delightful wonkiness of the armor, I didn't want to overdo it. A picture from the "Thigh and Shin" tutorial had stuck in my mind due to the comfy looking piece of foam right under the kneecap. At the time, I'd thought the foam was there to prevent the armor from chafing uncomfortable against the leg on long troops. But, now it occurred to me the foam might have been placed there to push the sniper plate out. It was definitely time to go foam shopping.

So, last night we had dinner with Kyle and his family and returned his armor. Before we did, I did some comparison shots of his RS armor to my RS armor. Kyle has a "screen accurate" body type at a height of 5'10", (5'11" in armor.) I'm the exact same height as Temuera Morrison, which must make me screen accurate for something. Before I left, I did comparison photos of the two RS suits. You can probably tell the two apart, without labels. In case you need a hint, my armor is the one on the right. Keep in mind, these two kits were identical when they were first shipped from RS. Kyle's thigh piece on the left and mine on the right. My shin piece on the left. Kyle's on the right. The arm pieces were interesting. I had to double-check to make sure I didn't grab the wrong pieces because they looked almost identical. Kyle's arm piece is on the left, and mine is on the right. I've been trying to tell my engineer my arms are too big, and he's been arguing if we trim them they will be too small. OK. Seriously. What more proof do I need that my arm pieces are too big? We are still having the big arm resizing debate. I feel like C-3PO waving these huge arm pieces around.

We had great weather today for painting this weekend, and Scootch had been sitting patiently for a week. So, we took him outside to enjoy some of our abundant California sunshine. Searching for any rough spots before the next coat. As husband described the process, it is like painting a car. Everytime you apply a coat, you need to sand it so you end up with a nice, shiny finish. "Honey, want to feel the helmet?" "Geez, for the last time, no." Painting Scootch along a surface that is already white. The fence desperately needed painting anyway. Cross one off the "honey do" list. Question: Do we need to apply a gloss coat to the helmet?

Thank you for pointing this out. I like the idea of adding in the second snap, mainly because the cod wouldn't fit snug enough and it was annoying, (probably the reason why the second snap is there in the first place.) Anything to make the armor fit just a little better makes perfect sense to me. Thanks again.

Thanks, Todd. We didn't put ourselves under the pressure of a deadline to get it done, which I think helped a great deal. It will be done when everything is done right. The way I see it, there will be always more events and troops. We're limited to getting things done on the weekends, but it's become a fun part of the routine in the household now.