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Drumming this one up - my shins pop over my Lands End boots really easily. Trying to decide which method is going to work best here, as my shins pop over the front AND back quite easily. I'm thinking the snap on the back edge might work to keep it down, but the elastic stirrup sounds like it may be the way to go for me. Any experience on actual troops with each style?

Oh noes - just saw your post gaz! So now do I need to order a new left ear? And hey, I thought everyone loved Twinkies?!

So I went ahead and did the left ear - and this ear has indentations from the mold that follow the line WAY closer than I was getting by estimating. It's a good 1/4 thinner than the right ear, so looks like I got some more trimming to do on that one. Thanks again for everyone's help.

It's an MTK kit. Kept shaving and checking, and this is what I've ended up with. Thoughts? Thanks everyone for their help and tips. Folks aren't kidding when they say this is the most difficult part!

100% complete? It looks great. I'm trying to catch up! Trimming the ears - giving me heartburn.

Screwed in the top two screws. Have to really squeeze the bottom to get it this flush. FRONT REAR If I don't squeeze it, it looks like this: Is it correct to squeeze it before drilling the bottom hole? My concern would certainly be the screw digging into the ABS over time. Or should it lay flat?

Thanks all. I'll work on it some more this afternoon - I was afraid I just wasn't going to be able to get the gap over the tube even close. Really appreciate the drawing Germain!

I got a little crazy with the snips (word of caution: don't work on the ears when you're exhausted) Can this be saved, or do I order a new one?

Haha, yes, mirror pic. Appreciate it, it's even the little guy's actual birthday today - suck!

So my son got sick today and I had to come home to pick him up While sitting on conference calls, I ended up painting my Chelseas. I opted for brush instead of the HVLP gun... because it's more accurate. (By "it's more accurate" I mean it's too friggin cold to do anything outside, so I'll be damned if I'm breaking out the spray gun ) Angelus Paint in white. 4oz is way more than I need for two boots, but 1oz wouldn't be enough. First coat, very light. Cut in the edges with a flat brush, rest with a round. Second coat. Third coat. Looks like these won't be dress shoes for work anymore. Just finished one last coat on both boots. I'll be letting them dry for about 5 hours. Then I'll coat with the acrylic finisher with a rag. Finally, I'll finish off the mesh with a fabric paint I picked up at Hobby Lobby. Supposedly that will coat it far better than the Angelus (which just soaks right in).

Some minor progress on my lid. Still got some toofeses trimming to do. Got my son's birthday party coming on Sunday, so I gotta take a break to finish up the Harry Potter stuff. I've been making wands and scarves for the kids goody bags. But I'll be back at it next week. Still got a lot of work on this, but there is a a faint glow at the end of this tunnel.

Perfect, thank you sir!

I saw a drawn holster and belt measurement chart on someone's thread, and I thought I bookmarked it... but I can't find it to save my life! Can someone point me in the right direction?

Torso strapped together, using Mr. No Stripes strapping kit. Everything is trimmed except the sides of the abdomen and kidney - need to get a little assistance to get the measurements correct, so it'll have to wait until probably this weekend.

After suiting up the legs and taking a terrible quality mirror selfie, I think my wife is wanting a costume of some sort... she sure had a lot of questions! The torso is trimmed at the joining lines, but I'm trying to determine how much of a return edge I want on the chest and upper back pieces. Any advice?

Wow Jim, you've done great work! I hope my MTK kit turns out as well as yours!

Thighs almost there. Male Thigh gap photo warning Should I leave myself more room than this? I can barely get two fingers in between the armor and my thigh at the top.

Jack - looks like you installed it on the outer end instead? Interesting. My biggest concern is with the velcro being on a "ridge" because of the shim and calf levels being slightly off. If it was the "loop" side I wouldn't have as much of a corner, but I feel like the "hook" side (which will mount to this shim) is more rigid. Leo - They look fine top to bottom. Also, this is actually the left leg - so the sniper plate will be covering any minor alignment problems. The issue I ran into is I cut the inner instead of the outer calf to do the "overlap" for the velcro. I'm not doing the accurate bra hook method.

Ran into my first issue last night. After even trial fitting the left shin, for some reason I thought I was working on the opposite leg. Doh. I cut my inside shin rear flap to 7/16". The outside shin rear flap is still 1.25". These should be reversed. My plan is to use a 1" shim glued to the inside of the 7/16" flap. The hard velcro hook side will be attached to it and the miscut 7/16" flap on the inside shin. Then cut the outside shin to 7/16" and attach the proper 7/8" cover strip, with the soft velcro loop attached to it. Does this sound OK? Will the uneven layer of velcro hook from the 1" shim be an issue for me?

Can someone point me in the right direction on how to identify the inner calves/shins? I may just move onto the thighs... Edit: re-watched MTK's video. Good visual aid! Shins are in progress.

Haha, thanks, I'm trying. She sure loves her some Disney (ok, we all do) so I'm trying to get this done as quickly and as nicely as I can to attempt to get into SWW! She *adored* the "bad guise!! bad guise!!" when we went for SWW in 2012. She's fighting Vader in my avatar. Once I'm done with mine, I plan on getting one of the kids sets for my 7-year old son. He's been into dressing up in costumes for years, so how cool would a TK be?? After getting them to hit the sack, I finished up ole Southpaw. I may not have left enough room in them, though, and may have to go back and reduce the returns. Although, I think the left seems more pronounced because of the deep V shape:

These dang parts need to be labeled After spending 10 minutes trying to figure out which calf is which, I went back to the biceps, since I learned the squared one is the right. Right arm is locked and loaded. OK maybe neither of those, but at least they're assembled. Also keeping an extra roll of TP handy, just in case I crap myself when I screw up a part from moving too quickly.

I'm scoring each part 3-4 times. There are some parts that are indeed breaking apart when I bend. Others chip out. Not badly, but enough that I wanted to do something about it. Perhaps it's a bit of perfectionism that I don't need to have on this build - but it may save someone else's cutting. It's just something I'm going to be doing on the rest of my build and anyone else's I might help with in the future. There shouldn't be any worry about where the cuts on the opposite side are. The bend lines are pretty clear on the white ABS. See reference photos above. You can see the line that the bend created, where my blade is following. To me, it's better than getting chipout, especially near corners (which hasn't happened yet, thankfully, but *could* from the randomness that I've gotten tearout.) Interesting part to me is that no one else seems to experience this. I had a considerable amount of chipping when I was assembling tweeter arrays with ABS piezos. In that case, though, I never worried about it because the homemade ABS glue would fill in any holes and the entire thing was painted.

Certainly appreciate it! Your build thread is always on one of my browser tabs.

More trimming progress Saturday morning. I'm having trouble figuring out the left and right biceps :? Had a few issues with tearout on the codpiece, so I posted a tutorial on how I'm applying woodworking techniques to this build. Finished TD minus the brackets. Planning on working on shins tonight after I watch Winnie the Pooh for the bililonth time with my daughter.