camprandall

I'll see if I can take some pics tomorrow. In a nutshell, here's what was involved in my build at least. It's not a lot of strapping, but a good bit of velcro. Hopefully I didn't forget something here. Elastic connecting the front abs "wings" with the two snaps to hold the separate chest piece in place Two canvas straps with buckles on the front and back of the shoulder gaskets to keep it strapped close to me Velcro on the lower left and right flaps of the chest piece to attach to the back piece Velcro connecting the biceps to the shoulder gaskets Velcro connecting the biceps to the elbow gaskets Velcro connecting the elbow gaskets to the forearms Thigh garter system with wide elastic to hang the thighs (like most traditional TKs) Velcro on the inside of the upper thermal det overhang and floated velcro on the bottom to keep it against the back/corset piece Velcro connecting the knee plates to the knee gaskets Velcro connecting the hand plates to the gloves Velcro connecting the thighs to the knee gaskets Velcro connecting the knee gaskets to the shins Velcro on the inside seams of the shins for opening Small velcro bits to keep the spats in place

So keep in mind that this is just permanently attaching the velcro to itself, not to the armor. The velcro is industrial sticky velcro that can be peeled off. I don't anticipate switching back and forth because of the headache with fitting and getting it to stay on, but it can certainly be switched out if needed. The Zap-a-Gap is not really permanent either, but holds up to trooping action just fine.

Yep! It's much quicker to get into or out of and is more stable.

Nice! Yeah, it was a tough one but I learned a lot of new things through it. The classic TK is a fun build!

From what I've heard about chroming too is that you don't want very much flexing at all or you'll ruin the chrome finish. Well, this new armor takes some flex to get on - particularly the chest/back/wing area. I'd be curious to see if chroming could hold up to some of that. Captain Phasma is amazing, by the way!

That all makes sense to me!

The edges on the screen suits are definitely sharper due to the technology used, but it's unreasonable to bondo every edge and dremel every indent on this thing to try to mimic that. There were 68 pieces of ABS and you'd be bondoing nearly all of them. I would think it's either vacu-form with some degree of softness to it, or else we require injection molded armor, which would be prohibitively expensive with probably no availability. I think there are practical considerations here that will have to factor in if we want approval armored costumes from the upcoming movies. That's my thought anyway.

Yep! It's industrial velcro though so I can just peel the velcro off and detach it with some force so it's only permanent in that it doesn't come off during trooping.

With modern movie making tech, we have to get away from the "this was made exactly as the props guys made them" mentality and instead focus on high visual accuracy. A New Hope was a low budget Indy film and now we're talking $10,000 suits - which would be much higher with our availability of resources and lack of the pull of Disney/Lucasfilm. Let's make it possible to have great suits that Star Wars fans have a hope of obtaining. The ANOVOS kit is already a more advanced build and it is far better than many iterations of the TK that are roaming around out there so I don't think we need to be ruthless about it - unless we want the 501st to become only for wealthy hardcore costumers and not Star Wars fans who want to make kids smile.

So I Zap-a-gapped the velcro on my thigh gaskets to the velcro on my thighs so it couldn't come off and walking was much easier today! I walked freely without worrying about popping. While it's hot and it's tiring with all the tightness in the arms and chest, it was nice not having any wardrobe issues today!

George, I'm not sure if this is exactly what you mean, but today I actually Zap-a-gapped the gasket velcro to the thigh velcro so that it can't come off. Walking was much better today!

That's cool. Yeah, I did some repairs this week and it was really nice to not feel that pressure too. Building can actually be fun!

It seems the consensus is that blasters are optional, but if we have one it should be pretty accurate.

Cool!

Nice! More build threads.

Awesome!

Thanks Shaun! Yeah, my wife and one of my build crew are from Wisconsin so we had some of that going.

This looks really hard to pull off, but it's very cool!

I'm actively replacing the 5 or 6 inches of bondo on the inside of the forearms (by the clips) with slurry to prevent future cracking. Between that and the thicker ABS interior support, I think it will work. I do wonder if the JB Weld would have been easier to apply though because the slurry is a clumpy mess.

This also reminds me of the Biker Scout CRL. When I was building my scout, there was no specific boot - just a work/hiking boot with a tan sole. Even though soles are all very different in the tread and height and shade, it's been good enough for that CRL to go that route vs expecting a factory duplicate of a boot you can't even buy anymore.

Looks good Shana!

Here's another thing I should post about. The little boxes on the ab plate were confusing because the numbers on the part sheet didn't line up with the numbers embedded on the ab ABS box indentations so I had to figure out where they went. It wasn't too bad, but I had already cut them out so I don't know if they were originally in order on the ABS sheet. Anyways, it ended up being this arrangement. Also - when you attach these - I highly recommend getting them to set as flush as possible, which takes a lot of time because they're all shaped weird and even have different curves on the bottom that they do on the top in order to match the curve of the ab. I used Zap-a-Gap to fill the seams at the end, but it's hard to sand so using as little as you need to is good. It's not a fun part of the process because there are seven of those boxes and getting all four sides is tedious. Mine aren't perfect, but I at least made sure there weren't deep gaps or obvious seams. UPDATE (8/20/2015) - Just an FYI - you really don't want to hide the seams. Mine aren't totally hidden, but after we saw screen suits at Celebration, we realized that the seams were tight, but not completely filled. That's what happens when you don't see the freaking costume until after you've built one. Here's how it ended up (with primer only - no gloss yet)

Thanks! Yeah, bondo isn't too bad. The detonator was a pain though because it's like 5 pieces that awkwardly go together and have to be seam hidden in several difficult spots. Ok, here are the belt pics I promised. It's basically all mounted with 1/4" chicago screws. The female end of the screws are glues to the inside of the boxes and then I melted a hole through the inner canvas belt and the outer rubber belt to put the post. I also used it to attach the inner and outer belts near the clips.

Thanks for the thorough response! Very interesting. So with all that in mind, I would think that we could go with what is available and update as necessary. I'm not sure on the boots because it could be months so would it hurt to just go with what we have now, which are TK boots, and update the CRL when new available boots show up that are accurate? Thanks!

I'm curious about this process since I haven't been around for a long time. Does anyone know how the stormtrooper CRLs were handled when there weren't a lot of suppliers of armor or large forums? I've heard so much about "don't get this kit" even though it was the standard just a few years earlier. I don't think we should short-change the quality of the appearance, but it seems to me that the CRLs were earlier created with suits that were far less accurate than we're starting out with today with the TFAs, and it maybe was a bit based around what was available and not just simply 100% screen accuracy. Any thoughts on that?