Rystan

Working on the forearms tonight some more... First got rid of the return edge on the end of the forearm dimples left over from last night (Thanks Nick!) and taped them together: Made sure to test fit in various configurations. Just arms; gloves on, no under suit; under suit, no gloves; and finally gloves & under suit, seen here: So as I understand the process for trimming the sides of the pieces at this point goes something like this: 1) Measure the length of where the inner and outer pieces overlap. 2) Divide that in half to find out how much to take off the outer and inner pieces respectively. So the measurements of my tape job came out as this: Seeing as the overlap is different between the top and the bottom, the question is this. Do I: A ) Remove 17.5 mm from the red sections & 27.5 mm from the blue halves. or B ) Since the over all ABS being removed is 55 mm + 35 mm, or 90 mm, remove 22.5 mm ( 90 / 4 = 22.5) from all 4 sections to keep the proportions even. or C ) Remove some amount only from the blue side (which will ultimately be the side facing the front when the armor is being worn) [i'm thinking 22.5 to be on the safe side...can always take more later). Repeating the same process for the elbow end front only, get the inner & outer cover strips installed. And THEN worry about the red/back side of the forearms (taking new measurments). My gut (and memory of looking at other build threads) tells me that C is probably the best/safest/right answer. I promise not to be this annoying for every armor piece, once I get the process down and through it once, this process will be smoother and more confidently performed. From the much-further-down-the-road department, my thought for dealing with the forearm/wrist/gloves when putting on/wearing them is that I'm likely going to leave the gloves inside the forearms and put the entire ensemble on as one unit. I'm thinking it might even make sense to affix velcro along top and bottom of the glove wrists and inside the forearm armor to keep everything sitting snug and in place. Has that worked for anyone else?

I haven't assembled any straps yet, but here's how I plan to do it. Does that answer your question? And yes, these are Star Wars/stormtrooper pajamas.

If I understand the question correctly, are you asking if the elbow end opening of the forearms can wider (bigger diameter) than the wrist end? If so, then I believe the answer is yes. Or rather, I know the answer to that question is yes when discussing the biceps. I see no reason why it can't apply to the wrists as well. (Again me with the wonderful Billhag "bill-o-grams". I'm really going to have to thank him in my 501st acceptance speech...assuming I finish)

Yup, always been fascinated by the men in white. Probably has a lot to do with the fact that this would have been me in May 1977: (not me, thanks Google images search)

Thanks Nick!

Hi Ron, thanks! I had already bought the surplus gloves before hearing about the Home Depot version. I might still pick them up too, just to see which I like better...hard to argue with $4. Thanks for the belt answer. I was waiting to cut the rivet covers out until I was sure I needed those ones and making sure of size requirements. Oh and good luck on your EIB application...not that you'll need it...I followed your build pretty heavily waiting for my armor to arrive.

Okay, more updates tonight....who needs sleep, there's trooping to be done. Inspected the gluing on the cap and back: As to be expected, everything came out great. Nice and sturdy. Yup, that's my pepakura helmet that I started but ultimately decided that I wanted to have my armor finished before I die. I'll probably finish resin'ing it some day and paint it and give it to the boy to beat on. Started messing around with the fit of the faceplate: One of the other reasons for abandoning the pepakura idea was that I wasn't sure if was going to turn out the right size and through many builds on the RPF I knew it was going to take a LOT of work to get it even possibly 501st approved. Like I said, abandoned dreams. At this point I can already tell the left ear is going to be irksome. We'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Up next, forearms: Trimmed the wrist return edges. Definitely determined the Fiskars package opener won't fly for in-close precision cuts. Oh well, it'll come in handy come Christmas opening Fort Knox kid toys. On the outer/dimpled pieces... When trimming the return edges on these pieces, do the dimple wall part circled above stay or go? (Yes, they go, thanks Nick!) I figured it was safer to leave them as I can cut them off if the answer is to remove them. (I think I'm going to go back through my posts and color code questions I need answer to in green, cause for those who have been reading up to here...I like to type...) And I'll likely do a question roll-up post soon to make getting answers easier.

Congrats, Chris! I mean, Lord Vader!

Looking good Ryan, the 5th hole repair came out great! I hope you didn't use that whole tube of E6000 on the thighs...otherwise I'm going to have to buy more

I incorrectly attributed this to Tim/PGHtoolman, but it was in fact Rick/StarFox2010 here: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/28109-ricks-am-armor/page-3#entry356531. Sorry guys!

That sounds like a good reason to buy 2 extra buckets

According to this picture from the Lucas Archives that I found in Billhag's collection with measurments shows it being 10mm to center of the rivets.

Couple misc items/questions: First up, my Centurion level rivets and washers arrived from Echo: Second, a random picture of my project assistant hard at work: On a more build related note: So I picked these rubber chemical gloves up for about $10 at the local Army/Navy surplus store. When I put them on, they extend up onto my forearms. Given that we've got forearm armor to wear, the options as I see it are either: A) cut the gloves off (and if so how far up the glove?) or make sure I leave enough extra room in the forearm armor for the gloves to slide through already on my hands when putting the forearms on, or C) leave the gloves inside the forearm when not being worn and just slip my hands into both at the same time when putting them on. Seems like each option would differently affect the needed circumference of the wrist end of the gloves. Anybody have any thoughts? (For now, Not going to cut. Rubber gloves are rather thick so might just leave in forearm armor rather than leaving wrist opening too large.) Build question round 2: The AM kit comes with two separate belt types (and now that I understand it correctly, three types of belt rivet covers) From a ANH Stunt perspective, which is the correct belt and rivet cover to use? (Bottom belt and rivet covers, thanks Ron)

Next up was the (partially finished) project to turn this: into these: The idea for these is by no means mine and the measurements for the tabs is taken from here (another great billhag "bill-o-grams"): For the measurements and drawing of lines, I found clamping the sign to old cutting board, worked well to keep everything nice and consistent: Long wise I made a mark on the edges every 2.5 cm and every 1 cm on the other side. Every other mark got a full line across the sign, on the others, I drew a dash to help find the center of the tab for drilling. Since these tabs are going to be visible when the armor isn't on, wanted to make sure the snaps were as centered as possible. Using the 20 mm by 50 mm measurements I was able to fit 7 tabs per row, and using the total tab quantity of 44, made for 7 full rows with a few extras just in case. Now, what about the smaller bottom rectangles you ask? There's been the occasional issue with the female snaps coming off from the elastic straps (See here: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/25309-snaps-nothing-i-do-seems-to-work/#entry318526) Since having the plate visible on the strap "offends my sensibilities", the plan is to double the ends of the elastic on the strap with the ABS sandwiched between the folded strap (rather than the proposed solution). Since the piece isn't going to be visible, I opted to make them smaller to fit everything on one sheet. Next up, drilling: I used a 5/32 drill bit and that seems to fit the post from the male snaps perfectly. After cutting it came time to cut out lots of little rectangles using the Fiskar package opening scissors described earlier. (Note: not going to probably be a great tool for long cuts as the nut and bolt on the scissors gets in the way a lot when cutting the ABS. Next up, crimping the snaps, 1 down, 40+ to go: I bought the Dritz Heavy Duty Snap pliers (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005BB5GYS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1). At this point, I'm about half way done with the snap plates (which means about 25% of the way to the finish when you count the female snaps). So far, I don't particularly care for the effort required to get the snaps crimped without the snap ending off center due to the length of the Tandy Line 24 snap posts. Might have to look into pick up a snap anvil before proceeding much further. I've also been cutting and then rounding via sanding the corners of the snap plates to hopefully avoid them getting snagged on the under suit or anything else during normal wear and tear.

Sorry didn't see your picture before responding. If you check yours, if the lower indent/deeper V is on the left (see the circled below) when looking at them from behind, like my pic below, then yours are both left. If they're on the right, they'd be right shins.

Okay, time for some updates, and hopefully take some of the pressure off the shin situation while waiting for TG to resolve it. I'd been holding off on messing with the helmet until I felt confident enough to tackle it, but seeing everyone else making such great progress, I decided to at least get my feet wet gluing the cap and back together since it doesn't involve any trimming. Finding the right place for the two pieces to fit together was pretty simple in my opinion. I just lined the ear/dimple curved section up so that it touches the cap directly at the back of the front trapezoid/vent. There's a little side to side movement, but it lined up pretty easily so that it was in the same place on both sides. The curved section described above: (I forgot to take a picture of them test fit together with tape) Per the best practices for using E6000, I put glue on both pieces and let it sit for 5 minutes or so. While it was getting tacky I prepped some of my rare-earth magnets for helping to hold the pieces in place while the glue dries over the next 24 hours. The magnets I got a really strong and not very pleasant to pull apart. I'd seen a few tricks involving using masking tape to create tabs to assist with pulling them apart. Rookie mistake magnet tip: check to make sure the "flat" side you're going to designate on the magnets is correctly polarity paired with the magnet it's going to face on the other side of the plastic. With the first set I taped (doubling some of the magnets up to increase the pull strength) I just randomly taped two more magnets together and when I went to test attach the set together they repelled each other and I had to do it again. So I settled on taping one set, and then checking for attraction with the next set before taping them using my finger to keep them apart. The other side benefit of taping the magnets is that they are very fragile. I broke one into three pieces trying to pry it from the stack when it slipped out of my fingers and shot back to the stack from the attractive forces. (Note: sharp magnet pieces are not fun to try and pull off the stack) The metal ruler helps keep the magnet pairs aligned. I plan to sharpie numbers on the tape as I pull them off for each pair to keep from having to deal with the whole repelling issue for further uses. In addition to the magnets (to keep the two pieces in contact), I used clamps at the open ends (to prevent sliding from side to side) and vertical taping both inside and out (to keep the pieces from separating vertically). Next steps on the cap and back: 1) mix up some ABS paste to make the seam between the two pieces disappear. 2) spray paint the inside flat black 3) drill holes for connecting the face plate. (I'm going to leave the the ear dimples un-drilled until I see how they fit to avoid needing to drill multiple holes.)

Hi Erick, are you referring to the shins or the forearms? I've seen your thread and the issues you've encountered there. I think matching the inner to the outer forearms aren't too problematic if you get it wrong...as long as you're using E6000 to glue, they should come apart easily enough. If you're talking about the shins, check them and if they're both the same, let TG know (include pictures) and I'm sure he'll get the issue straightened out. (I haven't heard of anyone yet who received a left and right pair, but that might just because the people who got correct sets had not reason to complain?)

Hi Rick, Thanks for checking on me The boots are currently on hold waiting for me to pick up more acetone and the rain to stop here in not so sunny western New York. The build progress has been continuing on other fronts and I've got a bunch of pictures queued up for build updates shortly. How is yours coming along?

Hi Bryan, I was confused by the same thing initially too. Like you, I originally thought the curved vs. straight was the elbow opening curve line. But if you look at this picture from the FISD arm tutorial (http://www.whitearmor.net/fisd/Tutorial-arms), it's really referring to the curve down the length of the forearm. On the current AM molds, there isn't really a striking distinction that I could find. Like you I found that the inner & outer pieces married together better with the curved elbow opening matching up with the 12 dimpled right outer and the straighter elbow opening pairing up with the 11 dimpled left outer shell. Lots of troopers, for comfort and flexibility will flare both arms at the elbows to avoid pinching and being able to reach your own head.

For $6, I might have to see how well poaching the lenses out of this (http://www.homedepot.com/p/Cordova-RETRIEVER-Welding-Safety-Glasses-Single-Green-5-0-Filter-Lens-with-Integrated-Side-Shields-and-Extendable-Templ-EJBIRUV5/202593576) might work.

I ran across this video earlier: It looks like the lens film being used is a little sturdier than what we've got, but it might work and looks good when done. PGHtoolman found this idea yesterday too from Ales's helmet build: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/24950-ales-anh-stunt-ata-helmet-assembly/page-2#entry314171

You'll probably want to start here: http://www.501st.com/databank/Costuming:FISD_CRL Once you pick which rendition of the Stormtrooper you plan to build, the different requirements are stacked out per armor piece.

I just got a response from TG, he's been investigating what happened and will be weighing in shortly.

Hey Tim/PGHtoolman, I saw in your build thread that you already trimmed your ankles. Was that just the return edges or did you trim for fit/cover strips? If you trimmed for cover strips can you post some pics here to see if the differences are more noticeable after trimming?