Red_2

Well, after a few days of sanding and pasting. I'm officially going in circles. Tiny air bubbles foiling my attempt to get an even looking gap fill. Oh well, I'll keep at it. Again, luckily, my drop box covers it up mostly. Anyway, my bigger issue is still my butt. It stills sits funny compared to the kidney despite my recent mods. Here's the front view after thigh reshaping. Side view shows the issue well. Butt pushes out and up a bit. It still hits my thighs, especially when I walk. You can see where I cut the angle/oblique on the butt to get clearance there. But the crotch portion of the but still hits the thighs. The other thing that is a factor is that the kidney fits snug to my lower back and sides of my waist and the butt doesn't. Maybe a little heat bend adjust is in order? Maybe the butt as a whole can be proportioned down? I look at screen shots and the butt is all over the place as far as alignment and proportion. But I want to get it Centurion correct. So what do you guys think? Anything obvious I'm missing?

Wow! Tried to edit some grammar on my phone and the post just turned into html code. Doh. I'll fix in the morning since I'm tired. And in bed Here's ABS paste try #3 after drying overnight. Will sand down here in a bit to see how it looks. Looking closely I can still see microbubbles. Hopefully that's just on the surface. Those stupid bubbles darken the area, but I guess they're inevitable as the acetone has to evaporate.

Tah-dah! Fixed the right thigh! Well ... almost. After pasting and sanding a couple times I noticed this dark band where the paste filled the gap. What the heck? Basically it's air holes and a bad mix of paste that had sediment in it and was probably not thick enough to begin with. Sooooo .... I decided to drill out a channel with a small hand drill, which I did and cleaned up a bit with an X-Acto. That way I'd have a new gap to fill with whiter, thicker, more consistent paste. So I made a nice thick white paste with virgin ABS cards provided with my NE suit. I carefully added a line of paste making sure it filled in, then added another line which I squeegeed into the gap and then added a covering line of paste that I will sand down and hope will be smooth and white when it's all done. Stay tuned ...

Okay ... sooooo, thigh modification/correction phase 4.23 something. Thanks to Germain for pointing out that the notch exists mainly on the left thigh. Not so much on the right. Lesson learned, always double check reference pictures before you cut, and also remember the asymmetry factor before doing something to both sides! In this case, I lucked out in a couple ways. 1) I saved the cut portion of the thigh, and 2) My drop box actually covers this area so no biggie. But in the spirit of being mostly accurate I'm gonna try to get it closer to Germain's reference pic up top. Here's the trouble area and the cut piece that will return home. I mocked up the piece to the thigh to get an idea of where it would be positioned best. Then traced a pencil line. My goal is to get as close to a flush fit then use a piece of abs behind to hold it in place. Then use ABS paste to fill in the small gap. Post cut, and checking fit. I cut a thin strip of For Sale sign ABS for the backing, E6k'ed it and clamped it down. After the backing dried, I test fit the piece again. Looks alright! Once clamped that lower portion will sit more flush. Clamped up and waiting to dry. Will mix up some ABS paste here in a bit ...

Oh! Well I can fix that. See, Germain? Always helping!

Here's the breakdown of phase 3 of thigh modding. NOTE: Only notch the left thigh! Right thigh has a mild/subtle notch. See reference pic below! Sketched out the shape in pencil. This section is the whole reason for the continued mod. I need this area to clear the butt! Taped off. I use the outside edge of the tape for the cut guide, and the inside edge to pencil in my return edge boundary. I don't get anywhere near that inside line but I like having a border to lead the heat iron. Post cut and guide line in pencil! The notch! Return edges in, need to clean them up next. Again ... NOTE: Only notch the left thigh! Right thigh has a mild/subtle notch. See reference pic below! Gonna try em on here in a sec. Hope it works ...

Oh man, you've been a great help, Germain! It's great to have someone give feedback, and it's very reassuring. Merci beacoup!!

I actually made that cut already, Germain. And it was successful but now the only place that's hitting in the tip/crotch portion of the butt. I'll get a better pic of the clearance after the oblique cut.

... or maybe the butt push is okay. See this guy on the left.

Sooooo ... so close, yet so far. Went ahead with the behind the knee cutouts on the thigh and shins to help with mobility. Went conservative with the first cuts, but they made a huge difference. I probably will go a tad higher on the thighs to get a bit more room. Shin cut outs .. So the frustrating part is I noticed my butt was being pushed up in the pics I took over the weekend. Judging by what I saw it look like the initial angled sides of the butt were hitting the thigh causing the push. I was partially right. I trimmed the butt about half an inch at the angles on each side. They cleared the thighs perfectly but the butt was still getting pushed up. Turns out my inner thighs are also pushing against the tip of the butt where the two snaps are. I trimmed that down a bit in attempt to make it skinnier hoping it would clear the inner thighs and just sit in between. No such luck. These damn thighs are killin' me. Here's the push up happening, post butt trim. My plan is to go ahead and trim down the thighs more. I'll trim the front inners a bit more and carry that trim to the inners and that will give clearance to the front of the cod and hopefully the butt. I'll shoot for this shape and maybe I'll get a little of that groin exposure similar to these guys. I was hoping to be taking pics to apply by this weekend. Maybe it can still happen.

Here are the cuts I'm planning on the thighs and shins at the back of the knees. Basically the flat U shape I've seen in a pic or two. Better shot of the left thigh cut line. And the shins ...

Thanks, Germain! Yeah, it'll be nice to get some more comfort. Test walk shows that joint could use clearance. Check it out!

Put everything on today to see how stuff was fitting and lining up. Putting my shins on is probably the hardest part right now. My thighs are either not lifted high enough still or I need to finally get those cut outs in cause there is not much room for me to bend my knee. Also that is causing my right knee cap to hit hard on the front of the thigh when walking. Ouchy. Otherwise, there are a few pinch spots here and there that are easily solved with a small trim. I need to secure my helmet a bit better. How well are people able to look down? I don't have my shoulder strap elastics in at the moment. I resecured my left calf after the pic was taken it stayed closed the whole time. The wife didn't think to tell me before she took the picture. And that black sliver sticcking out of my backplate is my zipper pull. Tucked that back in also. Look like I may need to trim the thighs towards the back or the butt. It didn't feel like that was hitting. I hung about a bit in the sun for a few minutes, then turned the fans on. Wow. Big difference. Fire away if see anything. I'll be attacking those thighs/butt this week.

Put fans in this morning. A pair of 4 AA battery packs 2 switches and 2 squirrel fans. Made a mounting plate out of For Sale sign ABS. Punched holes where necessary, painted it black, then mounted and wired everything up. I'm awesome at soldering. That's a joke. Looks fine enough. Battery packs are velcroed in and secure. The mounting plate just sits in the tube groove and I made a couple holes so the lower ear bolts can pass through a bit. My first impression when wearing the mask and turning them on? They're loud. These are obviously exhaust fans. I intend to mount two smaller fans at the frown to suck air in.

Captain Hammer! YES!!!! Oh, nice build by the way.

Amazing thread! I actually did this last year, using TK409.com's build as a guide. I didn't plasti-dip, that's a great idea to get it to shine. Missing his knee ammo and tube stripes. Oh well ...

Not too bad. I got one stripe on the right tube that got fuzzy during clean up but easy to fix. Before: After:

You gotta sell it, Jason! "Honey, check out all this amazing stuff on Pinterest we could make with this thing. The holidays are coming up. We could step up our craft game!"

So I started the arduous process of erasing my tube stripes. Back when I first applied them I noticed I hadn't paid attention to the "pencil width away" guide. After looking at references and request posts it started to bug me. Here we go ... A bunch of q-tips and half an hour or so later ... I use a Silhouette Cameo to cut the stencil out of vinyl (same as last time, Pandatrooper's crookedy template). I highly recommend a Cameo for ease of use and cost. Great for my small projects here and there. Globbing it on ... Just kidding, though doing it this way leaves a pretty thick coat making it almost look like they're stickers. Too lazy to bust out the airbrush. When I pull the vinyl back I'll have toothpicks at the ready to fix any stray paint.

Oh also, the handguards I purchased from Trooperbay were a considerably warmer white than the suit so I sanded them a bit, wiped down with alcohol and sprayed them with the white SEM Color Coat and that worked super well. It's a flexible paint made for upholstery and such. I used it to paint my boots. Highly recommend! Here's the link to SEM's site: http://www.semproducts.com/refinish-flexible-coatings/color-coattm-aerosols

Well, add me to the list of peeps who advocate the Loctite 2 part plastic bonder method for attaching handguards! Worked great. Second pic because I'm trying to figure out why my pics are coming out blurry. Looks like Photobucket is for some reason blurring the photos when I resize them down. I haven't had that issue up until recently. Not sure why it's happening. I need to figure out why because I'm hopefully going to be ready to apply soon. What the heck?

Thank you to my middle school Home & Careers classes for all those sewing projects. Ripped the seams on the velcro, repositioned and sewn back in. Boom! Swapped out the ab button plate so the ABS surround is present. Paint has a few bubbles which I need to fix.

Decided to just flip the Velcro. Busting out the seam rippers and the sewing machine tonight!

True, Germain. But this is one detail that's bugging me despite it being passable. I could order another belt and just move everything over. I could also remove the velcro portions and flip them. Hmmmmm ... what to do, what to do.