MoSc0ut

Oh, by the way. This kit starts out a 1.6 oz. add lenses and a few screws and I'll bet you won't be much over 5 oz. this will be great for trooping. Jim

Look what showed up today! I took pics of everything as I inboxed it. If this is your "B" or "C" grade kit then I can only imagine what your "A" grade must look like! I won't hijack your thread with my "un-enveloping" once I get over my amazement of this kit I'll start a thread with all my observations and build. [emoji16] Now that I see the quality of this kit I need to find all the right screws and some lenses and I'm going to give that prism count chocula found a try. As for that central lens has anyone been able to tell if it has any actual magnification? If I could get my hands on a real scope I know optometrists have a machine that can measure magnification on lenses. If you could talk one into measuring those lenses for you we could source the correct magnification lenses and get really crazy with this! You know.....Leupold optics is based here in Portland, Oregon. I wonder if I can find a Star Wars fan that works there......hmmmmm! Jim

I started following your thread when you started it "way back when". It has been an invaluable resource for my build. I have a Walt's Trooper Factory TK kit and have "borrowed" many techniques you used here. Thanks for being a great resource. If interested you can check out my build. http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/36035-wtf-anh-stunt-build-wip/?fromsearch=1 Just starting the strapping and final adjustments! Jim

There is extra material there but it goes from nice and smooth to a little bumpy. It may be because my armor was pulled in early March. Walt said they had a late snow this year so it may not have been the best of their pulls. Their vac table was in the unheated garage at the time. It's since been moved to the basement with a little more consistent temps. I also may have gone just a bit too far on the trimming. It's my first set and if I was going to trim too much somewhere, this is the area to make that mistake as it's easy to fix! Also I am not complaining about Walt's or the kit what so ever. I like everything about Walt's Trooper Factory and their kit is awesome! I really get the feeling I'm working on an original set of armor from the 70's. Which to me is what it's all about. Jim

Thanks! I didn't think many were reading or following it. When completed I plan to list out all my resources and compile a "shopping list" that one can print out and take with them as they make the rounds to their local stores or at least save as a .pdf on their devices so you don't have to keep searching through the forum to find it again like I did. Jim

I have a fastener speciality store a few miles away. Here is the website http://www.oregonbolt.com, you may be able to contact them with your inquiry. I've found them to be helpful when finding the odd bolt when working on my cars. I am unsure of these smaller fasteners but I'm sure if they can't help you they don't make it! As for cost you'd have to ask them. As most places like this charge a premium for shipping if the price works out on just the hardware, I can stop by and pick up and ship to you for probably much less. Jim

As soon as I got home from work today I grabbed these and put them to the test. The hooks are a little tricky to get on but after fiddling with it for a minute I got it. I'm thinking that if you didn't sew through both layers of elastic, like I did, you'd have a little loop you could stick you finger through to make this a bit easier..... Here's the result of my hybrid calf closures: Here's them hooked but not situated in the tabs: Here's them between the tabs, pretty clean I think! I'm happy with the result. I think I'm calling these done! Jim

Time to install the strapping on the calves. I'm going with a hybrid set up. Since no particular set up is going to keep me from Centurion I thought I'd come up with something that will work for me and has a touch of accuracy. Whatever that means! [emoji51] So I sewed up six of these. 4" long, 1" folded over then sewn, then 1 hook hand sewn on. I've seen it said that this should be 3/4" wide elastic but I have 1" wide. Besides this won't be seen and 1" has a little more tensile strength plus more surface area to glue down for better holding power. In the set of hooks I bought there are two different sizes, use the bigger size. I found this set of 1/8" eyelets and setting tool at Harbor Freight for a few bucks and I thought to use it to reinforce the holes where the hooks grab and hopefully add to the durability. After all this doesn't just have to last a movie (or two), I'm hoping it'll last much, much longer. I'll paint the outer side white, but again, not seen, so who cares. This was my test piece. Yep, this is going to work! Installing the upper and lower eyelets. 25mm in from top and bottom (not counting upper "trim" and 5mm in from the edge. I may install a 3rd center strap but I want to see how two hold up first. Next the elastic/hook setup. Install inline with the hole, hook facing out, when the elastic isn't under load the end should be 1/4" in from the edge of the armor, don't count the cover strip. I use magnets wrapped in duct tape. I feel it's a little kinder on the surface of the ABS than just painters tape. Time to wait until dries. Jim

Thanks for the feedback! This is why we put these together, to share ideas and improve, simplify and clarify techniques. I am not the best at remembering to take pictures while building as I get caught up doing over documenting. Knowing people are actually reading this helps me remember to keep posting. Good luck with your build! I'm happy to answer any questions that may come up if you can't find the answer easily. I have a huge file of things I downloaded and collected for reference if you are missing any info!

Taking a page from RusselR2D2 I wanted a way for the calves to line up consistently and not have a big gap on the outside, but I want to use the traditional strapping method. So the full length second inner strip won't work. Here is what I came up with: I added two approx 1 1/2" to 2" tabs to the inner edge between where the #1 & #2 strap and the #2 & #3 straps will be placed. Here's some other views: I tried to place them where it's relatively flat so I didn't have to worry about putting a curve in this small tab. The result is this: They hold together rather nicely, we'll see if I can get all three straps to connect once those get installed in the next day or two. Fingers crossed!

Ooooo, the pot of water is finally starting to boil after almost a hour. This is about a 5 gallon canning pot. My stove being a ceramic flat top takes a while. My calves are fully assembled. As mentioned earlier I used CA glue so the hot water won't be an issue. I didn't snap any pictures while in the water as I didn't want to accidentally leave them in too long while fiddling with my phone. I used the timer on my microwave to make sure I didn't go past 30 seconds or so. The pot wasn't quite large enough to fully immerse the calf. The right calf: I started with the lower half and got it to almost touching. Then flipped out around and did the upper half. Here is before and after on the left calf: Result!

I got a bit carried away on the first side. [emoji52] It's my first time working with this stuff so it just means I'll have more sanding to do. *By the way ABS paste should be the consistency of somewhere between, whipped butter and cream cheese. (I also have a culinary degree so food consistencies are something I know!) It'll be a little stringy, like marshmallow fluff (another food reference), and the strings will start to harden almost instantly but they are easy to deal with so don't stress about them. **Just remember that anywhere "wet" ABS paste touches your armor you'll have to sand, buff and polish out. SO BE CAREFUL!** Second side a little more in control. Here's a preview of the sides. Overall this added about 2" around. I will iron down the edges, top and bottom, to match up, I will then clean up and sand the notch and sand,buff and polish the sides once the ABS paste is set in a day or two. I'll show those results in a later post. Now that I have this part (almost) completed, in hind sight, what I should have done is tape the Ab and kidney around my belly and measured the gaps before cutting and gluing any ABS shims. I instead just held them in place and looked at them and thought to my self, "Self, looks like you may need to add about an inch to both sides." This would have made sure I didn't do all this work only to have it not fit. Well there is always next time and my luck on this, my first build, continues.

Ironing over the edges. As this was scrap from other cover strips, some of the corners were already rounded. As I've said, once or twice before, this will be covered by ABS paste so it's no big deal. Man, ABS paste when used right can fix a lot of stuff! Don't get carried away though.......

First I needed a straight edge to work with. I am also trying to minimize the rough[er] surface. Next I added a bit of left over 20mm cover strip to the inside. No need to sand the edges smooth as it will be covered by ABS paste. Then I added some left over 25mm cover strip to the outside with a little extra on the ends that I'll later iron over and trim, than add some ABS paste to close up the gaps.

Finally got a bit of time to work on the kit last night. May is a months of birthdays and anniversaries in our house, needless to say, I've been busy. On with the build progress: While waiting for my huge pot of water to boil so I can adjust the calves in a bit I got to work on the kidney by adding in some shims. The Walt's armor when trimmed based on the mold lines, will fit someone with < 33" waist. I have exactly a 33" waist. if you cut outside that, which there is room, it is a bit bumpy and also a bit thin due to the vacuum forming process. I tried to show it in profile after trimming here. When attaching rivets and snap plates, etc this may cause an issue with durability. So as well as adding circumference it should also add some overall strength to a potential weak point. Jim

Finally got a bit of time to work on the kit last night. May is a months of birthdays and anniversaries in our house, needless to say, I've been busy. On with the build progress: While waiting for my huge pot of water to boil so I can adjust the calves in a bit I got to work on the kidney by adding in some shims. The Walt's armor when trimmed based on the mold lines, will fit someone with < 33" waist. I have exactly a 33" waist. if you cut outside that, which there is room, it is a bit bumpy and also a bit thin due to the vacuum forming process. I tried to show it in profile after trimming here. When attaching rivets and snap plates, etc this may cause an issue with durability. So as well as adding circumference it should also add some overall strength to a potential weak point. Jim

This is just silly now.

[emoji53]

Here is some more references that I used. This is filling in another one of these duplicate posts. This addresses what the size of the cover strips should be.

Here is a great visual on how you should shim the kidney if you need more circumference. Basically the cut out or notch needs to stay aligned with the he posterior. Due to Walt's armor being a little "bumpy" as the kidney reaches around I trimmed some of this bumpiness, actually a bit too much if you've been reading my thread and had to add some back on here. It worked out for the better as the ABS on my pull was a bit inconsistent with thickness and I was worried about durability in regards to holding the rivets over time.

If you were as curious as I was about the lineage of the different armor and helmets this is a great reference.

This is a good reference pic too but ignore the darker blue. French blue is the current "correct" color.

Here are some other resources that I used during the build:

I had a few folks ask what I used for my lens template. So in order to make use of one of the duplicate post spaces here is the template if you would like to have it! I'll add it as a .pdf too, when I get home.

Sorry the next several posts are duplicate posts thanks to a glitch with Tapatalk on my phone this morning. I apologize and will try to make use of these bogus posts by filling them in with good build info.