Sabyre

I didn't notice that before you asked. After looking at it a bit, the only thing I could figure was one of a few loose threads hanging from the under suit. After showing the pic to the Mrs, she confirmed seeing the thread hanging there. I will need a new under suit. I have torn that one up pretty good during all the sizing. Thanks for the keen eye.

I finally have my pics uploaded, so I can go ahead with another update. Time has been a bit scarce for working on my armor lately, however I think I have finally reached the point I have been working toward. My application has been filled and pics were sent yesterday. Now I wait for approval. I should start off with a bit of explanation. I was hoping to have this done in time to take the kids out for Halloween. That didn't happen. I got everything done and decided to take pics for submitting. After taking the pics, I noticed the blasted thigh shims split open AGAIN. The thighs have been, by far, the biggest pain in my butt plate. I did not take any pics of the process, but I have now got them repaired. I eventually had to resort to using the ABS paste to repair the thighs. The crack this time was just on one side of the shim and only about 3 inches down from the top. I sanded all of the Apoxy Sculpt out of the cracked side 4 inches down. I then used the ABS paste to refill the shim seam. Once that dried, I sanded it down smooth and reapplied the paint. I have put a good bit of pressure on the shim area and the paste seems to hold up real well. I have tried to avoid using the paste, because I could not get a satisfying result with it when I used it on the bicep. However, at this point I think I could have saved myself a lot of trouble by using it to begin with. The paste I used for the bicep was real runny ( too much acetone). When I used it on the thighs I made it a bit thicker and had much better results. I think on future builds I will use this as a primary fix. Ok, enough with the blathering and on to what I do have pics for. It's time to add the belt to the thigh. I will start out by bending it the same way I did the waist belt. What I should have done is start by trimming down the width( above and below the boxes) and I realized that after I bent the belt. The paint sticks will not fit between the boxes, so I must trim one of them down a bit. I marked out the amount I needed to cut off and clamped a straight edge on top of the stick. I used the utility knife to cut it. Now it will fit and still has the straight edge. I placed a rubber band on one end of the sticks. Got my trusty heat gun. And now I have a formed belt. As I was double checking things on the build threads I use for guidance, I noticed I forgot to trim the width down. After doing some measurements, I decide 5mm from the edge would get me to right at the bottom of the box edge. Now that the belt is formed to the thigh, it will not lie flat on the table, so I marked the 5mm line on the inside on both ends. I could then clamp a straight edge down over the pack, holding it flat. After running the blade over it a few times, I used some pliers to snap the scrap off. One side done. After repeating the process on the other side, this is what I had. Here it is after sanding down the edges. I lined up the middle box with the front cover strip and clamped it in place. One end of the belt will line up perfectly with the bottom return ridge of the thigh. The other end will be too long. I started with the one that lines up. I will deal with the long one later. After making sure I was satisfied with the alignment between the corner of the belt and the thigh ridge, I centered the pop rivet in the top corner of the belt. I made a mark and drilled a hole just big enough for the rivet to fit through. I then used a spray paint can to draw a cut line on the bottom edge of the belt. I used the lexan scissors to cut off the scrap and sanded down the now rounded edge. I then clamped the belt back on the thigh. I lined up the corner of the belt with the thigh ridge. I marked the center of the hole. Then drilled it. After I had the mark on the thigh, I used the drill bit (by hand only, no drill) to start the hole. This will make just enough of an impression that while using the drill, the bit will not walk on the plastic, placing the hole off of the intended location. I then clamped the pack back on to the thigh. Making sure the front is lined up properly and the holes are lined up on the side. I could then pull the other side over and mark ,on the pack, were the thigh and the pack edges meet. Here is the mark. I put a straight edge square just inside of the mark I made and drew a straight line across the pack. I then clamped a straight edge on the line and scored the line. I then snapped off the scrap. Now that this end of the pack is short, I was not able to get the paint can to set on the pack to draw a rounded corner. Instead, I drew the corner on the scrap piece I just cut off. After cutting and sanding, I now have a template piece I can use on the pack. I placed it on the pack lining up the edges and traced around the rounded corner. I then cut and sanded the pack corner. Laid out the hole for the rivet. After drilling the hole in the pack. I clamped the pack back on to the thigh and lined up the top corner of the pack with the ridge on the thigh. After marking the hole location, I followed the same procedure as the other side to drill the hole. Both holes are now drilled and ready to install the pack. Here it is after the rivets were placed. Next I installed the Han snap on the side of the ab. Then I decided to steal an idea I saw on one of Walter's ( Haribon72) team builds. I put this tab on the kidney to help hold the kindey and ab seam flush. It worked ok, but not like I wanted. While reading one of Walter's team builds, I saw him use what he calls a keeper. It was such a great idea I had to steal it. Sorry brother. Holder "Holder" I used a scrap piece of abs the same size as the tab in the kidney to heat bend the "keeper" around. I then glued it in place. I have to say, this thing work brilliantly. With this you don't even need snaps to hold the side together just the outer belt. However, I am squeezing a bit of belly in so I'll need a snap to hold the ab and kidney together till I can get the belt on. Next, I had to fixe the ab button that was scratched up, after I dropped it on the garage floor. A little touch up paint and we are good as new. Speaking of paint, when I painted the kidney shims, I painted the elastic holding the kidney and ab together. I had thought of a couple ways of fixing this. However, Trogdor sent me a Pm and had a brilliant simple solution. Use a sharpie to blacken it. I taped off one edge at a time and did just that, used a sharpie and blackened the painted elastic. It worked out just right. I didn't take any pics of the final result. You will see the end result when I post pics for EIB and Centurion. Hopefully. Lastly, I place the elastic on the back plate to hold down the shoulder bridge. This brings me to the point I have been waiting for. SUBMISSION PICTURES. That last pic is probably the worst one. It has my ugly mug in it. I sent these in yesterday, so now I wait to hear the news. I would say this will be the hardest part of the whole build, but that would be a lie. Those blasted thighs still give me nightmares, so waiting on a verdict will be a cake walk. If you spot anything that needs attention, by all means please let me know. It will be greatly appreciated. As always, Thanks for reading.

Thank Y'all.

When I cut my strips, I had read that the back of the thighs were 20. However, I have recently read a couple posts that state larger strips in the back are ok. Especially if you are covering gaps. I did mine at 20. If I had cut the strips as I went, I would have probably done 25.

Paint the shims, Take 2. After I got home today, I toke my thighs and torso out for paint. Paced the thighs on the garage floor and hung the torso. Last night I cleaned all of the BAD paint job off and sanded down some high areas on the kidney seams. Here they are ready for try 2. I went by the store after work and picked up the correct paint. Now this paint has no primer in it, but it covered GREAT. Here is the aftermath. I put four coats on each part. The pictures are a little blurry and the lighting in my basement does not show the detail properly. I did, as you can see, get a large run in the right thigh. I will wet sand the run out after it sets up. There is at least 1 spot on the kidney seams that I did not get feathered in to the shim good enough for my liking. I am not 100% completely satisfied with the over all outcome of this venture, but that could partly be my over criticism of myself. I still need to add the thigh ammo belt, find the correct snap for the right side of the ab ( Han snap), repaint one of the ab buttons that was scratched up, after dropping the ab on the garage floor last night, and a few minor adjustments. I think I may actually be closing in on submission within a week or two. With any luck my next post will be some time Saturday, with some final (for the time being) adjustments, attachments, fitting and pics of the final project. Until then, Thanks for reading.

That was the paint I was going to use after reading your thread and seeing the results. However, I had another one of my moments today and used another paint. More on that in a moment. The paint bucket idea was another one of my moments that worked out in my favor. I was feeling real cheap, cause parting with a dollar or two for a dust pan or small trash can was asking too much, and I didn't feel like wondering through the store and dealing with people. Luckily it worked out well and I will reserve that idea for future builds as well. On with the update. Time to paint. You have probably figured out already where this is headed, but I'll continue. If some one else learns from my mistakes then it will be worth it, and I won't be learning alone. I started out by removing any excess glue from the cover strips I applied last night. Then after wiping everything down I took the parts to be painted out to the garage. Thighs placed in my high dollar paint booth. Garage floor. The elastic strap from the cod came in handy. I used it to hang the ab from the garage door. This is the paint I used. Now to continue and elaborate on the paint issue. After work I ran to the Lowe's close to work. I originally went there looking for the Rust-Oleum paint and primer or at the very least some Krylon paint and primer. I even took a piece of cover strip with me to ensure a color match. This particular Lowe's carried the paint just not in white or anything resembling white. I found this paint, it's made for plastic, needs no primer, you can re-coat with in 10 minutes. What's not to like? How could this not work? This looked like the answer I was looking for. It also means I don't have to drive all the way across town to the Wall-Mart that I know has what I'm looking for. I can go straight home and get to painting. Once I got home and grabbed the arts to clean up it hit me. Dumb _ _ _ , you don't need the primer for the plastic you need it to cover up the Apoxie. I figured I'd try it any how. After four coats of paint, I realized I was right. I needed primer. The paint went on fine and looked good on the ABS, However, it didn't cover the Apoxie well or the split rivets on the left of the ab. Soo.... I spent the last half hour wrist deep in mineral spirits removing paint from the parts. Time I could have spent annoying the wife and kids. There is a silver linning though. After painting, I noticed the Apoxie on the kidney plate was a little too thick. I didn't take enough out of the center of the seam. Instead of lying flat and blending the kidney into the shim, it had a slight hump in it. After removing the paint, I sanded it down a little more. In summary, if you have some plastic lawn furniture or tables that need a new coat of paint, this paint would work great. If on the other hand you need to cover up shim seams on your Storm trooper armor, get some paint and PRIMER. I have to get groceries after work tomorrow, that will take me to the other side of town, were I know I can get the correct paint, and I will try again tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

Hi Joe, I just thought I'd jump in here and share some info with you. You had commented in my build thread about the Apoxie sculpt and the trouble I was having. I think I found the solution. After some consultations with Haribon72, it was decided my inner shims were too flexible. I changed them out, as well as put a better outer shim. After sanding down the new Apoxie seams, they seam to be a lot stronger. the new thicker inner shim keeps the thigh from flexing and cracking the Apoxie. Unfortunately to make this correction, I had to go through the hassle of re-sizing the thighs again, but the outcome thus far has been worth it. I hope this can be of some help.

Thank you for the kind words. I personally don't think the shim work I did matches up to what others have done, yourself included, but I appreciate it. As soon as I got home from work, I had to get outside and start sanding. It's nowhere near as good as I wanted but I think it will work just fine. Let's get to the pics. The following 4 pics are after I sanded down the excess Apoxie with 60 grit sandpaper. Right Thigh Left Thigh Left Kidney Right Kidney The next 4 pics are after sanding with 400 grit. Right Thigh Left Thigh Right Kidney Left Kidney The next 4 pics are after using 1500 grit. Left Thigh Right Thigh Right Kidney Left Kidney All in all I would have to say, much better results this time. I believe the thighs are going to work out great. I didn't get the shims to set as flat as I wanted, so I had to leave more Apoxie on the seam than I initially wanted. However, though you can feel the addition if you run your hand across it, I do not think it will be very noticeable visually once painted. The kidneys are another story. I am still getting separation from the Apoxie and the side at the original kidney notch I am covering. I marked the pics below in red were the separation is happening. I am getting the separation due to the lack of thick inner shims. I have the outer shims glued on to the untrimmed extra material that came on the kidney plate. To change this would mean pulling apart the whole thing and redoing it with better inner shims. I think and hope once painted the separation will not be noticeable. If it is I may have to revisit this issue. For the time being I am going to go with it. I left a little extra thickness to the Apoxie to help prevent it from cracking. I will be making a trip to the store after work tomorrow to pick up the paint. Hopefully by this weekend I will have some good progress to report. As always, any and all feedback is welcomed. Thanks for reading.

That's great news. Congratulations guys. The detachment will be well served with this choice.

I hate to see that you are retiring. You have been of invaluable help to many both directly and indirectly. Myself included. I am saddened that I was unable to get my armor done in time to have your critic on it. Glad to hear you will still be able to pop in from time to time though. Wishing you all the best in your endeavors. Thank You Sir, Jc

I had some time this week and did some rework on the thighs. After reading over the posts Walter made, I realized that my biggest problem was probably the inner shim thickness as he pointed out. As well as not mixing the Apoxie good enough. I started out by rmoving the shims from the back of the thighs and cleaning out the old E6000. I had some pretty jagged and uneven cut lines on the thigh halves, so I went ahead and straightened the cut lines. This will aid in making better outer shims. HOPEFULLY. I put some thought in to what to use for the inner shims. I didn't really want to go into town to try and track down a dust pan or some thing equivalent, but I did happen to find an old 5 gallon bucket at work that would work. Here I have the shims removed and cut lines straightened. Time to cut new inner shims out of the bucket. As long as the shims are not too wide, the curve of the bucket lines up just about right with the inside of the thighs. I used a utility knife to cut out the shim. Here is shim number 1. Repeated the process for the other side and I now have 2 shims and a useless holy bucket. Before re-sizing the thighs I decided to remove some of the return edge at the top. Here is the comparison of cut and uncut. Left thigh is cut ( on the let side) Both cut. I had the wife help with the re-sizing. She marked the outline of the thighs on to the inner shims. I will use this to make the outer shims. To make the outer shims, I decided to go ahead and use the last two pieces of ABS I had left. I will have to order more later for the other set of armor. I started out by marking out a 3/8 inch edge to make a return edge. I used the same paint stirrers I used to bend the belt and the heat gun to make the return edge. To get the shape of the outer shims, I removed the inner shims and placed a piece of paper over the outline. I then traced out the shim. Repeated the same process for the right side. Here they are after cutting them out. I placed them on the inner shims to make sure they fit correctly. Once satisfied with the fit, I placed the paper cut outs on the ABS pieces and cut out the outer shim. Sorry I guess I got carried away and didn't take any pics. After I was sure the outer shims would fit correctly, I glued the inner shims in to one side of the thighs. Back to waiting. After leaving them to dry for 24hrs, I glued in the outer shim and the other half of the thigh. Once that had time to set, it was time to clean up for applying the Apoxie. I started by using the heating iron to fold down the return edge I had created on the left thigh to line up. Then I trimmed down the edge to match the rest of the thigh. Once the return edges were cut down and lined up, I removed any excess glue from the seams and exterior of the thighs and shims. I also sanded down the outside of the new outer shims. I then gave everything a good cleaning and wipe down. Time to mix up the Apoxie. I started out with equal parts of A and B. The first time I mixed this I followed the label instructions. I mixed for 2 minutes until I had a uniformed color. This time I am going to adhere to Walter's advise and mix it for a full 15 minutes. It still looks grey. At this point I'm a little confused. I applied it to the ab and kidney seams first. Then on to the thighs. Here is the Apoxie I have. It appears to be the same stuff Walter is showing with one exception. What he was showing and what I ordered was Super White. What I have is White, not Super White. Now in my mind, this might affect the color of the final mixture but it should have no bearing of the end result. Correct me if I am wrong, but it should all be the same just different colors. Tomorrow night it will have set up for 2 days and I will begin sanding. Time permitting. I think the thicker inner shims on the thighs will make a difference. Here is hoping all turns out ok.

I did get a 50% mix of each part and it did have 2 days to set before sanding. I did not mix it for 15 min. I just mixed it till the mixture was all the same color. I will definitely give it another shot tonight after work and mix it for the full 15 minutes. Thanks for the advise brother.

I had the same thoughts about needing to be thicker or having more adhesion surface as well. Sounds like maybe I didn't mix it long enough. I'm gonna try it again this evening after work. Good luck on your build as well. Thanks for the reply.

As promised here is an update with pics of current progress and major set back. Here is the thigh after the shims had time to dry. I started by cutting off the excess shim leaving enough for creating a return edge. I used the heating iron to make the return edge. I planned on using the Apoxie sculpt to fill in the gaps and make a completed edge. Before putting the Aoxie Sculpt on I decided to cut out the lower part of the thighs. This way the trimming would be done and I wouldn't have to cut through the Apoxie. I held the shin and the thigh together in line and marked the outside edges of the shins onto the thighs. I then outlined the arch for the cut out from each corner to just under the edge of the ridge in the center of the thigh. Used the Lexan scissors and started cutting. Here is the rough cut. I went back with the drimel and smoothed out and finished the cut out. Then I applied the Apoxie sculpt. While I was at it, I Apoxied the kidney shims as well. The parts had a couple days to set and cure while I worked some long night shifts last couple of days. Today I decided to tackle sanding the seams down. I started off with 60 grit to remove all of the excess. At this point I was feeling real good. It was sanding down just the way I wanted, I felt I was getting closer to finishing this up in time for Halloween. All was right with the world. As per my usual luck, Murphy moved in and everything went to hell. After getting the seam to were I wanted with the 60 grit sand paper, I moved on to 400 grit to start feathering it in. This is when I noticed the Apoxie was lifting off of the seam a little on the notch. While investigating the situation, I noticed with the slightest little flex of the kidney shim, the whole seem was separating. I was thinking, maybe I didn't and the seem down good enough before applying the Apoxie. I grabbed one of the thighs to test the seems in it. I applied just a little pressure to the thigh and there it went. The Apoxie not only snapped but started flaking off. In fact, I was able to peel the Apoxie off of both thighs with just my finger nails. The slightest pressure and it would crack, I could then stick my finger nail in it and pop it off. I went ahead and sanded most of the Apoxie off of the kidney shim as well. Back to the drawing board. I'm not real sure what the problem was. My first thought is I didn't get a good enough sanding on the parts before application. This could still be the problem, but the Apoxie was breaking in the middle of the seems (on the thighs anyway) and not the edges were I would expect, if a poor surface bond was the issue. Another thought was maybe I didn't get a good enough mixture. However, I mixed up three different batches for the whole process. Each time I mixed it I made sure to get an equal amount of both parts. At this point I am at a bit of a loss. My time is running out for the goal I set and my frustration is rising. I start a new job on the 26th of this month that will require being gone during the week. That leaves me just the rest of this week and next week to get this done. I have tried a few trial pieces with ABS glue to no avail. I haven't been able to get it to set decently or without bubbles in it, even with a second or third application. I have thought about trying bondo, but I have seen that split, crack and break off of vehicles panels and they don't flex like plastic. I will have to think on this one a bit. Any input of advise will be appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Walter,<br> I didn't remove any from the top. These are as they came. I had also thought that the addition of thigh pack and knee plate would help. I was a little concerned, cause to me it looked like the thighs needed to come up making the gap worse. I have since added the sniper plate and apoxie sculpted the thighs and kidney shims. Just need to sand down and paint. I'll get pics up this week. <br><br> Thank you for the reply. It's greatly appreciated.

Opening closest to the wrist.

I am not too familiar with sellers on Ebay. I know there have been, as you sated, a lot of sketchy quality and accuracy issues from there. I know there are some boots out there that claim to be good TK boots, but will not meet the CRL requirements. I tend to stick to sellers on this sight, or recommended sellers. There are two people on here that sell boots, but I can not recall there names at the moment. I ordered mine from TKBoots. I added there link below. http://www.tkboots.com/index.htm

This progress report is a bit short and boring. To start off, I ordered the Apoxie Sculpt that will be used to hide the seams on the ab and thighs and I received it in the mail Thursday. After sizing my thighs myself, I found they were way too tight, so I took them apart and had the wife help to resize them. I also moved the sew on snaps on the shoulder bells about a half inch out to pull the bells closer to the shoulder bridges. I also got the Rom-FX temporarily installed in the bucket. I am hoping I can have this done enough to take the kiddos out for Halloween. After that I will pull everything out of the bucket and do a more permanent install following Ukswrath's helmet electronics thread. Had to go in to work for a bit this morning, so I haven't really accomplished much today. After re-sizing the shins and adding the hooks they fit much better. I have just added the sniper plate to the left shin again. I also added some shim pieces to the thighs. I used pieces that were trimmed off of the thighs so I could keep the angled edge on the bottom. I will trim off the excess from the top once the glue has dried and attempt to recreate the return edge missing from the top. Last night I felt the overwhelming need to try everything on after the thighs were done setting up. The left thigh is twisted. Hopefully, I will figure out how to get everything lined up and fitting correctly by the time I put up more pics. I know I don't have the sniper plate or the ammo pack on the thighs yet, and that may fix some of the problem, but it looks to me that there is too much gap between the shins and thighs. I can't pull the shins any higher, they are as high as I can physically get them. I can't really drop the thighs any, if anything I think the thighs need to be higher. Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading.

Time for a weekly update. To start things off, I suited up the torso and with the wife's help marked out where the shoulder bridges would go. I also put the canvas belt on and marked out the center of the belt relative to the button plate. I'll show the belt marked out later. After the bridge locations were marked out, I taped around them in order to rough up the area to be glued. Here the bridges are glued in place ( 5 ridges on the chest plate) and clamped for drying. Now it's time to assemble the belt. I started off with heat forming the belt around the ab plate. To do this, I followed Pandatrooper's tutorial which can be found Here. Here I have three basic tools needed, Heat gun, paint sticks and a rubber band on one end of the sticks. Here is the result. Took a whole 5 minutes. I think this has been one of if not the easiest mod so far. Next, I decided to cut out the rivet covers. Using the 1 inch square on the shape template, I marked out the one inch squares. Here they are marked out and ready to cut. A little scoring and snapping and I had three 1 inch rivet covers. Sanded down the edges and took a blurry picture and they are ready to go. Next step was to drill out the rivet holes in the ammo belt. Here you can see where I marked out the outside edges of the button box while wearing the belt. I marked out the center between the lines and then marked out the center of the belt vertically. I used the soldering iron to burn a hole through the belt. I then placed the canvas belt over the ab plate and set the ammo belt on top of it. After lining everything up I marked the hole locations on the canvas belt through the ammo belt. I didn't take pics of the holes or the locations, but you will see them later on. Once I had them marked out, I burned out the holes for the outside rivets. I then moved on to the drop boxes. This is not the easiest or the "correct way" of attaching the drop boxes. I am making these removable because I want to use this belt for a future HWT build. First I cut a couple pieces of 1 inch elastic 6 inches long. This is too long, but I will cut them down once I have them fitted to the belt. I centered up the elastic on the back of the drop box and set the elastic in two inches. I then marked out two rivet holes 1/2 inch in from each edge. I used the soldering iron to burn the holes through the elastic. I then placed the elastic over the box back to ensure I had the holes lined up. I then drilled the holes for the rivets. Riveted the elastic to the back of the box. And put the boxes together. I was originally going to glue them together, but these things were such a tight fit, no glue was used. In order to get the drop boxes to sit the way I wanted, I put the ammo belt on the canvas belt and held them up holding the elastic to the drop box in pace. I could then move the box up or down as needed to get the desired look. Once I had them were I wanted, I outlined the drop box elastic on to the canvas belt. At this point, I also shortened the elastic to line up just under the top row of stitching on the canvas belt. Once everything was lined up I burned out the holes. You will also notice 2 x's maked out close to the drop box holes. These are the marks I made for the snaps attaching the belt to the torso. They are centered in the last box of the ammo belt. Once the holes for the ab snaps were burned out in the canvas belt, I marked out the location for the snaps on the ab plate. I did this by putting the torso and belt on. I then marked the location of the holes onto the ab plate through the canvas belt. I used the drill bit by hand to start a pilot hole. This will help prevent the drill bit from walking on you, putting the hole in a bad spot. Here is the pilot hole. Then I used the drill to finish the hole. Male snaps placed on the ab. All of the snaps and ammo belt placed on the canvas belt. Before putting the female snaps on the drop box elastic, I cut two pieces of 1 inch webbing 2 inches long. These were placed between the elastic and the snaps. Here it is all assembled. Lastly, I glued the rivet cover on. Here are the ab buttons cleaned up and ready to be cut down. After cutting the return edges off. I found a this thread that had a diagram showing how much return edge to cut off and a Bill o'gram that gives the measurements of the button boxes. The measurements he gave are pretty close, but seeing as every armor is a bit different, I had to trim a little more off to get mine to fit correctly. Once I had them cut down I glued them on. I was unable to get all four corners on the big button box to lie flat. I will get some CA glue to glue them down later. I then moved on to reworking the shins. Once I had the cover strips on and the velcro strip mounts ( I made those in an earlier post) in place the shins did not fit correctly. They felt a little too big. Especially at the ankle, so every thing was removed and I resized both shins. I also decided to forgo the velcro and go with the hook and elastics I had made earlier. Once I got them resized, I replaced the cover strip and put the hooks and elastic in. Thank God for E-6000. I have had to remove and rework a few things that wouldn't have been possible had I not used it. Next task was the ever dreaded thighs. I will be doing some shimming on these bad boys. I went to lowes and found the thickest abs sign I could find. This will be used on the inside of the thighs as an inner strip. I started by cutting a wide strip off. I then placed it inside the thigh and cut down the length. I roughed up the sign and the inside of the thighs. I glued the sign to one half of the thighs. Once dried I can use this to hold the thighs in place as I test fit them. Tape alone has not worked to hold them in place due to the large gap in the back. Now the tape will have something to stick to and hold the shape once I take them off. In an earlier post, I made mention of reworking the right bicep. When I sized the bicep I ended up cutting it crooked, thus making the cover strip crooked and not lining up with the forearm. I started out by removing the cover strip and putting some abs paste over then seam. After the paste dried, I sanded it down using progressively finer paper as I went. After the first attempt I had quit a few bubbles in the seam, so I reapplied the paste. After the second sanding it looked better, however the seam itself was still sowing through. not as bad but it is still there. It looks much better in the pic than it does in person. I went ahead and replaced the cover strip in line with the fore arm. I will probably go over it with some paint when I paint the ab shims and thigh shims. This morning, the thighs were cured and I started the task of sizing them. It was much easier and faster using the inner strips. I got them sized up and glued the inner strips to the other half of the thighs. once curred I will go back and start trimming them and get the shims fit in place. Lastly, you may have noticed that my blue ab buttons were a little dark. While I was looking for the color used for these buttons, I came across a color chart that shows midnight blue ( Humbrol 15). After painting the buttons however, I was looking over some of the Centurion applications and there buttons looked lighter than what I had. I have poor lighting in the basement so I was hoping it was just the light. Today, I came across another thread that shows the blue should be french blue ( humbrol 14), and it howed the chart I found with 15 also. However, 14 was the revised list, so what I had originally used was right to however old that first list was. I need to adhere to the revised list so I went and repainted the buttons with Humbrol 14 French blue. Looks alot more like the Centurion apps now. One thing I have decided after reworking the bicep. I will be taking Walter's advise and using the Apoxie sculpt for the thighs and ab shims. Thank you sir for the heads up. Hopefully I can get mine to come out as well as yours did. That is all for this update. Till next week. Thanks for reading.

I have debated with going that route. I do have some large areas that will need to be filled and I think that would be easier. My only concern would be it cracking or breaking due to flexing. Have you noticed and of this with yours? One other question if you don't mind. I am about to tackle the thighs and finish my shins, I have read that you should use the rule of thumb with the thighs, how tight did you make the shins? Would the same rule apply? Thank you sir, Jc

I have the NE armor and I am about the same if not a little larger than you and mine has fit just fine so far. I did have to shim the kidney and I will have to shim the thighs. NE is very similar to AM. I believe one of the makers of NE is the one that makes AM, or the other way around, something to that affect. I could be wrong but I think AM is a little larger than NE. Maybe a more knowledgeable trooper can shed a little more light on the matter.

Hey Michael, You can take a look at some of the Centurion or EIB threads with AM armor and it will give you an idea how it will fit. At the top of each request page the persons height and weight are there. Here are the links to EIB and Centurion. Your height shouldn't be an issue at all.

Walter, Thank you for the encouraging words. I plan on trying my hand at using the ABS paste shortly. I first wanted to get everything built and fit properly and make that one of my last steps. I will have to paste more than just the kidney shims. The back cover strip on the right bicep is not in line, due to the way I trimmed it. I'm going to remove that cover strip, paste the seam and replace the strip in line. Also, I must tackle the every dreaded fitting thigh armor around my Thunder thighs and that will definitely take some shimming and paste.

His videos are good. I have used them a few times. Keep in mind he is build a different armor, MTK I believe, and he is using the CA glue. AM2.0 is a little different. However you can get the basic ideas from his videos then cross reference what he shows with some AM build threads. I am building NE armor and have done this myself. I would highly recommend you use E-6000 glue. With the E-6000 you can take the armor back apart if you make a mistake. With CA glue you have no room for error.

Time for an update. I decided to get up a little early this morning to check everything out before my phone rings again and I have to go back to work. All of my paint and glue has had time to dry, so lets see how everything looks and fits. First up is the ab buttons I painted last night. As expected there was a little bleed through on the tape. However, it is still 100 times better than I would have done free hand. A few spots to clean up and a few spots to fill back in. Paint got pealed up in a couple places. Next, it is time to try everything on and see what needs some attention. I can already tell I need to try and widen the shoulder bells a little more. They need to move in a little farther, but were hanging up on my shoulders. I will try and widen them first, if that doesn't solve it I will have to shorten the straps. Not looking forward to trying to sew that snap again. My biceps are twisted and not setting in line. Easy fix. I still have some things I need to work on. Shoulder bridges need to be added, shims need to be hidden, snap needs to be placed on the right side, ab buttons glued on, rivets painted, belt built and snap put in ab for belt. At this point I just wanted to see how everything was lining up and get the pics posted. I can nit pick this thing for the next year and I will never get it finished. If you see something that needs attention or if my wife is right and I need to stop being so critical please let me know. Any and all feed back is greatly appreciated.