hon143

lol.....yeah, i didn't realize how old the original post was until I saw your reply!

Have you tried starting it yourself? Believe me...its not all that hard. I had zero experience. I just worked on it a few hours each night after we put the kids to sleep. And it took me about a month to complete.

Beautiful! One of the nicest, cleanest, most organized interiors I've seen here. And, great job on the ears!

If I'm understanding your issue correctly, have you considered trimming off more ABS from the lower portion of the bucket? The other option would be more padding at the crown to lift up the bucket. For me, it was the opposite. I had to get a thinner pad for the crown because it was too high and I could barely see. With the thinner padding, it's perfect now for me. I've found that once you completed everything and actually put it all on, you'll find that you'll need to tweak things here and there. I also had to cut the hole bigger on the bucket too because it was a bit snug with the neck seal and bucket fans on.

You might be better off just buying it. The same member here also sells really nice leather holsters too and can ship it out together. The member here is TKittell

Some ppl mentioned Sugru for their build. I was just looking at the product and I think it may be a good way for anyone to reinforce knicks and cracks in their armor.

That's a good idea with the fans! I think I may go that route too for my fans. Once Sugru is totally dry, is it fairly hard or semi-soft/rubbery like E6000?

As Gazmosis stated, ppl can do their interior any way they like. I have an ATA bucket (which is fairly small from what I hear) and a pretty big head. So for me (and I stress only for ME), I thought the one full lens strip attached to the ear screws created less room for me. Certainly, I'm NOT saying it was a bad idea. It's a good idea too....just not for me. Because, the extra strip of lens material across the temple would have made it more snug for me inside the bucket and on the side of my head. Ppl with an MTK, AP, or AM (or any other vendor) have more room inside the bucket because their buckets are bigger.

Velcro does sound like a good idea!

For me, it would be roughly from the outer edge of each eyeball to about the ear where the ear screw would go in. For better peripheral vision inside the bucket, my eyes/face is pretty much right up against the front of the bucket. So, that little bit of extra space would matter to me.

When I was building my bucket and was thinking about how I would attach the lenses, I noticed that I could just keep that lens as one long strip and use the ear screws too....just like in that video. But, I wasn't aware of that video at the time. However, I didn't want to go that route because I wanted to minimize where I could inside the bucket. I have a big noggin' and I definitely need all the space I can get in there!

LOL.....that's the nice thing about using wooden "stakes". I just drilled a tiny "guide hole" into the wood....just like 2 millimeters deep. Then, I just screwed in a small wood screw into it. The wood screw guided itself into the wood. Joseph, I think Gazmosis has a helmet build tutorial using the stacked ABS method. http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/28633-howto-ata-helmet-build-hand-painted-details-pic-heavy/

I kept the lenses as one strip covering both eyes. But, I did trim it so there wasn't excess lens material inside the bucket. I then used a wooden rod I bought at Michaels' and cut it into little half inch pieces to use to attach screws inside the bucket. I just glued the wooden cylindrical blocks inside the bucket around the eye holes (3 per eye hole) with E6000. Once it dried, I just screwed the lens directly into those wooden blocks. I also used a heat gun to bend the lens strip to conform with the bucket shape beforehand too.

Sal, I used the vids on TrooperBay and also the tutorials here as my guide. I didn't go with TrooperBay's vids 100% for my build. But, it was a good video reference when the online written tutorials here weren't clear. All in all, it took me about a month to complete my armor kit. The bucket took about 2 weeks which I had received a few months ago before the armor kit.

I've used this for things around the house and yard that'll be outdoors and it works pretty well.....Nikwax Tent and Gear Solar Proof spray. It's easy to apply since it's a spray. I think it may work for our armor too. I sprayed it on our big golf umbrellas for when we would take the kids out to amusement parks and such for my wife to use as a sun shade. Using our bottle of Blue Lizard sunblock which has a UV indicator on the bottle, it appears to block out ALL the UV from the sun. ------------

How tall are you and which armor do you have? I'm only about 5'7-5'8" and I was able to fit into my armor without major tweaks. I have the MTK armor which is apparently exactly like the ATA kit. However, the armor was a bit wide for me. So, I just used my heat gun to heat up the chest/ab, kidney, and butt pieces a section at a time and slowly bent in the pieces to fit my width better. For the butt piece, I also bent in the "cup" section that goes under my groin area.....this "shortened" the entire kidney/butt section too. When I was nearing the end of my build and started strapping everything together, I thought I was going to have to trim parts of the kidney piece too since it seemed too big length-wise. But, after heating/molding the pieces to fit my size better (I liked a nice slim fitted look instead of the wide trooper look), it turned out I didn't need to trim anything.

What's the best way to get a hold of evilboy? I got the fan from him in Jan, finished my armor a couple days ago, and tried out the fan. And it doesnt work! Never been used.

I emailed him but he just said it's normal. It's definitely thinner though....by at least half.

I just attached an elastic strap to both shoulder bells with snaps. It works great at keeping the bells closer to the chest piece.

The other option is using an old pair of glasses (hopefully, with a somewhat current prescription), removing the side temples, and just attaching the frame front (with the Rx lenses) to the inside of the bucket with velcro right at the bridge of the frames.

Not yet....I just recently joined here and never mentioned it to anyone yet. But, I was just thinking about it and I think it would be a better idea for someone to use an old pair of glasses with their correct prescription. Then, remove the side temples and strap the eyeglasses to the lens area inside the bucket with velcro. Because, if you only use green prescription lenses to attach to the bucket, the size and base curve of the prescription lenses may not fit the eye opening on the bucket. Tinting the prescription lenses the correct color wouldn't be hard.....just fitting it over the eye opening on the bucket may be an issue. Or, remove the prescription lenses on an old pair of glasses (with current prescription) and just attach it inside the bucket behind the green lenses. Just make sure the orientation of the lenses are correct. If you have astigmatism, the exact orientation of the lenses will matter.

I'm an optometrist and business owner.

Referring to the former Clippers' owner, ownership of a professional team in any sport is a privilege. It's an exclusive club. And each league has an image to maintain. When you buy a team, you agree to a certain set of rules and policies. If you undermine the image of the league by your words or actions, you can be removed as an owner as per the purchase agreement of the league. Hence, it's NOT an issue of freedom of speech....it's a simple contracts issue. Likewise, if Nike signs me an endorsement deal to represent them and I start saying or doing offensive things they can fire me since I represent them. It's all spelled out in our agreement.

Let's say a member here was a KKK member and started racist threads here on FISD. Do you think "freedom of speech" would protect him and his threads from being deleted?!?!?!? You don't think it'll be okay to suspend or ban the racist member? Or, are you suggesting that this privately-owned forum must allow him to stay and keep starting racist threads? Let's say I hate Asian ppl and went to my job with an anti-Asian t-shirt. And, I start posting posters all over my office that are anti-Asian. Do you think my employer has no right to stop it?!?!?

I have the MTK armor kit and noticed that the kidney piece is very thin. Thinner than any other piece in the armor kit. Is that usual for MTK and other armor kits out there?