Vette11

the button plates painted and glued on.

The finished TD.

in the second picture, I am getting ready to boil the cover strips to bend them to get them to fit the bottoms of the thighs. boiling water worked best for me as it gave me the most control to how long or hot to get the plastic. you will see more pics of items that were bent the same way coming up soon

ok so it has been a while but here are some more photos. I am finished with the build and making some final adjustments and taking the photos to submit to the Florida GML. Hopefully I will have the photos submitted this weekend.

not pictured is the fact that I am using a Velcro enclosure. I will post photos of it when I can, pb and I are not getting along very well today..

building the clamshell, photos are of the 1st go round. it came out ok but there was too much gap b/w the chest and kidney pieces so I took it apart and redid it (no photos) and it came out a better but still has a minor gap. I am going to tear it apart for a 3rd time to try and eliminate the gap but am getting fearful the armor will crack if I keep doing this. whatever I get on the third try will have to suffice.

torso and back plates, putting them together.

shins build

um maybe not, I seem to be having an internet problem concerning photobucket. I will keep trying

ok, even though I haven't been posting, I have been building, I just don't seem to have the time to both build and post. here is some of my latest work.

that is all for now, I look forward to your input, hope you enjoy

this is as far as I can bend my knees. I can do a slight jog but not run. I haven't decided if I will cut any away yet to get more mobility.

this Is the picture to my question. in this photo it is the left leg (actually right leg b/c pic was taken in a mirror) that has the overlap. can I do this???

this is a picture taken from the front. I took the photos in a mirror so everything is backwards....

now I am moving onto the legs, I really need everyone's input here so I hope you all will respond. I tried on the lower leg pieces in the pics you will see that I started with taping them together at the butt join. the end result was a poor fit on my right leg. it kept trying to spin around every time I walked. I then pulled it in so that the back of the shin, join ridges overlapped each other and the fit was absolutely perfect. my question is: can I do that. I know the shins stripped in the front and the back is open and closed with Velcro. can I overlap the butt join, put the strip over one side so it looks like it is joined and have the Velcro on the other and just overlap it closed?? probably not but thought I would ask. I have to continue my research on the legs at this point so more later.

the gap on the left arm can be fixed by pulling up the tape. the fit is really good as far as fitting around my arms and I am very pleased with them.

next up are the photos of everything put together and me wearing the arms

I'm back, just because I haven't been posting does not mean I haven't been working on my armor. so far I have managed to finish the biceps and the forearms. the forearms were very difficult, I had to trim the edges where the 2 halves get butt joined so that they would fit my forearms better. the end result of that was the cover strips did not want to lay flat or evenly. I glued the inside strips with e6000 and let them dry for the required 24 hours. once I brought both halves together I realized I was going to need some heat action to get a better fit with the strips. I bought a heat gun (testing it on cut pieces of course) and had to be very careful not to melt my armor. I was somewhat able to achieve a better fit and glued the outside strips with e6000. however, the tension was so great that it literally pulled the forearm from the strips every time I put my hands in and pulled them out. I finally had to go to a superglue gel that is sold in a hobby shop near my office so that the strips would stay together on the pieces of forearm. (the superglue took 15-30 seconds to set so I could adjust if I needed to) now they are solid and I have been putting them on testing the fit. and yes I do realize that what I did is pretty much permanent so I better be happy with the end result b/c I don't think I can get the exterior strips off if I wanted to. these will be various picture of the build process and the end result with me wearing the arms in my base layer. as always please feel free to question, comment, critique. and thanks for your input.

Lastly for today, while I had some time waiting for the glue to dry... I decided to paint the inside of the bucket flat black. the pics are before and after. I will contribute some helpful information here when the tape was removed I was very disheartened to see I had some overspray in some places. first I tried to clean it with a baby wipe and it worked a little bit but not enough. I decided to try some Maguire's Quick spray wax on a shop towel and well it worked beautifully fast and quick. and the funny thing about it is that the bucket will now slide across the floor from one end of the house to the other....lmao