plushie

No it's not slapping two sections together! LOL My full build picture gallery is up on Mountain Garrison's galleries. There are multiple angle shots of various stages of the forearm construction. It may require a forum login to view though. I haven't moved photos to photobucket or flickr yet. The forearms had a resin greeblie each, a box, the 'top' and two sections. So it was four pieces, not counting the greeblie. Unless I'm brainfarting at the moment and missed a part.

I like the flexible adhesive strength of using the plastic weld as opposed to using the CA glue or Zap a Gap. It was a personal preference of myself and the build team.

Currently, I don't have the leg armor pieces attached to the ribbing aside from using velcro. This may change as I finish and wear the armor and see how it flexes on me.

Since I have curves and girth I am trying to lose, I had to shim my ab/kidney plate. Which we again used the plastic weld, sanded and puttied smooth along the lines.

Going ahead and starting my own thread. I'm maybe 10-15 hrs away from completing my kit as of this writing and planning to resume my build May 9th. Darn work and trooping getting in the way I took a different adhesive route than recommended. Knowing bondo is more of a filler and has a tendency to crack, and not having the time for slurry, I went with devcon plastic weld. I'm careful with my kits, but not having a standard body type for armor (being female with curves), I wanted the flexible strength of the plastic weld. We hardly touched the recommended CA glue at all. Plastic Weld Pros: Strong Flexible Quick cure time Plastic Weld Cons: Can get pricey as we used a LOT Tough to sand It took extra effort using the plastic weld when it came to sanding. Some areas were too closed in to sand in a seamless and smooth manner. We have areas like the ab boxes that did wind up needing bondo putty as a filler. As you can see, the combination worked great. We have some more areas to resume working on with the bondo putty I'm sure, along with repainting. While the weather here in Colorado was nice and dry, it was still too cold for painting. We should have used a space heater near the painted pieces as they dried, alas. My painting dried rough and no gloss. I'll be hitting the armor again with wet sanding and fine grit paper along with plastic polish. Things to finish: Internal Strapping Shoulder/Elbow Gasket fitting Velcro attachments for cod, butt and chest pieces Attaching boxes to belt

My husband spent SO many hours on my ab plate with the boxes. Since we used the plastic weld, while it holds oh so well, it's rough to sand, especially in those areas. So for folks looking to use the weld, be prepared to have bondo or bondo putty or some other filler ready as you will need it to make things smooth and look nice under the primer and paint. This picture is from after we were done sanding, bondo putty, and a shot of primer.

Excellent! Looks like we're well covered.

The gaskets were rubbing off and you could see 'shavings' on the armor from the rubber during Celebration on the troopers. So there is already wear and tear found on the gaskets after a couple of days of trooping. I'm still building, but I've found the Weir Stuck glue that was provided is working well on the rubber gaskets. CA Glue is working as well.

Before I finish assembling my kit, I can take individual pictures of each part for the CRL if it's needed. I know it's not like we don't have an abundance of photos, right?

D'oh. I forgot about that part. Naturally blasters are optional. I also saw the thread regarding the gloves too. I'm catching up on the FISD posts I think gloves should be in a tiered level as well. Again, my two cents as I am really new to building a CRL and being a part of the 'first' of a costume. ... Heck.. first of anything!

TB-24601 requesting 501st access, thank you! http://www.501st.com/members/displaymemberdetails.php?userID=15193

Thanks for the additional information! I'm resuming my build in two weekends to ready it for Denver Comi-Con.

Thank you Eric for starting this thread! My two cents would be perhaps two tiers of approval.. One tier to account for the ribbed cloth gasket as an alternative to the rubber. Include standard classic TK boots as well. Next tier, the rubber gaskets, proper boots and shiny new E-11's