TheLilTK

Thank you so much Joseph! Mine arrived just before I left for the airport, so now I get to sport it at Celebration!

Darn! No worries Jospeh. I was assuming I wouldn't get it in time. Just hurts that it will arrive the day after I leave. . Thank you for your hard work!<br><br> LilTK-41414

I'm leaving for London this Friday (July 8th). Do you think US deliveries will start arriving by then? If not, it will be waiting for me when I get back, but I'd love to sport my shirt at Celebration.

Lil TK 41414 reporting for duty!!<br><br> <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.501st.com/members/displaymemberdetails.php?userID=18909'>http://www.501st.com/members/displaymemberdetails.php?userID=18909</a>

Good luck Daryl! You don't need it though.

Thanks!

Been working hard! I finished putting snaps and straps into the main body this weekend and was able to try it all on. I was pretty happy with it. There are a few fixes I plan to make for a better fit. 1) remove some plastic from the bottom of the rear piece (it looks like I'm wearing a diaper) 2) put some velcro on the back of the belt so it doesn't keep slipping up my back 3) change the right side straps to nylon. since there is only 2 elastic straps they stretch more and create a gap 4) change the screws on the ammo pack on the belt to chicago screws and glue the buttons on top 5) cut down the cod on the sides (it is going to give me some horrible bruises if I don't) So far so good. Once I finish up this hit list I'll start on the legs.

I'm having a hard time get the picture big enough. Could I get the dimensions of the straps you cut for holster?

I've been making some great progress, but I've been terrible at transferring pictures to photobucket. I shimmed my abs piece and have put in the rivets and snaps for the core pieces. I just need to fit the shoulder straps in and finish the belt and I'll be done with the main body. This weekend I plan to sew a neckseal for myself. The Anovos neckseal is 2" too tall for my neck. I'll post more pictures from my progress this weekend.

Thanks Sharkbait (love that username)! I have a lot of progress, but the thread has been pretty quiet so I haven't been posting much. I'll get some new progress posts up soon.<br><br> I have installed snaps on the chest, back, cod and butt plate, but I'm still working on the shims on the ab so I'm leaving that and the kidney for now. I'll be sanding and polishing the ab shims tomorrow so I can trim the kidney and get snaps and rivets installed. <br><br> The Anovos kit came with 10 split rivets so I was planning to use those and I bought 100 line 24 snaps from Tandy. I found a great tutorial on setting them in the how to section and haven't messed any up since. FISD for the win!

More updates! Been having a really good time with this build. Taking my time and working toward my end goal. This weekend we had an armor party. It was a lot of fun to hang out with a bunch of newbie TK builders like myself. We didn't have any vets with us, so we relied on the research I had already done and some of the tips others had picked up. I needed help making sure my pieces fit, so the guys held me together long enough to get some pictures to check the fit. It came together pretty well. I didn't need to trim more than I already had from the kidney (1") and the butt plate and the back fits were good. The front looked okay, but I decided to cut an inch off of the chest to make it look a little more proportional to my short torso. I had to bend the pieces a bit at the sides to get them to curve around my form a little better. I decided to use boiling water (I'm terrible with a heat gun) and was really happy with the results. Once I decided the fit was good I had to put the return edges back on the chest and kidney. I watched Pandatrooper's youtube videos a few times and then practices with my sealing iron on some scrap. I found it they key was keeping the heat moderate and just letting it sit there until the plastic started to give on it's own (no pressing). It took several passes (4 hours for both edges), but I'm happy with the results. The last thing I did this weekend was add the shims to the ab pieces. I only needed to add 1" and just didn't feel that was worth splitting onto both sides. Since the abs piece was flatter I decided to do it there. I have the pieces curing tonight and will add the paste tomorrow. I did notice that I will need to adjust the side seam on the kidney just a little. It was a tad too high. Not a problem to trim it and fix the return edge in that spot only. This week I'll finish up the shimming and do another test fit and then start putting in the snaps. Super happy with my progress so far.

Hi Shaun! Awesome progress!! I'm working on converting my Anovos to ESB as well. I have a build thread over in the build thread area (it's very quiet over there). I replaced my decals with TB ones too, but plan to convert my holster (have to save some pennies somewhere). I bought handplates from ATA and a new belt from TKittle. Looking forward to watching your progress too.

This build thread is amazing!! Thank you so much for taking the time to explain your process so thoroughly. I've been reading a lot of threads to determine the best way to build my straps and I am thrilled to try this one. Do you have any updates since you have worn it for awhile?

I received my decals from Trooperbay and replaced the Anovos decals. I think it looks pretty good, but since I'm going to Centurion I would love feedback. I have also glue t-nuts inside the bucket to screw the lenses in for security. I've also replaced the head gear with padding. Just waiting on my Evillboy fans to finish up. I have also begun fitting my pieces. Since I am 5'4" I have some work to do to make it fit. I had some panic attacks before deciding it was time to cut the cod, but once I did it was no big deal. I removed about an inch and it looks pretty good. I'll need to shim about 1" on each side of the kidney. I have a armor party on Friday so I'll check the fits with the back pieces before I start working on the shims. (the 1st picture is the before cutting and the 2nd is after cutting. The blue tape shows where it sat before

I bought hand plates from ATA and compared them to Anovos. The match looked really good. I've requested some extra for shimming now too.