Jenlarouge

I'll bet you guys thought I gave up, right? WRONG. Job hunting is seriously cutting into my armor building time. Inconsiderate much?! Anyway... I have been spending my free time wrestling with this ab/cod combo piece. Let me remind everyone what the problem is. It overlaps my girls by about three inches on top if I have the cod in the right place or goes halfway to my knees (slight exaggeration there) if I have the top where IT belongs so I panicked and cut it in half here which I sorta regret. But I did it so I need to go with it. After advise from you guys, I trimmed the bottom point off the cod quite a bit and that took care of 1 1/2 of the 3 inches that I needed to get rid of I then trimmed the return edge off of the top down to about 1/8 of an inch and this really almost got me another 1/2 gone. Sorry I didn't get pics of that. I removed the last 1" from the middle. Removing all three inches from the middle would have really made the sides not ever line up right again. 1" will work out ok. Initially I was just going to hack off 1" from the top of the cod section I had hacked off previously here: But I realized that if I do that I will also hack off the top of the little ridge and I didn't want to do that. I just wanted to loose some of the space between the cod and ab details. So I ended up cutting it out in a wide notch from the ab and inserting the matching "cog" shape on the cod with the ridge in tact. Which I am sure is clear as mud. lemme see if I can explain better with pictures. I marked off a 1" deep, sorta wide "notch" in the bottom of the ab plate where I had separated the pieces. which I cut out Leaving a space 1" higher for the little ridged decoration on the cod. Then I cut down the sides of the cod 1" to make an opposite "notch" or "cog" shape. and Presto! 1" shorter but details all still there. The piece I cut out of the ab makes a great little joint piece to glue the two halves together. So I cut it in half, sanded it down on the edges and used E6000 to glue the joint pieces to the two halves of my ab/cod piece back together. They are curing right now, held together by magnets. Once cured I will fix the edges and return edges so they match up again and fill in the gaps in the front from the cuts. The whole area is covered by the belt so no seams will show either way.

Ok, I took a peak at Kathi's armor build thread. Thank you for posting the pics from 4 angles, it helps me get a better idea where the pieces sit on someone a bit on the shorter side. Tell her she looks GREAT!

Greg, I have not trimmed anything from the cod/ab, just separated them. I'll have to do some moving things around to get the right placement. I am 5'0" so very short.

Also took advantage of Hubby being home and he helped me tape it all together on just to see what I was dealing with... Everything needs to be shortened. So I better get started.

Decided to just keep going on this thread instead of starting a new one. It will be long, but it will all be here. SO moving on to the armor... time to cowboy up. When you are sewing a terribly structured garment you have to fit the hardest part to alter first, and everything else gets fitted to that part after. So I am going to use the same approach here. The first issue to address will be the length of the ab/cod piece. I have an EXTREMELY short torso. There is about 4" between the bottom of my ribcage and the top of my hips. Not only does this add width to my appearance, but it makes everything else top and bottom to long. The Ab piece will either sit at the right place at the cod and then overlap on the top... IF the top is in the right spot the bottom of the cod is almost at my knees. After spending three days rumaging through the threads for all sorts of TK's I can't find any suggestions specifically, but I see other times where they have seperated the cod from the ab piece. I decided to try and do the same but subtract a few inches out and create a seam under the belt. No one will ever see it, and I may even use the paste/slurry method to get rid of the seam altogether. I started by cutting it here I then just taped it up about 2 inches higher for the try on. Which brought to light several other problems...

Also, thinking of starting a new post for the armor. This thread was three pages just the helmet... if both it will be way long. What is proper forum etiquette regarding length of threads and pics?

DONE! (I think) I am not 100% happy with the gap on the left ear, but any more trimming just makes it bigger, so I decided to try and be at piece with my Freshman attempt at helmet building. SO anything else I am not seeing? If so please let me know now as I am too lazy to go back and redo stuff once I have moved on.

Good Morning! Everything is dry so I tried the thing on with the helmet liner in place. Big improvement. Now just the last couple cleanup details and it should be done. =D Mom note: The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is the best thing I have found to clean up helmet. I wet one half of it to scrub and leave the other dry to...dry. If it starts to leave dark streaks because of the pain/pencil/dirt/fingerprints/seal smudges I have cleaned up, you just run it under water/ring it out again and keep scrubbing. Seriously, people should keep one of these with their kit. Anyway... Despite my careful taping there was tiny spots of escaped spray paint at the teeth which the magic eraser wouldn't pick up without a vigorous scrubbing that would also take the enamel off the teeth. Since it was nice and dry I went ahead and just painted over those with a touch of white enamel. Can't even tell. Think that is everything. Ready for the done picks?

Time to get the padding and helmet liner in there. I know I need to push it away from my face a bit and up off of my head a bit. So first I am adding a bit of foam to the top and right above the lenses. Circle for the top pad for the forehead above the lenses traced around where I wanted the foam at the top so I knew where to put the glue Did the same at the forehead then added the E6000 to the helmet in the area I had marked and the foam and applied per the instructions on the tube... let it cure for about 3 hours so I knew it was at least stuck enough that I can work around it. After that I started lining up the motorcycle helmet liner I got, using the one suggested from Shannon's helmet THANKS for the info. Yay Amazon! =) Using velcro to install it so that I can take it out and wash it as needed etc. Velcro on the helmet curing And on the liner... And now I must wait until it dries. grrrrrr. guess I'll go to bed.

Paint's finally dry enough to put it all back together and get finished up. So started by gluing in the screen behind my frown with some E6000. Hate waiting on E6000 to dry... used popcicle sticks to hold the screen on while it dried... it really works best if you do it the way the instructions say and apply the glue to both sides, wait two minutes, then put the two things together; but it just takes so long! Uggg Put the black seal around the bottom, bothers me that it isn't glued or anything but then I can never take the helmet back apart. Tadahaaaa

Changed my mind. Want to make a Stormtrooper, not a dress. Ordered a dress and Amazon and got back to the helmet. SO, started by taking the right ear off and spending the next hour adjusting tiny parts to make it lay down better and get rid of enough, but not to much of that flash. =\ I sketched out an initial trimming and cut that down to just before the line I drew Then just put it back on and marked where it stuck out to far and prevented the ear from sitting on straight, took it off and sanded, put it back and mark... etc. Then did the other side and hopefully when I put it all back together they will both be a little more flush Then I took it all the way apart, removed the lens, and started the process of masking off the face and back of the helmet with painters tape to prep for spray painting. Started with the eyes and did all the edges did both eyes, all the way around the edges, the teeth. Then covered the holes, and the eye holes completely. Covered the rest with a plastic bag and taped it down to the taped edges, making sure everything on the outside was covered completely from over spray Sprayed it inside both face and back with matte black spray paint While that is drying I went back and deepened the notch between the eyes on the lens with the dremel on low speed, which did better not melting it. =) Now just waiting for paint to dry

Awesome Ben, I will do those two things as well while I have it all apart fixing the ears. Thank you so much guys! Back in a couple days when I have finished my homework and also I have to make a stupid dress for graduation. =( Which is in two days =( ugggg

Thank you Derrek and Yes I want to nitpick. =) I would like to leave as little as possible that I will fret over later. I think I see what you are talking about, particularly on the Left side when looking at the face, that ear? I will try and trim more down. Just afraid to trim to much and not be able to put it back.

And with that, and many many micro adjustments to try and get everything as even as I could, I think I might be done with this helmet. Please take a peak and tell me if I have overlooked anything or if anything needs more fixing... Eh?

Realised I had forgot to paint the ridges on the ears. OOPS Those came back off to be finished. So penciled the outline around the ridges and then, with a tiny #2 round brush, painted the grey outline. This just allowed me to have a larger margin of error when painting the the ridges. Then filled in the box I made with grey enamal, Tester's 1138

On to the tube stripes. I ordered from Troopersbay.com. Was a bit concerned that they came with a sticker but no instructions... So hopped over to their website where I found a VIDEO! yay! so first I measured out the suggested "one pencils width away from the cheek..." Marked it on both sides... Peeled the backing off the decals and lined them up with the pencil marks... You can see the pencil line through the backing once it sticks, but only once it sticks so be careful to line it up first... rubbing pressure will adhere the vinyl to the ABS Then peel back the backing. This come off nice and clean if you peel it back instead of pulling it up. Peel backwards thusly... Tadaaaa! In the event of a misalignment, be aware that the vinyl will stick when you are lining things up and may not stay on the backing if you try to pull up and realign. If that happens (as it did to me) I just removed the misaligned stripes and lined up the rest of them in the right spot. Leaving the misplaced ones out until the rest are on right Then, since you only used 11 on each side and you where sent 16, you can just cut out two more from the extra And line them up with the others, in the right spot. Fixed! Can hardly tell they where out of place

Next important step was to try it on all the little girls that have been at my house all weekend. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP! CHECK!

ANNNNNNNND We're Back! Sorry of the disappearing act. I suddenly occurred to me last week that I had done exactly 0% of the studying I needed to do for my state boards last Friday. SO had to take the week and study (and finish sewing the giant bean-bag for my 8 yr old's birthday) As I have accomplished both tasks I am back at it with my shiny new Registered Nurse License on the way (Passed that sucker first try, minimum amount of required questions!) So today we got these in the mail... But before putting them on, had a couple chores to finish up. Had to cut and apply the little circles of ABS behind the mics as suggested by Bobby And needed to get serious about making the lens fit. I just happen to have a heat gun used for embossing, please no comments about the color or generally X-rated appearance of my heat gun, its a heat gun and that is all I promise. This heated the lens a bit slower than a hardware one would, but that was probably best. After trimming the top down a bit to better fit inside the helmet, I first screwed one side in to the helmet so I could keep it in place. then I held the heat about 2-3" away and passed the gun back and forth at the nose to soften it. When it started to sorta bend on its own, droop just a tad I quickly positioned it where I wanted and screwed in the other side. Don't touch it in the middle where you heated it, this causes a sharp angle and a burnt finger, FYI. This gave me a nice, closer, curve at the nose. Still have a bit of a gap on the sides and underneath but you guys said this is OK and will help with the fogging. Tada! I did not take pics, but after it cooled I took it back out to clean it and get rid of all my sketching lines...

Thanks for the tip Bobby! I'll add that tomorrow! =)

here it is with both mics

Ok, well I don't think it turned out half bad. What do you think?

working on the mic tips. Realized that I didn't have the aluminum screen so decided to try and "make it work" with the black screen I had. I just sprayed it chrome and hoped for the best. So that went pretty well. I decided to proceed and see. I started by tracing the openings of the mics on a paper to use as a template, cause you can't really see the lines when I write on the screen... Added some glue to the inside of the mics and pushed them in a bit with the top of a marker here they are before they where trimmed. we'll see how it worked when they are dry... ALSO I had drilled a hole in the bottom and put a screw down in there under the screen to then attach to the helmet...

More painting and cleaning up painting done the last couple days... fixed the frown, so more like frown and less like pirate teeth... and chin done Cleaned up my traps with some mineral spirits Drilled the hole for my mics had an incident with the drill and my "nurse" came to my rescue. She chided me for drilling while holding the thing and not wearing my safety glasses while expertly applying my band-aide. She will make a good nurse.

Started the painting. No pressure. Got through the traps and the frown. Will finish up the chin and get the two black things on (forget what they are called) and get the paint trips cleaned up. Do I have to much black on the frown? Do I need to clean it out from between the teeth?

In other news, Yesterday was shopping day! Big haul! Went to Tandy for the snaps, leather for shoes, mallet, snap setters, etc. Joann's Crafts for the elastic, nylon strapping, velcro Hobby Lobby for mineral spirits, enamel, brushes and a clock (wait, what?) AND Amazon showed up with my heat sealing iron and moto helmet liner. yay!