Kredal

More helmet fitting! There's very little documented about the AM2 helmet, so I thought I'd lend a hand... I started out by adding the black trim across the forehead, I angled the end cuts to match the traps. None of the gallery pictures of Han or Luke's helmets show that very definitively, but I think it looks cleaner than a straight vertical cut. I'll make sure the black outline on the trap matches the end of the trim too, so it looks complete. (picture was taken after all the other things were done) Once I did that, I drilled out the middle holes on either side with a 9/64 bit, which is just a fraction bigger than the screws that come with the kit (either M3 or size 6, I'm not sure) Unfortunately, that left a huge crater on the underside, which would keep the face and helmet from fitting together very well, so I trimmed that off with a pair of diagonal snips. Once those holes were drilled on either side, I fit it together and held it in place with a couple non-locking nuts I had laying around (the kit only comes with locknuts, which would be a pain to fit with.) I knew I wanted the "angry trooper" look of the Hero helmets, so I played with the angle that it was all fitting at, but the AM2 helmet wasn't happy being angry. One side was always a little bit low, because of how the back and side are put together... So I trimmed away some of the plastic on the face and hidden on the inside of the top, which helped a little, but it still wasn't right. Nothing to do but drill a different hole on that side. I took out the screw, held it where I wanted, then poked a fine tip sharpie through the hole to mark the faceplate where I wanted to drill. Took it all apart, and drilled it. As you can see, it's about a quarter inch away from the original divot. (Sorry for the smaller picture, Imgur didn't make a large thumbnail for some reason) I reattached everything, played with the angle of the faceplate until I was happy... Then drilled the other two holes on either side, and cleaned out the craters. The next step is painting everything, or at least the traps, so I can glue the trim over them, and then mount the faceplate for good. I kind of like going back and forth between the helmet and the rest of the kit. It breaks up the monotony a lot!

1 seems like a recipe for disaster... 2 would work. 3 may be your best option. ukswrath has a build thread going for an AM1.0 kit that was meant to be overlap, but he's making it all butt-joined. Check that out, and see what you think.

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/31848-kredals-anh-hero-build-am2/is my build thread. So differences in stunt and hero: Stunt has 8 teeth, hero has 8 Stunt has 4 ear bars, hero has 3 Hero "eyebrow ridge" is a lot lower Hero holster has 4 rivets, stunt has 2 Hero neckseal is a whole bib thing Hero has to have bubble lenses Hero *may* have grappling hook instead of TD

You have six teeth cut out, so it looks like you're doing a Hero build like me! Woo! http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/gallery/album/27-helmet-frown-a-new-hope-hero/shows how the teeth look on the Hero helmets. Check out all of the photo references at the top, and pay close attention to ANH Hero galleries if that's what you're doing. If you're not worried about getting the higher certification levels, then do what you want. A mix of hero and stunt will be fine, and just make sure what you're doing is OK for the base level (black text) in the CRL. Looking forward to watching your build too!

OK, haven't gotten brave enough for water yet (plus I was out busting ghosts yesterday!) OK, back to Stormtroopering! Got the right forearm outer strips gluing for today... I'll get my magnets back tomorrow morning. Started cutting on my left shin! And cutting, and cutting, and cutting... These are all the strips I took off just this one leg... not counting dremeling to get edges to line up right... Here's the leg with my boot on! It's starting to look like a thing! I have giant shins, so that's why two of the strips are more like triangles. The top of the leg has to be way wider than the bottom end... When I get my magnets back, I'll glue on the backing strip for the front, and the inside and outside strips on the back of the leg... then trim down some of the evil return edge cutting into leg (and boot!) plastic. Then start on the right shin!

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/29125-chookabooms-emergency-troop-kit/ Here's a pretty good list of things to carry for emergency repairs. Of course, tailor it to your own build. (:

Thanks for the advice! I was thinking of using a couple bar clamps to squeeze on the biceps while they're submerged.

Thanks for the vote of confidence! I'm pretty sure I'll be able to manage. If not, I know who to ask for advice! Also, I read your whole ATA rebuild thread(s) again. Now that I have my plastic, I could actually tell what was going on. Wow. Crazy amounts of work to be done, it's amazing how much the original builder screwed up, and how good you got it looking after! I'll try out the hot water on the biceps and see how that goes. Getting them rounder without having to cut any more out of them sounds like the best plan of attack. As it is, I have to squeeze them to fit over my elbow, so keeping them permanently squeezed should work pretty well.

OK, I lied about waiting for shoulder pics. Fooled you! I think I'll just take off the little return edge at the bottom, and call it good. The bottom edge lines up pretty well to where a hook would be inside the bicep, and should grant me full range of motion when I don't have to keep my arm perfectly still for taking pictures. (: I *DO* need to round out the bicep though. I'll go back over your build thread to see how it's done!

OK, I'll get pics of the shoulders with the rest of the arms, probably tomorrow or Saturday. In the meantime, I started on my bucket, because I still had a few magnets left over. (: Cut out six teeth (I even made X's on the back of the six so I didn't accidentally cut out too many... Did this with a Dremel sander, I need to pick up a set of small files to clean out the cuts and the corners, but overall, I'm happy with the shape of the teeth. Also glued together the top and back pieces and left them to dry. Tried to line up the front traps with the edge of the back piece as near as possible. Once that dries, I can test-fit the faceplate, and see how it all looks together! And then deal with ears. I'm not sure I'm ready for that level of commitment yet. (:

Left arm is done! (for some value of done) Questions: Is the shoulder bell in the AM2 kit the right size off the bat, or does it need to be trimmed? Does my bicep look good, or is it too wide and rectangular?

No website as far as I know, but [email protected] is the contact email.

You know you're done for the day when you run out of magnets. (: The top piece is the left forearm with the last outside strip drying, and the bottom two pieces are the halves of the right forearm, each with an inside strip. I managed to get good sized pieces cut from the arm for both of those, and also the 15mm strips for the outside when I come back to it tomorrow morning.

So this is an interesting picture for the forearms of my build. Glad I saw it before I started work on the right arm! On the left arm, the inside and outside parts line up at the top end (closest to the elbow), which is very close to how I have it. The right arm, however, has a serious difference in length! Looks like close to an inch off, with the wrist end lined up evenly. Also, I'm glad to see the hooks on the inside of the biceps. There aren't too many shots of those in Han or Luke's uniforms. My bicep pieces ended up waaaaay more oval-shaped than his are, though. Looks like in the movie, they're perfectly round, mine are closer to a 5/9 rectangle! I'll keep them as they are for now, but it's possible I'll need to trim some from the edges and re-glue them later. Hopefully, they'll be mostly covered by the shoulder bells. We'll see how that goes.

Today I learned that the armored glove doesn't work very well when it's sitting on the workbench. Made a nice little gouge in my finger with a utility knife. Wear your PPE, people! (no pictures, but imagine blood... fixed with some superglue.) It's too blasted hot in my garage right now, so no work in the afternoon for me... but I had a brilliant idea this morning while I was bleeding out: Since I KNOW I'm going to be cutting more than 15mm off the forearm (and probably 20-25mm off the leg parts) I can cut exactly that much off to start, to use as the outside cover strip, and then cut down to what I need for the inside strip.

For the throat mic, are you testing it under your neck seal? I found that the seal gives enough pressure on the mic to keep it flush to my throat. Also, I'm really only using one of the two transceivers on the mic, and it's pressed high and close to center like right next to my larynx. That seems to work well for me.

Still in stock. Also, got the shipping notification for my order from the 18th tonight, so they're doing way better than they used to, I guess!

How did you decide to cut the butt off by 4cm? Was that a fitment decision, or based on some other piece of armor?

Update on the test glue spot: After 12 hours, I was able to pull the pieces apart with MINIMAL effort. I scuffed up a couple different places on the test scraps with 120 grit sandpaper, and applied glue and clamped. (The picture would look a lot like the last one in the previous update, so none was taken). I'll see how well the extra scuffing works for adhesion. It does make me worry how strong the joints are on the parts I've already glued, though. I put together one edge of the left forearm and the second cover strip on the left bicep tonight, and I scuffed up those parts before gluing, once I realized that shiny to shiny doesn't necessarily hold very well. Also, because of the amount of plastic cut off the forearm, the edges left are at a weird angle that would make gluing them together really hard, I took my heat gun to the inside edge of the inside half of the forearm, and reshaped it to be more half-moon rather than quarter-moon shaped. Should take some pressure off the glue to hold the sides together.

Measure around your belly button. That's going to be the biggest spot that needs to fit between the ab and kidney plates. Where your belt goes is pretty much irrelevant.

Welcome to the AM2 build wave! I'll be watching this one too! (:

Still working on the arms. The left forearm has been cut to size, and I've put in the inside strips. And I've cut and placed the very first cover strip on the left bicep! Woo! (And then I ran out of magnets. Boo!) Just for kicks, I tested out heat-bending with a soldering heat gun. Set to 300C, it doesn't take long for the ABS to become pliable, and when it cools down, it's stuck wherever it was bent to. So that works. I also made a random joint between two pieces with E6000 just to see what it will be like if I ever have to tear apart a joint. Now to wait for it all to dry so I can reclaim magnets, glue the forearm together, and do a couple more cover strips on that side!

Orange tip and the wires from the counter to the power cylinders looks wrong... Plus $700!?! A DoopyDoos kit is less than $100 shipped to US... And you get to make it yourself. (:

The return edge on the bicep-end is optional... I cut mine off for the extra comfort.

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/31701-how-to-assemble-magnet-sachets/ That was Khazid's idea! They work great!