Kredal

That's a sharp looking set of armor! The only thing I see is your drop boxes look like they move around a lot. They should be attached to the belt so they stay even with the outside edge... Maybe with some Velcro or something on the back side? Some of the pictures they're at the end, and some others they're under the last boxes on the belt. Oh, Steve is also going to want a picture showing off the D-ring on the back of your (great looking) blaster. Good luck!

You put a snap on the right side of the ab for a reason... use it! Snap plate across from it on the kidney on the inside, and hook those together with a strap! (: It can be a little pain to put on, but it'll look so much nicer! Great kit, though. Looking forward to seeing your centurion app too! Oh hey, just noticed (and this won't affect anything, I'm sure) but on the blaster's right side there's a gap in the barrel holes. There's supposed to be a bayonet lug there... looks like a misshapen blob of resin. http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/32351-kredals-doopy-doo-with-t-jay-kit-e-11-build-80-realistic-maybe/?p=418480shows how it goes on... since I had to look it up too. (:

They're still around. Send emails to them, look at build threads and see what people with your body type are wearing. And when you get a kit, come on back and post your own build thread!

Looks great! Good luck!

Have to agree with Steve here. You might want to add another set of hidden snaps on the inside of the right ab/kidney plates to hold the bottom together. Trusting the belt to hold it all down doesn't work too well. (: Other than that, it looks great!

You can have the strapping done in about two days, including E-6000 cure time. Follow the examples of other people as to where to put the plates, glue them in... then come back the next day and make nylon straps long enough to fit between them all. Done! (Then after you're approved, go back and make them all perfect!)

Was down for me yesterday evening and all night (working the overnight shift, trying to watch build threads to stay entertained)... Did the dnsflush, all that fun stuff. Hopefully it stays up tonight!

Joshua Ward, 44678, Centurion, Letter<br><br> Thank you!

Thank you for the comments and for that spiffy red badge! I will get the shoulder straps tightened up (again!). I can also trim a little more off the back, I thought I got enough of it before, but then I saw you comment on someone else's with a line down the entire thing and not just the flash at the bottom.<br><br> I did get my calf armor amazingly smaller and they look so much better now! I'm glad I took that suggestion to heart. (:

Looking good! To pull a page from Tony's handbook:

Looks like you already have this figured out. Yes, cut on that red line for the ab/cod plate. You can take off more return edge there later if it bothers you when you put it on. <br><br> For the kidney, cut off the flashing at the notch, then keep trimming the return edge all the way around to that depth (looks like about 5mm or so). Since you'r strapping with snap plates, any return edge is just for show to give the illusion of thick armor. You don't need to keep as much.

Today I learned that I'm able to ride a horse in armor. Amazing. I was worried about my buttplate, but it made it through unscathed!

Without seeing pictures of the return edge, there's no way anyone (except for maybe TM) to tell you how much you can keep or if it's the right angle or anything. How are you planning to strap it together? With snap plates and straps, or elastic loops and piano wire brackets? Or velcro? (: Any return edges that you end up keeping should be at roughly a 90 degree angle from the main plate surface. Your limb armor should have very little return edge, and your core segments should have a little bit more, and if you're doing the loops and brackets for strapping, you need a little more return edge. But really, pictures!

Hey Aaron, I'm going to be trying your ear mod, but on an AM2 set of ears. I have ATA hero ears on my AM2 lid right now, and they're tiny in comparison. I bought two sets of ATA ears just in case, so I have an extra pair to make clay molds from, and of course my AM2 ears that I didn't use for the build... Hopefully my ears come out as well as yours!

Tony, I think that's just an artifact of how the AM2 shins look. I have the same thing going on...

(I think Gazmosis forgot about the Centurion forum...)

The very first post of this thread has sources that can be made 501st approved. You buy the kit, and if you put it together right, it can be accepted by the 501st. Good luck!

Congrats!

Nicely done! Great job getting AM armor looking like ROTJ, and painting it... and getting it so blasted small! (: Welcome to the EIB ranks!

Ooooh, I didn't see that the back of your calves have that ridgeline molded in. Hrm. Not sure what to tell you there... I'd have to see other MTK kits.

If that is where your calves close around your leg, it's looking good. Cut right down the middle of the overlap, making sure that the two halves come together fairly straight. Attach a cover strip to the OUTSIDE half in the back to cover the join. I don't remember seeing if you're planning on doing the bra straps or velcro to finish the closure. If you're doing velcro, then just put the hook part on the inside of the cover strip, right up to the edge, and the loop part on the part of the inside plate that gets covered. I wrapped the loop part around the inside of the leg just to help it hold on tighter. Haven't had an issue with it yet!

So since the webserver moved, all of my FISD emails have been going to spam. Fixed that by whitelisting the address. I wasn't ignoring you, really! Anyways, the cap rivets *should* work, but I'm not sure I'd trust them. Regular pop rivets, with the gun going in the front, and the "messy" side on the back, should fit just fine under the rivet covers. That's how I did mine, through the plastic belt, cloth belt, and two layers of elastic for drop boxes... plus a washer for good measure. With all that stuff on the rivet head, it doesn't come close to hitting my ab armor (which, admittedly, was a concern of mine) Make sure you have the snaps on the cloth belt (to snap to the ab plate) before you attach the plastic belt.

I've got mine strapped with the piano wire setup from Mr. No Stripes... The only change I made was to get lock nuts (with the nylon compression fitting bit) because as I was walking around, the regular nuts it came with were backing off and falling out, which is no good. I looked into using Loc-tite, but it turns out that it will eat through ABS, so I decided against that. (: Oh, and I added the single strap from chest to ab to keep the chest overlap in place. If you're going the original strapping route, I'd keep about a half inch of return edge (as little as 3/8 inch should be fine).

Welcome to the AM2 club! There are a few recent builds that used the AM2 kit like you have. A lot of stuff is already trimmed to where it needs to be, but there are still things that need to be trimmed down a lot more. If you read from about page 8 of my build thread (linked in my sig), you'll see things that I had to trim down after I thought I was done. Most notably the knee plate and back plate. A word of warning: The kit comes with a jar of ABS glue... anything you do with that is permanent. If this is your first build, I'd put that up on a shelf, and go buy a tube or two of E-6000. That's a much more forgiving glue that is almost as strong as the ABS glue, but will still let you pull pieces apart if you need to. The downside is that cure time is 12-24 hours depending on temperature and humidity, whereas the ABS glue is more or less instant. Since you're going to be taking your time on the build anyway, and researching other threads before cutting and gluing anything (right? RIGHT?), you can spare the time to let the E-6000 set. (: Also, I love that you have the XXX "Pirates" poster on your wall. Oh, you can put aside a few pieces that you won't use for a standard ANH TK build: Two TD knee plates (diamond shaped), two smooth shoulder straps, belt with indents, belt rivet covers (all of them except for one of the sticks), the ice cream scoop and cheese grater hand plates, the ab button plate with divots where the buttons are supposed to be, and the separate metal buttons. Put all that stuff in a box, and ignore it for now. (:

Your armor looks fantastic!