Jump to content

hupspring

501st Stormtrooper[TK]
  • Posts

    358
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by hupspring

  1. Last night I glued the remaining outer cover strip onto the back of the left calf - all that's left for the calves is to glue on the sniper knee and add the velcro to the cover strips. And since I got my new canvas belt a few days ago, I finally started taking apart the Anovos belt. So far I drilled out the rivets holding the plastic portion onto the canvas belt but that's as much as I've done. People at the armor party said they've either just glued on ABS strips and riveted those to the new canvas belt, or used velcro instead of prying off the button covers and risking breaking them. I'm still pondering what I will do.
  2. I'm going to try the water bath on my right shin sometime this week - good to know that it worked so well. I tried using a hair dryer and as someone mentioned earlier, it didn't get hot enough to do anything.
  3. Definitely! I'll probably be at the next one that they do around the Brea area - my wife wants to bring her sewing machine next time so she can help anyone with little sewing projects since I had her do all the sewing for my elastic folds and the shoulder elastic buttons. On a side note, one of the Anovos builders suited up at the armor party and got her submission pictures taken. Looked pretty good!
  4. I think I need to get some new paintbrushes - mine are old (from painting minis and model buildings) and are showing signs of wear. I was scared to getting too high or low which resulted in not going high or low enough.
  5. Went to the SoCal Garrison armor party today and got some advice on my calves and I was able to do some sanding/cleanup on other parts, but mostly I worked on my wife's sandtrooper armor. It was an FX kit that we bought from a 501st member last year but there were some fitment issues that we needed help with. One of the LA squad guys at the armor party was really helpful and we got a lot of the leg pinching issues resolved. I also got some advice from Echo (didn't know it was him!), and after talking to him later found out who he was. It was pretty cool meeting him. When we got home I was able to measure and cut the rear outer cover strips for the calves and glue on the strip for the right leg. I may have gone overboard on the clamps again...I also painted the frown on the helmet, but I don't think I did the best job. How does this look? I can probably paint more on the tops and bottoms of the teeth. Or are they fine how they are?
  6. Another small update today. I glued the shoulder bridges to the chest last night and I also moved the snap plate in the chest (for the chest to ab connection) up higher. The spot it was in was causing the chest to not go any lower which was in turn was causing the neck area of the chest to poke my adam's apple whenever I looked down. Not comfortable. Today when I tried it on, the shoulder bridges looked great, but I moved the snap plate a little too high which is now causing the chest to cover the top button on the smaller ab button plate. So I moved that snap plate a bit lower which should fix that problem. But now the chest is back on the rack waiting for that to dry. And I wanted to suit up again tonight There's another armor party tomorrow (postponed from last week) that my wife and I are going to, and I think I may bring my calves to have them checked out. I also just got my new TKittell belt today so I may bring the Anovos belt tomorrow to dismantle it. But I might also be helping out on my wife's armor, so I don't know what I'll be doing really
  7. I thought I had it lined up but I guess I was rushing it and didn't check after the clamps and magnets were placed. And I usually use tape to hold it down first, but the cover strip sat so well that I didn't think I would need it. Lesson learned!
  8. Tonight I glued the front outer cover strip onto the right calf. I thought I would be able to also glue the sniper knee plate onto the left calf, but after taking the clamps and magnets off of it, I noticed the cover strip was offset at the bottom. I'm pretty sure when I put the calf on the shelf to dry last night I bumped one of the clamps which might have caused the cover strip to shift. Or I just didn't line it up correctly when I put the clamps and magnets on (I'm going to pretend it was the bump). I already peeled it off and cleaned up the glue residue, so tomorrow night I'll have to re-glue it again.
  9. I'll wait for your results since I'm not going to be on that step until next week at the earliest
  10. Good to know - I was going to use my wife's hair dryer (I'm not even going to try venturing into heat gun territory) but if doesn't get hot enough, I may have to do the boiling water. Now I will need to find a large enough pot!
  11. Not a whole lot done in the last couple of days. I still haven't decided how I'm going to set up the hard hat liner and padding in the helmet. I'm so indecisive. I did glue on the front outer cover on the left calf tonight, and tomorrow I'll do the right calf. I might even try getting the sniper knee on the left calf tomorrow too!
  12. Lot of work done in one night, it feels good when that happens! I also started a 'to do' list last week on my remaining items and I've been slowly checking items off. The list makes it easier to decide on what to work on next and for me, what can wait until after basic approval. I have the exact same issue with my right shin. I still have to glue the front outer cover strip on (will do that tomorrow) but my plan is to tape the back in place after the front cover strip is glued and then use a hair dryer to heat the whole shin slowly. This is basically what TK1636 does in his armor building video (around the 4 minute mark).
  13. Tonight I didn't have much time, but I did drill holes into the eye lenses and place them in the helmet using the brass screws I previously bought for the ears (I did have to cut off a little over half of the length of the screws, but otherwise they fit just fine). I also sanded down the lenses since I used tin snips to cut them out, and there were some jaggedy edges. I need to paint the Apoxy Sculpt black so the mounts blend in better but I couldn't wait and wanted to get the lenses on. I'm also trying out various hard hat liner / helmet pad combos to find something that I like, but so far I haven't found a good fit.
  14. Good luck and congrats! You are going to have a lot less time for updates now, but it's worth it!
  15. Awesome video! I really enjoyed the song too.
  16. Hah I couldn't handle the plastic wrap after the first few weeks. I had to rip it all off since it bugged me so much! But I have left some smudges on random pieces so I'll probably need to polish the armor when I'm done building.
  17. Did you have to trim some of your sniper knee on one side? I test fit mine a couple days ago and I think I'm going to need to trim some of the longer side (right side if you look down at your knee) in order for it to fit. On the thigh ammo pack I like the look of it being centered as well. Mine is the same and because of that I have a bigger gap from the back to the inner side's edge. I'm hoping it will pass approvals, but like you said it's an easy enough fix if not.
  18. I did some more work on the bucket today. I removed the painter's tape that I had used to mask the eyes and teeth and had to do some plastidip removal around those areas where it built up around the tape. Then I stuck a piece of paper over the eyes on the inside and drew an outline several millimeters wider than the eyes are. I also drew in areas where the screws would go to hold the lenses in. Several months ago I bought some Apoxie Sculpt that I was going to use on my Doopydoo's blaster but never got around to using it (I still need to finish that blaster!). The Apoxie Sculpt works like green stuff - you mix two different parts in equal amounts and you have time to mold it before it hardens. I've never used it before and I wanted to try it out and see if it would hold in the screw holder thingies that the eye lenses will be screwed to. For the screws, I'm using some from an old computer. I mixed up some Apoxie Sculpt and stuck it in the helmet with the screw holders pressed into it. I have no idea how this is going to turn out, hopefully it works! Since I had some Apoxie Sculpt mix left over (I mixed up way too much) I busted out my blaster and filled in some spots that I wanted to fix before. I bought some pads that I will be using in my helmet, but I also like the hard hat liner. Unfortunately, the one supplied by Anovos doesn't have the adjustable mechanism in the back and I don't want to use the velcro they had on it, so I put the liner on my head, marked where it came together, and glued it with E6000. I'm going to try the liner in conjunction with pads which should help with air flow a little. And yesterday I mentioned that I would be able to wear everything except the calves and helmet today - here is the result! The helmet is my wife's AP bucket (which I need to dirty up for her Sandtrooper someday). Overall everything feels good, but the thighs are a little large and the right arm is riding too high (way too much wrist is showing). I also need to glue on the plastic shoulder bridges still. And I'm not going to be using those plastic hand guards - I have latex/rubber ones that I will glue onto the gloves. I was going to try to use the Anovos belt and stiffen it with some plastic, but after wearing it with everything on (including a Hyperfirm E11 in the holster), I think I'm going to just order a new canvas belt. The Anovos canvas belt just really sucks. And it's too big - I can't tighten it enough because I run out of velcro to stick it to in the back. And I couldn't resist an action shot which my son wanted to be in.
  19. That's the technique I used, but I left them in the water for about 15-20 seconds and had to repeat it maybe 5 times before I stopped. I didn't have a thermometer to check the water temperature so I made sure the water wasn't actively boiling when the armor was in the water. Which is probably why I had to repeat the process so many times
  20. I was able to get the shoulder straps' snap plates glued on to both the chest and back plates. I was going to follow ukswrath's tutorial and glue the shoulder straps on, but I decided to go with double snaps so the straps are a little long which is why the snap plates aren't higher up. Hopefully this doesn't cause any issues. Tomorrow I should be able to try on everything except the calves, both of which are now glued together with the inner cover strips. Oh and the helmet which has nothing in the interior and needs the frown painted still.
  21. I checked the ABS paste this morning and it was a little too thick, so I put in a little bit more acetone. After about 4 hours the paste was more of a pudding like consistency so I decided to try it out. I put some on the back side of the back plate where the crack appeared from the hot water bath bending combo. I used a popsicle stick to mix the paste and also apply it. It seemed to dry fairly quickly and looked pretty good, so I put a little bit on the front side of that crack as well. After a day or two (not sure how long you're supposed to let this cure) I'll sand it down. I also put small dab on the helmet crack that I showed in the previous post. I still have a good amount of ABS paste left in the bottle - how long does that stuff last? Will it eventually harden to plastic in the bottle? The armor party for tomorrow was cancelled due to rain, so I'm probably going to finish up the shoulder connections which I think will make the torso complete. And hopefully I won't have to make any more snaps. Have I mentioned the hatred I have for making female snaps? Here's a picture of the last group of snaps I mangled. If I need to make more than a few more snaps, I'm probably going to look into a set of snap pliers and see how that goes. Actually I might need to make a couple more if I decide to make a bicep to shoulder bell connection. I want to try everything on and walk around for a while to see how the shoulders behave.
  22. Not much done tonight, but I did glue both halves of one calf together with the inner cover strip after taking the calves apart and switching the halves. Hopefully it's all correct now. I'll probably do the other one tomorrow. I also glued the elastic strap from the forearms to the biceps which you can see drying in the background. I need to make the last connection between the ab and chest (using elastic this time!) and then I'll be able to better fit the shoulder straps and see if I need to bend the back shoulder parts any more. I did finally decide to make some ABS paste - when I initially took off the s-trim from the bottom of the helmet, I noticed a small crack about halfway between the front and the right ear. It was pretty small so I didn't think much of it. But while I was applying the plastidip, I noticed the crack got larger, probably just from handling the helmet without the s-trim on. I put a thicker coat of plastidip behind the crack, but I didn't think that was going to be a long term solution. So I made some ABS paste. And since that isn't the only crack on my armor, I don't feel like I'm making it for nothing. I grabbed a few smaller lengths of scrap and made sure to remove any plastic covering that was still on them (almost forgot about that plastic! I removed it from all of the armor parts a while ago as it was annoying me). Then I used the lexan scissors to cut those pieces into much smaller pieces. I thought those scraps would be a lot and fill the jar more than it actually did. Then I poured in a little bit of acetone, enough to almost cover the cut up pieces in the jar. I'm not sure how long I should wait before using it. I just put the cap on the jar and put it outside. I'll check it in the morning and see how it's doing.
  23. I've been making simple mistakes like that the entire build! I accidentally put two male snaps on a strip of nylon webbing that was supposed to have two female snaps a couple of days ago. I'm just prone to making careless mistakes.
  24. I may have to look into that - especially if I switch from nylon webbing to elastic in the future. There will be a whole lot more cursing going on if I have to keep hammering them!
  25. Your buttons look really good. Did you just freehand or use a template? I freehanded mine and they don't look so good
×
×
  • Create New...