hupspring

I managed to get the velcro attached to the backs of the calves and got the belt all done! With that, I'm pretty much done as far as basic approval goes (and EIB too I think). Now I just need to find some time to take submission photos! I did run into a small issue today though - as I was putting velcro in the helmet to hold the hard hat liner and helmet pads, I noticed that the crack in the lower part of the right ear got slightly larger than when I first noticed it. I tried to use a hobby knife to carve out a bit of the ear around the crack that was touching the helmet in an effort to get some ABS paste around it. I didn't want to do too much carving. If you don't remember or haven't read some of my previous posts, you might be wondering why I didn't just take the ear off and fix it. Back on page 4 I mentioned how the right ear was glued on and I didn't want to try forcing it off due to that crack being there. The crack is probably due to the ear being glued on and not trimmed properly, so if you hold the helmet on the right side, it flexes that area where the crack is. So I took out my jar of ABS paste (the paste was still usable!) mixed it up and applied some with a toothpick. I tried to get underneath and apply some on the back side, but it was hard with such a limited space to work with. I put some on the front as well and will need to sand it down when it cures. Hopefully that fix will help prevent the crack from spreading, but I may try to get another pair of ears from Anovos when they start offering parts. Or I should complain since the ear was already cracked when I got the kit. Other than that, I'm still pretty excited to be done with the main part of the build. There is still more to do (add electronics and fans, adjust strapping as needed, make sure there are no sharp corners and return edges, etc) but it looks like the nights this week after work won't be seeing me sneaking off the garage to glue bits of plastic together.

My soldering iron is all black now since I didn't know I was supposed to wipe it down after burning holes in the nylon. Luckily it's a cheap soldering iron from a computer toolkit that I got for free a long time ago. Plus I've never used it for anything else before (I have no idea how to solder ).

That's a really cool looking sewing machine! I like your double snaps - I briefly considered doing double snaps but my hatred of making snaps made me do mostly singles. The only doubles I did were on the shoulder straps.

I went self hosting long ago after free photo sharing sites kept losing photos or going down for days at a time. A few cloud storage sites have also been closing down recently. Just make sure you keep multiple backups in different places - I may be a bit paranoid, but that's only because I've lost files in the past!

I wasn't able to do anything today (was busy at a steampunk outing - there was a Hasbro E11 that was steampunk-ified and looked cool and I totally forgot to take a picture). Last night I was able to do a bit of work though. The sniper knee is finished gluing and looks pretty good. I'm glad I didn't have any issues with it as I read a few other builds where it wouldn't stay put or line up correctly. I'm guessing the hot water bath really helped out in that area. I started work on my new canvas belt, marking the spots for the holes. I got a hole punch set from Amazon and tried using the 1/8" punch for the holes, but after the first hole it wouldn't punch through the canvas and plastic any longer. I was using a rubber mallet to hit the punch with, so maybe it wasn't using enough force. I didn't think of that, and instead just used the soldering iron to burn the holes. I also decided not to pull off the button covers on the plastic belt since there are so many horror stories of the pink epoxy breaking everything. So instead I used leftover cover strips and put in pop rivets to connect the strips to the canvas belt in the spots where the rivets in the plastic belt would have gone. Then I glued those strips onto the plastic belt in the correct spots. I almost forgot to slide on the drop boxes before gluing it together...luckily I remembered in time. I also used the line 24 snaps on the belt and had to replace the male snaps I had previously put on the ab since those were the weird sized ones supplied by Anovos. I must have measured wrong and had to redo one of the female snaps on the belt - it was about half and inch too close and had to be moved. And for the record, I ruined another 5 female snaps putting those two in (although two of them I had to pull out because I put them in the wrong way, and one had to be removed when I found out it was too close). The last thing I did was touch up the helmet frown, getting a little closer to the top and bottom of the teeth. I do agree that it looks better this way instead of showing so much white at the tops and bottoms. My goal tomorrow is to connect the holster to the belt, and get the velcro on the back of the calves. I'm so close I can taste it!

Congrats on finishing! You should have your TK ID in no time! I'm maybe a week behind you and soooo eager to finish!

I'm probably going to wait for a completed version from him as well since I've never soldered anything before. But I also got on the waiting list towards the end of November, so my wait might not be as long (fingers crossed). But if all else fails, I can learn how to do the soldering. I actually watched Echo solder some of the wires together at the armor party I went to last weekend and it didn't look too hard, it just takes time. After watching him put a fan together I at least know what I would need to do, but with my track record I'm sure I would solder at least one set of wires together incorrectly.

Echo just posted in his fan threads - he's going to be offering a kit version of his fans since he doesn't have enough time right now to assemble them all.

I trimmed a little more off the side and tried out a hot water bath for the sniper knee - after putting it in the water for about 15 seconds and then placing it onto the calf, the sniper knee fit much better with almost no gap at the bottom. So I glued just the middle area for now and clamped it how I want it to sit. Tonight I'll glue the sides down and hopefully it will all work out well and I won't need to pull it off and redo anything.

I'll do a little more trimming - I was scared I was going to trim off too much on that side, but looks like I can take off a bit more.

So I'm going to put the sniper knee on the left calf, but I want to make sure the placement looks correct. Is this good for the front positioning? Or should it be exactly centered to the cover strip? And is that gap under the bottom okay? I can't get it to lay flush without having the sides flare out. I already trimmed the right side of the sniper knee (the right side when looking down at your leg) in order to fit that side. I will probably start gluing it on tonight.

I used something called Apoxie Sculpt to stick the posts into my bucket that the lenses screw into. It's been a couple weeks now and I've screwed the lenses in and out about 4-5 times over that period and there has been no issues with it, so hopefully it'll last (this is my first time using Apoxie Sculpt, so it's kind of an experiment). I initially bought it to use on my Doopydoo's blaster to fill in cracks and holes, but I had some "green stuff" to use for that. I've never used Fix-it-stick either, but from the description I read, it sounds like there's less working time with it (it says it hardens in minutes). But otherwise it seems like it will do the trick.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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?

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

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!

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.

I'll wait for your results since I'm not going to be on that step until next week at the earliest

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!

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!

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).

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.