hupspring

Good luck and congrats! You are going to have a lot less time for updates now, but it's worth it!

Awesome video! I really enjoyed the song too.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Your buttons look really good. Did you just freehand or use a template? I freehanded mine and they don't look so good

Initially I was shooting for centurion out of the gate, and I think I'm still doing pretty well but I really want to get into the 501st as well, even if it's just basic approval at first. I think painting the outside of the helmet will be the hardest part for me, so that may not happen for a while. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I was going to try making a little 'pocket' out of scrap ABS to glue onto the inside of the chest, but that is a much better idea!

This is going to be a much briefer update than I originally planned - I typed out a much longer update but accidentally hit the back button on my mouse and lost everything I typed. You could say I was a bit upset. Soooo, on to the abbreviated updated. I had today off from work, so I was able to get a lot more done. I plastidipped the helmet, doing three coats with about 30-45 minutes between coats. First coat: not very pretty with a lot of brush strokes. Third coat: looking much better. If the plastidip doesn't feel thick enough after it cures, I may do another coat or two. Between coats I did some small things like gluing the forearm to bicep elastics. I used the Anovos supplied 2" black elastic and removed the velcro with a seam ripper. I then tried my hand at giving parts of the armor a hot water bath. I boiled some water in a large skillet and put one side of the butt plate in for about 10-15 seconds. Then I pulled it out and held the side, giving it a curve so that it doesn't flare out. I did the same with the other side. The butt plate now sits better on me, not sticking out the sides. I also did the hot water bath on the back piece, specifically the shoulder connections. As they were, they curved in too much, not allowing me to wear the back piece farther down on my back to avoid having a 2" gap between the back and kidney. So I did both shoulder connections in the boiling water for about 20 seconds each and tried to straighten them out. I ended up doing this about 4-5 times for each side and it kind of worked (they aren't as curved as when I started) but I noticed that stress lines were starting to show, and one actually cracked on the left side. I ended up gluing a small piece of ABS behind the crack, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do now. I might finally make some ABS paste to make sure the crack doesn't get worse. The ab buttons have been painted for a while now and I was able to glue those onto the ab. I had trouble getting the large plate to stay still as it wanted to shift all over the place when I put the magnets on. It took about 5 minutes of moving the magnets and pushing the plate around to get it in the correct spot (more or less). Then I finished up on the strapping on the back to kidney. But I totally forgot that I was going to use elastic and instead used nylon. I also had to make more female snaps which I hate doing. Lastly I made the snap plates for the shoulder bridges but instead of single buttons, I decided to go for double snaps. Which meant I had to make 8 more female snaps (did I mention I hate making these!). I destroyed at least 4 posts for the female snaps while making these. For some reason I can't hammer these in straight, probably because of the rounded button. Overall a lot of work done for me today. I had a checklist of items to do today, and I covered all but one of them (gluing the fronts of the calves together). There is another armor party on Sunday that my wife and I will be going to so I can work on the calves or belt while there - I think those are the last two major items that I have to do.

On my thigh ammo pack I have it more or less straight so that there is some space between the bottom of the cover strip and the ammo pack. But I've also seen pictures of the ammo pack angled up slightly so there is no gap between it and the cover strip. Not sure if there is a right or wrong way in this case. I'm going to follow your lead on the back plate with the water bath - I'm 6'0" and have a small gap between the back and kidney, and the tops of the back are not comfortable as they are now.

I didn't have time to do much today (so no plastidipping yet), but I managed to drill holes on the inner side of the helmet between the ear screws for the mics on ukswrath's hearing assist system. I used a 3/8" forstner bit and hand drilled the holes (yes you read that right - I held the bit in my hand and kept turning it) since one of the ears is glued in (see my previous post about that issue) and I didn't have a small enough drill to fit in the bucket. It went a lot quicker than I expected and the mic tips fit snugly into the holes. Now I need to tape the helmet up in preparation for the plastidip.

I ended up using the split rivets (Kalani's point about them being easier to remove helped with that decision) and put the ammo pack pretty much where it was on the images above, but I tried pulling it a little tighter to avoid the gap. I might fill that other gap under the cover strip with ABS paste later, but for now I'll leave it as is. Before doing that, I did a bunch of random things. I painted the ab buttons, made four double snap plates for the shoulder straps, made the straps for the shoulders (chest to back) and the shoulder strap to shoulder (my wife did all the sewing!), glued a small piece of ABS into the first plastic shoulder strap bump to aid in gluing when I glue them onto the chest, and started working on the thermal detonator (I cut off a quarter inch from the tube, sanded both ends down, and glued on the face plate). I didn't actually get anything finished but I got a lot done. And I was so busy doing it all that I forgot to take any pictures. The only picture I got was of the helmet - I used some paint thinner and removed the paint from the frown. I also sanded the inside of the bucket and cleaned up the eyes and teeth a little. I didn't want to go crazy and take too much off, so it's a subtle difference. Tomorrow I want to start painting the interior with plastidip For now I'm only going to paint the frown - in the future I'll try tackling the tears/traps/tube stripes. After painting the ab buttons, I know I'm definitely going to need templates since my hands are so shaky. Oh yeah, I finally broke down and tore my shins apart - they were being held together by an inner cover strip. It definitely looks better with the parts switched but I haven't taped them together yet to check them out fully. I'm hoping I didn't cut too much on one side and that they both still fit.

I was about to put on the right thigh's ammo pack, but I wanted to get some opinions/confirmation first - does this look correct for placement? It's being held on by clamps at the moment as I didn't want to drill any holes until I was sure the placement is good. Also a few more questions: Should I fill that gap under the cover strip with ABS paste? I found some double cap rivets that my wife had - are these better to use than the split rivets? Is one better than the other for the ammo pack? Is that gap between the ammo pack and the thigh okay? The gap is easier to see on the first picture above.

Good plan for now - I'll leave what I've already done with the webbing (butt/kidney/ab connections) and do the rest with elastic. Then I can replace the nylon with elastic later if it's too stiff.

I've been debating back and forth and keep see recommendations for both. I was going to use elastic and at the last second went with nylon mostly because I figured the armor has a quite a bit of room on me (I'm pretty skinny) so it wouldn't need to be stretching. Is this faulty logic? I have plenty of elastic, so I can switch it out if the elastic would work better (I already have some elastic strips cut since I was going to use it first).

I already had several nylon pieces cut for the torso strapping, so I decided to spend a bit of tonight with the soldering iron to burn holes in them for the snaps. The first ones I did were for the ab/kidney split rivets. My measurements on the bottom one were a little off so the bottom isn't as snug as I want, but the belt should help in that area. This was my first time setting split rivets. I started on the bottom set and put the armor on a towel so it wouldn't get scratched up on the garage floor. After hammering the split rivet in and picking the armor up off the floor, the towel came with it. Apparently a small piece of the towel got stuck between the rivet head and the armor, leaving a tiny bit when I pulled the towel away. I'll have to clean that up. If you've been following my build, you may have noticed that the first picture above is missing the two pieces of support that I added for the split rivets. I had to pull them out because after putting the nylon and washers on top of them, the split rivets barely had any length left to fold over. Maybe a thinner piece of plastic would have worked, but I didn't have any on hand so I just went without it. It shouldn't be a big deal since I've seen a lot of other builds not doing that. After that I finished up soldering holes in the remaining nylon that I cut up and proceeded to hammer in the female snaps. The first two snaps were a total loss. I must have been hitting at an angle because the post barely held onto the snap part, and both came apart with a little pressure. After that I did my best to hold the setting tool as perpendicular as I could and tried to make sure the hammer wasn't coming in at an angle. That seemed to work much better for a good amount of snaps until another one got an angled hit. The male snaps are much easier to set in my opinion (I didn't mess up any of those!). I was able to get the butt, kidney and ab all connected. I can actually just step into this and pull it up which is a lot easier to do than closing the two halves around me and getting the two snaps in on the right side. I also drilled the hole in the cod for the rivet that goes there. Now I need to get to work on the back and chest. I think I will do the shoulder straps before connecting the back and chest though.

Good to hear! Now I can get that ammo pack on this weekend! Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

It's been a pretty slow week for me, but I was able to finish gluing on both cover strips on the right thigh, and I have the second cover strip clamped on the left thigh. So tomorrow I'll be done with the thighs except putting on the ammo pack on the right thigh. Question on the ammo pack - will using the rivets supplied with the Anovos kit be Centurion approved for the thigh ammo pack? That's what I was going to use, but I read they might be too big. Anyways, since I had one of the ears off the helmet, I decided to clean it up a little by sanding the sides so they weren't so jaggedy. I tried to do the same with the ear that is glued to the helmet but was only able to sand down a little from the top. It looks a little better than it did so I guess that's something. The screws I bought work great - 3/4" is long enough to get through the pieces of ABS and not be too long once the washer and nut are on.

Congrats! I hope to follow in your footsteps one of these days!