hupspring

So I heard about the mismatch issue with Anovos' instructions on the calves. I checked mine, and I have the same issue others are reporting. The left calf stays closed and the bottom overlaps about a quarter inch. If I take the blue tape off the right calf, it will open up and have a 2 inch gap. My problem is that when I was trimming the calves, I didn't trim evenly on the left, especially the left inside piece (which is actually supposed to be the right outer now). So I'm not sure how big the right calf will be if I do the switch - it will most likely be smaller than it is now. I'm going to put the calves on the back burner for now and move on with everything else while I think about what I'm going to do. With the calves on hold for now, I just need to glue the cover strips onto the thighs to be done with the legs. But before doing that, since I'm eager to start on the strapping, I made all of my snap plates (using nylon pieces from Redforce) and arranged them on the torso to see how I want them laid out. Once I decided where they would go, I set out to glue some of them down. I used all of my clamps and quite a few magnets but was only able to get seven snap plates gluing at once. I could do a few more using just magnets, but I like how the clamps hold the nylon down better. I think I'm going to use nylon straps for the torso since everything fits pretty well if not slightly too large. And for the wrist to bicep connection I might scavenge some of the elastic from the ones supplied in the kit and use the snaps with those.

I ended up trimming the button plate to match the tapering of the spot where it will go. Looks a lot better.

I'm going to need to take a closer look at mine tonight. Good thing someone noticed this issue!

Nice idea using a velcro strip for mounting stuff, it looks really clean. I'm saving the helmet for last to see how others do theirs so I can steal ideas.

Question on my ab button plate: since the spot where the ab button plate goes tapers (it gets wider towards the bottom) should I taper the button plate as well? Right now my button plate has about a quarter inch of trim all around, but when placed on the ab, it doesn't line up well. You can see how much extra space there is at the bottom (left and right sides), and the top is right at the edge. Should I trim more? Also, has anyone else noticed random spots of colors in their armor? I just noticed a few spots of blue and red on my ab piece. If you look at the picture below I marked two of the most noticeable spots, but there are a few other blue spots as well. I already peeled off the plastic sheet and rubbed at the spots with a wet paper towel which did nothing. Most of these spots will be hidden anyways (that blue one will be under the belt and the red one is behind the four button plate) and the ones that aren't are fairly small, but I was wondering if this is on anyone else's Anovos armor.

Although the drying time sucks, I'm so glad I'm using E6000! I'm prone to making mistakes, so no CA glue for me!

Well I was able to measure and cut a new inner cover strip for the front of the second calf and get that glued on. I'm glad I was able to catch that and not waste a day of gluing the wrong thing!

Hah right after I posted my update I looked at the last picture and noticed that the inner cover strip on the thigh that was gluing is on the rear...which shouldn't have an inner cover strip. Thinking back, when I put that cover strip on I had to cut it shorter and thought that was weird but didn't think any more of it. The reason I had to cut it short was because it was sized for the front of the other calf! So I ran to the garage and pulled off that strip. I need measure and cut a new one and glue that in. Maybe I'll be able to do that after dinner.

I was able to make it to an armor party yesterday and met some cool people. I also got some good advice and feel much more confident in what I need to do. My wife and I will probably be going to the next armor party in a couple of weeks as well. Aside from the arms and legs, I wanted to start doing some torso work. Some of the advice I got yesterday was concerning torso fitment (similar to Germain's advice above), and I've started with the ab/kidney connection. I used ukswrath's tutorial for measurements and drilled the holes. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to add an additional piece of ABS for support, and if I'm going to use nylon webbing or elastic to connect the two sides. I may wait for ukswrath to get to that part before I do it. I also trimmed the ab button plates, removing the return edges. I didn't realize that the spot for the larger plate on the ab is tapered - it's about 5mm wider on the bottom than the top. I left 1/4" trim all around the larger plate, so I will probably need to taper it to match the spot where it is glued to. Or should I bring in the trim to maybe 1/8" or a little larger? And of course it's not a real update without some actual gluing! I finished one thigh with inner cover strips, and glued one side of the two halves together on the other thigh. I also have a calf with both inner cover strips in place. I figure at my current pace I should be done with the legs maybe around this time next week give or take a couple days (not counting the backs of the calves). I was also able to start gluing the black elastic band that goes over the biceps onto the shoulder bells. One side on each shoulder so far. I think I will start hammering the snaps into the nylon snap plates when I have a few minutes to spare each night just to get something more done.

Here are some updates for the past couple of nights - more measuring and gluing! I measured and cut inner cover strips for the calves and the outer cover strips for the thighs. I also glued the front of one of the thighs together using the inner cover strip. When gluing it together, I put the end clamps on then all of the magnets, then I realized that the two halves weren't closing properly. I should have put on painter's tape before putting on the magnets to hold the two halves together which is what I've done on other pieces. But I was able to put tape on afterwards and it still worked out well (it just looks messier). The cover strips are all done on the forearms now, so I want to connect the forearms to biceps to shoulder bells. I set them up on my duct tape mannequin to see how it's looking. I'm going to try to make it to an armor party tomorrow to ask some fitment questions, but I also want to see if anyone here has some advice. If you look at the side, the shoulder, bicep and forearm match up. But if you look at the front, the cover strips on the bicep and forearm don't match up. Is this okay? It's like this on the other arm as well (but not as bad). And I don't know if you an tell from this picture, but the cover strip on the forearm shifted slightly to one side after I put the clamps on. I didn't notice this until the next day after it had dried. It's off by 1 or 2 millimeters, but should I pull it off and re-center it? Also, how low can the chest and back plate be (ie. how far away from the neck)? If I have them as they are in the pictures, then the kidney will be a few inches away from the back plate in order to line up properly with the ab plate. And putting the chest any higher will start putting a gap between it and the ab plate.

Congratulations!

I think one of the first items I sanded with that plastic covering on, the plastic started fraying and being annoying so after that I peeled it up from any edges I sanded. It might have just been a weird section that happened the first time, but I figured it would happen again. Having the plastic peeled up does get really annoying though, especially when you are measuring or removing painter's tape after a fitting!

Thanks for the advice Cristian. I've been debating on the return edge but I think I will remove it on the bicep so it's more comfortable.

I've been trying to do at least one thing every day on the build, even if it's just something small. Yesterday I didn't have time to do much, but I did measure and cut the outer cover strips for the forearms. I also finished the biceps and today I was able to glue on the first outer cover strips on the forearms. I do have a question on the biceps - the tops of my biceps are uneven, and I saw that ukswrath had one uneven spot and just trimmed that off. But if you look at mine, three of the four joins are uneven. Should I trim the tops down or is it okay to leave it as is since the shoulder bells should be covering them up anyway?

Yesterday I cut the outer cover strips for the biceps and glued one cover strip on each bicep. I cut the corner notches and lightly sanded the edges before gluing them on. I didn't do much else but I did buy a few more supplies at Home Depot for when I start working on the helmet. I also got some storage shelves that I put together that is going next to my workbench. Now I'll be able to put all these armor parts in the same area instead of scattered throughout the garage.

I also went to Home Depot today and I think I found the correct screw, but it was a Philips head, not slotted head. I asked an employee but he said they didn't have any that size with slotted head and suggested I try a local hardware store which wasn't open on Sundays. I'll be stopping in there sometime this week to see what they have.

Small update today. I finished gluing the forearms to the remaining inner cover strip and measured the outer cover strips for the biceps but haven't cut them yet. I had a side project that I was working on - a duct tape mannequin based on pandatrooper's tutorial. It took about a roll and a half of duct tape and some pvc pipe and fittings for the inner framework, total cost was under $20. I didn't measure the pipe for the legs correctly, so they are about a half inch to an inch too tall. And I accidentally glued the "neck" connector upside down, so I had to drill out the top to fit in the "head" pipe. The overall frame is slightly too tall but once it's all stuffed (I used newspapers) and taped back up, it looks great! Especially when I start putting armor on it. I used black duct tape for the areas between armor parts. Now I need to get some armor built to get my life-sized Stormtrooper toy displayed.

Tonight I was able to fit and trim the calves, again following ukswrath's tutorial. However, for the left calf, I forgot to trim only from the rear outer half and instead trimmed evenly on both halves so the inner half is a lot shorter at the top than the outer half. Hopefully it's not that big a deal! After trimming the calves, I sanded the bottom and taped them together so that I could try them on over my TKBoots. I wear size 11 normally, but I have wide feet so I got the size 12s. And I have skinny ankles so the boots are pretty wide around that area. I didn't think about that when I fitted the calves, so it might be a bit of a tight squeeze getting the calves over the tops of the boots. Back in the garage, I glued an inner cover strip onto one of the thigh halves. The biceps are both done with inner cover strips, and both forearms have both halves connected by one inner cover strip so far. Tomorrow should see the forearms fully connected and I want to start measuring the outer cover strips for all of the arm parts.

Didn't have a chance to do much tonight, but I did manage to glue the biceps to both inner cover strips. I also found out that I didn't remove the plastic covering on one of the inner cover strips that I made for one of the forearms. The cover strip just pulled right off, leaving the plastic glued to the forearm. I have no idea how this happened since I wasn't using the side that had plastic on it as the gluing surface. I pulled off the plastic and cleaned up the glue, lightly sanded the area again and correctly glued the cover strip back on. I need to make sure I pay better attention when gluing!

As I was off from work today, I was able to spend several hours working on the armor. The day really flew by! Most of the morning was spent fitting the thighs and cutting them to shape. I followed ukswrath's post to fit the thighs (it's a very good tutorial). I also started using a pair of pliers to assist in the 'snap' portion of the score and snap method. Previously I was just using my fingers to bend the piece to be removed, but for pieces that are much narrower it was getting harder to do that. Pliers really helped to get the bend and snap the excess pieces off. After a couple of hours I finished getting the thighs fitted. I made sure to wear my undersuit pants while test fitting. I was also watching tv at the same time and found out I should be paying more attention to the armor than the tv. I put another small scratch in one of the thigh parts when I was scoring and looking at the tv instead of the knife. But I was happy to finish putting together the thighs! I took a lunch break then went to the garage to do more work. First up was creating inner cover strips for the thighs and one of the forearms. Since none of the ABS scraps were long enough, I used a plastic "No Parking" sign to cut out the strips. This was a tip I read in a few other build threads sometime last year. I measured the six inner cover strips that would be needed and labelled the strips as well as the spot on the thigh parts where each strip would be going. I decided to get back to labelling everything since I almost glued a cover strip on the wrong part of a bicep earlier. Then I got to sanding the thighs. The rotary tool was used for the rougher bits and everything else was sanded down with sandpaper. I also sanded the inner cover strips like I did in a previous update. Finally I did some more gluing on the arm parts. Tomorrow I should be able to get the biceps and one of the forearms glued together with both inner cover strips. Overall I had a good productive day. I kind of want to get more clamps and magnets so that I can glue more parts together at the same time. I could have glued some inner cover strips to the thighs but I have no more clamps or magnets to use.

I haven't been able to do much over the last couple of days, but I did manage to glue the two halves of the left forearm and bicep together on one side. I also got the first inner cover strip on one half of the right bicep. I have tomorrow off so I'll have most of the day to work on the armor. I'm hoping to finish gluing the arms together with the inner cover strips, start putting on some outer cover strips, and also start fitting and assembling the legs.

I had a few hours today to play with the armor. Since I had all of the rough trimming done, I could finally start doing some fun stuff! I decided to start with the arms since they are the smaller parts and would probably be easier than anything else. I already fit the forearms, so I did the same with the biceps. I forgot to take any pictures of that process, but it's pretty similar to the forearms. Up until this point, I did everything upstairs since there was no mess/vapors/dust flying around. However, it was now time to start sanding the edges. I moved to the garage and decided to set up the rotary tool on a workbench so that I could hold the piece to be sanded with both hands. I used a portable vise/clamp to hold the rotary tool steady. I also put the rotary tool on a very low setting (mine goes from 1 to 5 - I started at 1 at first, then increased it to 2 when I got comfortable with it). Don't forget to peel up the plastic wrap that is on the armor before you start sanding - luckily I read someone else's build about this a couple of days ago or I would have forgotten! I took it easy with the sanding just doing light passes along the trim lines, getting rid of jagged edges left by the scissors. Once that was done, I used sandpaper to further clean up the edges and make them smooth. I'm not sure what grit my sandpaper is...I had some laying around but it wasn't that rough, probably around 600 grit? Once the sanding was done, I started making some inner cover strips using leftover scraps that were cut off the larger pieces. I think there was a large part from the chest and back that worked great. I measured the length where each cover strip would go (leaving a quarter inch or so on both top and bottom - I didn't want them to be flush) and made them about 15mm wide (since I'm just doing the forearms and biceps right now). I put the scrap ABS on a piece of wood, put the metal ruler on top of that, and clamped them down onto the piece of wood. Then I just used a box cutter to slice the excess plastic off (I didn't bring a hobby knife to the garage and the box cutter was there and worked really well). After I cut the inner cover strips, I pulled off the plastic (don't forget to do this!) and I sanded the tops down so they were more rounded and smooth. I don't remember which build thread I read this in (I've been reading so many lately) but they mentioned doing this so that the inner cover strips won't snag on your undersuit. I then lightly sanded the back of the inner cover strips (the side that will be glued to the armor) and also the inside of the armor where the cover strips will be glued which should help with adhesion. I used a pencil and marked the spots where I would be putting the glue (I'm using E6000) on both the armor and cover strips, then the gluing began! Maybe a bit overkill on the clamps... I ended up only gluing on three inner cover strips - one on the inner left forearm, one on the outer left forearm, and one on the inner left bicep. Then I ran out of clamps and magnets (probably because I went nuts and put too many on each part). Later I realized I had more clamps upstairs, but it was too late to go back and glue another cover strip on. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to glue the two halves of the forearm together and maybe get the inner cover strips on the right arm parts.

I considered not showing my mistakes, but I figured it might help others to not make the same ones. Plus the more experienced builders can tell me how to do it right when I do make those mistakes.

Thanks for the tip. I'll wait on doing anything with the neck seal until I'm actually able to put everything on and test it out. That would be great if I can use this one and not have to spend more money on a new one.

Although I like how the return edge looks, it does get uncomfortable in places. Any areas I can remove it for comfort I will definitely do.