hupspring

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.

I didn't have much time to do anything yesterday, but I did trim most of the return edges from the wrist side of the forearms. I can still probably take a little more off but it's looking better. I may just start sanding the rest down and see how it looks. Still haven't decided if I want to use the rotary tool for sanding or use sandpaper. If I use the rotary tool I'll probably practice at different speeds on a scrap piece to make sure I don't screw anything up.

After getting the initial trimming done, I decided to start fitting the forearms. I read a few other build threads where they kept the ridge on both halves 8mm and trimming off the rest so that when they are joined together, the cover strip will fit nicely on top. That's what I decided to do. I used a metal ruler to trim one side, then put that one on top of the other side and clamped it down to check for placement. Instead of using the ruler for the next cut, I just used the edge of the previously cut half as a guide for the knife. It worked well, but I should probably not be so lazy and use the ruler next time just in case. Once that was trimmed, I taped that side together and tried to figure out how much I would need to cut on the other side. But first I had to remove the return edge on the wrist side. I was scared of cutting off too much and probably ended up not cutting off enough, but that can be sanded down later. But how much return edge can be removed from the elbow side? I've read that just the inner half can have the return edge removed, but can I remove more on the outer half? After fitting the parts and putting my arm in and out about 30 times, I trimmed off the overlap and taped up that side. I did both forearms before calling it a night. I want to start gluing on the cover strips (I'm probably going to do inner cover strips first, then the outer cover strips) but first I should sand down the edges and figure out the return edge amounts.

I was able to finish off the rough trimming on the torso pieces. Since there were a lot of curvy trim lines, I just used the lexan scissors for the majority of the trimming. I did get a pair of tin snips and they helped out a lot on the bottom and corners of the molds since those areas are thicker, but I liked the lexan scissors better for the rest of the cuts. The tin snips aren't as easy to maneuver and the cut lines were more jaggedy. I thought the torso parts would take longer to trim since they are much bigger, but it actually went pretty quickly. First up the ab and chest were trimmed. There's that weird distortion on the ab that others have noted. The back, kidney and butt plate were trimmed next. I have to figure out how much return edge will be left on each part. I need to read up on some other build threads again to see how much others have left in each area. I also tried on the neckseal again, taking allan's advice and zipping it up in the front then spinning it around to the back. It worked much better than trying to zip it up in the back. However, it seems to be a bit large on me. I don't think I'm supposed to be able to do this: I may have to get a new neckseal or somehow modify this one to fit better.

Just a small update for tonight. I tried using a metal ruler as a guide to score along, and it worked pretty well. I used a mix of magnets and clamps to hold the ruler in place to make sure it didn't move at all. And although it did work well, my largest metal ruler is only a foot long so on the longest side of the thigh, I had to score from the end to the middle, move the ruler, then score the rest. I think need to get a longer ruler. But I did finish trimming the second thigh, so now the limb parts are all rough trimmed. I then started on the kidney and found that the ABS is really thin on this part. On my first light pass with the knife, it cut right through. Just lightly scoring is enough to trim this sucker! So far I only trimmed the left side and the bottom, and the left side was the really thin part. The bottom took two passes of the knife and I was easily able to snap it. It was a little thicker but not a whole lot. Be careful when trimming this piece!

Nice job on the helmet. I want to do the same with the eyes and redo the interior as well.

Agreed, good tip. I will try that tonight!

Tonight I did a little more trimming for about an hour. I trimmed the other calf using the score and snap method for the long sides, this time scoring lightly about 5 times. I also went a lot slower than previously which worked so much better. A couple of times the knife wanted to stray, but since I was going slow I was able to correct it before anything bad happened. The curves/ends of the pieces are still troublesome with the knife, so I still swapped to the lexan scissors for those areas. I mentioned earlier that the snap part of the score and snap method was a bit difficult - here is an example of trying to snap a section after scoring several times. Is this normal or is it just the ABS being flexible? Bending it back the other way usually gets the break, but sometimes I have to go back and forth a few times before anything happens. I realized that I didn't open the bag of parts with the velcro and webbing, so I opened it up to see what was in there. I found the neck seal and unraveled it (it was wadded up into a cute little cylinder), and tried it on. It was really hard to get the zipper up. I took it off and tried again - once I got the zipper to the puffy parts, it didn't want to go up any farther. I found that if I pressed on both sides of the zipper to flatten the puffy parts, the zipper would be able to go up. However, I was still unable to zip it up while wearing it. Is this common? Am I going to need to make sure the puffy parts are flat along the zipper? Back to trimming, I grabbed the left thigh parts and once again went with score/snap on the long parts and scissors on the ends. And another stopping point for the night. Less done, but I feel like I'm getting much more comfortable with these methods.

I may have to get some tin snips if they are easier on the hands than the lexan scissors. Luckily the scratch on the calf should be covered up by the cover strip so I'm not worried about that one. If anything I can make some ABS paste. There is a ton of leftover scrap ABS.

I took a small break to watch a little tv with my 3 year old. He wanted to wear helmets while we watched, so that's what we did. I then moved on to one of the calves. I realized after trimming the wrists, biceps and shoulders that my fingers were killing me from using the scissors. It does get tedious to trim long sections with the scissors. So I decided to try the knife again, especially on the longer sections like the calf. And of course something would go wrong. I somehow slipped while scoring and did this. But I continued with the score and snap method for the long sections of the inner and outer halves of the calf, and used the scissors for the end sections. It worked out pretty well after the initial slip. And that is where I stopped for the night. I wanted to keep going, but I think with the scissors I won't be able to do too much cutting each night if I want to use my hand the next day. Using the score and snap method on the long sections and the scissors on the curved/end parts seems to work well for me, and hopefully I don't have any more unwanted slices on the rest of the parts.

I spent a little over an hour doing some rough trimming, starting on the smaller parts. At first I tried the score and snap method using a hobby knife. It took 3-4 passes of the knife, and even then bending the ABS didn't want to break. If I bent it and did another pass of the knife it would cut through, but that wasn't possible on the curves. My first part was the wrist, and it came out okay. One problem was that the knife slipped a little on one of the curvy parts, and this happened. So after that I decided to try the lexan scissors. I have both the curved and straight scissors, and both come in very handy. I finished off the wrists using the lexan scissors. Next up was the biceps. These were also done solely with the scissors. And the shoulder bells. Before I started trimming, I put blue painter's tape inside each piece and labelled what the piece is. I know the Anovos numbers are on the outside of each piece, but I want to make sure I don't put wrong parts together.

I got my BBB Tuesday afternoon (1/26) so I can finally start my build! I've been reading build threads and researching since I ordered the kit back in April 2015, so I'm ready to dive right in. I've seen some comparison shots of the Anovos helmet with a few other brands, but I haven't seen any with an AP bucket yet. Anovos on left, AP on right. The first thing I did when I took everything out of the box was to put the helmet on (couldn't help myself). I don't know if I like the liner they used and may end up switching it out with padding. There were some issues with how they built it that I don't like, most notably the bad trimming on the ears (looks jaggedy) and a gap between the front faceplate and the back between the ears and rubber trim. The rubber trim is also not long enough, so the right side is goes to the end of the trap, but the left side falls a little short. The Anovos bucket is on the left in both pics. Overall I'm happy with the bucket since I got in at the Tier 1 price. I don't know if I'd pay the current price for the kit though. My helmet collection slowly grows. FX, Anovos, AP.

Nice job! I like a lot of the little details that you added. Some day I'd like to revisit mine and add more of those details too.

My order was on the 26th also, and I have an estimated delivery date for next Wednesday. But since I live about 40 minutes from where they are shipping, I'm hoping to get it this weekend.