themaninthesuitcase

I gave the E-6000 a poke before I left for work (at 6AM ). So after 8-9 hours the bond already seems to be pretty strong, I'll have no worries about popping the clamps and carrying on right after dinner this evening.

I did use the scissors to snip the corners, you're right it does help a lot. I also used it for relief cuts on curves to keep the snap as straight as possible. I think for the belt I'll probably drill out the back of the rivet then put the rest into the freezer. I've also read that CA is weaker in shear so a twist might be less risky than prying it off. For the snaps the CO of the UKG has suggested I used 1" webbing so I'll probably follow that advice.

Progress report with some pictures this time: From trying on various parts it looks like I'll be a reasonable fit for the armour. I should be able to get no side gaps as is. I was also worried about the legs as they look very slim when you see pictures but I need not have worried. Excuse the hairy legs! The only real mistake I made when trimming was a slight slip when doing the lower side of an inner thigh. The image below shows the damage. Cosmetically I'm not worried but will I need to do anything for stress relief reasons? When trimming the shoulder bells I started with score and snap and had serious issues with the plastic not snapping. I nearly had a few tears and on the corner it delaminated slightly. To remedy this I used some plastic cement and clamped the split for a while. As this will be under 0 stress I am happy with the solution. The 2nd bell was cut with scissors to avoid the issue. I'm pretty happy with how the main ab plate came out: Though the secondary one came out a shade smaller than I'd like. I found the curved edge hard to score on and had to come in more than I'd have liked. Ultimately it looks fine though. Fully trimmed all the parts now fit in the armour bin, this gives me more confidence they will do so still even once assembled. I also have now started the gluing process. I am using E-6000 for this, and this is my first experience with this. I tried to be sparing to reduce waste from squeeze out. I think I've covered enough though I think next time I'll use a bit more glue. I measured out the cover strips using the parts and smoothed the corners. I've seen corners square, rounded and with 45 deg cuts. I like the squarer look my self so just dulled the corners on some 240 grit. I also used this to roughen the back of the cover strip for a bit more mechanical grip. I didn't do this on the armour for fear of going to far, I simply peeled back the protective coating. I also marked a centre line on the rear of the strips to aid alignment when gluing. I'm not overly concerned with them being 100% perfectly aligned as the armour is famous for its flaws, this simply helped me line the parts up. For the gluing I squeezed out a small amount of E-6000 into a paper plate and used a glue spreader liberated from either Starbucks or Costa, I forget which, to apply a thin layer to the back of the cover strip. This was then lined up and clamped using the smallest clamps from Wilko (75p a go!). I need to buy more of these, 10 isn't enough. For those wondering the A tells me which side it was as I cut both the strips before glueing. After doing both sides on both biceps I ran out of clamps and was half way through my 20mm magnets. I have some 10mm magnets but they will need to be doubled up to be strong enough to use them. Progress will probably slow a lot now as I need to allow the glue to dry and it sounds like I might only be able to do one part at a time. I'll test the strength of the bond on the biceps once 24 hours has passed to make sure it

Also just ordered the cheap FMA tactical helmet pads from eBay seeing as the decent ones are prohibitively expensive to get to the UK. Though thanks to the lunar new year the estimated delivery time is approx. 1-2 million years (aka sometime before the end of March). Worst case I'll stick with the hard hat liner for a while and then switch out once they arrive. I also need to find a good alternative to plasti-dip. In the UK a 400ml rattle can is £11, or 250ml of the paintable is £8. Plus delivery of £6. If I can find something just as good locally I can potentially make a reasonable saving. However unless this is a known good substitute I may as well just get the dip. The cost of trying 2-3 things is a false economy. And finally, seeing as it's a shopping day, what thickness ABS is recommended for snap plates? 1mm seems like it would be a shade too weak, 2mm to inflexible. Is 1.5mm the happy medium?

I finished the trimming last night. Going back to the first pieces I did I can see I got a lot better at trimming as time went on. Seems the combo of score and snap and relief cuts with the scissors worked well. I did trim a few parts such as the shoulders with only the scissors as I found score and snap to risky on these more curved parts. I haven't done gluing yet but I have offered up a few combinations of parts to check for fit and I think I won't have to do too much trimming. There's a few returns that seem overly large but I will get some pictures taken and ask for advice before any further trimming. On the plus side it looks like the parts should fit me pretty well and I won't need any shims and the gaps will be about right. I'll probably start the glue up with the biceps. I'll be use the method where I glue a strip to one side of the shell then the other rather than trying to do both sides of 1 strip at once. I also will need some advice on the correct trimming to fit but I'll get some photos of the parts in the order I plan to do them. edit: Forgot to mention I've had an email about the under armour now. Should have it by the middle of next month. Though in the interest of getting cracking I have a top I should be able to use and a pair of my wifes old leggings. The leggings are a bit thicker than the underarmour but are pretty tight so should perform a similar function.

Looking at my commercial invoice the shipping is fully declared and looks like that part cost is $5 under declared. So I can only assume the soft parts will be declared at the remaining $5? This was to the UK still waiting to see if I get a VAT and duty bill through. I am expecting one. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

After destroying my search history I've sourced all the 2" and 3" elastic as well as the size 4 hooks and some 14mm sew-on poppers for the shoulder drop. All this was cheaper than the elastic alone on amazon so hopefully going to a small hobby site pays off. If anyone in the UK wants to try them it was HabbyCraft, I can't recommend them yet as I have only just ordered but will update on if they are any good.

I have seen that and he seems to have done well. Though I've also seen people rip the rivet out leaving a nasty hole. Just trying to stack the odds in my favour. I'll have to do some tests with the freezer and some scrap. Got all the 25mm/1" elastic today, already have some 6mm white. I'm struggling to find any 2" and 3", same with the number 4 hooks. Will have to hit the Internet for these.

Sadly I don't think I'll be able to get the belt in our freezer, way too much food in there! Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

More time on the rough trim this evening. Carried on with the biceps before moving on to finish the arms. Again was having trouble with score and snap. The material just wants to tear, so I am sticking with the lexan scissors. This does mean I can no longer feel my thumb. I decided to tape a few parts together to start testing the fit. This was a real break through moment and the whole thing is feeling more real now. The wife also seemed to think is was hilarious watching me trying to figure out how to wear them. I've yet to trim the return edges on the fore arms. I believe I have the right line but would like a double check. Also whats the preferred method to remove this return? The scissors could probably get me pretty close than back to the course grit paper? Armour bin is filling up with trimmed parts, a long way to go but the end result will be worth it. Previously I mentioned superglue remover. This came to day and is based on Nitromethane. Sadly this will melt ABS it seems, I put a few drops on an off cut and after a few minutes it went pretty soft. If I am careful I might be able to remove glue from the back of the rivets once they are off but nothing much more than that. Looks like the best way forwards is to drill out the rivets from the back then to carefully remove the caps afterwards. I also picked up some cotton balls and buds to clean up the paint on the helmet but that's a job I'll do when waiting for glue to dry.

Nice to see the parts in action. For what it's worth the end clip isn't 100% accurate. It's a tiny bit wider to fill the channel in your kit a bit better. I think 1 other dimension was changed too but we're talking around 0.1mm. The hole position *should* be good though, if anyone wants to double check then the 123D files are available to download. Also if you wanted to move the pin then the file has a model without that bit cut out so you could do a custom one. Also I've "retired" that silver, I got a part in it and I just didn't like the finish at all. The white and black aren't anything like as bad.

Not yet, it's only on the outside as far as I can tell and that gets cut through. The flex when snapping issue I saw was definitely the actual material not a cover plastic.

Oh for what it's worth the supplied snaps seem pretty junky. On the pre-made snap plates I can already see rust! I'll be buying all new snaps and won't be using any of those supplied.

As the UKG are going to be the ones to approve my armour my primary WIP thread will be there. They have a strict approval system and so I want to give my self the best chance by doing the majority of the work there. That said I do want to have a thread here, as they don't allow discussion. To allow for this I will be mirroring my posts over here, but deferring the them on any real decisions that need to be made. And now back to our regularly scheduled program. Big brown box day has now happened: Wasn't feeling so well yesterday so it sat un-attended for a while but early afternoon I felt good enough for an obligatory bucket list moment: In the evening I started with an inventory and checked all part where present. I did a quick check for issues but nothing too detailed. Whilst I was checking everything was there I also used a chinagraph to re-mark all the part numbers on the inside incase the number label comes off. During this time I checked out the belt and I can completely understand why people aren't sure about this. The holster is made from quite a thick leather and the fabric used for the belt has no ability to hold it's shape at all. Even the drop boxes cause it to fold over.... I've ordered some super glue remover and will be testing this on some off-cuts. Hopefully this will make removing the rivet covers easier and reduce risk of damage. Inventory done I tried to put all the parts into the armour bin I purchased. This is the one you can get for around £20 for various DIY stores. I'd prefer the Stanley style one but at £100 it's not going to happen. Unfortunately all the excess plastic means it didn't all fit so seeing as I have to keep the shipping box anyway it all went back in there. The bin is being used as tool and trimmed part storage for now. I elected to start my trimming experience with the hand guards. The reason I went for them was I plan to get flexible ones so they are essentially surplus to requirements and so ideal to learn the material. I used the chinagraph to trace out the cut line and attempted score and snap. The glossy material is tricky to get that first clean cut on. Though once you have something to follow then it's pretty easy. What I did find though was some parts didn't snap so well. It's almost as it the rear layer of some material is different and just flexes rather than snaps. Mixed luck across all the parts I trimmed last night. In the end most trimming was done with some curved lexan scissors. They took a bit of getting used to but are great now I have the hang of them. Next I trimmed the thigh ammo pack. I clamped on a steel rule and scored the long edges and then used the scissors on the ends. The curves where refined with a small file and assorted sand paper. The curves on each end don't match but were accurate to the trim line. The final part I trimmed before time ran out was the inner right bicep. This is one of the more hidden parts being on the inside and under the shoulder bell so seemed like a good place to learn again. This went without much issues, I scored and snapped the straight sides but had the "flex" issues on one side so returned to the scissors to finish. Again after rough trimming I used my set of files and papers to refine the curves and remove all the material to the line. Finishing this part has given me a lot more confidence in trimming and will probably continue with the biceps before completing the arms and then moving onto the legs next. I'm in no rush to get the trimming done. I'm happy with my slow and stead route using hand tools and won't be cracking out the dremel any time soon. Full gallery of images is here with some bonus stuff not here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/themaninthesuitcase/albums/72157660102753074

Just got my BBB and had a look at the packing sheet. It's declared at full value so if I get a bill later it will be 1 bill. If they try charge me again on the 2nd box I will fight it.

From what I understand they might just invoice us. Also always possible that they've done it so the tax is due in the completion of a 2 part consignment.

Tax would still be due on a $350 kit, it would just be slightly less. The shipping to Europe was fixed at $131.

Is the thinner enamel or acrylic based? I've also seen someone used rubbing alcohol on the Facebook group, as a non American is this the same as Isopropyl Alcohol?

Perfect, worth adding to the reference section? I just double checked and the dimensions aren't there.

Depending on what you paid it's going to be around £100 (I was the $450 tier but had a 10% discount). The 2 part shipment might stuff that up though, will depend on what the values on the boxes say. The handling fee from FedEx is some percentage I can't recall, minimum £12 which is what I used when I worked it out. Sounds like they invoice you rather than hold the package which is a small mercy.

T-Jay would you be able to tell me how wide the extractor plunger is? I need to add one to my DD kit and I am not sure how wide it is.

They are plowing through these delivery notifications: Just got a notification to ship to the UK. Ordered June 27th, should be here Friday. Now to play the Tax and Duty fun and games.

DBoz managed to get the rivet covers off his belt with a bit of careful knife use (http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/35115-dboz-anovos-tk-build/?p=461544). Seems they are super glued on, does anyone know if superglue remover will eat ABS at all?

Good job on the belt. Glad to hear it can come apart.

I did think that and may do once I've finished this kit and my doopy doo build, oh and TKVoice. Too many projects already!