Jinsei

Yeah I have worn the full thing walking around the house and it defiantly needs some trimming. However I'm going to wait on that until the next time I'm down in person and have another set of eyes who have done it before. Realistically it would only take a couple minutes to do with a pair lexon scissors.

Well, not too much left (other then adjustments here and there) Attached the thigh ammo pouch today. I originally marked to have the edge of the ammo pack at 1/4" on the return edge, however I had to trim alot off the rear of the thighs, and because of this I needed to move the edge of the ammo pack another 1/4" forward. I thought I had taken a picture of the other side, but apparently I didn't upload it. On both of the sides the distances from that rear edge to the edge of the ammo part are the same, or are within 1mm of being equal. The rivet here on the right looks like it's popping up. I've fixed that and it is now much more flush.

So, I've done a few small tweaks to the arms and helmet fitment. I also have reworked my shins a bit. I needed to make them just a tad larger (like 10 mm bigger). All I had to do was move the inner cover strip over a bit and that was enough to make my shins fit much better. The glue is still drying so no pics on that. I vowed never to take a photo like this, but sadly I had no one else around to give a hand lol. I don't know if I should trim the biceps or just leave them this way now. I added a little bit of foam to center my arm in the bicep, and I think it looks better then in the previous pictures, but that's just me. Helmet now raised up a bit, i'm able to see AND move my head.

lol Dan, when I read that all I could think of was someone yelling at a dog that's in trouble. Well I changed over the elastic edge strapping on the posterior to nylon. It worked like a charm. It sucked in the parts that were flaring out. I also added some foam padding into the biceps, forearms and shortened the elastic connecting the biceps and the forearms. Now that my arm sits in the center of the bicep it doesn't look like I'm wearing the thigh piece on my arm (I still may have to take apart the biceps and do some trimming). Some foam was trimmed and added to the helmet as well (in-between the hard hat liner and the top of the helmet) I can still "see" out of the lenses, but the helmet doesn't rest on the shoulder bridges now, and a bonus effect, I can actually turn my head! I need to re-work my shins a bit, as they are pretty tight. I need probably an additional 1-2 cm of space in the back. I think I can add a inner strip in the back of the strip that's just a bit wider, it will give me enough space and still allow for the outer strip to remain the same size. (Just needs to increase for Velcro coverage.) I need to do a bit of trimming/sanding areas where there are armor bites (there isn't anything too major, probably just a couple quick passes with sandpaper is all that will be needed) . I would post up pictures but apparently the filter at work is now blocking photobucket (it worked two days ago)

Yeah the posterior needs to be brought in a bit. I might see if nylon webbing there instead of elastic will be strong enough to suck in the flaring out. I know I could use a heat gun to bend the posterior armor a bit, but I don't wan't to use it for fear of mishaps lol.

I've already got a hard hat liner in there.... I may need to move it down a bit. Our Garrison CO mentioned as a shorter trooper having the helmet all the way down may not be an option. If I put a piece of foam in between the hard hat liner and the helmet top I can just barely see out of the bottom of the lenses, but the helmet sits better and I can move my head without having to move my whole body. I took some pictures and highlighted the offending ab cut off piece lol. From my understanding this is how I should have cut it (Red is what I cut off, blue is what I should have) Thanks Haso for the picture. Pardon my drawing... This is what my ab/kidney notch alignment look like now. Red is the trimmed bit. With the belt on, the red is all of whats visible of the trimmed ab section.

Thanks for the pic, the things you learn afterwards lol. As Coastertk said, at least with this plastic spaceman, you can always buy and replace parts. If I do have to replace the ab bit, it shouldn't take too long to swap everything over (famous last words...)

Thanks Mark, The shoulder straps and the biceps should be easy fixes. I was concerned with over trimming the biceps as to possible loose the edge the cover strips rest on. I'm going to try and see how placing a small chunk of foam on the inner sides of the biceps. I'm hoping that that the foam will center the biceps to make it look more proportional. The largeness of them in these pictures isn't helped out by the fact that they are snug against the sides of my skinny arms. Changing the shoulder bridges might help with a helmet movement issue I was having. As for the ab plate, not really sure how I'm going to fix that one. I had that trimmed at a local armor party. When we trimmed the kidney plate we went basically to where that red line is in your picture, using the nice kidney notch already there. If I had left the ab plate to where your red line was, I would be having the same issue as I am with the bicep lol. I guess we could have trimmed more off the kidney plate and made a new notch further back. Right now I'm going to hope that I can get basic approval with the ab the way it is. If not I will have to wait until I can get the cash together to buy a new one Now that I think of it, I probably would have to order a new kidney plate as well ugh.

Thanks, it's getting close. It's really just some small adjustments here and there. I think I need to make the straps connecting the posterior to the kidney plate just a hair larger (like move the snap hole 5cm farther apart as the plates are SUPER tight against each other..) I also defiantly need to add foam in the biceps to center them out. To be honest I'm super happy with how it's turn out so far, just hopefully can get it approved. On a side note the helmet looks HUGE on me...even though it's a standard sized helmet lol.

Well have a sort of big update, probably will be my last picture update until my submission.. All I have to do now is attach the holster and knee ammo pouch (and do final adjustments). I need to add some foam to the forearms/biceps and shins to keep them from rotating.I also have to fold the posterior armor in a bit as it flares out a bit. I also plan to cut out on the back of the legs to allow easier movment, although I'm going to wait for after my submission to do that, as well as wait until the next armor party to get some in person advice (much easier for me to see/learn in person)

Just have a quick question about the two male snaps that need to go in the posterior plate. I've looked, but it's very possible I missed it. I can't seem to find if there is specific measurements of where the two male snaps need to be in the posterior plate, or are they just an approximate placement? Hope this makes sense Thanks, Spencer.

Mitches? Stimesh?

Congrats man!

Looking good man, getting tons done.

Hey Jay, it's no problem no apology is necessary, you have helped out a ton with the build already. As mistakes go, in my opinion this isn't a huge one (it's no CA gluing the sniper knee plate onto the wrong leg ) as this area will be covered by the belt. Even without the angled cut in the ab plate the kidney plate would need to be extended to be "accurate." I figure as long as I can get basic approval first I don't think there will be a need to replace it. For EIB and Centurion the worst they can say is no. I may message the people responsible for EIB and Centurion applications and pick their brains first. Thanks for the offer but it shouldn't be necessary, I may take that up as an offer for a beer next time I'm in town though.

I have the bit trimmed off the one side but not the others. This is what it looked like before it was trimmed.

I actually found the piece that was cut off in my scraps, pic incomming

The ab plate swooped so that it was in line with the bottom of the kidney cut out/bottom of the kidney plate like in Paul's picture. For it to line up like in Pauls picture I would have needed to add a 20 mm section to the bottom of the kidney plate (which is completely out of my capabilities), and I think that would have thrown off the fitting of the butt plate. The reason I cut the ab plate is at the most recent local Armor Party one of the FISD members there was helping me out with my build. He mentioned how the ab and kidney plate notch needed to line up and offered to trim the ab plate for me. Worse comes to worse that bit of the ab plate that was trimmed off is completely covered by the belt so hopefully that doesn't mess things up down the road.

Thanks! Only reason I'm so "far" along right now is because I got it pre-trimmed....The waiting for things to dry and cure is whats killing me, but I wouldn't want to switch the e6000 for CA or Zap a Gap, already had to redo a couple of limbs.

Alrighty so got a bunch more done. I do have a question about mounting the sniper knee plate. As I had to cut off a bunch from the calfs, and well the wonkyness of it, I just want to make sure this is the right position before gluing it into place. The problem is there are rather large gaps. Now that this question is asked, here are some more pictures. Here is the finished forearm Other forearm and legs are completed, as well as the thighs. I'm pretty terrible at documenting what I'm doing...Strapping has started. It's really starting to take shape. I'm really happy that I went with using e6000, I've had to pull a couple of things apart, although the curing time is killing me on certain bits.

Actually did some digging, it's "up to" 2500$ per EGG...Although I highly doubt they will actually fine you, most of the time they just get people to toss them.

Not to be a spoil sport but just to let you know bringing/shipping a kinder surprise into the US is a 500$ fine IIRC.....USCBP is super anal about them for some reason. Also that 1 Mil price tag is really only in Van and Torotno (as previousely mentioned.) Ie) This fine example. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-19/remember-vancouver-teardown-shack-it-just-sold-25-million-80000-over-asking Where I live, it's substantially cheaper, and it's a vacation spot. In fact due to the dollar difference a lot of people in Spokane WA have vacation places here.

Thanks all for the kind words. I've been out of town for a few days on training so haven't had too much done. But here is what I was able to do before I went out of town. Started to paint the split rivets for the ab/kidney Here they are getting into place Here it is all sealed up, I hope the gap isn't too much. I've had to jump around on different bits due to not enough magnets...I bought a lot but apparently not enough. Here is the belt, I haven't glued the elastic into place as of yet. Here it is sitting on a manikin I ended up trimming a bit off the forearm as the AP halves are different length. I've tapered the cover strip and hopefully this is okay. I personally like the look of it better then the mock up I did with the coverstrip untapered That's about it for now.

Alrighty, finally have time for a bit of an update. So last weekend the local garrison had another armor party for a bunch of us new recruits. We had a couple guys working on Anovos kits, and another couple of us with our shiny new AP kits. Didn't really take any pictures during the AP as it was all down to building but got a lot of work done, probably more work done at the party then I would have in several weeks. Here are a couple from the armor party. All I can say to that is CLAMPS!!!! At the armor party, I was also able to get shins,thighs, ab/kidney all sized up. Turns out I had to cut off pretty much had to trim off all of the extra ABS Mark added to the Ab/Kidney plates lol. There was so much extra on the Ab plate, we were joking that I didn't need the kidney plate as the ab plate was almost able to completely wrap around me. I wish I got a before shot of the ab plate but here it is all trimmed and drilled I ended up filling the shoulder bridges with small scraps of ABS to help give it a better area for the E6000 to hold onto . I can't remember where I saw it, but I liked the idea. Just some pics of arms/legs sized up. I had to trim a lot off the thigh pieces as well. Ab button plates almost completely painted. I may fix them, not 100% pleased with it I do have a question on the arm pieces. I am wondering if it's okay to trim this lined section off at the top of the arm, just so that it's a smoother transition.

Yeah, it was a shock with how much had to come off. There was another trooper there who just got an updated AP kit as well. He is much larger then me and he even needed to trim some off the ab/kidney. I had to trim a bunch off the thighs, and shins as well. I took a bunch of pictures, just haven't had time to update my build thread. The arms weren't so bad.