Cricket

Looks amazing! Just something I learned from my own RS kit, but I found that cracks developed in areas on returns that had not been reinforced (you may or may not have this issue come up). I add an extra layer to the entire length of the returns now when building to prevent cracks.

About the left and right sides of the kidney... One side is longer than the other right out of the box. I recently made a post about this. https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/45339-crickets-rs-props-hero-build-yet-more-vertically-challenged-assembly/?do=findComment&comment=643312

A little side track about the RS TK kit... I thought it might be good to share some pics of how irregular the RS TK suit is out-of-the-box. This is not the sanitized version of a TK at all. The biggest part of the irregular nature of this kit is apparent in the back. Here are the three back pieces. They are positioned in the same manner as if you strapped them together without making any changes to the returns of the kit. It's not bad, but notice that the OII box is not straight. There is almost a 15mm difference between the bottoms of the OII box corners to the bottom of the back plate. Now, if I make it so that the OII box is straight, there is a gap of - you guessed it! - 15mm on the right side between the kidney and back plates. There is no way to properly strap the pieces together when they are assembled like this unless you're either trimming the top of the kidney or bottom of the back plate. (Or if you made your strapping particularly long on the right side, which is something I suppose could be done, but then you'd have a large black gap on the right. ) And next to each other so you can better see the differences (and if you've been following this thread, you can see the weird gappy part of the kidney/butt plate return on the left side that I was talking about earlier): In the photo below, you can see what happens if you trim the back plate straight and even along the bottom. (I was just getting started on fitting my kit, apologies for the scary shot.) The odd shape of the kidney throws it off. Another pic that shows the wonkiness of the back plate. The back plate is lined up straight in the pic (I was using my floor lines as a guide), but you can see how odd the box looks. And in my case, I'm doing a lot of back plate trimming to emulate the Luke Hero. I doubt that most will have this issue, but the more you trim from the bottom of the RS back plate, the more apparent the rotated nature of the OII box becomes. And here's the unaltered kidney. You can easily see here that there is about 15mm difference between the right side and the left side along the top. So for anyone considering going with an RS TK: You will not be getting something that is sanitized, perfect, or idealized. You will bang your head against a wall sometimes trying to get things to fit properly or look just right. Not much lines up perfectly, but that's exactly how the movie kits were! RS TK kits are weird, and wonky, and wonderful.

Thanks for the feedback! I can assure you that when I have the kit on, the back plate sits right at the edge of the kidney (no overlapping). It doesn't look the same on a hanger. I'll get proper pics soon. The RS kidney is super wonky! It is not even from one side to the other at all. I have not shortened the kidney returns on this kit. It is taller more on one side than the other. The bottom of the back plate is not even, either. In order to keep the OII box straight and fitting well to the kidney, I had to cut the bottom of the back at a slight angle. With my previous RS TK, I shortened the kidney by almost 2 inches. I made sure that the kidney was straight and even on top and bottom once I was done. I also made sure the back returns were straight as well. Since I'm not going there with this build, I'm having to deal with things looking different. Annnnnnnyhow, OII box on the back plate is now straight (but cut at an angle), wonky kidney (untrimmed) floats in the middle, butt plate (untrimmed) is straight. Overall the kit is straight in the back, but if you really look at the middle, it looks "off". It's kind of like one of those Topsy-turvy cakes. If I had trimmed the back plate to match the top of the kidney, the back would have ended up really crooked. Does that make sense? And thanks for letting me know about your grappling hook box. Sounds like bending those flaps may be in my future!

While waiting to figure out what to do about that Grappling Hook Box, I decided to try to improve the returns where the kidney and butt plates meet. That gap was making me a little nuts. I removed the brackets from the butt plate (again, sigh) and examined what was going on. It took a long while of looking at how the returns were meeting together to figure out what the issue was. Turns out that there was a slight- and I mean VERY slight- area on the left end of the butt plate return that was a teeny tiny bit warped, and it was throwing the entire alignment off back there- causing that weird gappy thing to happen. I busted out my handy wood jig and heat gun, secured the butt plate directly to the jig (a new trick I just figured out, BTW), and not just flattened out, but angled the return in and down. Pics are before and afters... I know it's not the same because I'm not wearing it, but even just hanging there, it is a huge improvement over how the two pieces were meeting before. That small gap was making me crazy!!! Now I can get back to fine-tuning more fixes without this on my mind.

Yours is smaller than mine. My box is 10cm wide, and total of the back plate is 18cm. I might try to find someone locally who can vacuum form a smaller box for me if I am not allowed to bend in the wings of the box. It would require some dissection of my current setup, but it could be salvageable. @ukswrath, when you get a moment, could you weigh in here? I want to make sure whatever I do will clear EIB/Centurion. Thanks!

Thanks, Daniel! I'm sure this must have something to do with my small size. I looked at Christina's EIB/Centurion applications where she was wearing her grappling hook/box, and hers looks fine on her belt. But she's also bigger than me. :/ Looking at the CRL for the Hero TK, the optional box shown doesn't look exactly flat to me. There is nothing mentioned that the wings of the box can't be slightly angled, nor is there anything mentioned that the wings must be flat. I'll also add that the box in the CRL overall looks smaller than mine. The distance on the box between the switch and the grappling hook hole is definitely shorter.

Thank you for that feedback, Tony. I may end up doing just that- going with some nylon straps in there. I've got plenty of the stuff laying around here, so it should be an easy switch. This morning I began hacking away at my 'to do' list for my kit. First up: fixing the back corner/kidney overlap. I used a hair dryer to gently heat up the back plate and bend it a bit first. The overlap was still there, but I improved the curve (so, yay!). I trimmed the corner of the back plate off and sanded it down until it just met the top of the kidney. Much better methinks. Before and after pics below. Next, I did some conservative trimming of the bottom of the chest plate to flatten out that arch. This mod scared me a little more than I'd like to admit. After cutting, I sanded things down a little to flatten the arch even more. It'll look slightly different when I'm wearing it, but I think I'm headed in the right direction. I can always trim more later if I need to. Before and after pics below. And the reference photo next to what my armor looks like now, just for comparison's sake. Okay, now here's my next huge hurdle. The grappling hook box. I can't seem to find any good photos of how it fits on Luke, and it doesn't seem like it fits properly on my armor. I chatted briefly with Tony about this, but I never shared pics with him (hoping this helps, Tony!). I need feedback in a major way on this, troopers! First, here are some reference pics for y'all: To me, it looks like the entire attachment has a slight curve on the ends so that it follows the line of the kidney. I don't see any sort of gaps between the belt and the kidney, which would be indicative of the box being flat. There is too much of a curve on Luke's kidney for me to believe that the box attachment is totally flat. My box attachment is completely flat. Surely someone can help me figure this out. Here's what it looks like when hooked on my belt. A view from directly overhead: And a view from directly underneath: I have curved the kidney in a bit for my size, but not as much as I did with my RS Stunt TK. I have not made any size trims at all to make the kidney smaller (I wanted this TK to look larger around the torso than my stunt). So I don't think this is an issue of me overshaping the kidney. And held up next to the unaltered (unshaped) kidney of my husband's RS TK, the box fits in the same way there as well. So, troopers... opinions on this would be super appreciated. I can't move the box any further back on the kidney because it would set the box out of correct placement (I still have the flat box/curved kidney issue there, too). And I certainly don't want to wear it like a thermal detonator; that would be weird for sure. My inclination is to gently bend the front facing 'wing' of the box (near the kidney/ab seam) inwards at maybe a 30 degree angle to better fit the curve of the armor. This would allow the box and hook behind it to sit closer to the kidney and still maintain their flat shape. Thanks so much for any input!!!

Taking a short break from my husband's RS build to work on my own build today. Had just a few minutes to get my black leggings on and try on my torso with arms. This is the first time I've tried this much of the kit on since reshaping things last week. Photos have been adjusted so they don't look backwards (they were taken in a mirror). Here's my before additional shaping pic of the back (on the left), and the after additional shaping on the back (on the right): A few things I'm seeing. There's a strange area at the returns where the butt plate and kidney meet in the middle left. You can see it's a bit more gappy in that location. I've compared this to the same unaltered parts of my husband's RS TK, and it's there as well. Quirk in the armor I suppose. It bugs me, but I'm going to have to live with it. The right side of the butt plate is still wanting to flare out a bit at the top return. I'll have to hot water bathe that area so it curves a bit better. Left side is good. The right side lower corner of the back plate is overlapping the kidney. That can also be fixed with a hot water bath so it curves in and up. See pic below. In the photo below, you can see how my right side shoulder bell is smushing itself in my back plate as I bring my right arm back. That area where the shoulder bell is flattening out it where it's all happening. I'll need to trim some of the bell for clearance. And this just looked 'off' to me: So I removed the belt, and here's what's going on: Dammit. I need to shorten the lower rivet elastic and possibly make a slightly longer elastic for the top rivet. Ugh. Really glad I bought a bag of 100 split rivets way back when I built my first TK. At least the other side seems to be okay. I'm also considering doing some additional trimming to the bottom of the chest plate. After looking more at the Luke Hero, I see that I could flatten out the curve of the chest by trimming up on the sides. This alteration will also make the lines of the ab plate look better along the waist, too. I am still missing my shoulder straps and still need to refine my forearms. Well, that and a bunch of little adjustments still need to be made here and there... I forgot how time consuming the final fit can be to dial in! Oh, and if anyone sees something that I've missed, please let me know. I can handle the critique!

Now that all my adulting stuff has finally been taken care of, I can resume working on my TK Hero. Back in October, I thought I was pretty much done. But believe it or not, based on ShaSha's feedback (as well as scrutinizing over the pics of the back of my kit), I ended up tearing the entire kit apart so I could get some better shaping done on the kidney and butt plates. This TK has been in pieces on my floor since October. Gah! Thankfully, I still have my stunt TK in good working order for trooping in the meantime. At Christmas I trooped in the Atlanta Christmas Parade, and I was so proud to represent the Empire in my shiny white (and very wet, extremely cold) armor. And I wasn't the shortest TK in the squad, either! This is the first time our garrison has marched in formation in years. Years I tell you! So excited to have been a part of this. And with that weather, I couldn't resist recreating a scene from one of my favorite movies! Okay, so back to continuing this build... Since I'm simultaneously working on this along with my husband's RS TK, I thought now might be a good place to show some comparisons of sizing/shaping of certain pieces. Here, I'm comparing butts. Butt plates, that is. The only trimming alteration I have made to my butt plate is near the snaps at the crotch. I had to make it more narrow for my size. The rest of the butt plates are identical. Any difference in sizing is due to hot water bath and curving the butt plate to better match the lower curve of the bottom of my kidney. Here, you can see my butt plate inside of my husband's out-of-the-box butt plate. The curve of the kidney on the left side is much more significant on my kit, thus you can see more curve on the left side of the butt plate at the return. And you can see how I curved the area near the snaps inwards to reduce strain on the strapping. From the sides: So even though my butt plate looks smaller, it's not. It's just got more curves to it. On the left is my properly fitted (curved) kidney with the unaltered butt plate. The right photo shows my curved butt plate with the same kidney. My suggestion to other vertically challenged individuals is to refrain from cutting the sides of butt plate at all until you've properly curved and shaped it. Trimming may not be necessary at all, but instead, just some gentle hot water sculpting. After reshaping the butt plate, I noticed that I needed to move a bracket on the right butt plate return. Grrr. So now I wait for ABS paste to cook so I can patch up the screw holes and drill some new ones. So another tip to those who are sizing down their kits: wait to drill your bracket holes until everything is shaped correctly! Once I patch things back up, I'll reassemble the back half of the armor, then reinstall the split rivets on the ab/kidney. From there, it's just fine-tuning the armor for length. I'm still shooting on earning EIB/Centurion on this kit. More progress pics to come!

Extremely!!! I had told him that I couldn't get the kit ordered until after the new year at the earliest, and not to expect anything until February/March. He had no idea that I was able to get it ordered and delivered before Christmas. (A huge thanks to Andrea over at RS Props for making it happen, too. The customer service over at RS has been consistently outstanding!)

Sending you a PM!

Greetings, Troopers! After almost 2 years of nagging, I finally convinced my hubby to join the dark side in white armor. I surprised him with his very own set of BBBs from RS Props (a big one and a little one) on Christmas morning. Here's the moment of unwrapping. You all know the feeling. Now it's up to me to build it. And I'm super excited about this build because I won't really need to do much alteration to the plastic at all. At 5'10" and about 165 lbs, my husband is in the 'out-of-the-box trooper' size range. This thread will be pretty limited with regards to detail stuff (this is my fourth TK build, OMG!), but I wanted to share the bits and pieces of progress on this full-sized build anyways so I can get feedback when I need it. During the past few days, I've done some initial assembly with inner cover strips. Ooh. Ahhh. His compression garments arrived yesterday, so we're hoping to get time this weekend to do initial fitting of the limb parts. I would love to get moving on building his magnetic shins, but I can't until we get his boots for proper sizing. I'm on the lookout for a pair of TK Boots (not IB Boots) in size 12, so if anyone has a pair they'd like to part with (or has a lead), I'm your gal! TK Boots has told me they're currently out of stock, and unknown if they'll ever get more in.

Hey Sherry, Congrats on your 15 year milestone!!! And to get notification that your BBB is on the move is quite the bonus. Sweet! About that leather... for me, that leather would be much too thin for a holster. I had a 4oz leather holster and didn't like it at all because it was too soft. I upgraded to an 8oz holster, and it's perfect. Reason: I like to be able to holster and deholster my blaster on my own while in kit. While it may not seem like a challenge to get your blaster in and out of a soft holster while wearing civvies, when you're completely kitted up, it's an entirely different game. The 4oz leather would flex on my blaster and get hung up on it when trying to get it out, so I always had to ask for help from a handler for it. Your arm will get tired when holding a blaster on extended troops! A holster with substantial, rigid leather weight keeps its shape nicely. My 8oz holster had to be stretched out to fit: I had to soak it in water, and let it dry with my blaster wrapped in several plastic bags shoved in there. Once dry, I zapped the inside with holster lubricant, and voila! I can holster and deholster the blaster in kit quickly and easily now... but the holster isn't so loose that some rogue rebel scum could pull it out without me noticing, either. Oh! Forgot to mention about support! As a smaller trooper, your holster will most likely sit more on your posterior than your hip. A softer leather holster allows for sagging, and your blaster will do this wonky thing where it shifts outwards at an angle. Thicker, more rigid leather gives more support and keeps your blaster upright when in the holster. Pic on the left is when I was wearing my 4oz holster. Pic on the right is when I was wearing the 8oz holster.

Better, yes! When initially making cuts to the shins, it's really easy to cut the sides unevenly. Focus is put on on how it looks in the front, how snug it is around the ankle, how much you need to trim off of length... then you trim and think, "Wow! Looks great!" It's usually at this point that you really look at the back and notice that one side is generally trimmed down more than the other, and then you end up going, "Oh, maaaan.... How did I not see that?!" That said, cover strips can do wonders to even out asymmetrical cuts on the armor (ask me how I know.... *cough cough*)! And if the cover strip still can't help make things look right, then just order another shin half from Walt. He's awesome about getting replacement parts out. Keep up the good work!

hahaha!!! The best part of so many builds are the mistakes we all share! I cringe when I remember what I did to the returns on my very first kidney, but have left everything up to see how ugly mistakes can become... and how to recover from them without leaping from the rooftop. (Thanks to all here at the FISD for that, of course!!!) So keep your mistakes out there! And you're doing an amazing job on this build. Go, go, go!

I haven't had my coffee yet, but your large ab button plate looks like it's upside down to me. :/

Haha! That's just some extra foam padding on my mannequin. It gives more support to the armor when it's on display.

That's the elastic that holds the shoulder bell to the shoulder strapping. One half of the size 10 snap is sewn into the white elastic. The other half of the snap is sewn into the black elastic strap. The other end of the black elastic strap is glued directly into the shoulder bell. Hope that helps!

And taken from Tony's amazing build thread: Screen used: His own pic:

Oh, oh, oh! I think I know this one!!! (waving hand wildly) Offsetting the snap in the white elastic is a good thing because it provides more stability/strength for the connection. In the pic below, you're looking at the white elastic as seen from under the plastic shoulder strap from the back. This is the right shoulder, BTW. My elastics are more narrow than most TKs, and that's because I had to narrow the chest/neck and shoulder areas. The wider elastic would have been visible if I'd gone with the usual stuff. Anyhow, you want to keep your snaps in as close to the inside (towards your neck) as possible. This will help prevent your elastics at the shoulders from sagging due to the pulling of the arms. Did I get that right, Tony?

That Tandy snap setting tool is complete crud. I went through so many failed snaps using that thing! Once I picked up the cheap-o General Tools 1265 Snap Fastener Kit, setting snaps was a breeze. That said, hammering snaps into submission is loud and requires some... enthusiasm... and I don't always have it in me to beat up those snaps. That snap press looks really sweet... and it's on sale right now! Hm... I will be building another TK in about two weeks. And other upcoming costume builds certainly will be in need of some snaps. I think I can certainly justify acquisition of this snap press at this point.

Congrats, trooper!

After being asked a gazillion times about how I built my magnetic shin closures, I've finally compiled everything from my TK build and put it all in one post! Let me begin by stating that I followed the tutorial here for the most part when building these magnetic shins. However, I deviated from it in order to make the closures super strong by using a magnet-to-magnet closure rather than the magnet-to-steel method outlined in the tutorial. I have worn the magnetic shins I made for my RS Props TK out on over a dozen troops, and I have never had them come apart on me. I've only had to reglue magnets twice on these shins over a two-year period: a single magnet came off after being handled a lot (opened and closed dozens and dozens of times at an armor party by those who were trying to figure out how they work), and regluing a single magnet after trooping underwater for a few hours (well, not exactly underwater, but it was a parade where it rained for HOURS and I had to walk in the rain the entire time- for hours I tell you! My boots took days to dry out!). The small amount of maintenance I've had to do on these over 2 years of trooping is quite minimal. Once you get this mod on your kit, I swear you'll never go back to anything less than a magnetic closure on your shins. STEP 1: There are many steps necessary to build magnetic shins, so I begin with making a critical component for them: ABS buttons. The buttons are necessary to hold one half of the magnet assembly in place on the inside of the shin. I'm using 12mm x 3mm n50 magnets. You'll need a total of 20 magnets for the shins (10 on each shin). I strongly suggest buying more than 20, though. I've found that they can easily break, and you'll want backups on hand! You can find them in bulk- and cheap!- on eBay. First, I begin by making a template with a hole in it that is slightly larger than the magnets I will be using. I trace the magnet on a sheet of ABS. Here's what it looks like when done. Yeah, I know my hole isn't perfectly round. It's not terribly important for it to be perfect. I used two magnets to make each button. One on top to help me see where my hole template needed to go, and one underneath to form the button shape. Heat up one section of the ABS sheet using a heat gun on LOW until it gets slightly warpy. You can even leave the magnets attached to the ABS while you heat it up. Once the plastic is soft, quickly press it onto a flat surface, pressing the hole template around the exposed magnet. This is what it looks like on the top and underneath when you're done. And here's how it looks from the side so you can see how the magnets attach to the plastic. See how the bottom magnet sits flush in the new ABS button? I spent about forty minutes repeating the process until I ended up with 10 buttons. I will cut down and shape the buttons to fit each shin later. There will be five buttons installed on each shin. Still lots of work to do, but it's a pretty good start! STEP 2: Another step necessary for how I make my magnetic shin closures is to make sure that the backs of the shins meet up as perfectly as possible. This is to avoid any unnecessary strain on the magnets. This was acheived by some gentle shaping via a hot water bath. Before putting the shins in the water, since I don't have any cover strips installed on the outsides, I reinforce the closure with blue tape. The e6000 gets really soft when subjected to boiling water, and I don't want to weaken the join in the front. Blue tape holds up nicely for this application! Here's a before and after of my shins so you can see how the backs line up a bit better. I will be doing some further fine tuning on the lengths at the bottom later as I move along in my fitting. STEP 3: This stage involves making and securing the "holes" part of the closures for the magnets. I begin by cutting out two 3/4" x 12" strips of ABS. You should have this when you're done. Next make a lengthwise mark in the center of each strip to help keep your holes lined up in the middle. Then mark 3/4" in from each end. That will be the center point for the magnets on the end. I like using magnets with holes in the middle for this, so I can easily find the 'crosshairs'. Trace the magnet. I like to use extra magnets underneath to help keep it secure while I trace. Next, find and mark the center of the strip. It should be at the 6" point. From there, measure 2 5/8" from the center mark on either side. Mark and trace your magnets. When you're done, your plastic strips should look something like this: Next, I used my drill press and a step bit to drill out the holes. It went really quickly! When you're done, you should have two strips with holes in them that can easily fit the magnets. The next part is where people tend to get confused, so I took this photo to show what goes where. The "hole" strip will be glued to the inside half of the shin on the inside. It sounds kind of confusing, but it's not all that bad. Remember that the "hole" strip will be hidden! I begin with my left shin. I mark the center of each hole to assist when I line up the edge of the shin. Next, I test fit the strip on the shin to verify placement, clamping on both ends. Then I apply e6000 to the area of the strip that will be in contact with the shin, clamp and add magnets. This is what it looks like when glued together: Here's the right shin after gluing, but before I added the magnets. Here are both shins as the e6000 cures. I'll be allowing a few days for this to cure, which will give me ample time to get my ABS buttons ready for installation. STEP 4: Once the glue had cured on the hole strips inside the shins, I removed the magnets and clamps. With a light behind the shins, you can see how the hole strips are mounted, hidden inside. Using that light as my guide, I traced the approximate location of the holes with a pencil. This helps me to get a good idea of where my holes are going to be drilled. Yep. I'm going to make some Swiss cheese of my shins. Using a small Dremel sanding band, I carefully cut a notch out, just large enough for a magnet to fit through. Here's what it looks like at this stage when the shins are closed. I'm just focusing on drilling out the holes on the inside edge, following the holes of the hole strip that was glued in. I'm not ready to drill the outer half of the shins yet. Next to clean up my buttons that will hold my magnets. I rough trimmed them all to start. Then cleaned up the corners with a Dremel. I don't want anything poking at my legs! *Important!* If you want to make sure your magnets stay stuck on your shins, you must use e6000! CA glue will not keep the magnets stuck to the buttons; they will fail. I have heard this from several troopers when I have been contacted about their magnets not holding up. I repeat, use e6000 for this next step! I applied a liberal amount of e6000 to the inside of each button, then put the magnet inside to get all cozy. Make sure that you've got the polarity of all the magnets in the same orientation before gluing! Wipe away any excess glue from the top. To make sure that the magnets are firmly mounted in the buttons, I use the magnet intended on going on the opposite side of the shin to clamp it. In the pic below, you can see how I've got all the matched magnet buttons and magnets together as they cure. Back to the shins now. I like this ridge (where the pencil is pointing) to line up at the tops. For me, it makes the closure in the back look much cleaner if this is lined up. I tape it off there to make sure that the opposite side doesn't shift while I'm making my marks for completing the holes. I have an OttLite that fits nicely inside the shin to provide a clear light so I can make outlines for where I'm going to drill out the rest of the holes. Holes were already present on the left side in the photo below. I made sure that I drilled out the holes very conservatively as I went. I used an extra magnet to make sure that the hole was just the correct size for it to fit through. Now time to attach the outer cover strip! I use a 25mm cover strip on my shins for this. I taped off the edge of the inside half to keep any glue from transferring over. Then making sure that the cover strip was straight, I clamped the heck out of it. Praying to the TK gods that it doesn't shift!!!! Now time to wait for everything to cure really, really well. I am going to give these 3-4 days to fully cure just to be on the safe side! STEP 5: One shin is complete, with the outer rear 25mm cover strip glued into place. Woo! Here's a look from the inside, before magnets are installed. Be sure to clean up all excess glue from the inside edges in order to have a clean closure when you're done. If there's extra glue in there, it may not close correctly. I've tucked the outside cover strip to the inside so you can see how the magnets on the "cover strip" half are glued on. No magnets yet. I add a dab of e6000 to the magnet (be sure to check the polarization of the magnet before gluing!!!), and set it so that it fits inside the semi circle and on the outer cover strip. Like this: I wiped away the excess glue from the magnets and then positioned the inner "hole strip" over the magnets to ensure everything is lined up correctly as it dries. I tape the tops and bottoms of the shin to ensure it doesn't shift around during this stage. I'm not completely happy with how the inside cover strip is cooperating here. It sits flat on the top and bottom, but it pulls away in the middle a bit off to the right. I will have to heat bend this before installing the magnets onto the "hole strip". :/ Ideally, the inside cover strip should be sitting completely against the outside part of the shin, and it doesn't want to do that right now. This additional stress could cause the magnets to fail. It's annoying, but I'll need to address this before proceeding any further. Gah! Using the magnet buttons I created earlier, I clamp the magnets into place while the glue cures. Once the glue has fully cured, I'll reshape that inner strip to prepare it for the final magnet button installation. STEP 6: Now that the e6000 has had lots and lots of time to cure, it's time to attach the other halves of the magnets. Make sure that the halves are super clean and free of extra dried glue. It will prevent the shins from closing well. You can do this by touch. Rub all of it off where you feel it. Once everything is cleaned off, close the "hole" half over the "magnet" half. Your shin should be closing correctly at this point. The "holes" should lock around the magnets and prevent the shin from opening at all, even without the additional magnets at this point. If the "hole" strip is not fully engaged over the magnets, you won't have a very strong bond between the magnets to keep the shin locked. Easy part next! Apply e6000 around the prepared ABS button. No need to go crazy with the stuff. You don't want it oozing all around in there. And stick it on! This part goes really quickly. For additional strength, I add some extra magnets on top. Check those clean closures! Left shin. Right shin. I will open these up in a few hours just to make sure that there isn't any extra e6000 that has spilled out and might lock those shins closed where I don't want them locked. Now to allow several days to dry, and these shins will be good to go! Here's a short video so you can see them in action. Have you tried this on your own shins? Loved it? Hated it? Made a few mods of your own to improve this method? Comment below and let me know! Cheers- Cricket TK-10401