Cricket

Aaaand just like that, my growing TK just kicked my cooktop's a$$... "Boiling water? To change me?", my armor asked. "Ha! I think not!" With that, my armor flicked a corner of its ABS, tossing some boiling water out of the pot. Alas, my glass cooktop was no match and exploded across my kitchen into a gazillion pieces. Thanks for the memories, cooktop. I never liked you anyways.

You're gonna need to build a Jawa ensemble to go with that Droid head now. If not for you, build it for your kids (or other small family member). Nothing like trooping as a family!

Glad you were able to get that belt under control. I knew you could do it! I don't see an issue about the belt not being perfectly level, but I'm not a Centurion judge, either. I'd ask Tony or Sly about that one.

Just FYI, you'll need to remove the small tray that comes inside it. I have never needed it.

I use this bin for my kit. I nest the arms and legs all together, and those fit inside the torso. Helmet goes in a separate helmet bag. I use old white pillowcases as padding and protection. There's even extra space for a repair kit, boots, and my blaster. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-35-in-Mobile-Job-Tool-Box-222167/205053257

Yaaaasss!!!!

Okay, so the cuts have been made, and interior has been temporarily strapped with gaffer's tape. Remember, the only cuts for my height have been to the chest and back plates (the ab/cod/kidney/butt are full size in the pics!). I have to say, I'm kind of pleased with how the front is coming along! I still may do a little more trimming at the neck and move the chest plate up a little. But on the right track, methinks! And the back view... Hm. I'm trying to get that back plate to sit more square on the kidney. Looking closely, I can see it's not the back plate that is the issue. It's the kidney. Now, I have done nothing to the kidney aside from heat shaping the curves on the sides. That kidney is taller on the left side than on the right, which causes the back plate to shift up a little bit. I've sanded the back plate down a bit on the left side, and that seems to have helped square up the OII box. In that pic, I still hadn't trimmed down the top of the back plate at the neck yet (this also causes the back plate to look a little 'off'). I ended up trimming the back plate at the shoulder straps to shorten things there, too. The whole back plate in general needs some heat adjusting for sure. And I'll be doing some more shaping to that kidney. Even though the torso as a whole fits me, the kidney is still too wide for my liking. I know I can get it tapered in a bit. Time for another pot o' Trooper Stew!

After some very non-scientific measurements of the full-sized torso on my frame, I figured out that I needed to remove 2 inches from the chest and back. I split this amount as 1.5" from the bottom of the chest, and .5" from the neck scoop. The same figures were applied to the back piece: 1.5" from the bottom of the back, and .5" from the neck scoop. This part is always terrifying to me. I heard in a creepy straight-outta-Disneyland voice, "There's no turning back now..."

You're meaning the "top seam" as in the front facing seam, correct? If so, then you'll want to make the widths on the front facing seam slightly wider than your 15mm cover strip. I like to aim for 9mm of ridge on each half- which will give you somewhere around 18mm of total ridge on which to glue your 15mm cover strip. Always adjust for size in the back. Does that make sense? I don't know if this post will help or not. In it, I showed how I kept the front facing seams and how I cut the backs for sizing (be sure to watch your inside 'swoops' on the forearms as you size!).

Magnets FTW!!!! Great idea for those closures! And super cool magnet-jig thingy you created, too. Ingenious!

You were braver than I was, then. I was terrified!!!!

Those shins look great! See, it's not so scary to make holes in them, right? Keep up the good work!

Inner cover strips have been glued in the thighs, forearms, and shins. The biceps need to be fitted to my size before trimming- those seem to be the only pieces that require some care in trimming before front-side gluing. If you're smaller like me, you want to keep the inner 'dips' of the biceps centered. If you trim too much on one side or the other on the bicep, it throws off the center alignment of the 'dip'. So it needs to be sized first. I'll get to that later. I decided to tackle shaping the kidney and ab with each other today. Befores and afters. The lovely wonkiness really stands out on this suit when it's shaped, doesn't it? In case you're wondering, the blue tape was just a visual guide to help me see how far to dip the pieces into the boiling water. I used a 16 quart pot, and it worked out great. Oh, and I haven't trimmed anything for width yet! My focus is just getting the torso shaped properly so all stress is minimal on the plastic when it's strapped together. I think I'll pad things with foam instead of trying to trim it down. If further down the line I decide that a slimmer torso would look better, I can always tackle that later. I forgot to take pics, but after this, I heat-gunned the crimps in the returns on top and bottom of the kidney. This happens when you shape your kidney in hot water. It's unavoidable, but easily remedied. Next I decided to get reinforcing the returns out of the way. I don't like this part. It's boring, but so necessary if you want to prevent future cracks in your armor (if you're using brackets, like me). I just traced my return edges on some thin sheets of ABS, cut, and glued them in with CA glue. I purposely keep these pieces wide. I will trim everything down with a Dremel once my brackets have been installed. I quickly taped the kidney, ab, and chest together to see how everything fits at full-size. This kind of reminded me of the "Kilroy Was Here" doodle... So, my plan to size this kit down is as follows: Keep the ab and kidney at full size- no trimming for length, not even the cod!! I will trim the back piece at the bottom for length, effectively removing the return off of it and making it shorter. I will also be removing a good amount from the bottom of the chest (no need to rebuild the bottom chest return for a Luke-style Hero TK, yay!) and trimming the neckline to create a deeper swoop in order to move the chest plate up. Wish me luck!

Ah, I think you might have misunderstood what I had written about the torso. It's very important to make sure your torso is correctly fitted first. What I meant by that is all of your torso should be assembled/strapped together before trimming the thighs (chest, back, kidney, ab, butt). As you mentioned, the cod will probably need to be trimmed, which brings your cod up... which will result in your thighs coming up, which can result in overtrimmed (too short) thighs. I strongly recommend to press pause on the thighs and focus on getting the torso pieces all fitted first. Just my 2 cents, of course...

Yay!!!! Looks great! The tab idea is interesting! I don't know how much you will need it, though. The magnets- even before they're engaged with each other- should fit into the holes and physically lock inside the holes. The opposing magnets keep them locked in place while you move around. There shouldn't be any vertical or lateral shifting going on. If there is, then the magnet setup has failed. Does that make sense? Either way, the tab doesn't hurt, though. I'm all in for overengineering things. Many troopers put the amp in the chest plate. I positioned mine to face outwards so the sound would travel outwards as opposed to back at my body (which would muffle the sound). I just stuck some velcro to the speaker and chest, and that worked for me. Until feedback. You'll get feedback when you've got the amp louder for noisier troops. Typically, the solution is to move the amp away from the speaker. I've seen troopers hook a white amp to their belts. That solution works beautifully(it's loud!), but I don't like that you can see the amp. Once of our local garrison members crafted a pouch for the amp on his belt, so it hides things. I like that solution, but still, it's a thing on the belt that I don't want. I ended up relocating my amp to my ab plate. It fits right inside the ab button box. I can now set my amp a lot louder, and I don't have any feedback issues. I am really impressed with Hyper's amp setup. I ran into him at DragonCon, and WOW, his system rocks. It's super loud. I don't know what he's using, but I want it! (If anyone knows what he's using, please let me know!)

Okay, now with another DragonCon in my rear view mirror, it's time to get to work on this kit! I can't help but sharing one of my favorite pics from the con... When the worlds of Star Wars and Pokemon Go collide, you know you're at DragonCon! And now, the BBB day box pics, because that's kind of a thing, isn't it? Awww, aren't they cuuuute? I love how well-wrapped each piece is. And this was something I didn't receive in my last RS kit... pre cut and drilled aluminum to make my own thermal detonator clips. Nice! Took everything out and inventoried... And the helmet bits and pieces are all there, too. Old TK, meet new TK! So today I spent about 90 minutes doing all of the rough trimming of the kit. I used my compass tool to draw consistent cut lines to the returns. It all went faster- and smoother- than I expected. Not very much plastic left over at this point. I know there will be more extra scrap once I begin the front side assembly phase of this kit. At any rate, I honestly don't think I could possibly use all that extra plastic for ABS paste anyhow! My biggest challenge for this kit will be to not build it for my husband! I had him try on some pieces, and it all fits him very well. He is super excited to become a TK, and I will be building an RS Props kit for him once I'm done with this one. Hoping to have this kit finished by early December. Must stay on target!!! Tomorrow will be focused on trimming the front seams and gluing inner cover strips to forearms, biceps, thighs, and shins.

Yes!!! You should only be sizing your thighs to fit for width at this point, not length. Don't trim those thighs down just yet! It's very important to make sure your torso is correctly fitted first. To look best, the tops of the thighs and the bottom of the cod should have as little black as possible between them (still allowing for relative comfort to walk, of course). The thigh tops and cod bottom edges should kind of fit like loose puzzle pieces. I made the mistake of trimming my thighs without the torso, and overtrimmed them waaaay too much. They seemed fine at the time on their own, but once the torso was on- yikes! An expensive mistake for sure. I had to order new thighs. I didn't make that mistake again. Adding some pics so you can see my overtrimmed vs. better trimmed (i.e. trimmed with correctly fitting torso on): Overtrimmed thighs. They fit high, but leave too much of a gap at the knees. When I lowered them into a better position at the knees, I ended up with too much black showing at the hips. Gah! Below you can see my second set of thighs after trimming around the properly-fitted torso.

I know you mentioned that you corrected the thigh placement- so I am assuming that you've corrected the seam placement to show up in the front. But I don't know if you realized that in these pics, you've got the left shin on the right leg. You can tell this because the deeper swoop always goes to the inner thigh for easier mobility. Just swap your thigh, and you'll be golden.

So close now!!!! Can't wait to see them finished. They look great.

Like Lou mentioned, you can sew the end of the elastic closed. Or if you're lazy like me, you can just run a lighter quickly over the ends of the elastic. It will melt the elastic just enough to prevent any fraying issues. I've never had any elastics that have been 'sealed' like that fray apart on me.

And I found that idea from someone else here on the FISD. I just can't remember where I saw it! You did a lot more than I did to reinforce those straps by adding the extra ABS pieces in the divots. I just filled everything with e6000 and prayed it would work. Nice job!

Bravo!!! Really good work so far. Those shins are coming along flawlessly.

Whew, that is comforting. Thank you for letting me know. Looking forward to hearing how things come together when you get them on.

Nice work! Looks great so far. I was looking at the pic of your right shin, and asked myself, "How did we get the line of that shin off center like that?!". Then I remembered that it's an AP kit. Lou was working on his shins a lot at the armor party as well, and I remember that we talked quite a bit about the quirks of those pieces in particular. When you have the shins and thighs on, the seams will all line up in front as well in the back, and that's what counts. We were measuring for things when you had the shins on. But despite knowing this, it's kind of freaking me out a little... please let me know how things are lining up as they're trimmed!!!

I think you need bigger magnets. Kidding!!!! haha... Seriously, those look great. Nice work!