kman

Wow! They left the writing/logos on it, too? Quite a boon for those trying to recreate it!

Nice graphic. You may have said this somewhere above, but why the two different size snaps? (and why the curve at the top of the kidney plate?)

Looks good from what I can tell. I'm no clear on what procedure you're using: Is there a lip where the original thigh armor meets the shim, or was it cut to exactly that size with a lip added behind (the photo with the clamps)?

One of the more popular options is to cut the big lens into two individual ones, shape them more closely to the eyes, and mount them in. That said, many prefer to have it slightly away from the eye holes for better airflow. (you can still separate the lenses, and mount them however far you want, of course)

Rubbing alcohol (70% will work, 90% will work faster) or mineral spirits are both safe for any armor, and will remove the paint. Just takes a little elbow grease and you won't have to worry about damaging anything with sanding.

I've been dreaming of a real Sterling build, too! I think buying in UK currency and shipping would likely make it prohibitively expensive, though, so unless I stumble across a deal on this side of the pond...

Sure, go right ahead.

Apparently there are some over eager firewalls that are blocking my image host for reasons I've yet to track down. (Although the site has been scanned several times and verified to be clean) If you're surfing at work, perhaps try from home? I don't have a way I can repost the photos at the moment, but I'll see if I can manage something tomorrow.

Nice work so far! I wish I had been as disciplined with making my snap plates... they're sort of all over the place, each one likely a little different. It works, but I anticipate some annoyances in the future...

I didn't press the back plate into the counter, I just bent it by hand. If tap water isn't cutting it for some reason, I recommend using an ice water bath to set the new curve. Are you near sea level? I'm wondering if your water isn't hot enough. (I know at least one guy at high altitude who noticed issues with his water temps and realized at his altitude water boils at ~200F instead of 214F so his water wasn't hot enough after he let it cool from active boiling) For shims, you won't be cutting anything off your ab plate. The only trim comes from the Kidney plate. You'll remove the SIDE return edge entirely so the new shim can sit flush up against the actual edge, and have a flat surface behind to glue the "hold plate" (I'm sure there's a better term for that but I need more coffee) into place.

You're going to need to be able to sand any sort of thigh shim in order to smooth the new seam and blend it with the original plastic. Is your entire suit painted, and you don't have matching paint? If you use ABS paste made from the same plastic as the main armor, you should have a perfect color match. No painting needed, you just need ABS paste and lot of elbow work to smooth and polish. You should be able to bring it to a mirror shine that way. Key point: You need to have color-matched plastic available to you, or there is NO avoiding painting. (You'll also need paint that's a perfect color match, in that case) Do you have any scrap plastic, perhaps from the initial build? Or can the vendor supply you with any extra sheets of plastic from the same source, so there is a color match? I hear what you mean about to re-doing shims. I had to do mine twice, also! That's because I changed my mind about the attachment method, however, switching to a better, more secure attachment for the second attempt. The actual result looked the same from the outside, however. This link is my first attempt. I recommend reading it anyway because even though I changed the attachment methodology, I went into more detail about cutting the actual shim itself from scrap material. http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/35552-kmans-anovos-tk-adventure-build/?p=467267 My second, revised attempt at shimming is in this post: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/35552-kmans-anovos-tk-adventure-build/?p=471470 The second round went very nicely. I definitely recommend this technique, which is very simple. Essentially as I wrote in my earlier post in this thread: Cut a shim plate from extra plastic that's the right width for however much extra space you need (equal width pieces for each side), and the same height as the kidney plate. Add an extra 1/2" of height IF you want to recreate return edges like I did (they're not required). Also cut a smaller plate that will simply glue on the back of the seam to join the kidney plate and the shim plate. Then glue it all together. For higher level approvals (Centurion only) you need to use ABS to erase the "new" seam where the shim meets the kidney plate. For basic approval and EIB, that's not needed.

Just sand off the part that's sticking into you. It's not required at all, so it can be removed if needed for comfort.

I believe this is the section you're referring to, Tony: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/35086-ukswraths-anovos-tk-build/?p=472795 (your link went to page 35, and it's actually on the prior page 34, post # 679)

Finally had time to finish masking and paint the bottom of my box yesterday. Naturally I ran out of paint in the middle and had to dash to Home Depot to get more, ARGH. It's still not my best work, and I'm really torn about fixing it up and making it "perfect", but then I remember it's just a gear box that's going to get bashed around, so maybe I shouldn't spend too much time on it? The trials and tribulations of OCD continue, LOL. Masked: Painted: Now I'm waiting on Cog and TKID die-cut labels from R4ZORBL4DE's sales thread, and to make a final decision about the metal box tag from the 501st Merch sale, and it'll be mostly done. Mostly, because of course now I have to figure out just how I'm going to pack this thing inside. (I'd like to do something nice and organized, as opposed to just sort of tossing stuff in there barely enough order that it still fits.)

Any chance you can post a picture of this? It would be good knowledge for people to have. Also, I think there was another comparison photo previously in this thread that has disappeared. It may not show the screen-accurate trim, but it was still an interesting comparison. Perhaps that could be re-posted?

Actually, I turn off the heat and wait 20-30 seconds before immersing the plastic, rather than putting it into actively boiling water. Keep it in there longer if you need to, up to about 90 seconds before I'd start worrying. I submerged it as far as it would fit in the pot. Just an inch or two past where I wanted to actually bend it. There's a photo in post 117 (on page 6) once you get to a computer where you can actually see the pics.

Some people seem to be having some firewall issues with my image host for some reason, mostly from offices with overzealous firewalls. They're all showing up fine here, and there's nothing malicious about the site. Try looking at an image directly by pasting the direct path to the JPG into your browser? http://www.kppix.com/piwigo/_data/i/upload/2016/03/19/20160319234552-4eb0d406-la.jpgI didn't over-bend the back straps, but I definitely had to remove the return edge entirely (at least on the outside edge), and it took a couple of passes with the hot water before it stuck.

Been MIA a bit, but not for lack of working on my armor. Time for an update. First off, I got my helmet electronics package from Uskwrath. Hovi tip speakers installed! Managing the wiring is proving to be quite the challenge. This system is only two boxes (iComm and Amp, both from Ukswrath) but considering I'll likely add more equipment, it's only going to get worse! First thing I did was rebuild my fan bracket. The one I made previously worked... ish. Problem was the plastic was too flexible, and while it dropped into place easily, it would curl up and fall out if I turned the helmet upside down. I bought a cheap bin that was on sale at Walmart, but which was constructed of nice thick plastic, and tried again. I've since removed the car door edging you see in this pic (made it just a little too big, which was a shame), but otherwise the new bracket works MUCH better. I still want one of Echo's fancy engraved ones, but this will hold me until he resurfaces. Here's the helmet with all of the pieces installed... clearly wire management is an important next step! Now that the positioning of the electronics has been ironed out, I also put in the rest of the helmet padding. I picked up some split loom wire tubing to help with the wires. Under $5 at Home Depot for more than I'll ever need. I'm using a short bit of the wider stuff in the front to deal with the speaker wires, and allow wires to cross in front, in general, and, and I have another section curling around the back of the helmet, routing the wiring from the amp and iComm, hidden behind the fan bracket. Technically you can't see it there, but turns out every time you remove the bracket, loose wires fall free, so I'm grouping them in there, too. I'm still tweaking the exact wire routing, particularly where the mic will be affixed, but it's definitely usable as it is now. Here's the bucket interior as of right now: Overview Left side Right side Towards the front Speaker/fan detail I did my first official 501st troop today, wearing this armor. Woohoo! Definitely learned a few things that I'll be applying to the armor to make it more livable. The fans were a lifesaver. It wasn't even that hot out, but it was going to miserable in the armor, I could tell. I was nearly comfortable with the fans running. It's going to be interesting when I do my first genuinely hot troop. Oy! I think I'll make shin loops, to hold the shins down. Funny, walking around my house for 10-15 minutes at a time, I never had a problem, but when trooping for 3 hours, my shoe tops popped out from under the shins a few times. I had a wrangler to assist shoving it back in, but sometimes that won't be an option, so better to not have it happen at all. I also need to slightly loosen the belt that holds up my thighs. It was on really tight, to keep the thighs firmly in place, but unfortunately it popped open at some point. Not sure exactly when, but I definitely noticed my thighs seemed lower than they should be, and finally someone noticed the buckle sticking out. I doubt anyone but us noticed, but wasn't easy to get that reconnected without taking the armor all off! Fortunately there was a restroom nearby so I could remove helmet, gloves, and one arm just to get that reconnected under the cod! I think I want to add a chin strap. The bucket did fine, but If I can lock it to my head more thoroughly, I should be able to get more expression out of it. I need to fine-tune the mic placement and sound setup a bit, still. The iComm was cool, but people still couldn't hear me very well, at times. And the VOX setting worked well... until the DJ starting playing loud music, in addition to a loud announcer on the PA, which pretty much caused my system to crackle and pop nearly continuously. Next time I make have to try the PTT line to see how that works. Nonetheless, a great time was had by all, at this local elementary school robotics science fair. A very rewarding experience! I'd post more pix but I seem to recall there are rules about putting pics with kids online, without permission.

All I have done so far is the lid, but here are a couple of pix from that. Next up, more masking so I can paint the bottom part! Do you recall how large the imperial logo was that you used on the front face of the box? It looks like the perfect size. Was it from a 501st sales thread, or just eBay or something?

I did the lid last night. Looks so awesome! Pro-tip: Use an exacto to put a cut line along the tape, because even with the good painters tape (the green Frog tape) some of the lines came up a little chunky for the ones I didn't do that. (the first couple and one or two bits later that I missed in my rush) Hopefully they'll touch up later reasonably well, if not, well, I'm sure it's going to get beat up over time anyway. I had a brand new Husky box that I need for a troop in a couple of hours (I'd best get packing, actually), so I didn't have time to mask and paint the lower part of the box, but the lid suffices for now. I'm loving this!

Tony, does that mean that this graphic is accurate? (from that discussion thread) Specifically for Anovos armor, since that's what we're discussing.

Glad I found this thread again! I finally have my Husky box, and I remembered seeing a really well done paint job on one. I'm totally stealing the general paint scheme. I hope it's seen as the tribute it is intended rather than theft!

FWIW, the website appears to be up. http://www.romfx.com/ Other than being more compact (and having an on-board amp, too), what's the difference compared to the iComm? (and will the Rom FX work with Tony's hovi speakers?)

Great info! My iComm is brand new, so I guess I have about a year before I need to worry about this, but it's nice to know there is a simple and easy method to deal with the dead battery problem, later down the road.

Much easier than working with Bondo is using shims cut from the same material stock (so a perfect color match) plus ABS paste. Then you don't have to paint. Just cut a shim of the appropriate shape, glue in a backplate to attach it, and use ABS paste to fill in the seams. A couple rounds of sanding and polishing and it looks like it was built like that.