kman

Late to the party, but extremely pleased I was able to be helpful for you. You look great! Happy trooping!

I mostly agree with Joseph. That's an interesting find, though, I gotta say. I'm curious what the weight of the empty box is. (the weight given would be full of first aid supplies, so the empty box should be a lot lighter) Might not be all that bad, and to be honest, I like the dimensions better than the Photo box, which I've always felt is a little too long. (10.75" vs 12.25", so 1.5" shorter) I would want to remove ALL of the extra bits, including the latch. Close it with magnets instead, or something. Mount it to the pack by attaching the lid, to conceal the piano hinge. Use strong magnets or some other concealable method to close it. I'm not sure how easily all those bits will come off, though, frankly. Still, for $21 I might just pick one up to see. If it seems like a hassle to remove all the extra stuff, or it can't be done cleanly, I can actually use a good first aid kit at home, so no big loss.

LOL Did Tony jack my photo and put it into his build thread? That picture of the shins is mine, complete with my mouse-drawn red lines done with MS Paint in a hurry while at the office, LOL. (Not that I mind; I just wasn't aware!) James, until you actually glue your shins together (and are certain they're in the right place!), don't sand them smooth where they join.

Tandy changed to the stamped snaps well over a year ago, but there's a lot of old stock still on the shelves. New shipments/orders are all the new style... they don't manufacture the old ones anymore, as I understand it. As Harbinger notes, it's actually pretty accurate, other than the word itself. LOL

As we suggested on FB, I'd look into Chicago screws first.

JUST the bucket, not the whole armor? Depends on whether you want [flexible] fiberglass or ABS. Jimmiroquai's armor is fantastic, but it's quite a bit of work, dealing with fiberglass. He's a reliable source, with a great rep, so if you're cool with fiberglass, it's an excellent option. Anovos will mostly likely deliver... eventually. But could literally be years. Finished helmets only, for some time, so if you're looking a build, that's not what you want anyway. KB might be up and running someday, but not in the short term. Hopefully that turns around, but not going to help you now. I've not worked with 850 before, but I've heard very good things from people who have. If you want ABS, and you want it sooner than Anovos or KB can deliver, it's probably your only choice.

Don't worry too much about the back. That'll all work itself out. Just center the straps on the "nubs" coming off the chest piece, in line with the direction that nub heads (perpendicular to the edge). You'll want the big front bump plus 2-3 of the smaller bumps to be in contact with the chest, the rest can lay over the strapping and touch the back plate. Here's when I glued mine on: I wanted to keep my armor as nice as possible (I've since gotten over that), so I kept the plastic on until the very end, too. SUPER fun to tear it all off on that last day. So no need to be ashamed of that!

Walt's kid-sized kits are fantastic. He does OT TK and I think Biker Scout armor, too. There are also a few threads around here about turning those 48" Big Figs into First Order TK armor for the kiddos. Looking forward to hacking mine up for my boy in a couple of years!

Use a Dremel, if possible, and GO SLOW on removing the epoxy. That stuff is hellish. Nice that the new belts come unassembled, but I wish they had started that sooner!

If you'd seen many gaffers, you'd lose that association really fast. LOL But Gaffer's tape is awesome. I wish I'd never had to use duct tape before I discovered the joy that is Gaffer's tape, by comparison!

Well done. Great info!

Correct. They're there to prevent separation. It's possible to make different internal rigging that can prevent overlap, however. That's not what the stock strapping does, however, with your armor's make.

It looks like you're pretty slim, so MAYBE, but I agree with CableGuy. Before you hack off any plastic, make sure you try it on wearing the undersuit. The fit is FAR different than it seems when wearing a t shirt and jeans. Ultimately, I suspect you will want to hot water bath the ab plate a bit, so it curves around you a little more. But not as much as you'd think. These suits are not meant to be form-fitting, per se: They're intended to provide a uniform appearance so everyone looks the same. You may end up being better off padding out the interior a bit with strips of foam (not a solid sheet, as you don't want to trap all that air!) so the armor is more spaced off your body but stays a uniform size compared to the trooper next to you. "Skinny Trooper" does NOT look right in a lineup. Padding on the inside, OTOH, is invisible to the viewer.

The larger shim in the back should provide more than enough surface area to shoulder the largest tension. Depending on how wide it is, it can actually offer MORE bonding surface area than the cover strip offers. The cover strip is really merely decorative, at that point.

What material is your shim? Is it ABS? Method 1 is much more structurally sound. You're correct that it'll be more work to clean it all up, but people have definitely done that much and far more. Method 2 might work, but honestly just seems wonky to me. Hard to envision how it'll look, or if the ramp will be visible, really. And that's actually going to require a lot more ABS paste, and be quite tricky to get perfect. Method 1 is much simpler in that regard. I ask about the shim material, because if it's not ABS, the ABS paste (and E6000 for that matter) may not adhere as well. Some plastics are quite resistant to adhesives, and some are not affected by acetone, which is how the ABS paste melts and fuses onto the existing plastic. But if it's a compatible plastic, I'd lean towards Method 1. It's a stronger connection, and because the cover strip will run right down the middle, you have a lot less surface area to cover with paste. Covering large areas with paste gets dicey.

ABS paste lends zero strength. It's quite weak, structurally. The shims, as he has constructed them, are definitely more than strong enough, once it's all glued together. I'm all for interior cover strips. Although the shim, in this particular joint, essentially becomes an interior cover strip, so no need for that with this piece.

Agreed... no need to ABS paste that if it's entirely covered. Nice how that worked out, too, because there won't be any extra work sanding and polishing!

Following along. Looking good so far, James!

One thing to note: The 7/8" magnets are fantastic, but they're too big to fit into narrower areas such as the forearms. So it might not be a bad idea to get some smaller ones, as well, specifically for those smaller parts.

I can't quite tell what's going on there. Maybe take another photo, and make sure it's in focus? (you may be too close for the camera to focus... pull back, and crop the photo instead of trying to get so close) But yes, normally you can fill a hole with it. You need something behind it, however, at least while it's drying. Note the warning, though: It's not as strong as the original plastic. Especially completely unsupported.

I look forward to seeing this come together!

*sigh*

Apparently not, because I forgot a couple and just added them to the in-progress list, LOL! TFA/TLJ First Order Lieutenant/Captain Heavy Weapons Trooper Brother from another mother!

Hmm, let's see. Approved: 501st: ANH-Stunt Stormtrooper Heavy Weapons Trooper Imperial Staff Officer Imperial Warrant Officer Bridge Crew TIE Reserve Rebel Legion: ANH Han Solo ESB Han Solo Jedi Knight Rebel Fleet Trooper X-Wing Pilot (OT) Willrow Hood Rogue One Rebel SpecForces Trooper (aka Scarif Marine) Endor Rebel Trooper Rebel Captain (Star Wars Miniatures Game version) Non-SW: Malcom Reynolds Jack Harkness In process: (not yet approved, obviously) OT TIE Pilot Director Krennic OT Imperial Gunner Hoth Rebel Hangar Trooper Rogue One generic signals intelligence technician Rogue One Intelligence Officer (Generic Operations Officer) (Generic Cassian Andor) TLJ Resistance Trooper TLJ Poe Dameron TFA/TLJ Resistance X-Wing Pilot (still deciding which variant) TFA/TLJ First Order Lieutenant/Captain and, and...

This is amazing! I'm blown away by the amount of detail, time and effort you've put into this. The results are outstanding! And I agree, considering how fast kids grow, I hope you're ready with v.2.0 for when he outgrows this one, very soon! LOL