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jonhaag

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Everything posted by jonhaag

  1. Been a few days since I've had a chance to work on my kit, but I knocked out a few things tonight. First up though, is a note about my attempts to use a water bath to reshape the ABS I was using to shim my biceps... It was an abject failure. I must not have had the temperature high enough or else this ABS just doesn't like being molded. I couldn't get it in achieve any sort of curve to better fit my bicep. So I just went ahead and glued the front cover strips to my biceps. I'm going forward with my plan to keep the fronts of the armor "stock" and use the standard cover strip sizes, with any additional space purely being added to the back. Left bicep after front cover strip install: It's got more of an oblong/rectangular shape currently with my tape in 40mm shims. Right bicep glued and waiting to cure overnight: Based on how the left bicep and right thigh turned out, I think it will be a good idea for me to add inner cover strips to provide extra strength for any bending or flexing that will happen at the front due to all of the shimming in the rear. Speaking of thighs... Prior to trimming down to fit the cover strips: Measuring out 10mm from the return edge on each side: Oops: Assembled halves: I forgot to grab some shots of the left thigh that I did a few days ago (will do that in a later post), but that one came together much easier/better than the left thigh. Not super happy with the separation I'm getting, but most of that should be hidden by the sniper plate I'm hoping: I'll definitely need to do some cleanup on both ends of this thigh. Next two agenda items: install shims in backs of both biceps & get the wifey to help me test fit the thighs to measure out the size of the needed shims.
  2. Time for another update on the build process. I started out by measuring out 70mm shim pieces for biceps. 20mm to adhere to the inside of the bicep initially and the rest to play with how much of the shim to expose to get the best fit. The sheet of ABS I ordered off Amazon is thicker than the armor - it's more like the thickness of the ANOVOS cover strips. I got a 24" x 48" sheet, so I'll probably use some of it to make inner cover strips down the road. The thickness does mean that I will probably need a heat gun or water bath to a bit of curvature to my shims though. Here's the shims attached on the first side: Next on tonight's agenda: I apparently never got around to trimming the shoulder bells. After a quick test fit, I removed the return edges. I also can already tell that I'm going to need to flare out the bells, as they feel snug right now. Last task for the night was prepping the front of my right thigh and applying the cover strip. I forgot to snap a pic, but I measured 10mm from each ridge on both sides and trimmed it down so there isn't any real ridge exposed from under the cover strip. I got the two sides pretty well synced up me thinks. I want to try to keep as much of the front of my armor looking normal and do all of the shimming in the rear. I'm going to knock out the front of the other thigh and then the calves next (plus finishing up the biceps). Once I do those, I'll start measuring and figuring out the logistics of my leg shims.
  3. Taking pictures in the bathroom mirror is a quick way to realize how messy your little one's fingers are after he messed with it... Didn't have much time tonight, but I played with some tape "shims" on the biceps to try to find out how big I'm going to need them to be on the left side (the tighter side, just like with the forearm). Aside from needing to smooth the upper edges so they don't cut into me as much, I feel relatively okay with this sizing. I can get away with a 10mm gap with an inner cover strip to be covered by a 15mm strip on the front side: The problem comes when I get to the backside... I need at least 30mm extra back there to make things feel comfortable-ish and to be able to get the bicep pulled up my arm to a reasonable height: I'm thinking I'll do the method I already posted above to give some space up front, but I'm thinking I'll be adding a big shim to one side in the back and making the exposed edge of that the new place I'll join to the other side with the cover strip. I guess this will give me practice for the bigger shims to come.
  4. Near boiling and how long? I'm seeing 5-10 minutes but that seems long.
  5. And now for a new question from the shots I took last night of the glued together forearms. Due to the general shape of the forearms being a bit of an oval, I've got some pinching/tightness in the left forearm: If I squeeze the top and bottom (opposite from where the cover strips are) slightly I can make the forearm a bit rounder and it sits/fits me better. Is there a way to permanently reshape that without having to completely disassemble the two halves? Aside from that issue and some edge & glue cleanup, I'm happy with my first two assembled pieces:
  6. I stole that shot from the linked thread, but that's what I'll be building tonight. We'll see how it goes!
  7. Something along the lines of this technique for the biceps? http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/31170-expanding-biceps/page-1#entry401193 And then I'll add the appropriate sized cover strip over top (15 or 20mm if needed), right? And don't worry, E6000 is the only adhesive being used in my build. I made sure to do my research on that part.
  8. 2nd night's progress update aka forearms part 2: Turned out ok, but the cover strip is pulling up slightly on one side of each one. Seems pretty secure, though I do need to clean up some dried E6000 that seeped out. Also need to trim up the overlap a bit: Thankfully the shape of the inner portion of the forearms didn't prevent me from using clamps on either end, but I did notice some slight lift in the middle: Used my bright work lamp to check how the strip lined up from below. Could be better, but I think it'll be ok: Up next are the biceps, which as I said up above will need shimming. I only need to add maybe an inch to make it comfy - can I just add a big cover strip in the back? Or will I need to bust out the ABS paste to blend a seam to make it approvable?
  9. Definitely making sure to make things fit yours truly, not taking Tony's cuts/sizing as gospel. I know I'll need shims for biceps, calves, thighs, and some on the kidney. My plan is to not make them super-permanent, and to eventually reduce their size a good bit as I make progress.
  10. Hello all! Almost exactly a year after I ordered my kit (wife and I saw the prototype in person at ANOVOS' booth at Celebration Anaheim and she told me if this was ever something I would want to do, $350 was a price that could not be passed up - so hooray for wife approval!), I'm finally starting into my build proper. I've been trimming and such over the past month or so and attended my first armor party with my local garrison, Tyranus, about 2 weeks ago to get finish up trimming and get some fit/shimming advice from the likes of tkrestonva. I'm on the shorter side (5'7") and the wider side (~280, but actively working on lowering that number as I plan to run next year's Star Wars half marathon @ WDW, plus a bunch of 5Ks and 10Ks in between now and then), so I know I'll be doing some trimming and shimming to make things fit right. I've already removed the return edges off most of the extremities during rough fits, and that did help things feel better. We'll see how much more trimming and adjustment will come as I get this kit assembled for real. Working full time, going to school, and having a wife and kiddo to spend time with does not lend a ton of time to work on my kit. Thankfully, I've got about a 4 week window now between the end of spring semester and the start of summer, so I'm going to try to knock out as much assembly as possible while I've got some extra time. Probably unattainable goal? Finish by the end of May in time for the local AAA baseball team's SW night. Likely goal? Finish by early July, just in time for my birthday. Worst case goal? Finish by October, in time for Air & Scare up near DC So enough about me, and onto the build... I'm basically going to follow Tony/ukwrath's guide, so I started with assembling the forearms tonight: Assembling the front of the right forearm was relatively easy. Honestly, the tough time I had was getting all of my magnets apart so I can stick them on the cover strip. Front of the left forearm was a little more difficult. You'll note my not-so-straight cut lines (I used lexan scissors rather than score & snap). Also, note I didn't peel back the plastic wrapping at first...oops. After realizing my plastic covering error and reapply E6000, I got the cover strip in place. Unfortunately, the shape of the left forearm is just ever-too-narrow to allow the the clamp I bought to sit at the bottom end of the forearm, so I did doubled up magnets to keep the end of the cover strip in place. I'm hoping that'll work. I also had more separation on this side than on the right, so I added a strip of tape over over top of the cover strip to hopefully keep it pulled together. That used up all of my available magnets, so I'll let these two strips cure overnight and hopefully glue down the other sides tomorrow night. Looking at these up close shots, I'm reminded that I still need to sand down the edges of the armor, but I think it'll be best if I save that for towards the end once I start doing final fit checks and determine if I need to shorten any of these pieces (like the forearms could possibly lose just a tiny bit of length I think).
  11. Please do post it if you don't mind. This thread is my go to as I finally start my assembly process.
  12. Thanks for the pics and good job on those shims! I'll need to something similar for my armor, so this is really helpful.
  13. We're about the same size, so definitely will be following along for your adventure in building. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
  14. That looks like a huge step up over the default helmet setup. Do you have both fans and speakers in there or am I seeing things?
  15. Same here. We'll see if it actually ships or if they only created the label in anticipation of that late Tier 1 wave showing up at some point at their distribution center. I'm cautiously optimistic.
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