Anzo

Most helpful thank you!

Thank you for the paint tutorial! I hope to paint the black yoke area and shoulder bells soon. Where did you buy the Montana Gold paint? I live over an hour away from any Home Depot, Michael's, Hobby Lobby's etc so would like to not have to do a ton of searching next time I'm near civilization. I see it on Amazon as a last resort but think I could probably find it cheaper elsewhere.

Welcome, good luck on your build and I'll give this thread a follow to help you out in any way that I can.

Hand Plates: The Imperial Boots gloves include velcro on the top of the gloves so I just needed to adhere some velcro on the inside of the plates. GG EZ Knee Plates: Borrowing from Ruthar and Ukswrath I installed the knee plates in like manner.

Thigh Supports: When I purchased gaskets from Geeky Pink, I also commissioned her to make a vest to which many pieces could be secured. Included in this vest was a waist belt and some extra 2 inch nylon strips to hold up the thighs. After aligning those extra strips to hang down off the waist belt where I wanted them, I marked with a line where I wanted the top of the thigh pieces to sit. After that I measured and marked holes on the corresponding snap plates. The exact measurements aren't important, you just need to be consistent. For example, if the top line is the top edge of the thigh, then you can place the top of the snap plate at the inside top edge of the thigh. And if you mark the holes at 10 mm and 20 mm (just examples) then do the same on the matching piece. Front Back "WHOA WHOA WHOA ANZO!" you say as you look at the whole vest. Why are there 2 sharpie lines on the thigh holders now? Good question you super slueth. This is a good opportunity to highlight the mantra "measure twice, cut once." Or in this case, glue once! After I did the steps I described above, I had this nagging feeling that I should check fitment again just to be sure. Sure enough, when I put the vest on again, I was able to slide the thighs up ever so higher. I can't account for why, I must have marked wrong or something the first time. In any case, the top lines represent the true height at which the thighs should sit. No problem! since I knew the line represented the top thigh edge, I measured the difference between the lines and moved the snap plate down by that much. So in my case it ended up looking like this once glued.

Shoulder Bells to Yoke: I followed Ruthar's method for securing the bells to the yoke, with the help of ukswrath's support struts. A very worthy investment to reinforce that piece! I shaped the struts to match the contour of the yoke as best I could and glued them in with devcon glue.

Spats Pt 3: I glued the painted greeblie to the spats and lined up the proper placement of the accompanying snap on the greeblie for proper closure. I used the Devcon glue for the male snap. After test fitting the spats around the base of the shin, they slid below the shin a little too easily after walking around so I applied some velcro on the front of the shin to hold them in place better.

Strapping and Other Miscellaneous stuff: First things first, I really marathoned the strapping section of my build and did not take a ton of pictures. My apologies for that. Secondly, I am going to be linking to other build threads for a lot of the steps because they deserve the credit and no point in typing the same info imo. I will add any differences or insights as I go along. With those caveats in mind here we go! Gaffers Tape: Gaffer's Tape goes behind the shin ankle holes, Bicep twin holes, Chest pill holes and mid-chest indent. I purchased 1" Gaffer's tape from Amazon and layered 2 strips over each other to create a backing, then sufficient frontward facing tape like so: I then applied it to the respective areas. Lengths varied (the chest hole was larger than the above while the biceps were smaller) but that is the general method. Additionally, I also applied a layer of mesh fabric over the pill holes for accuracy. This can be purchased by Ukswratch as part of this package or perhaps you can have him add on a swath for a few dollars extra to another order you are doing with him if you already have Gaffer's tape. This mesh is only for accuracy and not required for any approval level.

Strongly considering this one since I missed Orlando. I've never been to Chicago and while it is unfortunate that it isn't near a Disney park this time around, I wouldn't want to try to navigate Star Wars Land with thousands of rabid Star Wars fans anyway.

So much to post and so little time. I've been plugging along with strapping and plan to provide details of all of that soon. In the meantime however I have a troop next weekend that I'm cramming to finish this by so you only get a couple of teaser photos from my test fitting earlier today. Upper half is mostly done and I'm working on the bottom half now. The little Yoke discrepancy has already been corrected. See you folks on the other side!

Having almost completed my KB kit, I don't see how you can build it without painting it, particularly the yoke, forearms and TD. KB has changed how the forearms are assembled so you likely won't need to paint those anymore but his yoke is still 3 separate pieces and the TD's going forward were going to be solid resin and non-white. I wondered the same thing as you when I was researching kits. I reached out to another member who had built one and he told me that if I had to paint that I was doing it wrong. Guess I did it wrong! I'm still very happy with how it turned out after painting though. As for the color matching and stuff to Anovos helmets, the white was fine imo but I noticed a number of small discolorations or dark spots on my pulls. That depends entirely on the ABS he pulls for ya. Sometimes you get a kit and the pieces are all black, in which case painting is definitely required. See my and Ruthar's build threads for some pictures of how black and white ABS looks. I'll be posting some pictures of my painted and completed armor in the next few days. Hope that helps.

I really don't know where the truth resides in this whole mess nor is it my responsibility to find out. I do know that you have laid out a lot of personal stuff in that post about KB that does not belong on this forum in my opinion. It is completely inappropriate to throw all this info out into the court of public opinion. Just as it was inappropriate for KB to character assassinate you on FB. I say go settle it elsewhere.

Long over due update: Painting happened! I received these photos from my buddy today. They still need to cure for a few days so I will pick up the pieces on Sunday or so. Then onto greeblie gluing and strapping!

I think it is the former. Filler areas cracking under the stress. I just followed the example of others. Perhaps @ukswrath or @gmrhodes13 can comment more specifically on the "why".

Following! Regarding your question on glue. I would say that e-6000 is probably okay on all of the limbs since you will likely be resizing them a few times in your situation. Once you have the right fit though, perhaps you could undo the E6000 one last time and use something more permanent (and faster curing time) if you like. I probably wouldn't go that route as a final solution on the high flex points in the chest, yoke and ab/kidney. You certainly can until you have a sure sizing, then use the Devcon or Weld-On as demonstrated in other threads. As you have probably read, once Devcon or Weld-on are set you can't get them apart without significant damage to the plastic. Just my 2 cents.

Following as well. Not sure how I feel about the clear plastic. Just seems foreign to me lol. Hope it works out well for you all.

The stars have aligned such that painting will happen over the next week or so. Time to tell the tale of an awesome dude. As I was debating on whether or not to pro-paint the armor, I'm at lunch eating with some co-workers. One co-worker's husband is a police officer and joins us on occasion. They have lived here longer than I have so I asked them about reputable body shops in our small town. He gives some suggestions and asks what I'm doing. I explain the armor build and a bit of what the 501st is all about, He suggests I name drop him at one place in particular and they would give a discount. As we are wrapping up, he then stops and says, "You know, I have all the guns and gear in my own home shop, I could do that for you for the cost of supplies. It'll be really easy." Turns out he does automobile restorations on the side. So I'm gave him the paint code that Tony supplied in his thread and we decided to move forward with it. I'm beside myself with gratitude for his generosity. That exchange was 2 months ago now. I've detailed delays on my end and he's had some stuff come up as well. In any case this isn't a race. I dropped off the armor pieces at his house last night. Before doing that however, I sanded down all of the pieces with a light sanding of 320 grit paper, then another round of 400 grit. So now the waiting game begins until I move on to strapping. No rush on my end as I'll have my hands full with a new baby for the next few weeks.

Yes! A big big thank you to lucnak for sending me his spare chest greeblies from his KB FO Tie build. Troopers helping troopers.

Paint Prep: I snagged some scrap wood planks from a contractor friend of mine and mounted the greeblies, ab boxes, knee plates, belt boxes and hand guards. I also sanded down the helmet so that the paint matches head to toe. Thankfully the nose bridge of the helmet is slightly elevated so I was able to wedge in tap under that to get clean lines. I also used an exacto knife on the neckline features. You may be wondering about the tape stuffed in the vents. Wellllll, long before I switched to KB's kit, I had the Anovos kit on order, thought its arrival was soonish had already installed Tony's FOTK audio kit. I gave one corner a tug to see how easily the foam backing might dislodge and...nothing doing. So that is to hopefully protect the speakers from the paint. Fingers crossed or else Tony might get another sale as a result! Finally, I taped off and covered with plastic grocery bags the black portion of the Executioner Yoke as that will be painted later.

Thigh Holster: KB came through and delivered the holster rail yesterday! Time to get down to business. I trimmed the rail down to about a 1/2" on the front facing side and slightly longer on the rear facing side to account for the slight curvature of the leg. I had marked where the greeblie will go previously but I double checked the distance. Mine was 44 mm from top edge to the marked line. Others have said 2 inches down from the top but it just looked a little low for my liking. 44 mm is just about 1 3/4". Somebody correct me if I'm wrong about that but I think as long as you are in that ball park you are good to go. All that to say that I measured down 44 mm from the greeblie demarcation to install the rail as well. I then applied some devcon glue to the edges and affixed the rail to the thigh. I opted for the devcon glue because A) It could be applied to a smaller ledge more easily than the Weld-On and B ) I had a good amount left over still, might as well use it! It should sit as close to the seam as possible, without covering it. KB provided a 3D printed holster with the kit and I'm content to use that since I'm not aiming for a functional holster. I cleaned it up a bit, applied more devcon and affixed it to the rail.

It's an Anovos miracle!

I voted and went ahead and voted for the FOTK variants I'm working on since the end is in sight. Hope that doesn't mess with your data.

The cover strips on the rear biceps and forearms appear to be larger than the 15mm I'm used to seeing and they don't cover the raised edges. The front cover strips on those pieces look fine imo. I don't think that is a requirement for approval but it does hurt the accuracy of the armor if that is important to you.

Spats Pt 2: Accuracy and Snaps More paint prep, this time with the Spats. They are tricky to line up and in doing so you will get little "fangs" that hang down at the connecting points. I forgot to take a decent picture highlighting this but you can see it on the right spat here. It is more pronounced at the clasping end as well. Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong here, but this is NOT necessary for approval, but it does give the spat a cleaner look. This method is highlighted in great detail in Ukswrath's thread. Since I essentially followed that tutorial I'll just refer you there. It can be tricky to glue the connections down in preparation to sand the fangs but keep at it due to the wonkiness of the pieces. Be sure to glue them down with E6000 and NOT anything more permanent! You'll want to eventually separate this connection. Post Fang Removal: I also installed the female snaps in each spat per Tony's method described in the linked post above, who in turn borrowed it from Clint's build. I don't know who Clint is but thank you good sir. Does this make me your spat grandson? Spats are ready for painting.

Seam Filling - Yokes: To fill the seams/gaps of the TK and Executioner yoke, I opted to use the same materials and process as outlined in Ukswrath's build thread. Using Devcon Plastic Welder II, an epoxy gun and associated tips, I applied the glue into the gaps left from both yoke assemblies. After letting that cure for a few hours (I believe it sets much faster than that, I was just busy doing other things) I applied the DLF1 and used the same process as described in the above post. Before: After: