EmlanThane

Before I move forward on the thighs, I want to confirm that this shape at the bottom of the thigh is normal- some people seem to have a straighter bottom ridge and I’m not sure if mine is V shaped because of the mold/maker or because of something I’m doing wrong?

I almost didn't do this tonight because I was so nervous, but I think I did okay (I am of course open to suggestions)! originally I was going to buy a pair of shorty thighs from WTF, but apparently there was the risk of them being a different shade of white, so I decided just to dive in and trim the ones I have. Be brave! First of all, a pic of the better-fitting gloves. Even though they ripped at the bottom , a new pair is on it's way! They will get here soon and then I'll install the hand guards. Even though the rip isn't visible I'd rather start with a fresh unripped pair of gloves. Time to assess the need for shimming the thighs again, wearing the proper under clothes! Yep, looks like a small shim will be needed for the thighs to slide on in a comfier way. As you can see, the thigh dips wayyyyy below my knee (and in the front they were jabbing up really high). I cannot walk! It was time to trim the thighs height-wise. Following the guide lines I drew above earlier, I marked on the thigh where I needed to cut it in order to have the bottom of the thigh sit just above my knee (and be able to bend it slightly- I knew I could cut out part of the back later once everything is glued, I believe these are called "mobility cuts"). I then drew the curves with a pencil along which I cut with my plastic cutting scissors. Here's a trimmed thigh versus an untrimmed thigh (height-wise). I measured the new height in the front and back of the shorter thigh and applied that to the untrimmed thigh to make sure the height on both was relatively equal. It will be impossible to tell for certain how things line up until I can get both on my body, but pure measurement of both says they're relatively equal. You can see height-wise they fit much better now. A little room in the knee. It's still hard to walk but that's where the mobility cuts will come in, and at least this time I can bend my leg at all to begin with! The way I'm holding it might make the thigh look a little too high up but I'm pretty confident I didn't overtrim- it still feels pretty long but I don't want to make any more cuts until I know how it will meet up with the cod and posterior. For now, I am pleased, and surprised that I could do it!

Hello!! I will need to make new return edges on some pieces of my armor, and decided to go the route of the heat sealing iron instead of the heat gun. Some hobby heat sealing irons come with only two temperature settings, while others come with a dial-able completely controllable, scalable temperature. Obviously the ones with only two or three temperature settings are way way cheaper, but can they be safely used without damaging the plastic? I am asking for advice or recommendations regarding the lowest budget heat sealing irons that can be safely used on the armor. Thank you!

For hobby heat sealing irons, can it be one of the less expensive two-temperature ones, or should it be one with a completely adjustable temperature (the more expensive kind)? I have no clue and I can’t seem to find this info here yet, as in if return edges can be made using heat sealing irons that only have limited temperature settings and not a temperature scale. Also my gloves came in! They fit, but immediately ripped at the wrists. They were cheap so I ordered two more pairs and plan on reinforcing the bottoms of them with duct tape before putting them on next time they arrive.

Thank you TkSpartan! A little bit at a time. Also remember how I overtrimmed the rubber S-trim at the bottom of the helmet? My new one from trooperbay came in and it is MUCH smaller than the one from WTF. It's not my favorite, I think I liked it thicker, it hid the bottoms of the ears better that way, but this replacement will have to do for now. Didn't overtrim this time!

Today I trimmed some of the last of the body armor- the THIGHS! All I have left to trim is the ab buttons, rivet covers on the belt, ammo pack on the thigh, sniper knee, shoulder straps. Just the little things. But I trimmed the thighs today, comparison pics between trimmed and untrimmed: I removed all return edge from the top, but that was just for preliminary fitting, as I will also be cutting off the tops to trim the thighs height wise. I left some minimal return edge on the bottom (rough cut shown above) which was later refined with the dremel. Here is where I THINK I need to cut to shorten the thighs. How's this? This is based off some research I did. From my understanding I do not want to touch or cut the more vertical scoop portion of the thighs, and just lessen the severity of the curve on the top, and cut out from the backs. I plan on doing a true fitting with my black leggings that I will be wearing under the armor, but I did a preliminary fit just to guesstimate how much work I will need to do: and yes, I will have to shim the thighs. But it wasn't as bad a gap as I thought it would be! And that's with thick sweatpants on, so when I do the proper fitting for width and height, there will probably be an even thinner shim.

Also a forearm update.... Gluing the left forearm's back inner cover strip took A LOT of force to get the rounded half to lay flat. This warped the armor, making the wrist opening wonky and weird. So.... a hot water bath will be needed! I am waiting until I need a lot of things heat-molded so I can do it all in one batch. I am frustrated but know this is a natural part of the process. I applied force to get an area to lie flat- what did I /think/ was going to happen?! Right now the wonky left armor is a snug fit because of how oval-shaped it is, but I still plan on gluing the outer coverstrip for reinforcement to take some pressure off of the joint before I start using hot water to remold it back into the right position. I am looking for good instructions on hot water baths. From what I understand, I am supposed to dip the piece of armor in boiling(?) water for X amount of time based on some plastic I test with, then mold with heat-protective gloves. It sounds straightforward but I wonder if there's any extra tips to know. Lastly, I am considering using a heat sealing iron instead of a heat gun to make return edges on the kidney and posterior and so on. It might feel a bit more controlled and safe for a newbie. Is that a bad idea?

Thank you for the helpful tips! I will keep them in mind when using heat to reshape the arms or gluing going forward. One of the things that stopped me from continuing my progress four years ago was the shins.... they scared me so much. That meant it was time to tackle them now. Measuring a 10-11mm-wide flat ridge from 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the bottom of the shin I used a ruler to draw a line connecting these points so that I had a straight guideline. If each shin half front is trimmed to 10-11 mm, this will allow for the needed 20mm-wide cover strip in the front. As you can see, even with it cut to appropriate measurements, there's a bit of plastic sticking out that will need to be heated up and poked back inward so that the upper ridge lies flat. All four of the shin halves look about the same so I didn't bother to take pictures of every single one. I think I did okay with the straight edges but I will have to go back and make some feint angled cuts to get the tops and bottoms of the halves to come together more smoothly. Right now it requires a bit of force or leaves some gaps, because the armor curves naturally. The dremel and the ruler are my friends for making these adjustments.... I also have to do that for the biceps. I just want to confirm the shin half pairs before making adjustments for them to fit each other (see below). For the back of each shin half, I cut as little as possible. I think I can avoid shimming if I leave all of the excess plastic. And parts that are folded funny from being at the edge of the mold I plan on bending with heat to fold back into place, or simply cutting off the bottom of the shin (which I will 100% have to do for my height. However, I am going to wait to trim the shins height-wise and width-wise until I have my boots in about a month. It seems not smart to start trimming without the boots). The red circles in the above photo show little bumps in the plastic that are a consequence of under-trimming the back. The bottom plastic spike will be cut off when I trim the bottoms once my boots arrive, and the top will be easily fixable with heat. Matching shin halves was the tricky part. I think I finally got it.... But I cannot tell which is which leg! Send help! I've stared at countless shin photos and it is so hard to tell. Is there a specific curve to look for? Moreover, one shin halve sticks out among them all. I believe the longest shin half is the left outer shin half (as once confirmed when I messaged Walt himself from Walt's Trooper Factory, and shown previously on this thread). Therefore in the photo above, where I show the four shin halves together, the shin pair on the left is the left leg, and the shin pair on the right is the right leg. Would that be correct? You can also see below how what is believed to be the left outer shin half sticks out far below the left inner (or even the right inner, which I tried fitting as well).

One small victory today....a completed forearm. It is much more fitted to my arm than it originally was before I trimmed and glued it. I am very proud of it. It is a small accomplishment, but an accomplishment nonetheless. Today was otherwise mostly a research day, and tomorrow I have some plans. It's always good to have some plans even if I don't get all of them done. It's certainly better than going in with no plan at all. My only concern is that the outer cover strip does not lie perfectly flush with part of one of the forearm halves- the half that is rounded and lacks a flattened ridge: It really isn't noticeable unless I point it out, but I'm a perfectionist (that makes this project a mental strain sometimes). I couldn't get it to stay flat while gluing. Perhaps there is another way to remedy it. That's it for tonight, but lots more to come soon!

Thank you for all of the words of encouragement. They really keep me going. I'm in a bit of a research phase right now...looking at how the bracket system is going to work, how to expand the torso and legs for wider troopers, and so on. Looking for a good heat gun with adjustable temperatures and more than just two settings ("hot" and "lava") is expensive. I also have seen some debate surrounding this diagram (Credit to Kman)- is it accurate? I want to make sure before I follow the image to help shim my kidney piece. Excited because I've almost completed one forearm- I feel unreasonably accomplished for getting a piece of the body armor to fit me. Soon I'll be onto the second! My first piece of the body armor done! Baby steps! My other question is- I have thick calves and thighs. I understand I can shim the backs of the thighs- does this mean cutting off the flat ridge of the thighs and replacing it with a heat-rounded piece of plastic and putting a cover strip down the middle to give the allusion of two halves joined together? Does that make sense? I can draw a picture if needed. But then there is a gap between the bottom ridges of the thigh... I have seen a few ways people have shimmed thighs but I'm not sure where to cut, or how to round the shim to fit the thigh. The same goes for the calves- I'd wanna keep the measurements in the front pretty standard, that's for sure.

Took things slow today. Just glued a cover strip, but I know there will be slow days and there will be busy days. Today happened to be a slow day but I'm learning that that's okay- if I tried to build it overnight, I'd get intensely burnt out. I'm also ordering the heat gun to make the return edges on the posterior and kidney, because the sooner I can do that the sooner I can fit the entirety of the torso.

Thank you for your words of comfort and encouragement- they make me feel a bit better. I am very happy with how things are progressing so far, but I think I have to be done for tonight and do a bit more research before I proceed.

Alright, made a little bit of progress. First off, I glued the inner cover strip to the other side of the right forearm to close the circle/oval(?). It took a lot of persuasion and by persuasion I mean magnets, tape and clamps and several attempts to hold it all together. I am hoping this is one of those things that get easier as I do it more. I had also cut one half of the forearm a bit angled to taper at the wrist and fit the opening closer to the diameter of my arm. I also trimmed the belt, leaving 5 mm above and below the main blocks and 1.5 inches excess on each side of the belt, with 1/2 inch cut outs at 45 degrees to angle the corners. This was all following this useful graphic made by another trooper here. I tried the score and snap method but had to resort to scissors- I couldn't keep the ruler (against which I was scoring) still, and the scoring wasn't in the same place every time. Given I know this takes progress, but I felt way more comfortable going slowly with scissors. The result wasn't perfect either, and that frustrates me. I am having such a hard time making a straight edge. I am short on clamps even though my magnets came in, so gluing still might be slow. I also have a lot of nervousness and fear surrounding tackling this project and it often requires a big mental hurdle to get over it and continue working. I try my best!

Put the finishing touches on the helmet- haven’t secured the padding yet because I’m not sure I’m going to keep it but MAN is it hard to see out of this thing. As you can see I overtrimmed the rubber (I had clipped it without realizing it wasn’t against the helmet all the way) so I am sad about that and impatient for the new one to arrive. My plan for tomorrow is to get back to gluing the arms and maybe trimming the remainder of the kit. Slowish but steady progress. Also continuing to find reference pictures for the rank stripe on the ear, because I’m not quite sure where on the ear it needs to go. I know that’s not a requirement for basic, but just something I gotta keep in mind.

One last note on things not fitting quite right today- when I bend the rubber s trim in the direction it needs to go in order for the right side to be facing the helmet, these little bumps form (even when I don’t bend it so extremely). Am I doing it right? Whereas when I flip it the other way, it fits just fine going in a circle no problem ... (also check my eye lens done being installed) Update: I ended up overtrimming the rubber trim anyway, so I’m upset. I already ordered a new one. I’m assuming there’s no way to remedy an overtrimmed brow... glue seems like an unstable solution.

My undershirt got here today. As I suspected, it is very loose around my arms but very tight around my torso... I am a strange shaped person... is the slight bagginess on the arm anything to worry about, especially when the vast majority of it will be covered by armor?

Thank you for the awesome advice! My first step is to look into setting up a rig like the one pictured above. And also acquiring a heat gun [emoji23]

That came out excellently! I am not sure I have wood like that so I might have to go shopping at the hardware store, or get a bit creative. Thank you thank you for your help!

So when you say curvy jig.... what sort of setup will I need? Because I'm using brackets so I have no choice but to make a new return edge on the kidney/posterior.

Thank you! Now I just purchased the 30mil gloves recommended above by PhilBobTheFish. I wonder if they could double as protective (if I use them before glueing the hand guards to them)... Otherwise I'll have to get a second pair!

Mainly to form new return edges on the bottom of the kidney and the top of the posterior- is this something that can be done with hot water? I assumed it would need the strength and precision of a heat gun. Are there alternatives? I would love to hear!

Alas, they say “not heat resistant...” guess I’ll have to look elsewhere!

So the medium chemical gloves I just purchased and showed above- will those protect me? Or are they not heavy enough (I get if it’s hard to tell...)? I have cloth work gloves already so those should be fine for heat gun.

Thanks for the glove recs! I’ll definitely look into both of these! While we are on the topic of glove recommendations, what am I supposed to wear on my hands when using a hot water bath or a heat gun to mold plastic?

I tried ordering gloves online but I could only find as small as a medium..... I’m frustrated because they look so big still!!! I’ll have to find a small SOMEWHERE but it’s so difficult!! If anyone can help me find SMALL gloves for my little baby hands I would be so appreciative because I’m a little angry right now that even the mediums seem to big and wrinkly for my hands. I also am about to order boots and a blaster from Imperial Warfighters, and thats the last of the soft parts I need too which is very exciting. Would something like these work? These say small....