2x2

Had to take a long break and work on some other projects, but now I'm back at it and nearing completion - we've got a Star Wars themed birthday party coming up in just over a week, so I've got a hard deadline now! What's done: Chest, ab, cod, shoulder bells, biceps, forearms, back, kidney and butt plate, all fitted and strapped together, with the exception of the two shims I need to add to bridge the front and the back sides. Shins completed. Right thigh is mostly completed. After shimming the pack I have a bit of cosmetic surgery to do to make it look better, but that's on the low end of the list for now. Left thigh is in progress - this one's shape was pretty wonky and has needed some application of the heat gun to try and get it to line up better. Currently in the first stages of gluing together. Hand plates - for now we're just using elastic straps to hold them on the gloves, as I am planning to cast my own silicone ones in the future. Crappy temporary boots found and painted (crappily) - they are temporary until we find better, but they only cost me $7 Canadian bucks so they'll do for the party Still to do: Finish left thigh. Add the side shims. Sew and assemble the belt and drop boxes - Iv'e vac formed some back sides for the boxes, but not sure if I'm happy with them as they're a bit small, so may redo that. Also have to vac form the snap covers. Assemble the thermal detonator and make belt clips Sew a neck seal SO CLOSE!! He will be using his MR bucket, but I am not modifying it at this time - we're going for costume here, and that's something I really don't want to mess up!! He put on everything we have done so far last night, including the MR helmet, and my god, once that helmet went on it was so damn amazing!!! Even with all the little things I know are wrong with this kit, it still gave me chills seeing it almost complete! I'll try to get some pics up soon Mel

Arg. So, discovered I have made a mistake with the thighs - a good lesson for next time (should there be a next time)... Having fit the thighs and glued them together, we realized they needed to be trimmed because they were too long, so I trimmed off the top into a lovely shape, but neglected to take into account that the diameter of the thigh pieces at the tops would now be too narrow for the top of my husband's thighs, and I now have had to split them apart again and add shims to make them wide enough to fit properly Some damage occurred taking them apart, but it will be covered by the piece I add to widen the tops, so that's not too serious, and I realize that, to make the thighs the proper length, I would have had to shim them anyways, so no harm no foul there I guess... but it's a bit frustrating when you think you've already got something done and discover you've made a mistake and have to redo it. In the same vein, decided we also needed to trim the forearms, but that was a much simpler fix. Did get a lot done on the strapping this weekend though, front and back are together and ab plate to chest piece. Kidney is temporarily strapped to back plate, but still needs some trimming because the butt is too low, strap is in place from the cod to the butt... Still need to attache the shoulder bells and then the biceps to the bells, decide how we're hanging the legs, and make the belt and a neck seal, but getting closer!!

Thought I'd post some pics of my overall progress Going okay so far, it certainly can be tricky at times! Everything laid out so far: Got the thighs and the calves together, trimmed the thighs, attached the ammo belt and sniper knee plate. Cut the cod and attached with elastic and tabs to keep it from pulling backwards. Still need to tidy up the sides of the abs coming off the cod. Cut the butt plate from the kidney plate and trimmed down the kidney plate. Attached snaps and straps. There may yet be more trimming to the kidney's required. I decided that I will cut the notches out of the shim plates, since the butt and kidney plate lines up right now (and we need the full width) so we'll see how that turns out. Still may add a slight return edge - will make that decision after I experiment on some scraps to see how it goes Trimmed the neckline of the chest piece slightly and in progress of adding the shoulder ridges. Have added snaps inside for the shoulder straps. Trimmed the bottom edge on each side, but have not yet added a return edge (see caveat above). I have some snap buttons that are very nearly the perfect size for the ab plate - they might be closer to 8/16 rather than 7/16, but they're still better than the ones that came with the kit so I will likely use them. Gettin' there!

Ooh, that's a great reference pic! Thanks for that!

Sure, here's a couple. I have made a tick line in pencil (it's faint) on the kidney/butt plate where the bottom of the ab plate lines up. Right now it is about 1 and a half inches below the pre-existing line:

SO, I'm getting to the point where I need to cut the butt from the kidney plate... and I read somewhere (though now I kind find where of course) that I shouldn't cut on the line, that that is too high... so I'm looking for advice on where exactly I should be cutting it? What I was thinking was that I should line up the edges of the ab plate to the kidney plate and making sure they are even, and then cutting at that point... sound right?

Yeah, that's what we're doing. I've already spent enough just getting stuff together to actually assemble the armour, I don't have the money right now to buy new parts

LOL, I don't mind! It's still FX related, so it's all good !

I have a couple extra pieces, that were supposed to be for the belt I think, but we are going to have to shim this armour around the middle to fit my hubby without gaps, and because of that I don't think there's enough to do what your suggesting - I did consider it before I put them together, as my original plan had been to do that to all the pieces requiring cover strips, but considering the scope of the project has lessened due to my husband only wanting the suit as a costume and not for the 501st, I decided that I would just go with the basic overlap joints. I am considering this my practice kit for the day - should it ever come - that we buy a more accurate kit

One extra overlap on the back edge would have made all the difference!

I do have two pieces with overlaps on the front and back and two pieces with overlaps on just the front - but if you follow the instructions in one of Tony's (I think) posts that said the outside piece overlaps the inside piece, this is impossible in the back of the right calf because there is no overlap on the back of the right outside piece, only the left side has it. Both are identical, but I was able to overlap correctly on the front, but both of them have to overlap left over right at the back, just like in Marc's pic above.

Question to those who have built an FX suit before - The shins/calves, are they both the same? It seems that both of the outside pieces I have are left sided and both inside pieces are right sided, based on the overlapping edges that the left pieces have and the right pieces don't (at the back). Is this normal, or did I get two copies of the left leg?

Yep, using elastic between them. They have had a minor trim, but I still need to mod the bells before I put them together, so have to wait on that. Yeah, it seemed Tony's threads were the go to threads, so I started reading them Thanks Marc! Mel

Hey Danny! Thanks so much for all your comments! And that visual guide is awesome! I will check out your build link for sure! I have downgraded the project to some extent, as my husband (who I'm building the kit for) has decided that he probably isn't interested in trooping, but I'm still going to make it meet basic at the least, and maybe even EIB eventually, so will still be making most of the changes I'd planned on. But since he only wants it as a costume I figured I'd save myself a bit of the work. And I figure it's good practice for the day we buy more accurate armour, should that day come So for this build, I decided I am just going to use the overlap joints, since they will still pass. I am trimming the legs since I have to do that for them to fit him anyway, so trying to get the right look there, front and back. I have cut the cod using Darth Voorhees' mod and added the tabs to keep it from going past the armour once it's elastic-ed in. There is not enough room in the biceps to add the return edge without shimming them, so I won't have to do that. Still want to do a return edge on the bells and shape them better, they just bug me. I LIKE the idea of going HWT and dirtying up the suit, I really like the weathered look and love the pauldrons. Would have to make one of the big guns I guess ;D Not going to worry too much about changing the shape of things with heat gun - abs is a trickier beast than styrene I've discovered and I think it might be a lot more trouble than it's worth and could potentially end up messing things up, so I'm going to leave well enough alone. I trimmed the hand plates because they are MASSIVE, but I'm not at all happy with them, so I may just order some of the rubber/latex ones eventually. Still need to cut the butt from the kidney plate. I need to read up on that a little more to make sure I do the cut in the right place. Will have to look into a new pipe for the TD, didn't know about that. Was planning to make some rivet covers for the belt, thanks for the reminder! I'm really annoyed that the belt I got was trimmed short > so it's about .5 - .75 of an inch short on each end. Haven't decided what I'm going to do there... I may add some pieces to the end and fill the joint so it has the right length and look. I'm leaving that for now. Soft bits will be a slow process. For now we've got the black body suit and some gloves of the same material. I know I have some black chemical gloves in the basement, just need to check and see if they will be suitable or not. I will likely make my own neck seal, since I'm handy with a sewing machine (and my own canvas belt). Looking for boots - is it acceptable to wear painted ones? We don't have a lot of money to spare on what will mostly just be a costume for the hubby, so I'm hunting through thrift stores for the right kind of boots. This will likely be the hardest part to get. Holster should be easy enough to make, if I have the leather lying around, will have to check on that. I have a resin cast E11 blaster that I bought years and years ago as well, no idea what it's going to end up being like or if it'll even be suitable, but I'll worry about that after the suit build. Well, guess I'll stop talking your ear off now (LOL) and go check out your build! Thanks again! Mel

I was going off of ukswrath's thread here http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/31920-ukswraths-am-10-ata-bucket-build/page-5 in post 92 where he said the gap between the forearm and the bicep should be 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch Mel

Did some initial test fittings for the arms, taped them on my husband with a few other pieces. I gotta admit, even just seeing it on like this makes me giddy! lol Forearm and bicep lengths look pretty good to me so far, what do you think? And yes, he is a little short to be a stormtrooper

I'll never say never - because some day he could change his mind! - but yeah, I'll still have fun building it and accomplishing that I'm still excited to get to it!

I'm actually scaling back the mods I'm going to do on this one and am just going to do a basic build. He'd like it as a costume, but he has health issues that would actually make trooping difficult for him, so didn't want me to go to all the extra effort. Unfortunately the armour won't fit me,so I am doing a Tusken Raider for myself, but I think the TK build will be fun, and he'll have it for our friend's upcoming Star Wars themed party, so it's all good.

Yeah, I plan to take one of the pieces with me when I go to get some from the plastic store, for sure! Thanks! Mel

Yeah, I saw that, and there's also a place somewhat local to me that sells it too...

Well, a bit of a reality check, I guess. Had a discussion with the husband, and he said that I could go as authentic as I wanted to building this kit, but as far as he was concerned, this is just a costume to him, and he isn't likely to want to go trooping or join the 501st etc. as he has enough on his plate with the groups we already belong to... So, that, and cost considerations (because I don't really have any money to spare to put towards the kit) I am probably just going to go for a basic build after all, since the suit is for him and won't fit me anyway. I am a weird combination of sad and relieved...

Oh yeah, I know that the overlap joint is still allowed, I just wanted to make sure that if I modded things as above or similar with a cover strip, that nothing I was proposing to do would somehow violate any specifications.

So, question regarding changing the joins from overlapping to butt joined with a cover strip... My kit was pre trimmed so I don't have a lot of extra plastic lying around, but I have an idea to try and create the same sort of raised lip/return edge on the flat/bottom pieces of the foreamrs/biceps/thighs/shins using an iron, and then trimming the overlap edge 15 mm so that there is only a small edge remaining, and then using the cut strip on the outside, with a middle and inside strip glued on to get the right look and keep it strong. I've done up a quick diagram of what I'm trying (badly) to explain here: So my question is, if I make this modification, is there anything about it that will prevent the armour from meeting 501st requirements (and EIB)?? Would the joint be strong enough if I left out the middle and back strips (since I am really limited on my plastic - only have the belt pieces which will definitely be needed to shim between the kidney and abs)?? I really want to try and make the suit look the best I can - know that's limited, but this seems like a good step to me if it's allowed...(and providing I can create the correct lip/return edge) Any advice (other than get a new set of armour ) would be appreciated! Mel

Yeah, I know the FX will never make Centurion, and that's okay. I still want to try and make as many improvements to the armour as I can, just for my own satisfaction I am following your build!!! Mel

Hey Marc! Thanks for clarification on the forearms! I didn't think there was one, but always better to double check! Unfortunately I don't know that I have the funds to swap out my chest and ab plates :/ probably have to go with what I have for now - but in the future, which would you suggest? Do the suit makers sell single pieces? That could be helpful! Definitely want to do the butt joints, it looks so much better! The thumb print would just be fun ;D Thanks!! Mel