QuartZ

Good point, in order to keep the bra hooks secured in the holes I’m sure some tension is appropriate. I don’t know how much measured force is required, but my gut tells me more than I think is necessary right now. Plus, one of the alignment on the back of one calf at the upper edge is off by an inch vertically unless held/bent into alignment (which some painters tape across the seam line can hold - like 6 strips). Thanks, the left hand guard is going through initial sanding. I’ll probably post some info about my process later. I hear you on the risk of deforming other aspects of he shin shape. That’s why I’m looking for some more guidance on the hot water process which sounds much more uniform than a heat gun which I feel is pretty risky. I might start with progressively heating a large batch of water until most of the shin is warm, and then target the rear seam area is by using a shallow batch of boiling water in a pan and submerging just the backs of the shins... I’ll practice on some scraps to see if I can learn something before risking my armor. Any good threads or videos on the matter? PS I really appreciate all of your continued support (everyone). -Dana

I didn't get around to posting this a few days ago, but I got the shins all trimmed, fitted, and glued up in the fronts with cover strips. After reading up on everything I could related to the Anovos "Shingate" situation, I went with 24 & 27 as my Left: and 25 & 28 as my Right: Here's how they look after the fronts dried. I'm using a ton of blue painters tape across the rear seams to keep these closed for the photo (more on that below) I'm going with the bra hook and elastic closures in the rear. I still need to glue the rear cover strips to the "outer halves", and I was wondering if anyone thinks I should hot water bath these shins to help get the rear seams to close flush before I proceed. My shins have a gap/offset right now that is about an inch or more on either leg, I figure getting them to meet nicely in their resting state would be best as that should cause little stress on the elastic closures during normal wear. AND, I think it will help ensure that the rear cover strips lay nice against inner halves, eliminating any extra gap and concealing the bra hooks/holes drilled. Any thoughts? Oh and is there any actual tutorial for hot water baths? As I searched the forums I found very little actual useful instructions or imagery to help with what seems like a risky move with ABS armor. Help appreciated, -Dana

This post is coming from my Windows 10 PC I'm using Chrome 63.0.3239.132 So it seems like things are fine for me this morning. I was unable to post all weekend. -Dana

It just started working for me again and I changed nothing on my MacBook. I didn't clear any caches, history, nothing. I'm using Safari 11.0.3 I will go over to my desktop PC and try next. -Dana

This is probably going to come out of nowhere, as I haven't mentioned it until now, but over the last few weeks I've been quietly working on some new hand guard patterns in the background while I build the rest of my armor. These patterns are hard copies to make molds from and cast some white silicone copies. I've been working on the right hand just to figure everything out. The left hand is in the sanding phase. After a lot of work, I'm happy with how it came out. Here's some different angles of the right hand guard: This is my own interpretation of the hand guards seen in the film. I was using this particular stormtrooper as my target: Some notes on what I was going for: I took a screen shot from the film and traced it to get the proportions of the shapes/features as spot on as possible. The whole hand plate has a very subtle curve to it. It's still pretty flat feeling, but just not as much as if it had been created out of flat layers stacked on top of each other. I tried something a bit different to achieve the look of that pesky crease that transitions from the back of the hand toward the thumb taper. So, I gave mine a slight offset/step down at the crease that smoothly transitions into a slope that thins at the thumb edge. The thumb taper is a true slope/angle change. I know that the angle change becomes more pronounced once the guard is glued to the glove and curves with the hand so I tried to keep this pretty shallow but noticeable. I tried to achieve a surface finish that looked similar to the ABS armor. Anyway, I'll keep plugging away at the left hand guard while I wait E6000 to dry. -Dana

I can’t post from my MacBook, Windows 10 PC, or iPhone without using Tapatalk. I just noticed the problem when trying to post yesterday. -Dana Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yesterday I started back on my shins/calves as I continue to work on solutions to my strapping/snap plate issues in the background. So, I did some return edge trimming on all of the parts and was ready to start fitting when I remembered I should break out the boots so I have them handy when working on the ankle clearance. Then I realized I hadn't taken a photo of the boots. I went with Imperial Boots: They look really nice. For sizing I took 3 pairs of my "regular shoes" from everyday ones to my tight fitting barefoot-style running shoes and looked at their EU sizes. Since things vary between manufacturers in terms of fit and sizing, I took the average of all 3 and ended up purchasing a EU size 44. They fit nice and snug without being uncomfortable and I'm sure as they break-in/stretch that they will be even better. Alright, so I'm off to work on the shin armor. -Dana

Ok, so this morning I pulled off the clamps and magnets to take a look at the reverse side of my snap plate glue test and here's what it looks like: You can see 2 humps along that lower edge and they absolutely correspond to the locations of the snaps on the other side. I didn't take a photo of the single snap glued straight to the scrap because there wasn't any noticeable warping. Looked like it had no effect on the ABS when glued by itself. Hmm, so with full glue coverage on the snap plate and snaps in this test it doesn't look any worse than when I avoided getting glue on the snaps themselves. In fact, I'd say this is about the same as what I experienced on the armor when I lightened the clamp and magnet pressure (which makes sense as I used the same clamping setup in this test). I don't think that the humps are caused by uneven heating or expansion/contraction of the plastic due to glue not covering the whole area. I'm still going to try some other tests... -Dana

For science, I decided to put this together this morning: It's a scrap piece of Anovos ABS from my trimmings. On the left is a Tandy Line 24 snap glued with E6000 straight to the armor. I didn't add any clamping/pressure. I just held it firmly to the armor for about a minute while the glue set up. To the right is one of my snap plates that was used on my kidney armor and exhibited the humps when installed. Here I've chosen to spread the same thin layer of E6000 across the plate BUT this time I coated the entire back including over the snaps themselves. No electrical tape used. The point of that test was to have uniform glue coverage across the total surface area of the snap plate instead of having to circular areas that were bare. I used clamps and magnets as I had on my build to try and be consistent in changing only 1 variable (uniform glue coverage) If it's really about the snaps, we should see some type of deformation on the right test with the snap plate. We may see some signs of warping with the single snap glued directly on. Maybe not as there's no clamping. We'll see what happens in 24 hours. -Dana

I wonder if it will go away in your case. Not that I'm asking you to try it since you're all done. But my snaps were only installed for 48-72 hours max. So the theory that warping will go away if uninstalled may only be true if the armor is relieved of the strain/pressure short after it is noticed. It doesn't look like any permanent change took place in my case. Your mileage may vary. The kit that I am assembling is an older Anovos kit (not from the recent batches) I'm not sure when it was manufactured as I bought it second-hand. -Dana

Just have a quick note to post this morning... I checked on my armor pieces that have been sitting/"resting" since I removed the snap plates yesterday, and after inspecting all of the armor pieces, I can't see any signs of the humps caused by the snaps. Yesterday I could still see a little hint of where the deformation had occurred in the two center kidney locations (top and bottom) but today I feel like the armor may have relaxed some. None of the humps had any soft edges, so I wonder if other people would get similar results from removing their snap plates? I'm now looking into Fasnap Marine Grade Line 24 snaps (I think they are stainless steel) and nylon webbing. @ukswrath do you have a supplier for the snaps in bulk? When I ordered my Tandy snaps I grabbed a 100 sets to save on $$$ Thanks, -Dana

To answer some question, I think it would be great if anyone with similar issues to what @Harbinger and I are reporting could report the following (I'll go first with mine): Armor - Anovos Glue - E6000 (USA) Snap Brand - Tandy Snap Plate Material - ABS (3D printed) Clamping Method - Spring clamps and magnets Perhaps we can see some patterns or even rule some things out. It would be good to know for future builders. Thanks in advance for anyone who is contributing information and suggestions to this thread! -Dana

If you're asking about mine, they are better than flush, they are recessed a bit on average they are about 0.1 mm I'm open to trying nylon if you think that's a better move. I just don't like the idea of the snaps slowly tearing through the nylon as force is applied to them. AND I was going to use elastic for most of my straps connections. -Dana

Hmm, that's really interesting that you didn't know you had warps/bumps/humps before! Oh my what scandal have I uncovered!? Dare I say this should be called...SNAPGATE? Ok, so this morning I took @ukswrath's advice and popped off a snap plate. Luckily as I do a lot of 3D printing I own this tool that I bought on amazon that I use to remove objects from my printers bed. It's thin flexible metal that gets under an edge and makes removing things like this really easy: So, with that tool and some nervousness about what I might find under the snap plate, I chose the worst one on the kidney armor which was the center one along the posterior seam. It was also in the first stage of glue ups where I used heavy pressure (from big magnets and medium clamps), no black electrical tape, but no glue applied to the snaps. Here's what I found: Nothing conclusive! The glue had a great bond, was fully cured, and was clear/not discolored. The snaps looked brand new. No signs of any chemical reaction with the snaps or ABS printed snap plates. At least nothing I can observe with my naked eye. That doesn't rule i out at all as I admit it isn't scientific. I don't see any melting of any parts involved. Even more interesting, is that after removing this, the plastic returned somewhat to it's original shape. I'd say it went back to about 80% of what it looked like before. Next, I tried using a little pressure with my thumbs from the outside while bracing the inside with my other fingers to press down on the high points of the humps. After wiping the surface with a cloth to remove fingerprints, it looked like this: You can look back at my "before" posts and I think I would say that removing the snaps and a little massaging of the armor with my hands put it back to about 90% of the original condition. I really don't see much warping anymore. If it's there, it's so slight that I think no one else would spot it without me pointing it out and really angling lights at the damn thing. So, at least I'm happy that I have a good place to start from for attempt #2. Another datapoint that I'll give is this. I pulled off all of the snap plates that I had installed and wanted to show what happened with the snaps that had black electrical tape on them. Pretty much everything was the same as the snaps without tape, but the electrical tape had melted from either contact with glue or gas...and there was some black smudgy gunk, all o which I was able to clean off simply with a paper towel and some alcohol. The glue bond was still fine, and these plates didn't exhibit and more or less warping. So I state that the electrical tape was not a differentiating factor: Gotta run...more on this when I continue. Discuss! -Dana

Thanks for posting all of these photos. I think it’s important and will help others hopefully in dealing with or avoiding issues similar to ours. That image (above) is more “pointed” or defined than mine. Mine are much lower elevation changes spread out over a slightly larger diameter. Actually, I warmed and bent each plate into a slight curve where necessary to closely match the location on the armor. So when I laid hem on the armor before glue, there were little to no gaps. When I glued them and clamped with magnets, I didn’t see any strain or bend. I’m fact, my second set after I noticed the first set warp used very little pressure with light clamps and fewer/weaker magnets. Really strange. The snap plates weren’t trying to spring off the armor in any way, that’s why I curved those that needed it. -Dana

deleting double post -Dana

Another data point, I used the same ABS plastic filament for my bracket reinforcing strips all over the torso and didn’t get any reaction when glued. I would also expect if it were a reaction to the plastic that I would see deformation defining the overall shape of the shape plates. Manning the rectangular perimeter should be warping through to the exterior. The snaps seem the most logical as the dome like humps are without a doubt centered over snaps in all cases. -Dana

I am using ABS. I figured it best to match plastics even though they still might be slightly different compositions. Did you post images of yours in your issues thread? I’d love to compare. Mine weren’t all th same amount of deformation. The ones in the photo are the worst. -Dana

Hey, thanks for stopping in to my thread! Really good ideas. I hadn’t thought about vapors as a possibility, but since the snaps have a hole through them I would think that gases would easily escape through the center of the snap toward the inside of the armor... who knows. When I get home tonight I’ll take off one of the kidney plate snap plates (lower center) to see what’s going on in there. That one had no tape. And these are Tandy brand Line 24 snaps. Got a better snap brand/supplier? Thanks, -Dana

Hmmm, well last night was a bit of a bummer. If you are a pro builder, please give this post of mine a read and let me know what you think. I went to check out the kidney and posterior parts that I had installed my first snap plates on (I started with the seam that joins the two together). When I took off all of the magnets and clamps I discovered that the center snap plates locations (down the middle of the back) on both parts of armor exhibited some deformation or warping over the locations of the snaps. It's noticeable in certain lighting/reflection conditions. Here's a photo of the kidney to illustrate: Above you can see at the lower edge the reflection domes right where the snaps are located in the plates on the inside of the armor. Now, I tried to angle this into the light to help draw attention to the issue, and because it sits under the belt/thermal detonator, I'm not totally freaked out about it. It sucks, maybe it could be worse? But I'm trying to avoid it happening as I keep gluing these in! The locations to either side have some subtle doming too, but not as bad/noticeable as here on the flat location. The same is true for the 3 locations across the seam on the posterior. Now, I did NOT apply any E6000 directly to the snap metal. In fact, in designing the plates and spreading the glue, the whole point was to avoid the metal contacting the ABS as much as possible and to not get any glue on the snaps! I was very diligent about that. So, after being a bit bummed, I searched and read more about the rumors of E6000 and snaps causing heat/melting/warping. There really is no definitive information about this that I could easily find. But from all of the opinions that I could gather on the subject, I decided to try some modifications to my next set of snap plates in hopes of resolving the issue. So, last night I started by cutting little squares of electrical tape (with the corners cut off) and applying them to my snap plates like this: This precaution seemed unnecessary as I mentioned before that I'm not putting any glue over the snaps...but I wanted to eliminate 1 variable with the tape. Important note: in attaching this next set of snaps, I still did not put any glue over the metal snap areas (now covered by black electrical tape). The next change I went with was to reduce the clamping force used to hold the snap plates while the glue set up. I used my larger magnets and clamps last time and I thought the pressure may have been so great and the ABS so thin in these areas that perhaps they squeezed around the snap areas cause the warped/dome shapes? I don't know, but less pressure was the goal. Here's what take 2 looked like on the back and kidney armor: And a closeup of smaller/less magnets used in conjunction with painters tape and smaller/less powerful clamps: The result was inconclusive. I'm not really sure. It still didn't resolve the issue as I can see subtle humps in the plastic if I look for them in at least the kidney armor in the center location and on one side (left). The back armor actually turned out pretty good and if there's any deformation, it's so slight that I don't notice it. Here's a photo showing what the second method yields in a more flat lighting condition where shadows help emphasize the deformation. Note that this time the upper edge in this photo would be along the seam that attaches to the back plate and the bottom edge on the floor is the first gluing attempt where I first noticed the problem: And here's that first image I posted again because it was actually taken this morning after 12 hours of clamping time so that you can compare in a more reflective lighting condition. Look closely at the top left edge of the armor. The reflection does warp around the location of the snaps in both cases: So, I'm not sure what's going on. My final thought is that perhaps glue across the whole snap plate and over the electrical tape would be better in that the ABS would be uniformly effected by whatever the glue is doing. It's one of the constants in both of my attempts so far. Perhaps the glue heats up, maybe not. Perhaps the glue shrinks or expands a bit and since I don't have any in the snap areas this happens. Perhaps I need to apply pressure differently like putting a scrap abs rectangle on the inside/outside for more uniform pressure? I just want to avoid jacking up the chest at this point as the locations will be too noticeable, I am considering using CA glue at this point, but don't like that I get 1 shot, and it may make the ABS brittle. That also worries me. I think I'll do the ab locations next as they should be hidden under the chest. I'm going to try some of the thought I had above but I'll wait until some others chime in. Any additional help and/or guidance on this issue is much appreciated, -Dana

Thanks, it’s fun designing items that help with my build where the robots can do some of the work. Also, creating a simple feature on the parts that let me recess the snaps just seemed like a no brainer for 3D printed parts. The consistency is great even though it’s unnecessary I’m trying to only do things this way where people won’t see the parts to maintain an authentic hand crafted exterior. Even the bicep hooks I made we t through some hand sanding and polish to make them less perfect/identical and and to remove signs of printing (didn’t take photos of that step) -Dana

Here's a batch of snap plates that I finished this morning. I made more than this but I'm still not sure how many more I need to assemble with snaps. It depends on some choices that are fast approaching (places where some people use 2 vs 3 connections like the chest-to-ab and back-to-kidney): I started installing the plates. My process went like this, measure 25mm from the return edge to the center of the snaps (just trying to have a consistent distance that is close to the edge but far enough from the ends of the screws/nuts from the bracket pads to hopefully avoid interference). I marked the locations with a pencil and then sanded the armor where I planned to glue down each snap plate using 100 grit to create some tooth. As with the other armor parts I've glued with E-6000, I did a test fit to ensure I knew what combo of magnets and/or clamps I was gonna use before I applied any glue. I curved some of the snap plates when it was appropriate to help match the armor contours so the armor wouldn't be stressed by the plates. Here's the posterior armor: And a close up of the center snap plate and a gang of magnets Here's the lower 3 locations on the bottom of the kidney: I just noticed in this one you can see the clamps are angry with Mickey Mouse for the Last Jedi Things are going, gonna try to get some more plates glued up tonight (not sure if I'll find the time). Here's hoping! -Dana

Hehe, it's funny. I think you're on the opposite side of the fence from the discussion we had earlier in my thread about that connection I appreciate all points of view. The range of motion to the shoulder snap is a great specific example of a concern that I can now take into account as I inch closer to strapping this thing together. I appreciate the insight Sean! -Dana

Nice looking armor! I especially like how clean your strapping is on the inside. Good work! -Dana

True. In my tests, I had to bend the plate to about 90 degrees before it would snap. Scrap ABS from the trimming for example will bend all the way over without snapping! However, I can't think of a scenario where the plate should bend to 90 degrees while trooping. If that happens, I think I have other problems . They are however very strong (perhaps stronger than standard plastic) in the direction of pushing/pulling on the snaps. I think that's because of the way printing works where I have layer upon layer of alternating directional "strands' acting almost like a carbon fiber weave. I tried to push snaps out of my earliest designs with tools and couldn't do it. I'm very confident these won't be the point of failure. -Dana