A.J. Hamler

Name: A.J. Hamler Garrison: Garrison Carida Armor Maker: AM 2.0 Helmet: AM 4.0 Belt: Kittell Neck Seal: Darman Holster: Darman TD clips & Pan-Head Screws: Ukswrath Latex Hand Plates: JustJoseph Boots: TK Boots Blaster: Hyperfirm Height: 5' 11" Weight: 205 Type: ANH Stunt Front Right Side Left Side Back Left/Right Side Details Action Ab Details Forearm Wrist Openings Cod/Butt Snaps/Rivet Internal Stapping Shoulder Bridge Rear Elastic Thigh Ammo Pack Rivet Outside Thigh Ammo Pack Rivet Inside Sniper Knee Front Sniper Knee Side Thermal Detonator Details Rubber Gloves and Hand Plates Belt Belt/Holster Front Detail Belt/Holster Back Detail Helmet Front Helmet Hovi Tip Detail Helmet Right Helmet Left Helmet Back Helmet Lens Color Helmet Lower Screw Helmet S-Trim Neck Seal Blaster Left Blaster Right Blaster End Cap & D-Ring (Note: end cap and ring are from a vintage Sterling, replacing original rubber end cap)

Not to worry. Some pieces have "critical" ends, and the thigh is one of them. The bottoms have that flared ring around them, and that's what you want to get even. The tops are 100% trimmable, especially if you've removed the return edges there (which you'll want to do for comfort and mobility). Your thigh looks pretty good, but I'd re-tape it so that the bottom is even, then cut off the points at the top for a smooth transition up there. Save the pointy things you cut off to give to someone you know who has that "other hobby." A.J.

Oh, man, today's the day! TK-51351 requesting access. https://www.501st.com/members/displaymemberdetails.php?userID=30063 Thanks, and thanks for all the help. Couldn't have done it without the great people here.

Day-um! Talk about fast. I just registered both of us on the 501st site a few hours ago, and we've both been approved and our member profile pages are already set up. I'm now TK-51351! Think I'll just mosey on up and ask for detachment access.

Approved! Got the approval notice on my TK armor from my GML this morning. Actually, my wife and I got our approvals near-simultaneously. The GML noted that this might be a Garrison first for a husband-and-wife team to be approved at the same time, so that's pretty cool. I registered both of us with the 501st shortly after getting the good news. Now, back to the waiting game... <g> A.J.

Meanwhile... Yeah, I know it's not part of my TK build, but while I'm waiting to submit we finished my wife Sally's Imperial Line Officer and I just had to share. A.J.

For when this happens.

Hi, Dave, and thanks for the kind words. Documenting my TK build so thoroughly was not only a pleasure, but it forced me to work in a strict one-step-at-a-time manner that really helped to minimize mistakes. Note that I said "minimize" and not "eliminate" -- I made plenty of mistakes! A.J.

Great to see another AM Armor build! Good luck! A.J.

If I recall, Joseph, you recommend E6000 for yours. right? I only ask because I'm about to do mine now.

Great looking armor, Jennifer. And as a plus, with that chromakey-friendly backdrop, you can easily put yourself into any Star Wars background! A.J.

Thanks, Paul! I appreciate it, and am glad to hear you're finding it useful. In may ways documenting the build has sometimes been even more fun than the actual building. (Especially the frustrating parts. ) A.J.

Since those holes that were already drilled in the sides of the helmet will be covered by the ears and never visible, you can ignore them if you want and just drill new holes to fit the ear to your liking. A.J.

Hi Sean... This thread hasn't been active in a while so I hope you see this. Could you give a few more details on how you fixed the shape of your Back Plate where the corners dip down over the Kidney? This seems to be a common issue with AM armor, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to correct it without changing the shape of the Back Plate at the edges. This is how my AM Back Plate sits atop the Kidney. Along the green line it's right on top of the Kidney upper return edge, where it's supposed to be. But those two pointed "wings" (orange arrows) or whatever you'd call them are curved down and over the Kidney. You noted that you heat shaped the Back to bring those two "wings" up. I've done a good bit of heat shaping in my build so bending these would be straightforward, but I would think that if you did that, then the sides of the Back Plate would bow out where I've drawn the curved red lines. How'd you keep that from happening? Thanks.

That's an excellent idea, Lou. Not sure how prone the AM armor is to cracking in those areas, as it's really thick ABS. But beefing up potential trouble spots would be a Good Thing. I've been following the EIB and Centurion threads religiously, Q. (Sometimes I think I look at them more than the builds!) I've been building for EIB and Centurion from day one. In fact, I've already shot all my EIB submission photos and they're literally ready to go. And I've also shot almost all of my Centurion pix, too. Just two or three that I have left to shoot. The Trooper Survival Guide is awesome. I've downloaded the PDF and have studied it thoroughly. Good stuff. But waiting for when submissions start again is worse than waiting for Christmas as a little kid!

This is maddening. Maddening, I tell you. My armor is done and ready to submit, but the clock and calendar are moving too darned slow! [Checking calendar again... Damn! It's only the 6th!] So, to kill time waiting for this interminable election to conclude, I've been doing some tweakification of my armor. The first order of business was to address some things JustJoseph suggested in my pre-approval thread. To that end I raised the Biceps a bit, and they look a lot better. I also raised the Belt at the front so it's slightly overlapping the bottom of the Button Plates. Again, it looks better, too One of the things I noticed when doing the shoot for my submission photos was that I could barely walk. Getting around on a perfectly level floor was definitely a case of the Trooper Waddles, and an attempt to go up the basement steps was met with little success. I was able to get up two or three steps, but it was a struggle of kinda crab-walking sideways. Ditto coming down the same two or three steps. So with time on my hands before I can submit, I thought I'd trim the leg edges behind my knees to facilitate movement. I started by penciling in approximately where I wanted to make my cuts, and did rough cuts well clear of the line with a Dremel rotary tool with a cutter wheel. Not particularly pretty, but this was just to quickly and efficiently remove most of the waste ABS. Did this to the bottoms of both Thighs, as well as the tops of both Shins. Then I moved to my drill press, still outfitted with that Microplane shaping drum you saw back on page two of my build. I worked steadily and slowly with the drum and completed the cuts up to my penciled lines, and then refined the overall shape of the cutouts. After that, a bit of sanding smoothed everything out. Let's take a look. Tried on my legs and holy yikemoly, what a difference this makes. I'm not going to be bounding up stairs anytime soon wearing these, but I think I can at least manage stairs now without either looking like a total buffoon or falling flat on my face, which would be even buffoonier. I had mentioned earlier that I thought I needed to raise my Thighs, but to be honest after making these cuts behind the knees I'm not so sure now that I do. I think I'm going to leave everything the way it is for now until I get my first troop under my belt, and then decide if the Thighs need raised. Of course, that'll be at least a couple weeks yet because of that election thing. Speaking of which, where's that calendar? Damn! How can it still be only the 6th!

Andrew -- Trouble is, if I lengthen the shoulder connections, then the Back Plate slips down to completely overlap the top of the Kidney. I originally had the shoulder straps a little longer, but intentionally shortened them up a bit to pull the Back Plate up to correct the overlap. Haven't gotten any other suggestions, but as much as it terrifies me to attempt it I'm afraid I'm going to have to try to reshape that lower edge and trim the flares off. I really don't want to do that as I'm not confident of pulling it off, but it's starting to look like that's my only recourse.

Not necessarily. You can just have the rivets in the side "for show," and do your strapping using snap plates as you would elsewhere, ignoring the rivets altogether. A.J.

Yeah, the Butt/Kidney are just right; ditto the Cod/Ab. (Which is good thing, of course.) Besides, I'm not sure how pulling the Kidney up higher would help prevent overlap.

That's the problem -- the Back Plate isn't overlapping. Most of it at the center (red arrow) is resting right atop the Kidney Plate where it belongs. In fact, the area defined by the green line is resting on the Kidney; you can even see some of the black undersuit where that line is. It's just those two pointed wing-like things on ends (orange arrows) that are overlapping. I can't figure out any way to fix this. Heating and bending those up could make them level with the rest of the Back Plate, but that would put a big warp on the lower sides of the Back Plate. Cutting them off would remove the return edge, which I don't want to do for fear that'd cause even more overlap problems. (And I'm not confident enough to attempt creating new return edges.)

OK, played around a bit with my armor and improved a couple things, including two of the things Joseph noted. First, I adjusted both Biceps to bring them up a little. I didn't have any trouble with the the snap inside the left Bicep this time -- could adjusting the height have fixed my issue with it coming unsnapped? I did remove a bit more of the return edge on the inner upper edge of both Biceps (which is right behind the strap up there where the snap is) and that may have helped, too. I also added some Velcro behind the belt at the center and tugged it up a smidgen. I still don't know what to do about that Back Plate issue where it overlaps on those "wing tips" on the corners. I'll save that for another day. Meanwhile, here's a couple more photos I didn't include last time. Elastic at rear of Shoulder Bridges Lens color Left/right side details And, although an older photo from earlier in the build, the Sniper Knee That's it for now. Gotta figure out something with those "wing tips" on that Back Plate.

Thanks for the advice, Joseph! Yeah, I'm aware of all three issues -- especially that Bicep. Damned thing kept coming unsnapped for some reason. You'll notice in the other photos -- left side arms up and down, action pose, back view -- that it's right where it's supposed to be. It unsnapped just before shooting those two front-facing poses. No idea why it kept coming undone (three or four times during our shoot), but I had no trouble whatsoever with any other snap. Might just be a bad snap or something. Best fix for that might be just to preemptively replace it. Of course, that's one of the few areas I didn't do a double-snap. Best fix might just be to add the second snap if I have room on the strap, or replace the strap with a new one with two snaps on it. A question though on raising Biceps -- Personally, I'd like them both to be higher than I set them for more freedom of arm movement, but I kept reading here about how the elbow gap should be kept to a minimum or even no gap, and to achieve that it was OK, even recommended, to bring the Biceps down as far as possible to eliminate elbow gap. I'm a bit confused on whether the Biceps should be high or low. Again, I'd rather they be high for comfort but want to do the right thing. Easy fix to raise them, especially since I need to fix that snap on the one side, which will probably require a new strap there anyway. The Belt height is another confusing issue. The CRL says "The top of the ammo belt should sit at or just below the bottom of the central and vertical abdomen button panels.," which is where I put it. Easy fix, though, to raise it a bit with some Velcro behind it. But, again, I'm confused as to the wording in the CRL. And that darned Back Plate! Thing gave me fits during the build. From the side it looks like it's slipped down, but that's just the "corner wings" or whatever they are that seems to be a characteristic of the AM armor. When you look at that Back/Kidney seam from the back in the photo below, you can see that the two return edges are resting against each other along the center... ...but those "wings" dip down to overlap on the ends. Not sure what to do about them. I've seen that in a lot of other AM builds, too. During my build I looked at them long and hard, and don't think a water bath would do it -- that'd bend them up OK to be in the same plane as the top of the Kidney return, but doing so would misshape the side edges of the Back Plate I think. I'm open to any suggestions for a fix. And you betcha I'm shooting for L2 & L3! Been my goal from day one of my build. In fact, although I didn't post them in this pre-approval thread, I took every one of my necessary EI and Centurion photos yesterday, too. Things like Sniper Knee, S-trim, Knee Ammo Belt attachment inside and out, etc. The only L2 & L3 photo I haven't taken yet is my rubber gloves with your excellent silicone Hand Plates, as I haven't attached the Hand Plates to the gloves yet. <g> A.J.

Hi gang. I was hoping to submit all my stuff to my GML this week, but learned that everything is on hold till after elections. *sigh* Oh, well, I've been at this for nearly two years, so what's another couple weeks, eh? I hadn't really intended to do a pre-approval thread, but with my TK done and some extra time on my hands, I couldn't just sit here without showing off my armor now could I? Of course not. OK, here we go. Name: A.J. Hamler Garrison: Garrison Carida Armor Maker: AM 2.0 Helmet: AM 4.0 Belt: Kittell Neck Seal: Darman Boots: TK Boots Blaster: Hyperfirm Height: 5' 11" Weight: 205 Type: ANH Stunt Full Body Photos: Helmet: Ab details. (Colors didn't come out well, but they're standard Humbrol blue and gray.) Wrist trim: Thermal Detonator (Ukswrath's brackets and screws): Neck Seal: Blaster: Thanks! A.J.

"All right Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my closeup..." * OK, gang. It's photo time. I still need to get dressed and really get started on all the photos, and I'll post them later today, but here's my first test shot. I still want to play around with the lighting and maybe adjust it a bit, but I think I have everything else pretty much set. Man, I'm am one excited Old Fart! A.J. * "Sunset Boulevard" 1950