A.J. Hamler
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Posts posted by A.J. Hamler
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Thanks, guys!
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Snaps 'n' Straps -- Part III
Christmas, along with all preliminaries and Christmas-week travel, is about over at last and I can finally get back to my build. I had hoped to have a Shiny Whitey Christmas, but too much stuff going on. Still, the finish line is definitely in sight, so let's get back to those snaps 'n' straps.
Up till now, I've been concentrating on getting all the snap plates located and glued into place. As a reminder, I'm working up from the Butt Plate in back, to the Kidney, the Back Plate and then down the front onto the Chest Plate and Ab. Essentially a big circle starting at the lower back portion. As such, I hadn't yet gotten up to the snap plates at the shoulders, which is where I picked up this time.
As you can see, unlike the black webbing snap plates I used elsewhere inside the armor, up on the shoulder extensions I opted for white webbing. When worn, it's not difficult to see up under the shoulder extensions, and I felt that black webbing snap plates might be more visible, while white ones would blend in better.
Note that I still have two final snap plates to locate and glue into place, and those are the ones on the lower inside of the Chest Plate that connect to the Ab. I'm going to hold off on those until I get straps made for the Butt, Kidney, Back and shoulder connections, and then suit up with the full torso. With those sections of the armor on, I figure I'll be able to more accurately mark the locations where those two snap plates for the Chest should go.
So, on to the straps. I've read a lot of pros and cons about whether these should be all webbing, all elastic or a mix of the two. I may be wrong, but in looking at about a bazillion build threads so far, most seem to favor elastic so that's what I'll start with. (I can always swap them out for webbing later.) With the exception of the white shoulder straps, which are plain old Jo Ann Fabric 2" elastic, and a few narrow 1" black elastic straps, I opted to use suspender elastic. I bought a pair of suspenders with 2"-wide black straps, and cut that into the lengths I needed. The suspender elastic material is far superior to the fabric-store stuff -- it's thicker, stiffer and doesn't stretch quite as much or as easily as regular fabric-store elastic. I'll still have the "give" I need in all my connections, but they won't be stretching so far that it'll open up big gaps. (In theory...)
For strength, I planned to fold over the ends of each elastic strap and then install the snaps through the double folded layers. I've also seen a number of ways folks are further strengthening those folded ends -- those will undergo a lot of stress when snapped and unsnapped, and the stronger those ends are the less likely the snaps will tear out of the elastic. Some of you have sewn those folds closed; others have slipped a thin piece of ABS into the fold. These are both good ways to make those ends stronger.
However, I decided to glue those folds down. Gluing will not only keep the folded layers intact, but will stiffen the overall construction of the strap ends. As a bonus, it keeps the ends thin enough to get the snaps in (adding a piece of ABS would have made the straps too thick for the snaps I have). Gluing is also faster than sewing. Plus, due to an unfortunate occurrence the last time I borrowed my wife's sewing machine, I'm not allowed to use it unsupervised. Less said about that story, the better. (But it's a really good story...)
Anyway, I found that prepping the elastic straps for gluing is easier if you crease the ends first where you plan to fold them.
Here, I've just folded the ends over and put a couple small clamps on the fold to hold it. You don't have to clamp for a long time (or at a high pressure), and by the time I had several straps clamped and came back to the first one, there was a nice crease right where I wanted to fold it. Working on one end of the strap at a time, I removed the clamps and slathered in some glue.
I'm using Duco Cement here, but I also did some straps with E6000. I decided I liked the ones with Duco better -- the bond was stiffer, and took a lot less time for the glue to set and cure. And, the stiffer bond makes snapping and unsnapping easier. I'll still use the ones I made with E6000 as an experiment to see if there's any difference in how they stand up to use, but I think the Duco Cement will win out.
With the glue applied, I just folded the ends over and clamped them up -- using small pieces of wood on each side of the fold to keep it nice and flat -- and allowed the glue to set. When dry and ready to work, I marked them for the snap holes.
You can see that I'm getting a lot of use out of my snap jig. Here, I'm just using the jig to mark where the holes will go. You're maybe wondering why I'm not making the holes the same way I did for the webbing, by placing the ends in the jig and using the guide holes in the jig to burn holes into the strap with a soldering iron as before. Well, I tried that but found that the soldering iron didn't do a very good job of getting through the elastic straps. It sort-of did, more or less, but the holes where messy and undersized for some reason. (The strap material seemed to stretch over the tip of the soldering iron instead of melting to the same diameter.) So instead, I used my snap-setting pliers, which come with hole punching inserts, to make the holes.
This worked well, and I found that with the elastic strap being glued into a two-layer "sandwich" on the ends, there was no fraying at the holes -- the glue kept everything nice and solid. I continued working my way through all the straps, and then installed all the snaps once I'd finished all the holes.
I have to say, I am mightily tired of making snaps. But all the snaps and straps for the armor's torso are done except for those two on the Chest Plate I mentioned earlier, and I am one extremely pleased about-to-be Trooper. Let's snap everything together and take a look at what we have so far.
Don't look now, but I think it's almost time to get dressed and see how everything fits. Since I've already had the full torso assembly on with everything attached with tape for measuring and marking for straps, if all goes well it should fit fine. Then, with the torso on I'll mark for those last remaining snap plates on the Chest Plate and move forward from there.
Moving forward means moving on to the Shoulder Bells, Biceps and Forearms -- the last major parts of my TK build. Those parts are all assembled, with cover strips, and ready to go; it's just a matter of strapping them together. I'll still have the Shoulder Bridges, Belt and Hand Plates, but the biggest part will be complete. I really am nearing the end!
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Hi Gang...
In virtually every build it's recommended that the Drop Boxes be attached with a length of elastic long enough to loop up and over the top of the fabric belt and back down to the back of the boxes. Is it mandatory to do it this way?
It seems that this method puts the Drop Box elastic strap at odds with rivets or whatever attachment method is used to join the plastic and fabric belts. I've seen some builds where the Drop Box elastic had to have a notch cut into it to keep it from interfering with rivets, snaps or whatever.
Instead, would it be "legal" to merely have a short tab of elastic strap, say maybe 1-1/4" in length, glued directly to the inner surface of the belt (the side that's up against the plastic)? It seems that would not only eliminate the need to cut notches to accommodate rivets/snaps, but it would also keep the Drop Box from sliding to the side once you had it aligned with the end of the plastic belt. Naturally, this would be a job for E6000 in case you ever needed to remove them for whatever reason. Or, alternatively, the elastic "tab" could be top-stitched to the inner surface of the belt.
Either gluing or stitching would be invisible to the viewer from the outside of the armor -- the elastic strap would look "normal" -- and visible only on the underside of the belt.
What think you?
A.J.
[[Oops, I just realized I posted this in the ANH Build Thread section, and not the main ANH (Stunt and Hero) section as I'd intended. Sorry.]]
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Fantastic start, Brendan.
And I totally agree with what you said about reading so much good advice that you can't remember who it came from -- same here! You seem to have a good handle on how to proceed, so my only advice at this point is to never be afraid to ask questions at any time.
A.J.
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Hooray, another AM trooper! You are going to love how this looks. Best kit out there.
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Ah, gotcha. And, yeah, the vac-formed pieces are considerably thinner -- depending on where they came from on the armor, they can be quite thin, but still nice and strong.
One tip, though, that I found out the hard way. I wish I hadn't attached both sides of that hinge when I did. I still had snaps and straps to do for the torso (Ab, Butt, Kidney, Back, Shoulder straps...), and doing them AFTER attaching the two halves of the "clamshell" has been a pain. Wish I had attached only one side, and drilled the other side to get it ready but not actually attach it till later. Would have been a lot easier finishing all the snaps and straps without that clamshell flopping all over the place.
Live and learn.
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Three layers of ABS for your hinge? What/where is the third layer? You'd mentioned that you liked my hinge closure, but I only have two total ABS layers the rivets have to go through on each side of the armor seam, plus one layer of webbing.
Those two ABS strips are glued directly to the top of the webbing only, and the webbing is plain on the underside. The hinge, in turn, is riveted webbing-side-down to the armor, one strip on each side of the armor seam. Here's a closeup of the attached hinge, and you can see that I had plenty of rivet to bend over.
Hope this helps.
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Thanks, guys. I'm definitely seeing completion on the horizon.
And, yes, I've been building for EI and Centurion from day one. There is very little I'll need to rework for L2 & L3 -- in fact, just one thing I'll have to redo (that I'm aware of), and that's the snaps on the pointy bottom end of the Butt Plate. I didn't cut off the tab the A.M. armor has, and mistakenly put the snaps there. As I understand it I can probably get away with it as is for EI, but will have to remove the tab and move both snaps up for L3.
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Odds 'n' Ends -- Part I
I ran out of snaps and couldn't finish all my straps, so while I wait for Mr. Amazon to get them to me I thought it'd be a good idea to play catch-up on a number of unrelated odds 'n' ends that have needed done for some time now. Most of these are one-off tasks, the kind that usually get put off to the end of a project, but with a bit of time while waiting for my snaps I started taking care of them.
First on the list, although it has nothing to do with Basic approval of the armor itself, was to add a D-ring to my Hyperfirm E-11 blaster since I'm doing my build with the intent of attaining the higher levels. (Note here that I didn't say "try" for the higher levels. Confidence!) So take a look and tell me that's not the most authentic-looking D-ring you've seen this side of Hoth. Man, that looks like the real thing.
That's because it is the real thing. In fact, the entire end cap is vintage, from a real British Sterling. I bought it on eBay from forum member Fieldmarshall who, as many here know from following his build in the Blastech E-11 section, managed to pick up about a zillion vintage Sterlings. He's listed a number of original parts on his eBay page and I snapped up one of those babies. To mount it I cut off the original rubber Hyperfirm end cap and replaced it with the real one, epoxying it into place.
Next up, a couple of painting chores. The first thing I made for my build more than 1-1/2 years (!) ago was the Thermal Detonator. I finished it, but still hadn't gotten around to painting the pan head screws Ukswrath includes with his excellent brackets. The only thing left to do on the TD is to bend those brackets out a bit to match the contour of the Kidney and adhere some fuzzy-side Velcro on the back to prevent scratching.
The painting continued with the eight visible rivets that have to be white. I did the AB/Kidney rivets first ---
Followed by the ones on each side of the Knee Belt.
Came out pretty good, but I think I may need to hit those with a second coat once this initial coat is dry.
And finally for today's work, I did the "Han hooks" for each of the Biceps.
This is the first time I've used anything other than the boiling-water method to bend ABS, and I didn't like that much. I thought my results, while perfectly serviceable, could have been a bit better. I think I'll stick to boiling water if I need to bend anything else.
That's it for now. Still a lot of these little odds 'n' ends to do, but if my snaps come tomorrow -- and the package tracking that Mr. Amazon provides says they will -- I want to get back to strapping my armor.
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Thanks!
A.J.
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This is one of those things where when you search here on FISD, you come up with multiple answers.
I'm finding 3/4" and 1" being stated as the recommended width of white elastic strapping for drop boxes in almost equal numbers. I'm also finding 20mm (a hair over 3/4") and 25mm (a hair under 1") being cited nearly equally as well.
So, what's the definitive width of the elastic for the drop boxes?
Thanks!
A.J.
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Snaps 'n' Straps -- Part II
OK, back to work. All the snap plates are done, so let's start gluing them into the armor. For reversibility I'm going with E6000 all the way here. Yeah, it's slow to cure but I definitely want to be able to rework and relocate the snaps for whatever reason may arise. Like putting them in the wrong frakkin' place... which I did with one pair. Duh. No problem; just tugged them free, cleaned the plastic, and reset them with fresh glue where they belonged.
I took a careful look inside the armor and did some measuring and marking in pencil to be sure that everything would go in evenly and symmetrically. (Symmetrically?!! Yeah, anti-canon, I know. But there you have it.) To make the snap plates easier to handle and to avoid getting E6000 all over my fingers, I used an extension magnet to hold them while I slathered on the glue. This is just one of those telescoping pick-up tools I use in my shop, but it works quite nicely to hold the plates while working and placing them.
Yes, I'm still using the white E6000. I found that its holding power is no different than the clear version, and I've also come to like it better -- it's easier to see when applying to be sure you get it right where you want it in the right amounts. With the underside of the snap plate fully slathered, it was a simple matter to use the magnet to place it where I wanted it inside the armor, in this case at the top/center of the Kidney.
I decided I wanted the snaps uniformly at 1" from any joining edges, so in the photo above you can see that I used a ruler to slide the plate around as needed to get it into position. (The sticker on the back of the ruler is 1" from the end, and it was easier to just use this side for placement rather than looking at tiny numbers with Old Fart eyes.) Once positioned and held in place with the ruler, I just pulled the magnet free, then used a small wooden stick to press the snap plate down securely and allowed the glue to set.
Some thoughts on E6000 --- I think I noted before that even though you want to allow a minimum of a full 24 hours for it to be fully cured, the glue doesn't really take all that long to set. It's all slippery-slidey when you first put things in place, but they'll typically set in 15-20 minutes when gluing webbing. The fabric webbing allows some air movement right through it and unlike, say, gluing plastic-to-plastic, these webbing snap plates were fairly solid in short order. Still, take care not to push on them or they might still slide, but you can safely work with the armor in far less than the full 24-hour curing time.
At this point, I just worked my way around the Kidney until all the snaps were in place and the glue set. Next up were the mating snap plates in the Butt. First, line everything up the way it'll be when worn, and slap some masking tape on the outside to keep it lined up. On the inside, I used a pair of small clamps to pinch the return edges between Kidney and Butt together, and glued the mating snap plates in place as before.
While the glue is still slippery-slidey, use a straightedge to be sure the new snaps are in-line vertically with those glued in earlier, and adjust as needed. If the snaps aren't aligned vertically, the straps will want to pull the armor pieces out-of-line when snapped on. That would be a Bad Thing, so check that alignment now and be sure nothing moves until the glue has set (again, in about 20 minutes or so).
Once all the snap plates were in place in the Butt, I put it aside and glued in the three snap plates at the bottom of the Back piece, and then put it, the Butt and the Kidney aside for a while to allow the glue some more setting-up time while I started with the connections for the left side of the armor between the Ab and the Kidney. If you've looked at the many builds here, you know that there are half a dozen ways of doing this. The one and only thing that has to be consistent is the fact that there must be rivets on the outside of these two pieces of armor, three evenly space in each. But what you do on the inside is up to you -- snaps and straps, glued straps, use the rivets through straps, etc. One of the things I liked that a number of folks here have done is to use a single wide piece of strapping that bridges the edge of that joint between the Ab and Kidney. This keeps things lined up nicely and prevents one piece or the other from shifting up and down, and I liked that idea.
So I stole it. I also saw how several folks reinforced this strapping with strips of ABS, so I stole that, too. I combined both ideas to create a strapping "hinge" for that side of the armor. I used a piece of 2" black webbing, to which I glued 3/4" wide strips of ABS using Duco cement for a permanent, fast-curing bond.
Next, I secured the left edge of the Ab to my worktable with some clamps, then measured out the locations for the rivets. If you haven't done this yet, it's pretty basic. Measure in 10mm from the edge and pencil in a line. Then, measure down about 20mm from the top edge of the Ab and mark, and 20mm up from the bottom edge of the Ab where the Cod starts, and mark again. Then, just split the difference between your marks and pencil in the center rivet location.
Clamp the Ab side of the hinge in place securely with clamps, making sure everything is centered top-to-bottom and that the center of the hinge is right on the edge of the Ab. Now, using a 5/32" bit, just drill through the Ab on your marks and on through the hinge. You can't see it in the photo, but I also have a thin scrap of wood clamped with the hinge on the underside for support. This keeps everything pressed against the inside of the Ab for efficient drilling.
With all three holes drilled, I removed the clamped hinge and used the tip of a soldering iron to seal the edges of the holes in the webbing. Now, it's just a matter of slipping in the rivets from the outside, putting the drilled side of the hinge in place, slipping on some washers and bending over the wings of the split rivets. I started this process on my worktable by using a large screwdriver to open the wings of the rivets just enough to hold everything in place, and then moved to the concrete floor. I placed a scrap of ABS underneath, then simply hammered the wings flat and flush with the washers.
Keep in mind that even though the rivet wings are flush, they can (and will) snag and catch on your undersuit, so once I have everything done with the armor I'll put a dollop of silicone caulk on those wings, essentially creating a rubbery cap on top -- no snagging and catching. With the Ab side done, now on to the Kidney side. The glue on all the snap plates has set nicely, so I taped the Ab/Kidney assembly together, and then marked matching hole locations on the Kidney side.
With the hole locations marked, I repeated the drilling steps as before by clamping the hinge and the wood scrap in place, and drilled right through to make the matching holes. Then just slip in the rivets, position the hinge, add the washers, bend open the rivet wings with my screwdriver, and then move to the concrete floor to hammer the rivets flat.
At this point, there's just one more step to do and that's add the "Han snap" to the top right corner of the Ab. Like those rivets, this must be visible from the outside but it's not necessary for this snap to be functional. However, I decided to make it functional and use it as part of the closing straps on the inside (like they did originally). For this, I measured in 20mm from the top and 20mm from the edge, drilled a 5/32" hole, countersunk the hole from the outside to accommodate the male snap post, and then set the snap.
OK, let's take a look.
Not bad at all, if I do say so myself. (Spoiler alert: I just did.) I'm considering the lower half of the body armor done, ta-da! The Ab, Kidney and Butt are all trimmed and sized, and all snaps are in place. You'll notice in the above photo that I haven't yet done the snap plates at the shoulder extensions or on the lower inside of the Chest piece. There's a reason.
When I start making the straps I'll need to make them in sets that match the fit of the lower half of the armor -- in fact, I'll be doing that in the next installment. From there, I'll work up across my back, and it's at that point that I'll decide how those shoulder extensions need to be trimmed to match my height and body shape. Not much you can do with the lower armor since it has to fit snug in the Nether Regions and around your abdomen; can't trim for height down there. You have to trim for height at the top. Wearing the abdomen assembly (Ab, Butt and Kidney), I'll hold the Back and Chest pieces in place, then mark and trim those shoulder extensions to size. That's when I'll add those snaps and straps at the shoulders. With that done, I'll see where the Chest piece falls in relation to the top of the Ab, then mark and add those final snap plates.
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Still moving along with snaps 'n' straps, but I've got a question for you all -- especially you A.M. 2.0 folks -- regarding the upper shoulder "bridges" on the Chest and Back pieces. What I'm calling "bridges" are the two extended portions of each piece; no idea what they're actually called.
As far as assembly goes I'm not quite there yet, but I will be soon (in the next day or two) and want to be prepared. Below are two photos showing how the tops meet. First, with the Chest and Back just lying down on a flat surface:
Note that the two pieces aren't attached by tape or in any other way. Here's another shot with the two pieces propped up in an approximation of being worn on the body. Again, no tape; these are just leaning against each other.
So my question is, do I need to be concerned that the Back bridges are so much larger than the Chest bridges?
Keep in mind that although I've trimmed these two pieces for return edges and such, I've not yet trimmed those bridges to length or width in any way. Since A.M. armor is large, I may need to shorten those bridges -- particularly on the back piece. There's wiggle room for the Chest in how far it comes down over the Ab, but the Back must meet flush with the top of the Kidney (which, in turn, must meet flush with the top of the Butt), so trimming the Back bridges may be necessary to raise the Back for fitting purposes. Since I haven't gotten there yet, I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that shortening those bridges will probably make the mismatched size issue less of an issue.
I may be worried about nothing here -- the issue could totally disappear when I trim the tops of the Chest and Back for fitting and add the tensioning that strapping just naturally provides. Still, I figured you folks who've already done this part would know.
Thanks!
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Thanks guys, and I think all of you are right. This sounds similar to my Shin issue from earlier -- wait till it's all done to start tweaking. I guess I'm trying too hard for perfection during the initial build, but it makes sense to wait.
In short, I should work toward getting my armor to the point where I can actually put it on before worrying about tweaking and fine-tuning.
Thanks!
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Thanks, Pretzel! It's good to have those plates done. Of course, now I still have to do all the straps...
Meanwhile....
I've trimmed the inner neck opening of the Back piece as well as thinned down the top "straps" where they go over the shoulders for comfort, but I still haven't trimmed the sides of the Back piece yet. Since the trimming here doesn't impact the snaps and straps I'll proceed getting those snap plates glued in and making straps, but I do want to trim that Back piece that I've been putting off. From all of your builds -- as well as in lots of screen shots -- I've seen the Backs trimmed on the sides pretty much where I've marked it here:
I'm guessing that's about right, but I'd really like to leave more than what I've marked and am concerned it'll impact approval for EI and Centurion if I do. I like the thicker, heftier look of the somewhat wider sides. Perhaps not the full untrimmed width that's still there, but certainly more than what I've marked. Also, I'm a fairly big guy, torso-wise, and the Back piece simply feels better on my back with the sides wider. So my question is: Can I leave those sides with a wider trim?
My second question involves the bottom corners of the Back piece. One of the things I see a lot in the builds is that those bottom corners tend to flare out and catch over the top of the Kidney, somewhat preventing the flush fit that should be there between Back and Kidney. So I'm thinking that trimming those bottom corners like this would help that issue a lot. This is how I've marked the lower left Back corner:
I figure that will prevent those corners from hooking onto the Kidney, allowing for a better flush fit back there. What think you all on this, as well as the general side trimming question for the first photo?
Thanks!
A.J.
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I'm reimagining the old Burl Ives classic, "Have A Shiney Whitey Christmas."
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Snaps 'n' straps, part I
Hi gang; I'm back, but only briefly.
Since last time, another work assignment popped up, so no armor building for me for while. Plus that Thanksgiving thing with a house full of family most of the week. Plus a trip of my own. Plus some household repairs. All that's past, and for a day or two I have some "me" time before the next round of time-demands rolls in tomorrow (and for a full week after that). So I'm picking up where I left off.
As Lou suggested in one of the last posts regarding my shin issue, I'm gonna let the shin reshaping go until the armor is complete. I'm sure there will be lots of tweaks I'll want to do once I can wear this stuff, so I'll tackle it all at once. So, the key to getting the armor actually on my body is the get it to hold together. That means it's time to do snaps and straps. After thinking about it for months during the rest of my build, I decided on webbing snap plates over ABS squares.
Being a woodworker, I love jigs for making things. So, to ensure that my snap plates are uniform in overall size and hole placement, I whipped up a simple jig out of scrap wood. You'll see the whole jig shortly, but the first part of the jig I used was a piece cut to the dimensions of the snap plates I wanted. Using that, I cut out all the webbing plates that would get double snaps.
This was just a simple matter of holding the wooden template up to the webbing and using it as a guide for my scissors. After cutting each piece, I then heat-sealed the raw edges with a grill lighter. If you haven't done this yet, a tip: Seal those edges immediately after cutting. Webbing unravels almost instantly upon cutting, and will certainly start coming apart if the fresh-cut webbing plates are handled, so seal the edges right away.
Then it was just keep going till I had all the webbing plates I needed for the double snaps -- two dozen. Actually, that's a couple more than I really needed, but I wanted some extras. (I also plan to use some single snaps here and there, mostly on the Forearms and Shoulder Bells, but I'll do those later.)
The eagle-eyed among you have probably already noticed that my cutting template has a pair of holes in it. Those are measured and drilled exactly centered, so no matter which way I flip that little piece of wood, the holes will be in the same place. The key reason for the hole guide -- which I'll also use for the straps -- is so snap locations are the same on each plate. Then, using the same template for the ends of the straps, the male and female parts of the snap pairs will mate perfectly. To make the holes, I placed each webbing plate in the corner of the jig, put the hole guide template on top, and then poked the business end of a cordless soldering iron down into the guide holes and through the webbing.
The soldering iron creates and heat-seals the holes in a single action, and it took only a couple minutes to do all two dozen webbing pieces. Let's take a look at that jig.
It's just a length of oak scrap (any hardwood will do), with some thinner pieces of oak glued on the edges of one corner to act as fences for aligning the webbing plate in the jig. Those thin strips are just glued in place to form a nesting corner. Once the glue dried I snugged the hole guide into the corner, and poked the soldering iron through the holes to mark the jig, and then drilled a couple larger holes in the base of the jig for the tip of the soldering iron to go down into. Worked like a charm.
After all the holes were done, it was just working my way through setting snaps.
Finally, all my double snap plates are done and ready for gluing.
At this point, I'll adjust the jig to make that handful of single snaps I need.
Up next is gluing the plates into the armor, after which I'll do the straps to fit all the snap plates. That'll have to wait for a week, though. Got more company coming later this week, followed by another trip of my own (Grandson birthday!). After that, however, I have absolutely nothing on my to-do list until Christmas. Unless I get a surprise work assignment, I think I may enjoy a White Christmas -- that is, I'm thinking I will finally have my armor done in time to welcome Santa.
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Hi, gang...
I'm slowly getting back to the build after that pesky work interruption, and had a couple of questions. Since strapping is up next, I wanted to clarify something on the snaps attached to the shoulder straps, the one the Shoulder Bells hook to. It seems that most of you use sew-on snaps there, while some use the regular 24 snaps. First, what exactly is that sew-on snap; that is, what's it called and what kind should I look for if that's what I decide to go with? Second, are the sew-on snaps better than using the Tandy 24 snaps at that spots for some reason? I'm curious why so many use the Tandy 24s everywhere else, but the sew-on snaps there.
The second question has to do with hot-water shaping after everything is glued, Velcroed and done. My Shins are a bit too high at the knees and so they need to come down a bit, and I originally thought it would be a matter of just trimming a bit from the bottoms around my ankles. But on closer inspection, I'm thinking the Shins might be just fine size-wise, but it's the shape of the opening at the ankles that is keeping them riding so high. Here's a closer look cropped from some earlier images in the build thread.
You can see that the fronts and backs of the Shins at the ankles are really tight to the fronts and backs of the boots, keeping them riding high and not slipping down naturally over the ankles as they should. Meanwhile, you can also see how the sides have bags of extra room. The general cross sectional shape right there is kind of oval from side-to-side, whereas my boot ankles are generally oval front-to-back. [BTW, yes, I know I don't have the shins closed quite properly in the back.]
So, I'm thinking that simply dunking the lower portion of the Shins into boiling water and reshaping so they're more oval shaped front-to-back will solve the problem and allow them to sit more naturally around the boots, giving me that extra room I need up at my knees.
But what about the glued cover strips and the Velcro -- what will boiling water do to those? I'm concerned I may damage or destroy both.
Any thoughts?
A.J.
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When it comes to removing excess glue, the properties of E6000 make it among the easiest. In fact, it's so easy that I make no attempt to limit the amount of extra that squeezes out (to a point, of course). Here's what I did with my build.
First, I used a razor knife to cut through the excess, using the edge of the cover strip itself to guide the knife for a nice, straight cut.
Make several light passes with the knife to avoid scoring the plastic itself. The idea is to just cut through the glue, and not down into the ABS. Then, pry up one end of the glue using a fingernail, toothpick, the tip of the knife, whatever, and just pull it off in a long solid "string."
E6000 dries firm, but rubbery, rather like silicone caulking. You may find that if you cut through it all the way that you can pull all the glue from the edge of a cover strip in a single string. However, since you're being careful not to cut through the glue all the way to the plastic, you're bound to leave lots of little bits of glue along the edge of the cover strip. Any sharp object will easily scrape those out, but be sure to use something that is not harder than the plastic or you could scratch it. A sharp metal object would be bad, but something made of wood such as a sharpened popsicle stick or toothpick, or plastic, like this scrap of cover strip cut to an angled point, is perfect:
This will loosen almost all those little bits. For any tiny stragglers, you can get them with a fingernail. If you want to really be fussy, a pair of tweezers can grab those little guys nicely. Still, rubbing a fingernail along the edge of the cover strip will most likely get the little bits loose.
You might still have a bunch of tiny loose bits in the crevice along the edge of the cover strips. Although not really "stuck" to the plastic, the loose bits are still rubbery and tend to stay put on glossy plastic. I found that once you have all the big pieces pulled free and the little bits loose, wiping the armor along the length of the cover strip with terry cloth -- old towel material -- wipes those little bits off. Shake out your cloth periodically to get rid of the bits, and just wipe down the cover strip till it's as clean as you want.
A.J.
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Test fit!
The amount of absolute dread I had approaching this moment was second only to the amount of absolute dread I had before making the first cut in the plastic. Terrified to actually do it. But since I have to put the armor away for a couple of weeks, I couldn't possible put it to bed without a test fit. So here goes. From the front:
Holy yikemoly, look at me -- I have Stormtrooper pants! As a bonus, I get to flaunt common decency by wearing white after Labor Day.
OK, let's take a look at the back:
Again, looks pretty not bad. Yeah, I don't have the Shins closed properly -- hell, I'm lucky I was even able to get this on by myself much less get those things closed -- but it looks like the strips all line up nicely both front and back.
I think I might need the Shins to come down just a bit as they feel pretty high over my knees. Not much, maybe a 1/2" - 3/4" trim from the bottoms. Also, from the front view above they seem high at the ankles, so when I have a second person to lend a hand I'll get those closed properly and tugged down where they belong and reassess how high they are at the knees.
I also think the Thighs need to come up, as I can feel them scraping the front of my knees. I think I at least need to trim the tops -- although you can't see it in the photo, the peaks at the Thigh fronts are banging the bottom of the Ab, and the insides are really rubbing against each other something awful just below the Cod. You can see that from both the front and rear view.
One thing I'm noticing on this my first time wearing it is that I almost have to keep my back arched so the garter keeps the Thighs up. If I lean forward even a little, they come down and rest on the tops of the Shins. Need to do some adjusting to that, but I think maybe trimming the Thigh tops may help there, too.
As an aside, wearing this for the first time is the weirdest feeling thing I've ever felt. The armor feels like it's going to fall off at any moment. I can't move at all. Plus, it all seems so "fragile," for lack of a better word. But again, this is only the first time ever that I've put these one, so I'm hoping that after tweaking the Shins and Thighs a bit that it'll feel a little less weird.
Man, you should have seen the comedy show it was of me trying to get this on. Thighs first, of course, but when I bent down to get the boots the garter lets the Thighs sag five or six inches when bending forward, pretty much putting a splint on my knees which, because they wouldn't bend, I couldn't put the boots on. I finally had to unattach the Thighs and let them flop around my ankles as I got the boots on. Then it was the same thing trying to get the Shins on -- when I leaned forward I couldn't bend my knees to get the Shins on. It was a nearly half-hour laugh riot of loosening this so I could tighten that, then loosening something else so I could do another thing. Took forever, but I finally just slapped the Shins on and hoped for the best, because I couldn't bend to reach the closures. I literally had no idea what they looked like until I took the photos.
That's it for my build for a little while, as I gotta get to work on an assignment with a really tight deadline. However, I wanted to get this step done first and let you all take a peek.
A.J.
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Thanks, Preston! I can't begin to tell you how excited I am about doing my first troop!
A.J.
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2 hours ago, ukswrath said:
IMHO, Chicago screws just look cleaner. but that's just me.
Also: No rivet gun needed, and they're removable at any time.
A.J.
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2 hours ago, Frank75139 said:
If it’s comfortable I say keep it. Is that exactly how it fits? I have the same armor but because of my body shape none of it lines up perfectly therefore that would be unnoticeable.
Yeah, it fits exactly like that. And right out of the BBB. I may still tweak some of those return edges, especially at the top of the Ab, and that may affect the overall fit a bit. And, if so, I may need to shave just a hair off the joining edges. Not there yet, though.
A.J.
A.J.'s O.F. AM 2.0 Build
in ANH Build Threads
Posted
Odds 'n' Ends -- Part II
Now that I'm nearing the end of the main build, I'm finding lots of smallish things I also need to do, so I'm peppering them in as I think of them and need a break from the main build. (Truth? The next part of the main build would have involved spending the day running around my workshop in my undersuit, but I forgot to turn on the heat in my basement workshop. Yeah, time for some odds 'n' ends instead...)
One of the things I wanted to do with my armor is to arrange an alignment method for the right side where the Ab and Kidney meet. No issue with the left side, since that's riveted with a rigid ABS/webbing hinge, but the right side will be closed with straps. To keep the alignment correct and prevent one side or the other from sliding up or down, I decided to use a "tab-and-slot" arrangement that many of you have used.
I made the slot plate with a length of white ABS scrap (the 3-1/4" length allowed it to fit nicely between snap plates), raised at each end with smaller squares of ABS glued in place. The opening of the slot matches the thickness of the tab that would go into it. For the tab plate, I used some black ABS (scavenged from the black plastic case one of my DeWalt drills came in),and cut it into the tab shape with a long gluing surface matching the length of the slot plate. I made this with black so it'd blend in with the undersuit, rendering it invisible through the seam where the Ab and Kidney meet.
Not how I scored the gluing surface on the back of the tab plate. I then closed up the armor and put both pieces in place on the right-side closure between Ab and Kidney and traced where they needed to go. Starting with the slot plate on the kidney side, I glued it in with E6000 and clamped it up.
While that was drying, I did the same thing with the tab plate on the opposite Ab side.
You have to be careful when gluing these in, and make sure they stay on your traced lines when you apply clamping pressure. Parts glued with E6000 are notorious for sliding all over hell and back until the glue sets. I let both sides set up for several hours, then removed the clamps to test the fit.
Perfecto!
Up next, heat the damn basement and pick up where I left off with the main build.