A.J. Hamler

Glueup Part II -- Strip club OK, I'm back. Got a lot done on my TK glueup and have plenty of photos. For this portion of the build I've pretty much ignored the "body" of the suit (plus I already did the Thermal Detonator and Helmet a while ago) and concentrated on the limbs, which is really where most of the gluing takes place -- all of which involves cover strips that join the components of each limb. In the previous section of my build I noted that I'd attended Garrison Carida's annual armor bash/BBQ, and got a lot of outstanding fitting help. Back home in my workshop and after a lot of cutting, taping, trying on, and more cutting and fine-tuning, I'm pretty confident I have the arms and legs sized just about as well as could be. Keep in mind that for this part of the build I did all the appendages -- two shins, two thighs, two forearms and two biceps. Although I started gluing the biceps first, the photos here don't follow any particular order. Rather, I took the shots that best illustrated each part of the glueup. The first thing I did was to finish cutting all of the cover strips, both outer and inner. A.M. armor comes with a generous amount of plain flat ABS for this. To prep the strips, I first gave the glue sides a light but brisk sanding to rough up the gluing surfaces. This was fast work by laying them out in groups glue-side up and going over them with my friend Mr. Sanding Block. I followed this up by beveling all the strip edges with a razor knife. Note that I'm beveling the corner edges on both the glue-side and outside of each strip. This is a good thing to do for two reasons. First, for the outside of the strips beveling removes all the sharp edges or any ridges created by the scoring and "softens" the sides of the cover strips. For the strips inside the armor, that's less sharp stuff near your under suit and body; on the outer cover strips, it means no sharp edges at all -- your hand can run smoothly over the armor. It will also eliminate unwanted snagging if you brush up against fabric (which you can do while wearing armor: curtains, tablecloths, the clothing of people with whom you interact, etc.). It also gives the overall appearance a nice finished look. Beveling the glue side of the strips slightly not only allows the strips to sit perfectly flush against the armor (remember, scoring can create a tiny raised ridge), but it creates a tiny area where glue can accumulate. It's very small, but having this little bevel there can help make minor squeeze-out much less visible. By the way, see those little "strings" you make when beveling? Collect them in a jar for ABS paste -- they're so thin and wispy that they dissolve almost instantly. The last bit of prep is to lightly sand the gluing surface of the armor itself, easily accomplished with a bit of folded sandpaper. By the way, for all this prep sanding I used medium to coarse grit paper. You don't have to go crazy here: The idea is to scuff sand the area where the glue goes so it makes a better bond. Although not quite as important for "dissolving" glues such as ABS cement, Duco or anything with acetone in it, a rougher surface really helps non-dissolving glues like E-6000 or the various super glues (cyanoacrylate). For the first inner strip, starting with the biceps, I used regular ABS cement. I don't particularly like this stuff, but the strips on the biceps are very short, meaning it doesn't take a long time to get it on, plus not as much time for the container to be open fuming up the shop. Still, with this stuff you gotta work fast. If you look closely at the photo above, you can see that I've penciled a line down the center of the glue side of the strip. You only want glue on half the strip, but more importantly having that line there acts as a guide for placing exactly half the strip on the component -- stick it on, and adjust as needed till the line is right on the edge of the component, and then clamp it up. At this point, I decided to switch over to the Duco cement and did the same process with each of the limb halves -- one inner strip on each edge of half of a limb, except the backs of the shins (which I'll do later). I liked the Duco WAYMO better than the ABS cement. It doesn't smell or outgas fumes nearly as much, the working time is longer, and the narrow nozzle on the tube makes applying the glue much easier than using a brush. The real beauty of Duco is that it sets in only five minutes, although I left pieces clamped up for at least 30 minutes for a really solid bond, meaning that once you get rolling the glueup process can go pretty quickly. (By the way, the cure time for Duco as listed on the packaging is setting time five minutes, handling time one hour, full cure in 16 hours.) I worked through all the limbs in turn until I had a pile of half-limbs all with inner strips in place on the halves. Gluing and clamping strips on half-pieces is easy, as nothing impedes the clamps as you can see in the previous photo. Joining the halves, however, means clamps are only useful on the ends. Fortunately, my woodworking arsenal includes some fairly lengthy spring and ratchet clamps. In the case of the biceps, I easily joined the halves for those with just clamps: All the other limb pieces are longer, and while I could still use three clamps of increasing lengths on the ends, the center of the joint was where magnets did their magical thing. For the even longer thighs and shins, it required a few more magnets. Also, because getting the slightly curved fronts of the shins and thighs to close properly, I also relied on tape. The tape worked in concert with the magnets -- the tape pulled the joint together, while the magnets squeezed it closed till the Duco set. As before, at this point it was just a matter of working my way through all the pieces, gluing the halves together in turn. Occasionally, though, as you work on armor you're likely to bump into the same issue I had. You'll probably find that gluing the first side of a two-part piece like an arm or leg is pretty easy -- everything glues up nice and flat. Trouble is, those joints aren't really flat because you're working on a round object. Add to that the fact that during the trimming process you probably removed (or added via shims) a certain amount of material. As a result, when it comes time to gluing the second side of a two-part piece, that joint may not close properly. In fact, it may be way off. The least troublesome way this typically occurs is that the piece is "sprung" open, with the mating edges some distance apart, like the forearms here: That's usually not too bad to work with if the gap is small. However, you may also find that the gluing faces of the mating edges are nowhere near parallel, as they'll need to be when joined. For example, not only did my forearms have a pretty sizable open gap as you can see in the photo above, but the mating surfaces here are at a severe angle to one another: To apply glue and get this clamped up properly, I'd have to really force this closed with a lot of pressure, and the odds of getting it closed and clamped properly are slim -- in fact, while clamps might handle this OK magnets may not be strong enough to hold this closed. Plus, with joining faces this far off even if I could get it glued and closed with clamps, the stresses involved on the plastic would continuously try to pull that joint apart. (Even, to some extent, long after the glue has cured.) So before proceeding, I headed up to the kitchen and set a pot of water to boiling. I'll water-bath all the parts at the end to do some final shaping of course, but this issue needs some reshaping now. I dipped the forearm into the water and when sufficiently softened reformed the mating edges so that it not only eliminated that sprung-open gap, but also made the mating surface more parallel, as you can see here: It still wasn't quite perfect, but with that open gap gone and the surfaces a lot more parallel, it took only a light pressure to close the joint. Now I could far more easily apply the glue, clamps and magnets. By the way, the two forearms where the only places I had this issue. The shins, thighs and biceps were fine in this regard. Now, I just worked my way through the rest of the joints, plus I glued the 25mm closing strips to the backs of the shins. With that, the main glueup of all the limbs is complete. Let me give you a tip on how I work with glue, by the way. This is something I also do with my woodworking, and that's to "isolate" the glue as much as possible. I like to use some kind of dish or shallow tray, and always keep the glue in it. In the image above, I'm using a plastic coffee lid as my Tray of Isolation. I put my glue in it before I start, take out the glue to use it, then immediately put it back in The Tray of Isolation. Glue is easy to spill, drips on a glue bottle or tube can get on your work (or on you, which you then get on your work), and if you work like me and never set something down in the same place twice, glue is easy to lose on a crowded work table. This way, I always know right where it is and it's easy to slide it out of the way. It may take a while to get into the habit of always putting things back in The Tray, but it's worth it. Oh, wait... Did I just say the limbs were complete a bit earlier? You're probably thinking, What an idiot; those aren't complete without the outer cover strips. You're only partially right. But before I do that completing-up part, I have to do a personal completing-up part and eliminate every gap and open seam that would be visible on the armor. This isn't a requirement for any level, but those gaps would drive me nuts if I didn't do something about them and give my armor a more finished appearance. I started by mixing up a small jar of ABS paste. Then, I brushed a bit of acetone into the gap, seam or crack I wanted to work (you can see the brush in a jar with a bit of acetone in the below image). Not a lot, but just a bit of acetone brushed into the seam first really helps for the ABS paste to adhere. Then I used a thin applicator stick or that same small paintbrush to dab ABS paste into every seam or gap I wanted to fix (except the bottoms of the thighs, more on which shortly). Here, I'm doing the biceps. I didn't bother with any seam or joint that would be covered by the outer strips later, so that meant only dabbing ABS paste on the very ends of the pieces that are visible past the ends of the strips, plus the edges themselves and a little bit on the inside. Do this quickly, as ABS starts drying the second you dip it out of the jar. Clean your applicator stick or paintbrush frequently with acetone (I do this between every dabbing) and continue working your way through all the gaps and seams you want to hide. Now, just let it dry. ABS paste dries to the touch in seconds, but it takes a few hours to fully harden. This is a great task to do before calling it quits for the night. Here's what the patching job on the bicep seam looked like next morning: Now, use sandpaper to level and shape the hardened ABS. For this, I like to start with a medium/fine grit, maybe 180-grit or so. Always use a sanding block when leveling, whether the surface is flat or convex. For concave surfaces, wrap the paper around a curved object. The reason for this is that the fleshy pads on your fingers and thumb are very soft, and the flexible sandpaper will simply ride over the bump of plastic you want to level out. It'll get smoother, but it'll take forever to level it. For finish sanding and polishing, no sanding block is really needed, but for leveling it's a must. In the photo above, I'm using what amounts to a tiny stick of scrap with the 180-grit sandpaper wrapped around it. I continued sanding with increasingly finer grits, progressing through 220, 400, 800, 1200 and then a final polis-sanding with 2000 grit without the sanding block. After the last sanding, the ABS was smooth, the seam has disappeared, and the ABS has even started to take on a bit of sheen. Novus polish brought all those gap-fillers to a nice glossy shine. Now, for the bottoms of the thighs. There's a square molded portion that runs around the entire lower opening of the thighs, and the tops of the shins. The outer cover strips go all the way to the top of the shins so there's no big gap there, but there is on the bottom of both thighs. Yeah, yeah those are mostly hidden -- by the sniper knee on one side, and the small ammo belt on the other -- but Mr. Perfectionist here didn't just want them hidden, he wanted them gone. To secure that gap, I first adhered a small piece of ABS inside the molded portion at the front of each thigh, using ABS paste as the glue. Then when that was hardened, I dabbed on a small amount of ABS paste on the other side to fill the gap there. When it was cured, I sanded and smoothed it out by progressing up through sanding grits as before, then hit it with Novus 3 and Novus 2. Now the gap looks much better. Wait... gap? What gap? With the fronts finished I backed up the corresponding spots on the inside/backs of the thighs, but didn't bother doing the outside portions of those rear gaps yet. I haven't done my strapping yet, and will probably need to make the half-moon relief cuts at the backs of the shins and thighs for movement anyway, so I'll wait to fill and polish anything in back after making those cuts. Likewise, since I haven't done the strapping and upper body yet, I may still need to shave a bit more off the tops of the thighs -- and the bottoms of the shins -- for final fitment, so I'm not applying the outer cover strips to the legs just yet. I'll do that last after I've done final fitting. (In the previous photo, I'm just holding that cover strip in place.) And since I'd just as soon do all the outer strips at the same time, even though I consider the forearms and biceps completely done, I'll do those outer cover strips at the same time. So there you go. The main glueup is complete, and I have a full set of Stormtrooper arms and legs! From here, it's on to the main body. Not a lot of gluing there, except snap plates, so it's strapping and fitting. Yikes, am I actually in the home stretch? A.J.

Glueup Part I -- Thoughts on glue OK, this is it. Time to slather on glue and make things stick together. First, my thoughts on sticky stuff. Warning, though. I get longwinded, so feel free to skip this and jump to the next post with more Star Warsy content. Since my build was considerably interrupted by a move and lots of Life Stuff, I've had my armor well over a year. Plenty of time to think about how I wanted to handle the glueup. I know that the #1 go-to glue is E6000 for ease of reversibility. But I've used it before for other things and I hate the stuff. The fumes and odor are overpowering, and the frustrating wait times for clamping can sometimes exceed 24 hours for a single clamp-up. But there is that reversibility thing, which is important. But here's the thing: As a woodworker I'm very familiar with gluing things up that simply are not reversible -- simple joints like butts and rabbets can conceivably be undone, but more than likely it destroys the joint. More complicated joints like dadoes, mortise-and-tenon, and dovetails simply cannot be undone in any real sense. I'm used to this and accept it as part of the permanence of glue and am comfortable with it. The key is being really, really, really sure you're doing it right the first time. As an example of big project I've done in the last couple years (and, indulging in the opportunity to show it off any chance I get), here's a solid-cherry Civil War officer's field desk I designed and built as a project for Woodworker's Journal magazine. This desk incorporates butt joints, dadoes, rabbets, half-blind dovetails, mortise-and-tenon, and tongue-and-groove joints -- and every one of those joints is done with standard woodworking glue which you just can't take apart. So the point is this: I'm willing to take the risk with permanent glue for the sake of shortening the working time, lowering the odor and being able to serve the Emperor. With that in mind, I plan to use four kinds of glue for my armor. For the main build, for strength and speed of curing time I plan to use regular ABS cement and Duco cement. Both make pretty permanent joints, cure quickly, and are very strong. Although I've used ABS glue a lot for plumbing work, I hate the stuff. The fumes are awful, and the working time is very, very short -- you just don't have much time to get it on and get things in place. For that reason, I'll probably use more Duco than ABS cement. The fumes aren't nearly as bad and the working time is a good bit longer. Also, unlike ABS cement which you have to brush on or use that funky swab thing attached to the underside of the lid, Duco cement comes in a tube with a fine-tip nozzle, making application very easy. For small things that require only little dabs of glue, I plan to use a gel formula super glue. I'll probably use this for the Ab button plates and the belt rivet covers, and maybe the sniper knee. Just a couple of tiny dots at the corners will hold great, and if I ever do want to remove those it'll just take sliding a razor knife under the corners to pry them free. Finally, I'll attach the outside cover strips on the arms and legs with good ol' E6000, for two reasons: First is that there is inevitable glue squeeze-out when doing the cover strips. Don't care about that on the inner strips, but I do on the highly visible outer strips. E6000 squeeze-out is a snap to remove with stick or thumbnail, and the strips will look perfect. Second, I do want the ability to resize the armor someday should I lose weight -- always a goal for me -- or sell the armor to someone smaller than me. By using E6000 on the outer cover strips, those can easily be peeled off in the back, and I can then cut through the joint seam and resize from the back as needed. So there you go, my thoughts on glue. Starting in the next post, I'll actually start using the stuff. A.J.

Huh, I wasn't familiar with either one of those brands. I probably already have plenty of snaps since I bought a couple packages, but I'll check them out. What makes them better? A.J.

Thanks for the heads-up on that, Tony. I'm moving on to other areas of the armor for now, and will come back to those snaps later. A.J.

The Garrison Carida annual armor bash (and BBQ/get-together/general swell time) was weekend before last. I took my whole kit, along with my boots and undersuit, and got some outstanding fitting advice and direction from several of the seasoned members. Been spending most of the time since then finishing up my trimming/fitting and getting ready for glue -- a really big step I'm just about ready to take. Before we do that, though, I thought I'd share a few of the trimming steps. Plus some miscellaneous etcetera. One of the things folks were doing at the armor bash was mounting snaps, and I thought that with it fresh in my mind I ought to do a few to become familiar with it. After trimming the butt plate, I laid out pencil marks and drilled the butt plate for the two snaps at the bottom. After drilling, you need to countersink the holes a bit. Snap posts flare slightly at the base of the post, and if you don't countersink the holes a bit this flare will keep the snap post from seating flush. I used a regular countersink bit mounted in a handle specifically made for this process. (This is another of my woodworking tools being called upon in service to the Empire.) There's no real set amount countersinking I can recommend as all countersink bits are different -- plus, the flare at the base of the snap posts may vary -- so it's best to twist a couple times, then test-fit a snap post in the countersunk hole. Repeat as needed till the post sits nice and flat on the plastic. By the way, do this by hand! Either find a handle like the one I used, or just hold the countersink bit in your fingers. Don't be tempted to use a drill/driver. ABS is soft stuff, and just a few twists may do the trick. Using a drill you could easily blast right through unintentionally. The idea of whacking away at my armor with a hammer doesn't appeal to me, so I've opted to set the snaps with snap-setting pliers, at least initially. These do a great job of setting the post, depending on your squeezing strength and the variabilities from one snap to another. As it happened, for these two snaps one of them set perfect and tight against the plastic with no spinning. The other snap, no matter how hard I squeezed I couldn't get it set tight enough to suit me so I did as much as I could with the pliers, and then a single whack with a hammer and setting tool tightened it down. I'll probably do a combination of pliers and hammer as I move forward, but if I can minimize the hammering I'll be a happy guy. Here's how the snaps came out. Not all of the armor lends itself well for marking and trimming. Flat areas like the fronts and backs of the legs, as well as the sides of the forearms and biceps you can mark and score just fine with a ruler and knife, but round areas like the bells and tops of the thighs you can't. So I used a compass to do my marking in those areas. For example, I needed to take off about 1/2" uniformly all the way around the shoulder bells. (The A.M. bells are very large.) To do this, I just set the compass for 1/2" with a ruler, hung the pointy end over the edge of the armor and just ran the pencil end right along the bell for a cut line that's perfectly even and equally spaced from the edge all around. I marked both bells, then the tops of both thighs, which needed shortened a bit more than 3/4". (I may need to shorten the thigh tops a bit more, but I'm going a little at a time.) Once marked, it's just a simple matter of trimming off the waste with Lexan scissors. After that, a bit of sanding smoothed out the cuts and removed all sharp edges. OK, that's it for now. Up next is gluing on cover strips. Holy yikemoly! I'm actually about to start assembly! A.J.

Do you have a Bon-Ton store near you? If so, it won't be there much longer. Some 260 stores in 24 states are closing and have been doing sales out the wazoo for the last several weeks. They've recently put their store fixtures up for grabs, including mannequins. Not sure when they started that, but the ones I saw today have been marked down several times. Here's what my local store in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., looked like this morning: Geez, would you look at that? I thought I'd wandered onto the set of the Westworld lower level. I've been thinking about making a mannequin but when I saw a pop-up ad about Bon-Ton's last days, it occurred to me that they might be selling fixtures so I went to check it out. Glad I did. I grabbed this torso mannequin: The price for this? Less than 20 bucks; to be exact it was $19.50. Seriously. It's perfect for how I intend to use it and I'll be able to put the entire upper part of my TK armor on it. If I ever want to add the legs later, that'll be easy to do with some simple PVC stands inside the armor pieces, propped up below the torso. This mannequin is on the large side, and the shoulders match mine pretty closely, which is what I wanted. And -- what are the odds!! -- it even has six-pack abs like mine. Wait, did I say six-pack abs? I meant just a six pack like mine. I have two six packs, actually, and both are in the refrigerator where they belong. Anyway, if you're looking for a mannequin and have an about-to-be-closed Bon-Ton near you, check it out. You're welcome. A.J.

I got two packages of Tandy line 24 snaps, at different times and at different stores. The packages were slightly different, but all the Tandy paper inserts in the packages looked the same, as did the package labels, logos, etc. But the snaps themselves are vastly different. Here's what they look like, in matched pairs, looking at the upper sides: The top pair have the Tandy name on both pieces, while the bottom pair has no branding at all. Also, notice how very different the left post is in the lower pair. I set these two pairs in some ABS, and here's what the reverse side looks like: Again, very different. All the packaging looked legit, but is the one with no Tandy branding possible a counterfeit? Or do I have two different kinds of Tandy line 24 snaps? Again, there's nothing on the packaging to indicate that these are different types. However, a close look at the packaging shows that the snaps with the Tandy branding on them were made in China, and the ones without the branding are from Taiwan. Any thoughts? More importantly, should I avoid using one or the other? Thanks! A.J.

On those stripes -- I may be wrong but I think that may be a painting stencil he hasn't peeled off yet. A.J.

Hiding that seam will be easy, Joseph -- glued up first and clamped securely, it'll just disappear when dry after I trim it to proper width just like a glued woodworking joint that is sanded flush afterward. If I do this, I'll form the shoulder bridge and the reinforcement strip to shape first like you said and then glue it up and clamp it till dry still while in that shape. That's a woodworking technique called "bent lamination," btw. I have no doubt you'll never be able to tell that it's really a two-ply arrangement; in fact, if I hadn't said anything (or if I don't show the underside of the bridges in a future build photo) I doubt anyone would ever have noticed. My only concern was affecting L2 and L3. I still haven't decide if I'll do this or not. The A.M. kit comes with Sandy shoulder bridges as well as the Stunt, so I might do a test run with those first. A.J.

"Tony shot first."

Thought I'd post this here instead of my build thread in case anyone else can benefit from the answer. I've read throughout the builds that the shoulder bridges are very prone to cracking under use and that many of you reinforce them in some way. Most of the options seem to be some variance of cutting small pieces and gluing them into the recesses on the underside, but I'm thinking of something different but don't know if it's "legal," especially for the higher levels. What I was thinking of doing was gluing a rectangle to the underside of each bridge that was the same size as the overall bridge, and then do my trimming to final width/length as my A.M. kit has lots of extra plastic on the edges all around. Something like this: (This is just taped up w/o glue for the photo, btw.) By gluing it before trimming to width, there would be no visible "seam" whatsoever; it'd be invisible. While the extra layer would indeed increase the thickness, it would be by only the tiniest amount. Doubt you'd be able to tell even if I told you to look for it. By doing it this way, not only would it reinforce the shoulder bridges all the way around and along the overall length, it would give a flat gluing surface for the underside, increasing the holding strength when glued onto the Chest piece. I doubt this would be an issue for Basic approval, but I don't want to mess up L2 and L3. Thoughts? A.J.

Thanks, Jordan. I also won't need shims on the sides -- I did a tape-fit so I could order my Kittell belt right after getting the BBB, and the sides came together perfectly, so I don't need to trim or shim the sides. (However, I've lost a few pounds since then, so I may need to trim the sides after all.) Trimming off all return at the leg openings on the Ab and Butt sounds like a good idea, and was what I was thinking of. Glad to have that confirmed. As to the back of the suit, I think I'd like to leave a healthy return on the bottom of the Back Plate and top of the Kidney so that once strapped the Back might be less likely to ride over the Kidney. Might encourage a bit of air circulation, too. Since you have A.M. armor, you know the returns on all the back pieces are big -- about the same size as the top of the Ab in the photo up above -- so I might trim down the returns at the bottom of the Kidney and top of the Butt just so there's not so much room inside (fitment isn't an issue with the A.M.), and since that joint is both strapped and covered with the belt there shouldn't be much issue of the parts going over each other. But as you say everything comes down to the fitting and how it all feels, which I'll decide once I get there. A.J.

Mostly questions this time around. I've made great progress on trimming. The forearms and biceps are all trimmed and -- I think -- ready to glue up, but I'm waiting till a Garrison armor bash next weekend to get my taped-up pieces some fresh eyeballs on it before I commit to glue. Meanwhile, the shins and thighs are trimmed to size for the cover strips in the fronts but, again, waiting for the armor bash to get some help with the backs for sizing. With those all done and set aside, I've moved on to other areas for trimming. First, I've trimmed the button plates to size per Billhag's chart, and put them in place for a test fit on the Ab: Won't attach them till after the belt work and all that is done; probably one of the last things I'll do, in fact. But what think you all on the sizing and placement? OK, as I look at the body parts, I need to trim lot of the generous A.M. returns. (Yes, I know that no return edges are required anywhere except for brackets, which I'm not doing, but I do want some for the illusion of thickness.) I've been thinking about this a lot over the last year I've had my BBB, and have already made a couple decisions regarding return edges. I've already removed them entirely from the wrists and ankles; none at all there. I've also decided I don't want return edges at all on the tops of the thighs for comfort and mobility, plus I think I'll need to shave somewhere between 1/2" to 1" off the tops anyway. Elsewhere, I've trimmed the returns to about 1/8" on the insides (elbow insides) of the forearms and biceps. Backs of the forearms and biceps I've been a bit more generous at around 3/16". Anyway, I don't really have any questions for those unless anyone here has any specific advice or comments. However, I have a number of questions on the "body" armor -- Ab, Chest, Back, Kidney and Butt. Starting with the Ab, here's what the top edge looks like now right out of the BBB: I've decided to trim the top edge to my preferred minimum of 1/8", or perhaps remove it entirely. It's hidden under the lower chest, so visually no additional "bulk" is needed there for the illusion of armor thickness. And, of course, the sides don't have any return edges. Now, what about the lower portion and around the cod? Here's the amount of return there right out of the BBB: What have you all found to be a good amount of return cutting for this area? Moving on to the back, from most of the photos here on White Armor, making a visual guess it looks like most of you have trimmed this edge down to about 1/4" or maybe 3/16", and it looks pretty good to me. Here's what's there now: As you can see, there's boatloads of return edge on the lower portion of the back (on the right of the photo). Recommendations there? Finally, here's the side of the chest: From looking at photos, most of you seem to have gone with no more than 3/16" to 1/4" or so. Again, that's a visual guess. It's around 1/4" to 3/8" now, and doesn't look bad. Recommendations? Thanks! A.J.

Land o' legs -- Part I I've set the arm assemblies aside for now till I can get some experienced eyeballs on them to take a look at my sizing. I think I have both the forearms and biceps just about right, but I definitely want some second opinions before I start slathering glue and cover strips on those. I'm eager to finish those assemblies, but there's plenty more to do with this build so I'm moving on to the legs for now. With A.M. armor, making the cuts on half of the legs is waymo easier than other armor not as generously sized. There's lots of extra plastic here, and a quick overlap and test shows that I won't need shims at all on the backs no matter how I cut the fronts. With that in mind I can, without fear, go ahead and cut the fronts to 10mm on each side as the base for the front 20mm cover strips before doing the actual sizing of the entire part. Unless you're a big trooper and need all that extra plastic, trimming the fronts of A.M. legs is important for the fitting process: As with the arms in the earlier section, there's just too much plastic to overlap during the sizing process to get an accurate fitting. Starting with the shins, I removed all of the lower return edge. Don't need any down there over my boots. I found that I couldn't clamp the part to my assembly table as I did the forearms because of the shin's ridged top and overall shape. Instead, I clamped a flexible metal straightedge directly to the shin itself to make my scoring cuts. By the way, you'll probably use spring clamps for something like this, but since I have a woodworking shop I have boatloads of these small bar clamps and prefer them for any flat surface due to their unmatched strength -- clamp up a straightedge with these and it just isn't going to move. If you use bar clamps for any part of your build, mind the free ends or you'll put your eye out, kid. The process of making all four cuts, two per leg remember because I'm only doing the fronts here, went smoothly. I'm still taking my time and being careful, but I'm not nearly as terrified as I was making those first cuts on the arms and biceps. As with the arms/biceps, I lightly sanded the cut edge to remove high spots and rough edges. Let's tape up the shins and see how they look. Yeah, that's the ticket. Nice and flush all down the line. There's still a lot of extra plastic on the backs, but I'll get that once I've marked the backs for fitting. Here's the thing, though: I can't do that by myself. I have no idea how you folks who did these without help managed it -- without being able to see the entire back of my shins as I fit them, I simply can't trust my guesswork at getting them marked accurately. Unfortunately, Mrs. Stormtrooper is out of town so her assistance isn't available. I thought about calling the retired lady next door to ask for a bit of help, but stopped when I imagined the conversation. ME: "Hi, Marion... Hey, have you got a few minutes to help me out with something?" NEIGHBOR: "Sure A.J. What do you need?" ME: "Well, I need you to come over and hold my legs for me while I get out a bunch of tape. Give me a couple minutes, though, because I have to put on some tight black leggings first." NEIGHBOR: *click* Yeah, that won't work. I'll wait till Mrs. Stormtrooper comes home or till I can get a Garrison member to help out. OK, I'll move on to the thighs. (Ha! Imagine replacing "legs" with "thighs" in that hypothetical phone call above.) As with the shins, there's far more plastic on these than I'll need, so I can safely cut those fronts to the required 10mm per side and still have plenty of overlap in back for fitting purposes. First, though, I want to trim the return edges. After all the reading I've done here, I've decided I don't want any return edges at the thigh tops for comfort and mobility. Plus, the A.M. legs are large and I'm sure I'll need to trim a bit off the tops anyway, so before fitting they have to go. There's a good bit there so I first used my Lexan scissors to cut most of it off. Then I went over to my drill press -- still fitted with that Microplane rotary shaper you saw in the arms section -- and ground it off the rest of the way. I also removed some of the return edge on the lower raised ridge. I didn't take all of that off, however, and instead trimmed it so it was at the same level as the inner sides of thighs, which I confirmed by laying a straightedge across the bottoms. My main purpose for doing this at this stage is so I didn't have extra material pressing into my legs during the fitting process and adversely altering initial fitting. Secondarily, the inner surface of the plastic will ride and bump on my legs a lot while moving, and I didn't want large returns on the raised ridge digging into my knees. When the legs are complete and I can put the armor on, I may elect to take a bit more of that return off the lower ridges, but for now making those edges flush with the inner surface of the thighs should be enough. With the return edges trimmed and sanded smooth, I cut the fronts to the 10mm-per-side measurement and taped them up. Both came out just fine. Again, though, I have to stop until I get some help with the backs as far as fitting and marking. With that in mind, this will be the last of the leg stuff for a while. Still loads of other things to do -- trim and fit my chest, ab, back, kidney, butt... "Hi, Marion, this is A.J. next door. Yeah, if you have a couple minutes could come over and help me trim and fit my butt?" Uh, no. I think I can handle these without help. A.J.

To arms! To arms! -- Part IV The day I've both been anticipating with glee... and dreading: The day I start taking a knife to my pristine, precious -- and expensive -- armor. Believe me, when it comes to expecting the worst to happen I'm Mr. Paranoid. Look up "paranoid" in the dictionary, and you'll see my picture. (Note to self: Ask the dictionary people to update that picture. That must be like, what, at least 10 years old.) But it has to be done, or no Shiny Whitey. So I gritted my teeth, grabbed my knife, and started in with the biceps. To make the straightest cuts possible, and to ensure that I stayed on my cut lines, I placed a sacrificial cutting board -- a square of scrap plywood -- on the edge of my assembly table and clamped the working piece with a metal straightedge on my cut line. One slow, light pass to set the cut. Take your time with this first cut; you don't want to wander off the cut line. Then another pass to deepen the cut a bit; it doesn't take much. Notice here the glove. Do yourself a favor and get a pair of cut-resistant gloves and wear one on your not-knife hand. You don't need one on your working hand, plus I find wearing a glove on my working hand gives me less control of a tool. Give the one you don't use to someone who's different-handed and share the love. After making the scoring cut, unclamp the part and finish the scoring to the ends of the cut line (the clamp pads are covering those spots). With the scoring cut done, just bend the edge of the waste away from the cut line: It'll snap right off. Save the scrap for ABS paste or inner cover strips. Now repeat for the trim on the other side of the part, then do the same thing on both sides of the matching part. The edge should already be straight unless your knife wandered off the cut line a bit, but it will be rough where it snapped, plus there may be a bit of a raised edge on one side where the knife first cut. Smooth all of this out and give yourself perfectly square joining surface by running the cut edge back and forth several times over a fresh sheet of medium sandpaper (120-150 grit). Don't press down so hard on the piece as to deform its shape as you sand, or it won't be straight and square once you relieve the sanding pressure. Just lightly run it back and forth removing any high spots and roughness. Repeat for all cut edges on all the parts. By the way, even though all of this ABS dust would make ABS paste in a matter of seconds if you mix it with acetone, don't be tempted to: There will be grit, sand particles and other contaminants in it. This stuff goes in the trash. OK, let's see how I did on my first-ever, long-procrastinated, paranoia-laden armor cuts. Well, look at that. Am I da Man? Why, yes, I am. Look up "da Man" in the dictionary and you'll see my picture. (It's probably 10 years old, though.) All four parts -- both biceps and both forearms -- came out good, the joints go together smoothly and am every bit as pleased as I am relieved. After all, I'm no longer an ABS-cutting virgin. I've done it, the worst is over and now I can move on apace. As I anticipated and mentioned in the previous post, once taped back up all the parts fit a bit better than they did with all that folded-over plastic making things awkward during fitting and marking; they slip on and off more easily, too. Also, without all that overlapped plastic the roundness of each piece is now easily adjustable temporarily by just squeezing the part while trying it on. Remember that both biceps and one of the arms were oddly shaped in cross-section, and a gentle squeeze was all it took to correct that. Once glued up, a hot-water bath will make these right as rain. I think I might be able to trim a hair more off the wrist ends of the forearms, and possibly shave a tad more off the upper (shoulder) ends of the biceps. Not sure; they all feel pretty good. Doing so will just be a matter of drawing a new cut line on the joint that tightens the openings just a little on the ends that seem roomy, but I'm going to wait for a while before doing so. Garrison Carida has a troop this weekend that, as a cadet, I'm planning to Squire for so I may just take these four parts along to see what some of the guys think. Plenty to do elsewhere on my build in the meantime; I'm thinking it's time to tackle the shins. With that in mind, I'm gonna bring the arms section of my build thread to a close for now and revisit the arms when it's time to start gluing things together. A.J.

To arms! To arms! -- Part III I think I finally have the forearms and biceps fitted correctly, but it wasn't particularly easy. For those who haven't started your build yet, there's some things you should know about that impede proper fitting. There are lots if things, really, but let me highlight three -- two of which really slowed me down. First, not all armor is the exact shape it's supposed to be. Because of how it's pulled from the molds, cooled, shipped or whatever, even the best armor (and I consider A.M. to be among the best) just doesn't always match the shape of the body part it's supposed to go on. I talked about this earlier with the forearms. The right one was shaped just right once I got it taped up, and it fit the contours of my arm as it should. The left one, not so much. In fact, the left one is way off, and will certainly require a hot water bath to reshape it to my arm. Meanwhile, both biceps were very oddly shaped. Take a look: Taped up, this is what shape they are, which is not how my biceps are shaped. First of all, these are basically very tight vertical ovals. The upper ends (closer to the shoulder) aren't too bad, but the elbow ends of the biceps are both as weird as they can be. Although rounded on the top, it's way too narrow and pinches my arm severely side-to-side. Meanwhile, the underside of my biceps isn't a narrow square -- but that's the shape these are as you can see. It was making fitting/taping so difficult, I pulled them apart and gave each lower section a hot water bath: Taped up again you can see that the top curves are now wider and rounder, closer to the actual shape of my arm. I also got the squareness out of the undersides, rounding those off as well. This fix has made all the difference in getting the taping and fitting correct. A second issue you'll hit when fitting armor is that of necessity you have to overlap the armor since it hasn't been trimmed to size yet, which effectively makes whatever part you're fitting thicker than it will end up. Also because it's not trimmed, the overlap isn't really flat due to return edges, overall shape, etc. There's not a thing you can do about this right now, but keep it in mind as you mark and cut -- even if the fit feels good, it's not quite accurate because of all this extra plastic. This isn't entirely a bad thing, however. When you do trim and that extra overlap is gone, you'll find the part a tad roomier than you thought. Since you should trim slow anyway, taking off less rather than more, this is something that can help act as a safety cushion. The third and final thing to keep in mind, and this has been said a hundred times before but bears repeating, is that it is absolutely imperative that you do any final fitting before cutting with your undersuit on. This makes all the difference. You obviously shouldn't fit armor over jeans or other street clothes, but even over bare skin you won't get the same fit as with your undersuit on. With that in mind, I slipped on mine and checked my last fitting before getting out the knife. Here's the right arm: Feels pretty good. I can tell I'll still need to do some shaping once everything is glued up, as the biceps have less room side-to-side than they do top-to-bottom (they were more or less vertical ovals before the water bath). Plus, I may need to trim the inner edges at the elbow for better mobility there, but I think this works. Meanwhile, here's the left: The fit, I think, is OK. This was the wonky forearm arm, remember, and it will definitely require reshaping once glued up. That's partially why the wrist seems so big -- the end of the forearm is flattened vertically and not horizontally, the way your wrist naturally is. (The other reason the wrist looks large is that I have large hands and need to be able to squeeze them through.) So, what do you experienced armorers think? OK, with everything taped as good as I think it's going to be, it's time to mark the plastic. This is a simple matter of just splitting the difference in the overlap, marking at the midway point on each half of the part. Once untaped, I'll use these marks as my guide to continue the line from end to end, adding a bit of a cushion (maybe, say, 1/4" for safety), and then make my cuts. All that comes next, after a good night's sleep. The prospect of finally beginning the cutting is daunting enough as is, and I certainly want to go forward with a clear mind in the morning. A.J.

Button break After lots of grinding off return edges all morning for my arms, biceps and such I decided I needed a break from ABS grinding, and decided to jump ahead to the Ab buttons for a change of pace. First, I trimmed both the large and small button plates per Billhag's graphic and lightly sanded the edges, then used some really fine sandpaper to scuff-sand the buttons themselves for better paint adhesion. Now, there are a lot of things I do pretty well but painting ain't one of them, so I bought some button masking templates from Trooperbay. These things are a lifesaver for fumble-finger painters like me. The real trick with these (or regular masking tape, for that matter) is to ensure that they're stuck securely as possible to the edge of the paint line, otherwise paint can easily go underneath. So, once I had the templates in place, I used the end of a thin dowel to press around the edges to seal them. Also in this photo you can see everything I'm using for this paint task: fine brush, Q-Tips, screwdriver for opening Humbrol tins and a razor knife. Also on hand was some mineral spirits in a small cup and paper towels. Note that once the templates are all smoothed out, I wrote a "G" or "B" by each button so I'd get the colors right. And if you're looking closely at the items in that photo above you're probably thinking, Oh, look, the idiot has a magnet stuck to his screwdriver. Well, there's a reason for that: Don't know about you, but I have the hardest time handling those tiny lids without either dropping them or getting paint all over me. Or both. So before prying off the lid I stick a tiny magnet to the screwdriver. Then when you pry the lid off it doesn't go anywhere. With luck, it'll even flip around to the magnet itself as it did for me up there. OK, let's paint. I tried both the Q-Tip to paint and the fine brush, and preferred the brush. I brushed on the appropriate colors over each of the buttons, brushing right over the edge of the templates. Then I let the paint "set up" for about 10-15 minutes or so. Not dry -- that will take hours to fully dry and cure -- but enough time for the paint to thicken in place a bit, then peeled off the templates. It's important to remove the templates before the paint dries for two reasons. First, if you let it dry all the way you run the risk of pulling up the edge of the button paint when pulling the templates off. Even if that doesn't happen, the paint will dry with a little "ridge" at the edges where the templates were, and that's prone to flaking there. But with the paint thickened but still wet when you remove the templates, it'll self-level at the edges and be quite smooth when fully dry. By the way, note here that I lifted the corner of the templates with the razor knife, and used that to pull them free. They're easier to handle this way. Finally, let's see how they came out: Nice. Now, I'll set these aside where nothing will get on them -- this is enamel paint, and will remain sticky for hours -- and allow them to fully dry. OK, break's over. Time to get back to those arms. A.J.

OK, no idea what happened with the previous two posts with nothing in them except a blank ukswrath quote. Sorry. Can a sysop get rid of them? Thanks. Was trying to post new stuff on my build. But that quote form kept popping up and wouldn't let me type anything else in. I'm clueless. Anyway, regular posts resume in next post. (I hope...)

I'd use something like an Exacto knife. Use the tip to scrape/shape the outline edge of the paint where it goes "outside the lines." It'll come right off and leave a sharp edge. Go easy with the tip of the knife -- you just want to scrape paint, not plastic, and go slowly. It's really easier than it sounds. As another A.M. builder, I'm thrilled with how great a job you did Jordan! I hope my build turns out so well. A.J.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. In fact, I mentioned that in the first part of the forearms post, although I didn't specifically refer to L3: "The A.M. kit includes a healthy return edge on everything, which can make fitting difficult, plus there's not supposed to be any return edge on the wrists anyway." And then again a bit later: "In the photo below you can see the trimmed returns on forearms. Almost nothing on the wrist end (I'll finish that later after assembly is complete), and about 3/16" on the elbow end. " I hope you'll be pleased to know that everything I'm doing at this point, although it's for Basic now, is a preliminary for going for Centurion. I'm leaving a bit of return on those edges until after gluing, at which point I'll then go back and remove the last little bit. I want a really smooth transition, so I'll do the final sanding and stuff on those wrists after that. A.J.

To arms! To arms! - Part II Taping things up for a test fit was pretty straightforward, although it did involve a lot of trial and error. And, of course, the things kept wanting to spring back open every move you make, but I finally got both forearms to where I think they're about right. I made sure to wear gloves to guarantee I could get my hands, which are large anyway, through the wrist opening. (And, yes, before doing a final marking and cutting I'll do it with my undersuit on.) I have to say that this feels really weird having these things on; very unfamiliar. With that in mind I think I'll want to sleep on them at this stage of taping up before deciding if I have them right enough to start cutting. Well, let me rephrase. I'm not literally going to sleep on them, but rather come back tomorrow and try them on again to see if I still like them. Or, what the hell. Maybe I will wear them to bed. It's a Saturday night. Part of why they feel so weird is that one of them is really oddly shaped. I read about this with A.M. forearms in another build, although I can't remember which one or ones it was. Take a look at the photo below. The one at the left of the photo is the right forearm, and the wrist opening is pretty good as far as it being a "natural" shape of a slightly flattened circle. The left wrist, though, is more of a vertical oval. I see a hot-water bath in my future. (For the forearms!) Meanwhile, the elbow ends are even more oddly shaped. That's the left elbow end on the left of the photo, and it's shaped exactly opposite of what it should be and, as such, made getting the tape right difficult. Even once I did get the tape to where I think it's correct, it's hard to tell since it doesn't sit naturally on my arm. Meanwhile, the right elbow end -- on the right of the photo -- is, like the wrist end, pretty good and conforms to my upper forearm nicely. In short, the right forearm cross-sectional shape isn't bad at all as far as a natural fit is concerned, while the left forearm is pretty much opposite of what it should be. Again, I read about this in another A.M. build thread so it didn't come as a surprise. I think that's all I'm going to do for today. Tomorrow, a re-test of these forearms, and then I think I'll start fitting the biceps. A.J.

To arms! To arms! Part I I couldn't decide between forearms and shins, so I flipped a coin -- arms won. The A.M. kit includes a healthy return edge on everything, which can make fitting difficult, plus there's not supposed to be any return edge on the wrists anyway. With all that in mind I decided to remove the return edges to pretty close to where I'll finally have them -- nothing on the wrist, and about 1/8"=3/16" on the elbow ends. Lots of ways to remove it (and I've seen all of them here on White Armor), but being a woodworker I opted for one of my woodworking tools. It's very much like a sanding drum you'd use in a drill, or a very small sanding drum like the ones for a Dremel rotary tool. These don't actually have sandpaper, though, but tiny chisel-like cutters. They use Microplane cutting surfaces (made my Grace Manufacturing for those taking notes, in case there's a quiz later), and were first made for the woodworking trade, but they've also migrated into kitchen tools as well. They make fast work of removing waste. They're called "rotary shapers," by the way if you go looking for them on Amazon. Above, I've chucked a 2" Microplane drum in my drill press (so I can use both hands, although you can also use them in a regular drill/driver). The drill press is set at 380 RPM; you don't really want to go much faster. 350-400 RPM is a good range. At this speed it still removes waste quickly, but almost no heat is generated. That, added to the cutter design, means that you don't get any of the melting you usually do with sandpaper-based drums. As a bonus, these things make mounds of finely shredded ABS you can use later to make paste. In the photo below you can see the trimmed returns on forearms. Almost nothing on the wrist end (I'll finish that later after assembly is complete), and about 3/16" on the elbow end. Note here just how smooth and even the curve is -- at 2", the diameter of drum creates a much larger arc than small Dremel sanding drums, allowing for smoother curves. Also here are the two other drums that came in the set I got (1" and 1-1/2"). I should mention that these are the older version of these things; the company has since redesigned them a bit. Haven't tried the new ones yet, but they look very nice. When I work in the shop I like to have as many of my components ready to go as possible before starting a building process, and while the forearms are now ready for fitting, taping and trimming to size I wanted to have the cover strips ready to go first. I laid out a sheet of ABS, marked it to 15mm segments and clamped a metal straightedge along the cut line before scoring it several times with a knife. After scoring a strip, I moved the straightedge to the next set of marks, clamped it down and scored another, then rinse and repeat till all the strips were scored. Then, after unclamping the sheet it's a simple matter to snap the strips off one at a time. With the strips all cut, I gave the edges of each a light sanding with fine sandpaper to remove any burrs or ridges, and lightly scuff-sanded the back sides for better glue adhesion. I even got lucky -- I used two sheets of the A.M. supplied stock for cover strips -- cutting four cover strips each -- and after cutting four strips what was left was a strip that was exactly the size of what I'd need later for the backs of the legs. OK, that's it for this segment. Time for a late lunch, and then back to working on the forearms. Up next, fitting and marking. A.J.

Yeah, they are overlapped a LOT. In fact, in the photo they're just taped together to determine the matching pieces, not for sizing -- they're huge right now. Seriously, look at them in relation to the BBB behind them. As other builders of A.M. armor already know -- and I'm just now learning -- they include plenty, and I mean plenty of extra plastic. In fact, when sizing it's almost impossible to overlap and mark for cutting without first getting rid of some of the extra plastic, or there's too much overlap to adequately size the parts. I was playing around with the forearms last night and there is so much overlap that I couldn't really make them small enough in diameter for a good fit. I'll need to trim a bit, and then overlap and then mark the actual cut lines. Still, this is a Good Thing. Always better to have too much than not enough. I got the A.M. because I'm a pretty big guy at just under 6 feet and just over 200 lbs, but A.M. armor can fit someone far larger than I. Honestly, I won't ned to do any shimming for fitment purposes. A.J.

Well, I suppose if the notch is already molded in it'd look funny if you didn't cut it out (or level it with ABS paste). As I understand it, the notch is simply not required anymore at any level, but if you want to add them you can, per Joseph's specs and instructions. My A.M. armor doesn't have them molded in, so I'm not going to include them -- I've always thought they looked kinda funny anyway, plus they potentially introduce a weak point to the armor. And, since I'm already terrified of cutting my armor, that's one less thing to cut. <g> A.J.

Let's see now. Where the hell was I? Oh, yeah... It's been a long time ago (see what I did there?) that I started this build thread, ain't it? Excited as all get out when I got the BBB, and almost immediately dove in to building my TK. Started with the Thermal Detonator, and wrapped that up in short order. Then I decided to do something major and tackled the helmet, which came out great. And then... And then... And then we picked up and moved from one state to another. And then Mrs. Stormtrooper retired. And then there was a prolonged family illness (that did not end well, sadly). And then there was getting my shop set up and in working order so I could make money, which the newly retired Mrs. Stormtrooper insisted is kinda important. And then, just when everything was settling down and I was ready to bask in the aroma of freshly cut ABS once again, a got an enormous editing assignment that took a couple months. And then, within just a few weeks of wrapping up that assignment, and even bigger one came along that took another couple months. And then... Well, and then it's now. Big assignments are all done. My workshop is done except for some minor stuff. The household is all settled. And lo and behold I'm starting up my build again. Now, although I've been letting my BBB gather dust, I've continued to read build threads here. And I have to say, by the way, that you folks amaze me and are an inspiration. But as part of reading so, so much about so many builds, a couple questions have come up for me that seem to have too many answers. With that in mind, I'd like to restart my build thread with a couple of questions. First, have I got these shins correct? Maybe I have armor dyslexia, or maybe my old-fart eyes just can't see it, but I have one hell of a hard time telling one side of a shin from the one that's supposed to have the S-shape. So, have I got these right? I think so, but really want to get confirmation before I start hacking away at plastic. If I may, I'll just run down my other questions as a quick list. 1) Cover strip ends -- Angled corners or rounded corners, or just leave them squared off? I'm seeing all three things done in the various builds (and all seem to be acceptable), so does it really matter? Personally, I rather liked them slightly rounded. 2) Terminology -- Are "poppers" the same thing as "snaps?" 3) Snap plates -- Webbing or ABS squares? Personal preference aside, is one any better than another? 4) Webbing snap plates -- And if you do use webbing for the snap plates, why does everyone use black and not white? Seems that white would be more logical. 5) Hovi Mic Tips -- The outside is black and the inside is white, but what about the thin forward edge, the "rim" of the opening -- black or white? 6) Kidney -- Are the 22x22 notches still required at any level? I've seen contradictory info. OK, I think that's it for now. I plan to start trimming in the next couple days, and I'll probably start with either the forearms or the shins. I've seen that most folks like starting with the forearms, but the thought of working from the ground up kind of appeals to me. Thanks, as always. A.J.