hollowbodies

Question about the ABS shoulder straps. I did bath them in boiling water and bend them a little bit to make some fitment tests with the chest and back pieces. Here is what it looks like. I have about 5 small bumps plus the big one overlapping with the chest piece on the front. Does it seem right on the front or what should I change? Is the poisition/orientation good, should I trim more some parts, etc. ? And here is how it looks on the back and from above (held by some tape) : I already know that I will remove the large bump on the back - I just didn't do it yet. I might also heat them another time to bend them a little more to make them sit/close better on the back - however, it should already be better once the big bump is removed from the back. Thanks for your feedback!

I thought I'd try to update my thread a little bit more than I did in the last week, so here is a little continuation of the snap bases post I made at the beginning of the week. I measured and positioned all my snap bases on the chest/back/ab/kidney/butt and am now waiting for some magnets (ran out of magnets as many things were glued at the same time) to glue them all in place before I start making the straps that will hold them all in place. For positioning, I started by looking at ukswrath indicated in his AM build post, and then adapted a little bit for myself. I mainly positioned all my snap bases at about 10mm from the edge of the part they are on (except for the chest piece, of course, which is something more like 110mm from the bottom edge). I started gluing a few ones on the back already, but I didn't take any pics yet - will post more of that stuff later.

I'll definitely go cut on that red line right away, then! And I think that for now I prefer keeping the notch as square as possible. If needed I might change that later, but right now I guess it'll stay like this. I'll post more pics of how it evolves later, thanks guys!

I've been gluing some inner cover strips on my thigh pieces and I also started gluing some nylon snap bases on my chest and back plates. However, I'm running out of magnets right now (thighs are big and take a lot of magnets!) so I gotta do something else than gluing while all that E-6000 dries. So I've been doing some fit tests for my ab and kidney plates for a few days now and I started cutting some parts yesterday to make them a bit more close to my size (those AP pieces have a lot of extra material on them to accomodate all sizes). As I'm slim, I must remove a good part of the sides, but I don't want to remove too much from the ab piece because still I want everything to line up well and look good on the sides. Here is what I'm thinking about removing from the ab piece. If it sounds ok, I would like to cut where the red line is on the following picture. However, do you think that would be fine, or should I cut less and go for something more like the orange line instead? Here is how the side would look if I'd cut about where the red line is : And that is how it would fit on me (I still have some free space on the inside - I'm not filling all the armor even adjusted to this size) : I know it's not all perfectly lined up because it's just held together with some tape, but you get the idea. If that seems good, I'll be able to cut and pierce holes for the rivets - something to do while the other parts glue dies!

Haha that video is hilarious on some parts - really enjoyed it. Really nice shots and good work as always!

What a great thread! Thanks for sharing, very helpful!! Sent from my LG-M470 using Tapatalk

A little while ago, I started posting about the fitting of the thighs pieces, so here is how it's progressing. I now have started to glue them together, and I found it way harder than the upper body limb parts! So here is how the left one looks (just glued, not cleaned yet). I think I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It fits really well (with some desired calculated gaps) on me. The bottom return edge of the back does not close completely, but it was like almost impossible to make both the back and the front close completely, so I decied I'd make the front close as well as possible and I will put some more ABS on the Inside of the back to hide the small gap. I plan on putting inner cover strips on those parts, so it should help too! And here is the right thigh (picture down there). I had a lot of trouble holding both parts together to make the glue dry (way worse than the left thigh, I don't know why)! There is a gap on the bottom return edge of the front, so I'm not sure yet what I'll do with it. I might remove the cover strip and try to glue it all over again - hoping it'll be more easy next time. However, before gluing, I tried making it fit perfectly by holding the parts together with my hands and tape, and it was never perfect. So maybe I'll try to hide the gap with an inner cover strip and put the thigh ammo pack over it to hide it even more, as it's on the right thigh. Anyways, here is how it looks for now :

My apologies, it's been long since I've updated my build topic. However, I have not been completely idle about my build, so here are a few updates. First, it seems like it took me some time to master tha art of "snaps setting" - haha - but I think I got it pretty much now! I am so happy and would like to thank everybody who sent me some tips - it's all been really useful. So once I got how to do it, I made a lot of snap bases. Here is some detail about what/how I did... I'm using the "double snap" method, so I used 2" wide black nylon strapping, and I cut some 1.5" long pieces to make my snap bases 2" x 1.5" approximately : Then I measured to center both snaps on my bases, and precisely marked where I'd need to punch a hole... I used a soldering iron to burn the edges and finish the holes clean. Ready for snaps eyelets. After that, I hammered the snaps eyelets into place in the nylon bases and everything went really nice and smooth. I used the tool that Christine mentioned and it went way better than simply using the Tandy tools. Perhaps the Tandy Tools are not that good even if they are the "pros" in terms of snaps. So I had no problems hammering these snaps on the bases, and I tested them all and they worked really well. I'm happy to have finally got how to do that right; I wasted so many snaps trying to get it haha! Anyways, I've done many bases - about as many as I need to glue on the major body parts (chest, ab, back, kidney, ...) to make them hold together properly so that I can measure the length needed for the connecting straps that will have the snap studs attached to them... Will be way better than the fit tests I made already using just tape. I've also worked on some other parts of the armour as well - espacially the thighs, for which I'll post some progress pictures right after this post.

Is this the kit you're talking about from Home Depot? https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.papc-universal-snap-tool.1000161930.html

Oh well, nice to see I'm not alone. I started feeling pretty dumb really, haha! I'm trying to set them using the Tandy tools, but maybe it does not go that wwll really... I'll try to go to Home Depot today to fins the kit you're talking about. Thanks a lot for the support, I will keep trying and let you know how it turns out haha ! [emoji3] Sent from my LG-M470 using Tapatalk

Had a very busy week - spent a lot of time out of home. However, the very few hours I could invest into my build were used to cut and pierce nylon for strapping AND to try to make snaps work. I do not know what I'm missing, but there is something I surely don't undestrand. I tried so many times to set snaps - I wasted so many snaps already - but I never got any positive results. Seriously, I need help for that haha... I don't know what to think anymore. I can't seem to hammer the posts down enough. Maybe they are too long (I don't know as I've never used that before)!? Here are some pictures of the Tandy Line 24 snaps I'm trying to use. Pleeeeeeease let me know if you see something that seems wrong or that could help me, or if you have any tips that could be useful to me! Here are the pieces I try to put together : That's how it looks when they are not hammered yet. They seem very long to me (but I don't have any knowledge of that) : Here is how it looks after I try to hammer them. I tried to hit hard and a lot and while doing little cricles with the setting tool like explained in some tutorial videos I watched. I think that there is always still a lot of the post that isn't hammered enough so the snap keeps moving : The snap keeps moving and isn't very well held in place : Sorry for that long useless and perhaps uninteresting post about snaps, but I thought I'd ask because I feel like I've tried so many times without success... I don't know what to think anymore. [emoji20] Hopefully some of you will spot something that could help me. Anyways, thanks for any help! ^^

Good luck on Centurion... even if you don't need luck - you've got that!

Congratulations mate, very well deserved !!

I might be a little late to the party, but grats on that EIB!!!

Wow, great job so far on the painting! And it reminds me that I have my helmet waiting to be painted, too. Hah! 8-) Sent from my LG-M470 using Tapatalk

Great job so far on the helmet, keep up the good work! I, too, am, waiting for some stuff to arrive from TrooperBay - can't wait to get them (I ordered some of the same stuff as you ) ! Sent from my LG-M470 using Tapatalk

Thanks all! I finally started gluing cover strips on those thighs; starting slowly one side at a time to make sure everything is fine. I did use a lot of clamps and magnets to make sure it's glued for real... 8-) While it's drying, I'm trying to make sone nylon straps/bases for the body parts strapping. Man, those line 24 snaps are giving me a hard time getting properly set (I'm a total noob in that) !

Been working [mainly] on the thighs (for the few hours I could manage to get today) and it's going great. I have cut them to a size that leave enough space to make some modifications if there is anything and/or add some padding to the inside if needed later. I measured like mad before cutting and I did my best to get it as close to what you guys suggested me. I also tried them with the cod and I can get them pretty much up all the way I want with such free space in them. I will almost be ready to glue the cover strips on them, but before that I have one more question for you... It's about return edges that are located at the bottom of the back of the thighs. Does the return edge from the inner and the outer part of the thigh need to be even on each side? Does the cover strip need to be located absolutely in the "middle" of this return edge? I did remove the same amount from each of the parts (outer and inner parts of the thigh), but I have a little bit more return edge on one side than the other. It's close, but it's not perfectly even on each side. Here are a few pictures to try to show/explain what I mean :

Thanks all, I'll take that into consideration! I can bring them higher at this size, but I didn't manage to make them stay there while taking the picture (even though I tried to tape them), so here they appear a little bit lower than what I want them to be. With the trimmed kit, Mark provides some stips of extra ABS so that yoi can cut your cover strips from them. I just took some extra parts left from one piece that I used to make my biceps cover strips to cut my hooks. However, those first (unsuccessful) tests I did to try to bend the ABS using boiling water were done using some smaller scraps that I would not have used anyways. One more question about bending stuff : what do you use to make the small bend/angles at the end of the TD clips (the end that's not attached to the tube, obviously) ? I now have to do this, but I'm wondering what technique to use to get a nice, gentle and straight bend... Sent from my LG-M470 using Tapatalk

I havent posted in a few days - sorry, I've been busy this week, but I still worked a bit on my armor. I tried some more fitting tests for the thighs while keeping in mind to leave some free space. Here is how it looks with an inside gap that fits about two of my fingers (sorry for the lots of tape; I tried to hold them up as much as I could haha) : How does it look? Does it seems right at the top and at the bottom (around the knees) ? To get to this, I'd still have to remove quite some from the back, but I'll go one step at a time to make sure I don't remove too much - which is why I'm asking you again to make sure. Other than that this week, I also painted my TD tube and started gluing the control panel on it, and I trimmed all my bicpes and forearms parts after finishing gluing them (I still need to remove some glue at some palces). I'll post some pics of that later. I also tried to bend my biceps hooks by putting them in boiling water, but it wasn't a real success... How long do you need to hold them in boiling water before they can be bent easily? I haven't reach that state yet - they could not be bent enough easily to get to the point I want them for my hooks. Perhaps I could try with a hair dryer as well (I don't have a heat gun).

Thanks, I'll keep all that in mind while doing it. Also, on the pictures I posted above where I wear the thighs, do they seem to be accurate in terms of which parts I put together for the left versus the right one? I'll post more/better pictures later when I'll do some more fit tests, too. Thanks!

Beautiful build! Looking forward to this!

Congratulations man!!!

Nice work! The hardest part in all of this is finding where and how to start... and you just did it!

So overall it's better to have more room and add some padding on the inside than having the pieces more adjusted/fitting more tight ? Sent from my LG-M470 using Tapatalk