revlimiter

Ooooo. Excellent timing! I sent funds for my own ROTK armor set earlier today. I'll try to contribute some useful photos to this thread.

Welcome to Expert Infantry Michael! Well done!!!

For rear cover strips, please check out my EIB application. As per Mark's advice, my front strips and rear strips line up. I *did* achieve centurion with the armor, but the ideal alignment is not having the front and rear strips at equal locations. You want that rear strip to be centered with the back of the thigh as per Joseph's drawing. So, while the top on your thigh photo looks good, the bottom could stand to be centered if possible. Or at least closer to center than mine is. And then, of course, the rear shin cover strip needs to line up with the thigh line and your rear boot line. Legs are weird.

On the topic of having to refit the armor... yeah, it's not ideal. The amount you're having to refit seems extreme. But please take this perspective - you have a fully built suit of armor to start from as a guide. As someone who received the box of untrimmed ABS sheets, that's HUGE. I was totally and completely overwhelmed by the box, so much that mine sat in storage for around 4 years. Getting to start from a "finished" place and modify it for your body is a lot easier task to undergo IMHO. Not trying to apologize for AP or white knight or anything. Just saying that in retrospect I would have happily paid $700 more to start from where you are than from the untrimmed box starting line. It sucks yours wasn't a bit better fit, but it's still a good starting point. Anyways, back to the armor. Yours is looking better and better. But... why is there such a gap between the abs and chest? Mine overlaps by about 2". I believe your ab/kidney/cod armor needs to come up much higher than you have it. That would let the thighs come up higher and possibly fit better.

This may help you a bit. This is my own strapping. All of it is nylon strapping with the exception of the center strap on my back plate. That one is elastic and allows for bending. Well, the cod strap and white shoulder straps are also elastic. All the rest have no flex and are double snapped. Nylon strapping keeps things tight and in the right place. And the cod strap goes just right up there in your business. No room for the breeze if you know what I mean.

That looks like some good trimming. I would not suggest you spend much more effort on the ab/kidney armor. My own AP armor fits me very similarly to what you've got now. I'm 5'11" and 160 lbs, so quite similar build. The AP armor is just not extremely sleek in the midsection without a lot of reshaping. Anovos fits much differently, but AP fits about like what you've got. And what you've got isn't bad. It can go to Centurion that way. It's just not as sleek as some other armors you'll see online. For your thighs, do all of the adjustment and trimming in the back. Since Mark got the front glued together, just leave that. Remove the rear cover strips (inner and outer if both are installed) and get the thighs to the height you want (which is VERY high). Then overlap them and tape the crap out of them so that they hold the shape. Several more test fits and then see if you feel like they need more or less room. Then slice a straight line up the center back and re-glue the halves together. Thighs really help to have an assistant. Shins are done in a very similar manner. Get the front glued and happy, then slice the back up the center.

Honestly, adjustments are required 99% of the time. Some parts always need adjustment on pre-built armor. If you post pix, we can help you more easily.

Amazing thread!!! I've got a Black Series bucket sitting on a shelf waiting for this very same treatment. I'll be following your steps exactly. Thanks!

Yup. Cover strips on both sides for all arm and leg armor.

now that I'm on the desktop one I can see you're local. Sent you a facebook DM.

I have one in the classifieds now... Just needs a scope added.

Another week down. Back pain is much more manageable now and almost gone. Crohn's pain gone. Workouts are going well.

Looks like a good repair! I'd certainly enforce the back side with an extra layer of plastic in that general area. A wide arc of glued in material (doesn't even have to be ABS) would help strengthen the plate and keep this from happening again.

Just insanely awesome.

Those thighs are CRISPY! And dare I say perfect. Well done.

Looking good! Good luck Michael!

I always blank out kids faces. I have no idea if we have to do this or not, but I choose to do it.

It's a piece of nylon strapping. I *know* I have some non-sticky velcro around here somewhere but couldn't find it. Still, basically anything that doesn't stretch is what's needed for this mod. It's just shoring up half the elastic to keep it from stretching, yet still allowing flex. And I didn't get the TD. None of the vendors I reached out to replied... alas. But I'm happy with my magnet hinged one. My elastic is indeed doubled over and the center snaps are already front-justified. They could probably be more toward the front, but I've never been unhappy with how my shoulder bells hung. This mod was only about keeping the elastic from peeking out under the shoulder bridge. And they're comfortable, hold their position, and have performed flawlessly for almost 20 troops now. You built good straps. Now they're just ever so slightly improved.

This fix was prompted by an FISD facebook post. Note my shoulder. The elastic is pulling away a little. It's not bad, but not ideal. I don't mind the gap so much, but I do mind the white elastic peeking out. Trooper A.T. Nguyen posted a fix involving some velcro sewn into the elastic shoulder bridge on the inboard side. So I replicated it. Look at this result!! I could not even dream of this shoulder alignment previously. You can see the elastic, but it's not pulling out. Just epic alignment. This is what I did. Note the new strapping on the inboard edges of the shoulder elastic. It's completely hidden by the ABS bridges, so no black to be seen. Very noobishly sewn in by hand. I also E6000'd the void areas. It's STRONG. The enforcement on this elastic gives enough strength for the shoulder to be up where it's supposed to be all by itself. No armor adjustment needed. It just stays magically in the ideal spot and always looks Centurion-quality. I'm super chuffed about this upgrade. I also upgraded my top shoulder bell straps. Now it's held onto the bells by FOUR snaps each. I made some L shaped straps and redid the snap plates glued to the bells. The new snaps live on the front edge to resist coming free when I reach across my body. Why would I do this? I was pulling the shoulder bell straps off while suiting up. Attaching the right side would make the left come unsnapped due to how I contort my shoulders. With the 4 snaps, nothing moves or unsnaps at all. I'm on 3 troops with this mega-snap setup and have had zero problems kitting up by myself. It's fantastic. Also... I may have more snaps than shoulder bell now.

Congratulations Marek!!! Looking good!

Mental health has improve a TON!!! And thanks Mario. I had a fun photo idea. Does your gym have a DLT-19? Ol' 18-Poundy was right at home in the weight tree while I had the bar out for squats.

My back sprain seems to have not been a sprain at all. It's just weak and in bad shape and I guess I strained it too much by diving into heavy exercise a month ago. I've been doing more PT style exercises to strengthen the weak lower back area. I've also been rolling around on the foam roller and some tennis balls. The balls let me hit pressure points and relax tense areas. It's made a world of difference. I also managed to dig a hole in the middle of my right hand while working on my car. Too much screwdriver pressure in the center of the palm, lol. Several layers of skin peeled up. Very yucky. It kept me from really grabbing much last week. It's mostly healed now. Stupid hand... So I've been jogging since I couldn't do much else. My dog LOVES it. I hate it. I'm not at all a fan of running, but it's been keeping me in workouts and raised heart rate. Overall health is still much improved over a month ago. Just some weakness in the body that's slowly getting addressed.

Long long ago, Nikon had a really unique point and shoot with a rotating lens. I keep thinking how much fun it would be to hack one up and make it work in the electrobinocs. Coolpix S10 if you're wanting to search for it. It had a 10x optical zoom also.

If I'm telling you the obvious here, my apology. But that's the wrist comm pad molded to fit on the back of the TIE bucket. I'm about 98% sure that's right. Not many of the original buckets had that feature and none were on screen but yeah. Almost certain that's just the comm pad. I remember seeing it in the big TIE pilot helmet thread on RPF. I'd link it if I could find it, but that thread is eluding me right now. If you're asking where to get a comm pad molded to fit the helmet like that, I'd have to plead ignorance. I bet that you can get a flat vacuum formed one to work on the back of the bucket with enough glue, heat, and love. -edit- Found what I was looking for. https://www.therpf . com/forums/threads/original-tie-pilot-helmet-roll-call.328895/ remove the spaces from the URL. It wasn't letting me paste. ... and now I'm wondering if I'm breaking rules by pasting an RPF link.

So... I took circuits I and II in college as well as machine language and a few other such classes... and the old me that took those is embarrassed by this me who built the blaster. I could not find a really cheap chip. Nothing blank. No cheap ALU or anything. The best I could do was about $1 each from amazon. Not the most expensive prop addition ever, but also nowhere near as cheap as it should have been. They're 16 pin decoders. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CHTJZVM $10 for 10. 16 pin socket. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SWO3U1C $8 for 40. I'm sure somewhere else has 14 or 16 pin chips for much cheaper, but I just wanted the easy button lol. And all the 14 pin chips I found were much more than $1 each.