revlimiter

Thanks for pointing that out. I haven't been totally thrilled with the buttons. Work was definitely required. A little research revealed the buttons should be 11mm. Mine were between 13 and 13.5. I drew pencil circles at the base and just painted to there originally and.... not good. So I drew some circles in CAD at 11mm and had the plotter cut them out of vinyl. Maybe non-white would have been a better choice for visibility, but it was in the plotter at the time. I cut a row of them, so I ended up with about 40 of these little reverse dots. The old buttons. 13mm and janky. Protective tape applied and paint removed. And let me tell ya - wow. That acrylic blue paint did NOT want to go away. The grey enamel came off relatively easy but that acrylic was on there. Still, I got it free and didn't make a blue mess everywhere. Then I stuck on the 11mm templates and heat-gunned them flat in hopes of making the best seal possible. It meant a little glue residue removal was required, but that's much easier than fixing 9/9 buttons. Paint applied. I painted from the edges to the center in hopes of not forcing paint under the vinyl edge. Vinyl and tape removed and cleaned up. And BAM!!! It looks SO much better. They're much more round, far less janky, and actually the right size now. One more from a slightly farther distance. I'm really happy with this. I'll give them a cure overnight and then armor up tomorrow for basic approval pix.

I actually got to armor up last night!!! Thigh garters installed and boot/shin velcro done meant I had legs and could actually walk around. It was fantastic. Sets rather cunning dontcha think? In all seriousness, I've got a little tweaking to do but am very happy with how it fits, moves, and aligns. Kitty does not approve of E6000 smells or clanky armor.

I got the shoulder bridges glued in place and seemingly lined up well. These have thin aluminum glued inside with a wrap of fuzzy-side velcro over top (underneath?) to prevent scratches. I did the fuzzy stuff after finding scratches from this test fitting... Not bad IMO! They're decently straight, angled well, and close up flush. I, of course, managed to not snap a front pic, but these side ones give a feel for how flush they are on the front as well. A tiny bit of heat gunning to get the front outer edges bent down very slightly to hide the edges of the aluminum really gave them a clean fit. And here's the buttons glued on about as high as they'll go. This low angle might over-emphasize the button overlap a bit. Hopefully this belt alignment works tho.

Things left undone after the 4 day armor fest: - ab buttons - shoulder bridges - rear shin cover strips and attachment method - thigh garters - misc smol details like screw paint, glue removal, and knee trimming. The shoulder bridges have metal reinforcement and inner ABS void filling. I got them as close to the correct angle as possible and stuck them on. Fingers crossed that they're in the right spot. Rear shin cover strips have been gluing about 24 hours at this point. I'm gonna let them sit a bit longer before adding the velcro strips. I'd really like to not have that E6000 pop free. Also, the garter snap plates have been glued in and the ab buttons are in place. Excess E6000 is slowly being worried free and screws/rivets are now painted white. Everything on my list has been addressed and will get crossed off SOON!

It's been a long time. A long time. I own/run a small business that's been blessed with insane orders during COVID. But... insane orders. I haven't really had a chance to stop or breathe or do anything but work for the past couple years. My armor has sat in a semi-trimmed state in the original big brown box for all of that time. It's sad, but life required it. A few weeks ago, Eric (@scimitar) had some time off coming up and offered to fly out, hang out, and build some armor. In only four days, armor went from pieces of plastic to a nearly complete set! I cut cover strips, made snap plates, and did general E6000 things while Eric gave the armor pieces final trimming and assembly. At the end of the first night.... A torso!! That can be worn! I'm still medium ashamed that I was never able to get things farther myself. Working 10-16 hour days 7 days a week for 2 years hasn't been good for learning new things or understanding complex shapes and their relation/attachment in three dimensions. Also... most of these pix are Eric's. I wasn't apparently in a photo state of mind. Documenting things. Nope. It was Make All The Things time in my head. So pix are quite light here. And then arms could be attached and I almost felt troopy. Some leg massaging at the master's hands... er... backspace that. Ixnay on the assage-may. Leg day arrived! Legs got roughed in, snipped, boiled, reshaped, and glued. Not necessarily in that order. And then I got to wear the most armor I've ever worn in my life. It was magical. I don't know why I didn't just buckle down and do this all before now. Well, yes, I do. Work has been insane. But armor!!! It finally exists!

Reading build threads yesterday, I came across someone building thighs and shins by doing the inner cover strip FIRST. This created a nice, strong, flat surface for the outer cover strip to adhere to and I loved the idea. When I went back today to give credit, I couldn't find it to save my life. Sorry Trooper. Anyways, gonna try that with my second forearm - inner strip first and then the outer. I figure if it doesn't work, I can just tear them apart and start again. But for right now it's curing! I did the inner strip this morning and carefully disassembled it this evening to pop on the outer strip. Now the sandwich will cure for a couple days before I move onto the other side. And tomorrow, I'll have my first completed armor piece once the first forearm cures. MUCH EXCITE!! I'm looking forward to finishing the outer edges and cleaning up the ton of glue everywhere. And using the under side of the biceps, I was able to figure out where to trim. Many thanks wook!! No idea why I was squinting and trying to find detail on the front side. Got it roughly sized to me. Flat edge in the front, tapered in the back. I'll trim the edge up tomorrow and add some glue once I have free magnets handy. And on the off chance of helping any future AP kit owners, here's a couple pix of the back side of the biceps before I did the fine trimming. I tried to bring out the highlight details and emphasize the molded in details. And lastly, a new set of tube stripe stickers and some S trim is on the way from trooperbay right now.

I was looking at this thread... And I thought I'd put the stripes on correctly. Though, to be honest, the little arcs look symmetrical to me. It would be my luck to have chosen wrong... lol

And the last bit of backlogged pix. I changed out the acetate for hard lenses from trooperbay. SO much easier to see through! I copied Eric's excellent lens mounting method with the T nuts glued to the bucket. The lenses are tight at the top and have a bit of breathing room at the bottom. My helmet electronics are a mess at the moment. I'm moving them here and there, trying to get space for both my head and the wires. Once I'm happy with placement, I'll tidy things and take a couple pix.

Next, I rough cut my entire armor set in one evening. I was a bit optimistic on that... my fingers still have blisters from those fine lexan sheers. But It's all rough cut! The biceps were the strangest. No clear guide of where to cut. I trimmed in the valley at Eric's instruction but... yeah. I now have the bicep halves cut apart and sitting. There's not much definition on the pieces. I'm not too sure where to trim for the fine trimming. These are the next part I get to figure out though, as they're next for glue. I have ONE whole forearm halfway done! This is a big deal for me. I can get my arm inside and the cover strip is even close to the correct 15mm size. The other side is clamped and curing at this very moment. I'll pop the magnets off in a few hours, glue on the inner strip, and then let it sit undisturbed for a day or longer. Getting the forearm halves to line up required a ton of work. See, I'd trimmed this forearm like 18 month ago. Then it sat. It warped a bit during the time in the brown box, so I got to massage it with the heat gun to create roundness again. Forearm #2 ready to go. Just waiting on some proper sized clamps from amazon to show up this afternoon.

Howdy Troopers!! Starting a thread here has been on my list of things to do for nearly 18 months. Shameful, but... I work a ton and tend to be pretty forgetful. Also moving and a ton of other excuses kept me from starting some armor. I got a big brown box something like 18 months ago. Maybe longer? Ages. It's sat and been dusty. Meanwhile, the brother armor belonging to Scimitar has been built and trooping around happily for months. It's an exact double. Everything Eric bought two of everything and shipped half to me. Which is awesome because I *have* everything I need to do the armor. But... clueless about putting it together. Anyways, more build less talk. Eric pre-trimmed this bucket for me (many thanks) before shipping it off. And 18 months later, I spent something like 90 minutes painting the frown on. I... can't explain how it took me that long. I've not painted something BIG in ages. I usually use toothpicks and micro brushes on Hot Wheels. Trying to get an even coat of grey on the frown was rough for this toothpick painter. And rougher still was learning that I got some paint into the gums and had to fix it. lol About a week later, I got to here. Not perfect but pretty decent. Good enough to move forward with the armor while occasionally running around with a bucket on my head. Yeah, getting to wear my bucket for the first time was a proud day.