wook1138

How can you tell? Oh yeah, I keep posting pictures of it. I'm pretty stoked about it, to say the least. Makes all those "ah, fu...!" moments during the build seem trivial. Thanks again, Dan! But I will admit, I was lucky with some of it - I was pleasantly surprised when I looked at the pictures for the first time. I have a lot of respect for the troopers who make this armour fit on a body frame that is either smaller or larger than the 'cannon' body size.

Here are the application pics. Yeah, my TD is crooked. There really is an art to getting everything lined up and looking good. Kudos to my wife for being my handler and photographer. I gave her a couple images showing how the armour should look and she made it happen. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Lol. Thanks! yeah, I don't think the wife is going to authorize any travel for the purpose of trooper building anytime soon. I'm just a Pm away if you have a question.

Thanks man! You have been a huge help in all this.

Thanks Mark! Thanks for the great kit!

Thanks! for the application pics we (my wife is my handler right now) were more cognitive of arms and legs being lined up, but I didn't think of the TD. I agree, it looks a little high.

Application sent.

Lol. Thanks Mark!

Thank you so much, Dan. Yeah, I've done a few partial dressings, but not everything at one time. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! There are, of course, a few adjustments needed for comfort and mobility (trimming behind the knees) - but I can walk around, sort of pick something up off the ground, and remove my own helmet. Didn't try the stairs yet. And many thanks for your input throughout the build! I appreciate it!

First time in armour, I’m still grinning. Plus I saw the Solo trailer. So that adds to the grin. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Last few things and I’m ready to suit up for the first time. And then the tweaking and upgrading. Anyway, before all that... Installing the dark green lens from trooperbay. By the way, he has a great video on YouTube for this. Fit to the ear screws- I used the top two screws I each side - and drill holes and cut away part for nose. I sanded the edges and polished the whole lens. Added s-trim. Wow, that was harder than I expected. I read some place to cut the piece about an inch too long and cram it into place to hold it together better. This is what I did. I didn’t glue it, so we’ll see how it holds up Done Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Lol. I'm just waiting for my wife to get home so I have a second pair of hands (my handler-in-training couldn't make it over). Thanks for all your help and encouragement, Sean. It felt like your were breaking trail and giving me a path to follow on many parts of the build.

thanks! You were a huge help Daniel!

Oh yeah. So I had to redo my shoulder bridges and I tried to redo the sniper knee. For the shoulder bridges I set up a fancy rig to simulate me wearing the suit. Amazing, right? I pulled the shoulder bridges off. I didn’t back fill the voids so it was recommended I do this. I must say, they didn’t want to come off. But they did. I marked where they were glued for reference later. I’m going to alter them a bit so they better hide the shoulder elastic. I also had some yellow discolouration on the plastic. So I will turn the pieces around to hide this in the back. I did a series of hot baths to fit it better. Once shaped I trimmed some extra off the back. After sanding the trimmed part I cut some scrap abs to fill in the voids and glued. I shaped the front part to I had to cut the piece for this to follow the curve. Then glued into place. There isn’t much to show for the knee. I tried both hot water and the heat gun. Had more luck with heat gun. The tin foil is a precaution. I also trimmed some more from the knee. Rounded the corners. Thanks Sean. And clamps. It isn’t much better than before but the plate is at least better secured now and holds it shape without any extra force. The clamps are overkill, really. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well, I’ve spent most of the afternoon trimming, sanding, and removing excess E6000. There is Velcro on the boots and shins. All that is left is scraping off some blue paint, installing the lens, and the s trim. And that is it. I’m still waiting for some paint to dry. So... tomorrow may be the first day I wear the full kit. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Good thing the wife cannot see the kitchen right now. This sort of thing does not fly in this dojo. Her dojo. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ha ha! Thanks. Don’t be sorry, it is my stupidity that adds to my work load. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Stage two of the tube stripe fix. So I mixed up the left and right template as supplied by trooper bay and now have goofy looking stripes. So I decided I would fix it with the least amount of repainting. Luckily trooperbay provides two sets of templates. So I had what I needed. Then I had to figure out how many stripes I needed to remove. I just compared the two templates to see. Held them up to the window. The fourth stripe lines up perfectly when comparing left and right sides. Combination of scraping and rubbing with mineral spirits to remove. These were a bit stubborn and took a bit of work to remove. There is a very slight blue stain on the abs but I don’t think anyone would notice. Adding the proper stencil. I cut it down just to make it easier to work with and tried to “de-stick” the back part to avoid the risk of adhering to the existing paint. Add some light coats of paint. Once it looked like this might work, I started on the other side. I have to clean up the lines once the paint dries but, I dare say, fixed! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

First part of the tube stripe fix - the right rear stripe. The ear was covering the last stripe so it had to go. Remove ear I tried some mineral spirits and q-tips. Paint proved to be stubborn. So I grabbed my high tech paint remover. About 30 seconds of scraping and a quick wipe with mineral spirits later... Now on to the front stripes. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Incredible Daniel. Works of art. So, still not selling your helmet, eh?

Ha. Yeah. You are my official tube stripe guy. Losing one off the back is no biggie. I still need to deal with those “wrong way” stripes at the front. Tomorrow’s adventure. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So, after putting my ears on the helmet, I noticed that the ear partly covers the back stripe. Should I get rid of it? Or is it important to have the same number of stripes on each side? Who would know, right? Other side looks like this. Big difference. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

To make my kidney to an connections to not overlap one another I had to reinforce the left side and then add a tab and slot to the right. Thanks to Daniel directing me to cricket’s build. I got some black plastic that was just a bit thinner than the AP Armor. The black stuff is 0.06 inch. I cut to size and curved with a heat gun. Mock up to make sure it will work. Glue black piece to kidney. Overkill with clamps? Never. Cut and sand the side posts for the slot. Glue in side posts. Cut and glue in top part to slot. Finished. Keeps the seam from overlapping on itself. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm just leaving the inside alone for now. I do have fans to install and I do have some gear for a voice changer that I need to install someplace, but that is going to wait until after I get the suit to the point of being able to wear and possibly submit pics with. I was going to plasti-dip, but now I'm leaning towards the velcro. I like what you did with yours. Don't worry about the pace - you're not alone when it comes to finding time for this. Somebody told me when I started this that this is not a race - man, were they right. As soon as I rushed myself, I made stupid mistakes.

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