Bullseye

I used E6000 to glue the shim down. If I let if cure for 24 hours will it be as strong as CA glue or should I use this as a test run and if it works, CA glue the shim down? My understanding is that the E6000 when it cures is pretty strong but that CA is stronger.

Took off a little less than an inch on both sides of the kidney plate to make a clean surface to glue on the shims. Measuring I needed a little more than 7 inches top to bottom, and my spare abs was only 6” and change wide. Fortunately it was two and a half feet long. Given the extra cutting and how things are going I trimmed the abs to give my the full width of the abs sheet with the length necessary. With things cut, I grabbed my E6000, magnets, clamps and got to work. I’m not sure if you can see it, but I left 5mil or so over the top of the kidney plate so that I can iron over some return edge. We’ll see how it turns out tomorrow. If it looks good, I’ll mix up the ABS paste and cement it down. Wish me luck. In the interim, my re-glued thighs came out well. Upward and onward.

Since you're in England I'd strongly recommend RWA Creations. I know a number of taller European troopers who love their RWA armor. Ross is located out of the Isle of Wight and has "Big Boy" armor for taller troopers. His kits look fantastic. Since you'd be shipping inside the UK, his prices are fantastic. Great guy. Been very helpful to me in my build and I don't even own his armor. You'll find a number of RWA builds going on in the WIP forums. He's also got a you-tube channel for how-to-build. https://www.facebook.com/groups/rwacreations/ PM me and I can send you a link to his pricing.

Thanks. I’m gonna pull them apart tonight and reset and re-glue them evening up the top of the bottom ridge. I’ll trim any bottom excess as necessary. So so that I’m sure, I don’t need any return edge on the front of the thighs do I?

Thighs are a little wonky in this kit. I’ve trimmed them and put them together, but I’m not sure I’ve got it right. Here are the inners and outers pre internal cover strip. both outer thigh pieces have this weird dangle at the bottom: I originally thought the two outers went together and the dangles matched up for the ammo pack, but once I lined everything up it didn’t look right. So I put them together, one inner with one outer, as below: I placed an internal strip and glued things together (E6000) but I’m not happy with the results. I’m not crazy right? The low cut side of the thigh is the inner and the high cut is the outer, right? Should I line the thighs up based on the bottom indentations or based on the top curve of the thigh? I'm guessing I’m going to have to line this back up, trim the dangles, and re-glue, but I wanted to see anyone had this issue previously. Thanks!

Further progress. Shins in good shape. Now I just have to fit them around my giant calves. Wish me luck.

I’ve attempted to iron down the kidney plate to a flat surface where the edge of the mold started to flatten out. It’s better, but there’s still a definite “turn-out” at the top of the plate where I have return edge. My my question is whether the it makes sense to use it as is or trim the curve off and make it a flat surface for the internal shim plate. I’m leery of ironing any more. I’ve been careful (cotton T-shirt and constant motion) with the iron but I’m getting warping at the edges and I’m not skilled enough to mimic the natural curve of the mold. You can se where the mold edge curve starts in this photo and where the limitations of my ironing skills may cause issues. The curve exists at the top on both sides, but I’ve gotten it flat in the middle and bottoms. If I was to trim off the curve straight down I’d lose an inch on each side. Is it better to trim and increase he shim size or use what I’ve got with the obvious defects? Thanks for the thoughts.

The Facebook group is great. They’ve been tremendously helpful in getting me back on track with my armor build. Hopefully once I finish my build I can finalize my build thread for others looking to use Andy’s kit. Honestly, it’s a great bucket and great kit.

Its a gorgeous piece of work. Glad to see more DA Props kit on this site. Not a lot of that here for those of us who’ve ordered from the shed!

I’ve made a bunch of progress on my TK the last few months and I’m getting to the point where I need to make a costume made for someone who is 5’10” and trim, fit someone who is 6’4” with a bit *ahem* of a gut. Specifically the back and kidney plate. I mocked up the ab plate and the butt and kidney plates with painters tape and got the following photos. measuring, the gap between the ab and kidney plates was roughly 5-5 1/2 inches. This means I’ll have to shim the kidney plate. MoScOut’s WTF build has been helpful and had this great diagram of what constitutes a proper shimming for the kidneys. [EDIT - I removed the incorrect image from this post so that there is NO confusion. The correct image is below. You'll see that the incorrect image cost some additional time in the build process, but even so, it was a great learning device. Still, thought I'd save y'all a headache just in case. ] While this will ultimately be helpful, I’m not sure how best to start on the shimming. 1) Should I connect the back and chest plates in order to properly hang these down in order to gauge the shim off of the completed chest/back rig? 2) should I simply line up the kidney and ab plates and measure from there? Critically 3) how should I go about shimming this? My plan is to make sure I have a flat surface at the ends of the kidney plate and then put an interior cover strip on the kidney plate to secure the shim. Next, mock up the kidney and abs again and use my spare ABS plates to gauge and mark how much shim I need. After that mark and cut the necessary shim. Then mix up a batch of abs paste and get to work (not to over do it, of course), the sand and polish. Are there any any pitfalls I should be aware of? Easy things I’m missing? Is there a proper way to line the ab and kidneys up? thanks in advance for your help.

I’ve been through the How-To section and I’m having trouble finding a link for instructions on the DIY fabric selection for the Ammo Belt. There are descriptions for EU and British builds, but I’m not sure where and what to purchase stateside to get this done. JoAnne fabrics? Amazon? What is the best route to go. And when I’m there, what should I buy and how much? Do I need to line the fabric on the interior before sewing it shucks for stability? Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!

More forearms. After a little bit of time off off for the July holiday and some work obligations I was able to apply the cover strips to the forearms and cut/sand off the last of the return edge on the front and back. Based on the reference photos I think these look in compliance for L2/L3. Thoughts or comments? (Just FYI, I cut/sanded off the return edge overhang just to the right of the raised bump on the top of the forearm right after this photo.) I need to do some clean up and remove the excess E6000, but these things drove me crazy so I’m glad to be near the finish line on them. Moving on to the next steps a couple of questions: 1) do I need any return edge on the bottom on the biceps? What’s required for L2/L3? 2) 3-5mm of return edge on the shoulder bells, correct? Same question for L2/L3. Had an interesting adventure with the shins that I’ll share soon. Thanks in advance for the feedback.

Good luck with the build. I’m in year 2 of mine. It’s daunting but a lot of fun. Looking at at your helmet build it might be helpful to take a look at my build thread for the helmet. Basically so you can learn from my mistakes. Take your time with the helmet, but visualize and know what you want you want it to look like. If you want a low brow, put the bucket on the face plate and use painters tape to secure it so you can get a feel for where everything should be. You can measure from there and start to put everything together. Just know you’re going to make mistakes, but that’s part of the process. You can fix just about anything, so don’t let perfection grind you to a halt (it did for me for about a year). Have fun with it and good luck!

Dan that’s fantastic. Thank you!

Amazing. Thank you!!

Forearms are done. At least I think so. Before I put the cover strips on I have two questions: 1) how far up do the cover strips go? To the angle, past the angle? HELP! (Photos below) 2) how much more return edge at the wrists do I need to sand out? (Photos below) To the first question, here are the top elbow sides of the left and then right of the forearms: Left Right Trying to figure out how far the strips reach toward the elbow, over or up to the angles above. Also, are the angles cut correctly for the armor? Second Question: Have I cut out sufficient return edge at the wrists for EIB or do I need to sand out more? Right: Left: Not it sure if I need to sand out the “bump” on the top of the forearm or not. Thanks in advance everyone.

Is there more info on the dimensions of the bells? I’m having a tough time with figuring out how to trim mine on my build. There are no trim lines on my kit, so I’m looking for whatever addition info there is on them before trimming. (Sorry to lurk in this build thread, but I’ve been looking for more information on this for a while)

I was hoping you’d mention primer! I’ve got that from my e11 rubies conversion project.

Forgot to ask, what color paint do I need for the TD? In looking at other TDS and discussing with other DA Props kit holders, I need to paint the pipe. I just have no idea what color to use. I’m in the states and can access a Home Depot, Lowe’s, or Ace pretty easily.

Perfect!! The top photo was just was I needed.

The thermal detonator: Question time. First, how far from the short end of the TD should the edge be? Specifically, hey nubbins to the edge? I looked at a couple of builds and here’s where I landed: You can see the pencil mark. From there to the other end is 115mm. Second question, do I need to paint this pipe for the TD? Thanks all.

Biceps and forearms: after a a couple of busy weeks I was able to make some progress on the armor. The biceps were tricky, but I think they’re in reasonable shape. Out of the box, they’re a little warped. They’re more oval than conical and will require a water bath at some point to revise the shape. Here’s how they came out: The left was more warped than right, so that’s made trimming a bit difficult. I got the sides to fit after trimming. The edges were still digging into my arm at fitting, but I was planning on sanding them down to flat so it didn’t worry me much. I prepped the biceps with internal cover strips and clapped them down after gluing with E6000. Those strips ain’t going nowhere. Pretty happy with the results so far: the gap at the bottom here is intentional, I needed more space for my arm to flex. Plus this will be the arm pit side of the right bicep so it’ll be hard to notice. I’m gluing down the opposite sides tonight. If all goes well I’ll be cutting cover strips for these tomorrow. There’s still some return edge I want to sand off, but it’s nothing the should stop the progress for now. Once the cover strips are on and the E6000 has set, I’ll give the biceps the boiling water bath in an attempt to take care of the oval nature of the abs. Thermal detonator next.

It’s been a while since I posted an update on my TK build. Due to work and family obligations (as well as some build issues it took me a while to figure out) I put my TK aside until I was able to take it back up again. Thankfully, there is progress to report, including a complete bucket to show off. After my initial round of painting the traps I went to work on the mic tips and cleaning up the bottom of the bucket. Maybe I got lucky, but the mic tips were one of the easier aspects of the build and an aspect I’m pretty proud of. The traps came out pretty well too. I also cut off the excess abs from the bottom of the bucket and got a fairly clean back to helmet. It’s a little hard to see from the photos, but the s-lining went on great and balanced the whole thing. With confidence restored, I went to work finishing the bucket. Without an easily available stencil, I applied the cheek stripes via sticker set. I forgot to take photos of the install of the lens, but that probably because it wasn’t a pretty install. Due to my overzealousness with the Dremel, I’d taken a little more off the internal eye socket than I wanted. So the prospect of the lens sitting flat was out the window. Improvising, I cut small pieces of Velcro and glued the connected Velcro to the interior bucket around the eyes. Then I dabbed some glue to back of the connect Velcro and carefully placed the lens on top. Shockingly, it worked! The end result ended up making me very happy. At this point the bucket is basically display only. There are minor repairs I want to do and bigger ones I need to do. I’ve got mesh for the frown I’m going to reinstall inside. I still need to pop in a hard hat liner (I’ve got a sizable noggin), paint the inside of the bucket black (pro tip: do this BEFORE YOU ASSEMBLE THE BUCKET), and figure out a fan/mic/electronics assembly to make it functional for trooping. All things considered, especially how panicked I was when I realized I’d over trimmed, this turned out really well. Next post I’ll get into my misadventures in trimming the kit. Basically it’s the five stages of grief applied to expensive ABS. I’m past acceptance at this point and putting together the biceps and the forearms. Onward!

Found the hot water bath method. Its here err in case anyone needs it:

One thing to mention that I haven’t seen in a lot of builds, 100 grit sandpaper is the most helpful thing I’ve found in restarting this build. Because my kit didn’t come with trim lines, this is all done with measuring and guess work (educated guesses, but let’s be honest here). The result has been a lot of uneven butt joints and raw edges either from snips, blades, or Dremeling. The 100 grit (on the edge only) has helped me get the butt joints flat, and allowed me to make some honest to goodness progress. I highly recommend it if you’re building a kit without trim lines. It’ll keep you sane when your best trimming efforts come out looking like crocodile teeth.