Steaditrooper

Rough fitting the thigh elastic, a bit of E6000 to each, some clamps and almost done. A little trimming of the return edge on the back when the glue is dry so It doesn't hurt when I walk. Green tape marks the length to where it's glued inside the thigh. Now I wait.

This morning I was working on the thighs. Sanding the edges and installing the ammo pack on the right thigh. Rough fit. A cap rivet on both side and a little white paint.

Hot bathing the shoulder straps made all the difference for me. Really helped with fitting the chest to back. The thighs were a challenge for sure. Hand sculpted parts means few straight lines. I have a few curved cover strips but some I couldn't do a lot with. Looking great!

Hey Greg, After I assembled my helmet I realized I would never be able to put it on without trimming a bit away. I took about half an inch off all the way around. Weird. My melon isn't that big. Everyone seems to put the bucket on sideways and twist it into position. I guess that's the way it goes. Now that I've done that it fits really well. Still tight to get into but it is fine.

My first fitting of the armour minus the legs. I already know what needs to change. Pretty happy though.

Well, the first three hours of the day were dealing with MasterCard and my Anovos refund. Faxing 14 pages of correspondence for my dispute. Barf. No reason this should go this way. Anyway, I got my right thigh measured and glued up. Awesome. Then there was a knock at the door. The two big clamps I was expecting next week arrived. Awesome again. Look at all the scrap ABS in that box! Trimming both sides of the thigh. Gluing up. Big honkin' clamp X2! Gluing the kidney to Ab snap. My first tube of E6000 used up. Right calf glued using the BHC! (Big Honkin' Clamp!)

I finally started a claim today with my credit card company against Anovos. I cancelled my Anovos order October 23 and was told 12-15 business days. Anovos is no longer returning my emails. Imagine that. My AP armour is almost completed and I expect to be applying for the 501st early next week. Order of events: Anovos ANH TK orderd January 12th Anovos cancellation request email sent out October 16 AP ANH TK ordered October 17 Anovos Cancellation confirmed October 24 AP armour delivered November 2 AP armour construction start November 24 AP armour almost complete December 8 Anovos refund? Nope.

Time to replace the lens that came with the AP kit. I can see my eyes through it so I need something darker. Suggestions? I know trooperbay sells one. I'll go there if I have to but right now I'm looking for other options and suggestions on how dark to go.

It worked! Wow! Thanks again Darthanael for your frustration, trial and error. This is the kind of info one finds on this forum. My frustration was getting the best of me when I took the painter's tape off my gloves after I glued the hand guards with E6000 and they basically weren't attached at all. They just fell off. Then I tried Zap-A-Gap. Same thing. Then I searched the forum for 'attaching silicone hand guards' and stumbled upon Darthanael's build thread. You never know what little bit of information you post is going to really help someone complete their build. Keep posting everyone. Clenched fist. Silicone bends with my knuckles.

The hand guards in the AP kit are silicone. You know what sticks to silicone? Nothing! E6000? Nope. Zap-A-Gap or any kind of CA glue? Think again. Well, thanks to other build threads on this forum, I found a product that worked for Darthanael. Thanks for the info! The Locktite Plastics Bonding System that was supposed to be delivered on Monday from Amazon just arrived...5 minutes ago! Excuse me. I've got some hand guards to glue up.

I got out the sewing machine today and started with the white 2" elastic. It needed to be folded over about 3/4" and sewed in place. Easy enough. A snap got installed in this and the elastic was glued to the chest armour. I also hand stitched the snaps for connecting the shoulders. Next was the 3/4" black elastic for the shoulders. Again, 3/4" fold and sew. Hand stitch the snap and glue into place on the shoulder. While the machine was out I sewed a loop in the 3" black elastic for the thighs (x2). I also hand stitched the hooks for the calf closures. I ran out of the 3/4" white elastic and went out to get more. I found a better quality elastic and redid the 4 I had already finished. Totally worth it to do that now rather than later. I also made the right side kidney to ab closure elastic and installed that too. No pics yet.

Welcome to FISD. Congrats on your BBB! Very exciting. I worked on my helmet first. Now it watches me while I work on the armour. Makes me smile to see it every time I go to the basement where I'm building. I use Imgur.com for pics. Very easy process. Ask lots of questions and enjoy the process.

Welcome to FISD. You're flying along. Any spouse who'll put on a bucket is a keeper.

My wife helped me with fitting the Chest to Back connection. Couldn't have determined the distance between the two pieces without a second set of hands. She really is quite patient with my Star Wars nerdiness. She actually encouraged me to cancel my Anovos order and order from AP. She said real armour beats theoretical armour any day. I also glued the left hand side Chest to Back 2" white elastic. I'll take pics tomorrow and post them. I will also get out the sewing machine to do some of what's left. That would be the Right shoulder 2" white elastic where the snap is installed. Only other thing I can think of that needs sewing would be the thigh straps. I sewed the belt they'll be attaching to a while back. I will take pics of that when the thighs are done and I actually see if it works for me.

Shoulder bell to Bicep elastic glued in. I also glued the Biceps to Forearms with 2" Black elastic. And yes, they are drying in a laundry hamper. Helps keep the cats away.

So I did manage to get a little work done today. I made the snap for the Chest to Back connection. Right side, Back. Glued in place.

I'm hesitant to use any kind of Locktite because of what it does to ABS if you get any on it. Not saying I'd just glob it on but I don't want to take any chances. I've read on the forum that a dab of E6000 on the threads works well. I think I'll do that.

I only put my brackets on yesterday. It wasn't difficult and didn't take much time. Swapping out a piece would take minutes. I did brackets for screen accuracy. I've seen lots of builds with snaps that look great though. I guess it depends where you want to take this. Enjoy your build. I know I am enjoying mine. Not nearly as challenging as I thought it would be. I started out quite nervous but quickly became comfortable with the whole process. Good luck and have fun!

Belt. I don't think much is going to happen today. That job thing sometimes gets in the way of armour building.

Drop box halves were only glued together after riveting the elastic. I put a washer inside to secure the rivet. Nothing has been glued to the belt yet in the photo. I needed to let the glue dry before final positioning. Thanks though. Good diagram.

Ok. The belt. I marked the middle of the belt then determined where the snaps would go to hold it to the Ab armour. Punched the holes for the snaps and installed them. Next, I trimmed the corners of the Ammo plate, marked and drilled the three holes for riveting it into place and tried my pop rivets. Too short. Going with what Harbinger told me, I used cap rivets. Worked like a charm. Next I marked, punched and installed the holster using Chicago screws. Finally I riveted 3/4" white elastic to the inside drop boxes. Then I glued the halves together and glued the caps over the rivets on the front of the belt.

Ok. So I started on the bracket strapping system. I know I said I'd ask my wife to take pics of me with the rough fitting armour. I lied...for The Empire, of course. I realized I needed to have the brackets installed in order to fit a good portion of the armour properly. The way it sits with those screw heads sticking out makes a difference to how long the shoulder straps need to be for me. I love this AP armour. I love the human imperfections. This is in no way a jab at Mark (AP). This is how the original armour was made. Although I think his armour looks cleaner, sculpt wise, than the screen used stuff I've seen, in a really good way. I'm having so much fun putting this together. Something I've wanted since 1977, when I first saw Star Wars. But alas, I digress... Because I made the brackets, each one is a little different. I marked the back armour and taped the appropriate brackets above the corresponding marks so I wouldn't mix them up. This wasn't as necessary as I thought it might be. Turns out I was pretty consistent with my measuring and bending. Above, the bracket is installed with the elastic I sewed while waiting for my original Anovos order. Still waiting on that refund... Marking the corresponding bracket position on the Kidney armour. After the elastic was installed. I can see a visible gap between the armour pieces. My OCD doesn't like this. However, this is how it was done back in the day. Not sure if others have countersunk the screws in order to minimize this. If I were to do this I would need to install backing strips of ABS to beef up the connections. This is why I have left the screws a bit long.The screws I am using are 1/2". 3/8" would be long enough unless I put those strips in. Oddly enough, 4-40 pan head screws are almost impossible to find in Toronto. I had to drive to Niagara Falls and Buffalo NY. to get these. I had to get longer screws than needed and cut them down because I couldn't find enough 1/2" screws. Here are the back pieces all connected.

I noticed the two colours/sides a while back and should have said something. I have a couple cover strips with the 'other' side out. Not too bad though. At least not bad enough to change them out. I sand the edges thoroughly with 120 grit before applying E6000. I really am amazed at how strong that stuff is. BTW, I am a total OCD perfectionist. Part of my ongoing therapy is 'letting go. Accepting the imperfect.' Yeah right. Whatever. The Empire demands our perfection!

Trimming the thighs and gluing on the cover strip to half of each thigh. The raised lines are a little curved so I felt it best to tackle it like this. I also had enough camps to so half of one shin. I've left the top of the cover strip long on purpose. Fitting the thighs is probably going to be a challenge. I've determined I will need to finish the fronts first and then shape them at the back. As it is, they are almost too small at the tops. I might need to make a shim. Almost 25 years of carrying/walking around with heavy equipment at work on a regular basis has given me large thighs and calves. Here go the calves. Well at least one of them. Trimming Glued.

Snaps into the posterior piece. After drilling I used a much larger drill bit and, by hand, created a countersink. Without this the snaps won't sit flush.