Timberwoof

I observed the same spike in CPU when I first loaded this topic, but then the CPU usage for whitearmor.net in Safari dropped to reasonable values. When I surfed around, I'd get CPU usage spikes. I suspect from the design of the page that some header things are gathering information like crazy to give you links on recent activity and to provide those cool side menu things. I launched Google Chrome and watched Google Chrome Helper through Activity Monitor wile surfing on whitearmor.net. I saw similarly high CPU spikes but for less time. I did notice on a previous project that Chrome seemed to use less CPU for Javascript than Safari did. Safari 11.0.2, Google Chrome 63.0.3239.108, OS X 10.11.6, MacBook Pro.

I'm calling my suit done. Friday or Saturday it's off to the Trusted Friends who can help me get everything aligned for the photo shoot. Getting everything set nicely isn't something I can do on my own, and right now I feel as though velcro is better than rivet or snaps as it is more adjustable. Once I have the sizes and positions of straps figured out, then I will replace them with sturdier options. Hmmm. We have Build Parties. Maybe I should clear out part of my work room and host a Photo Shoot.

Hmmm. It wouldn't take all that much effort. I think I'd do two layers of paint, then sand it lightly. Some of the colors for that are easy: paint the sight brass and then flat black. But the rest of it: for the "metal" parts, some kind of metallic gray and then black? And the "plastic" parts, flat black and then glossy?

I will do Mods A, B, C, and D.

I found a well-loved Hasbro E-11 on Fleabay for a pittance. The photos show a lot of wear and decals peeling off. Awww. I suspect that the color (mostly white, some black, and some orange highlights) is not exactly canon , so I think I will show it some more love with fine sandpaper and a Krylon 9147 Blaster. Maybe two layers of paint, perhaps flat black over dark blue or gray, and light sanding to reveal the bottom layer. I have a week of research before it arrives.

The set of magnets I got has twenty. 19. One leaped to rejoin its brothers and died. Broke in half. I wish I had had forty of those or twenty thicker ones. Get the thick ones. With his Canon or his Nikon. My old Canon barked when it shot people. (It would howl on self-timer.) It would be silly if cameras made blaster noises.

I've been cutting and gluing and filing. You know the drill, so to speak. Ukswrath's thread has been tremendously helpful; I didn't have anything to add. One set of magnets wasn't enough; with two sets I might have gone faster. Once everything was glued up, setting up the strapping went pretty fast. I think I will replace the velcro straps with riveted later on. I screwed and glued the Dermal Thetonator this morning. As gloves were not included with my kit, I am off on a mission to get some appropriate gloves. I used my label maker to make labels of the TK number I want and stuck them to the insides of the pieces. It's an odd effect seeing your armor with your number on labels inside. (If you have a labelmaker, use it. Printed labels don't have your hand-lettering's individuality.) I've done some initial fitting and discovered that this armor just doesn't move very well. It looks good and is even becoming comfortable but it's the sort of thing I'll ask a friend for help with. Then I will ask him to shoot me—with his Canon!

Finished with cutting out all the big pieces. Next, a break from that and gluing them together. I got a box of 20 Nedynium magnets; I liked how they were carefully packed in foam with spacers to prevent them from achieving critical mass. (My last encounter with Neodynium was when I had to stick my head into a big 3T magnet.)

Thanks! Added to the to-do list.

I have two questions about this helmet 1. The flashing around the eyes looks obviously wrong. Is that best trimmed with a Dremel or an X-Acto? 2. The mic tips look walpyjod to me. I was surprised at how asymmetrical the helmet is, so this may be more of the same. Or are these thingies supposed to be off like that? [ugh. Photobucket irritated me and was broken with two browsers. I'm trying a different service. I'll update this when I get that done.]

I can't find my Rec Specs.

"Score and Snap" FTW. I tried cutting the molding off the edges of my new suit a slice at a time, but the edges got all jaggy, and you do NOT want that on that cut. Score and Snap does work very well: I just tried it for the first time on the next two pieces, so I'm an expert! For a cut that big and visible, I'd practice on some scrap pieces first. You'll have to draw the cut-line in pencil, and then with a steady had and a big sweeping motion, use an X-acto knife to score it—cut halfway deep—then fold along the cut. The corner edges will require careful attention.

Thanks for documenting progress. Now that my own Anovos BBB has arrived and I've started in on it, I'm reading this thread again. I understand better what's going on now. ("When learning any new subject, study it thoroughly before you begin.") For example, the neodynium magnets are used as clamps! They're tools, not building materials! And I see that you're not tearing off all the protective film right away. That makes sense to me. Did you find that the right bicep parts didn't match up right? On the inner edge of mine, the top is about 4mm longer than the bottom.

Yup! The blemishes I seem to be just protective-film deep and can probably be buffed out if not. The odds and ends I can get as I get to those parts. As this is the first model kit I've put together in forty five years, I'll be happy with basic approval. But I'm a perfectionist (I do software QA for a living) so I might as well try for Centurion from the start. I'm pleased that the Anovos can be taken there … and I hope I can bring this one to life after a year and a half of waiting in his box.

First Cuts I used an X-Acto knife with a straight cutting edge. That worked more evenly than a curved blade. Long cuts didn't seem save or controllable, so I made a series of jabbing cuts. Careful as I was, the resulting edges look pretty rough. Q. How much does the cleanliness of these cut lines matter where they get hidden by glued strips? Q. Bandage shears cut the material but it's not clear what control I'd have for tight curves. Should I just cut directly with a Dremel? Q. As you can see, these two edges are not the same length. The outside matches reasonably well. What's the right procedure here? Set up the same overlap on the two ends of the joint?

Please don't call me Sir, Sir. I work for a living! (Actually, I'm spending severance pay for a few weeks.) And yes, the protective film is still on the pieces. That one piece is safely stowed away as I start in on the arm-or. It's time for sandpaper.

Thanks, Ukswrath. That is god news; it means I may not have to start out with a 'weathered' look. And hey! You're in the GGG too!

I've liked full-body armor such as Stormtrooper and Halo for a long time. (As a hockey goalie I was the best-armored player on the team!) My persona Timberwoof is a swashbuckling anthropomorphic wolf space cadet in space, and he needs appropriate boarding armor … but I don't know anything about building, let alone designing, amor of this type. So this build is a step to that project, and a worthy project in its own right. I was goofing around on that place you're not supposed to buy Stormtrooper armor kits on when I found this set. I researched it here and found that yes, Anovos can be approved. I like the ANH Troopers the best even with their weird asymmetrical knees. From what I read on the Anovos web site, this particular kit is no longer available, and was at a decent price, so I sniped the auction and won. Then I received an email from the sales site saying that the seller's account had been compromised! *Facepaw!* All I could do was wait: they had already shipped the kit and FedEx confirmed the tracking number. Today it arrived. I was prepared to find a BBB containing a brick. But it was a real Anovos box, somewhat worn but had not seen the inside of a trash compactor. I opened it up, took inventory (Thanks to ukswrath, I have the Anoos book, which did not come with the kit), and inspected the parts. None of them had their protective plastic film, and some have suffered over the year. The photo shows the worst of the damage. Most of the parts look good aside from some scuffs here and there, probably about the same as a suit might get in action. I believe that the kit had been opened and repacked at least once, for it was upside down in the box. All the pieces were in baby-suffocators. At the "bottom" of the box I found an envelope containing a packing slip for 2 Shadow Trooper Decals dated April 2016. I suspect that it was a project someone never got to. I felt like a physical anthropologist digging up a grave at Sutton Hoo. I laid out all the parts on a table barely big enough. This will be a project to take in small, managed steps. The helmet is astonishingly asymmetrical: Are they supposed to be like that? The mic tips are not very symmetrical in their niches; that looks wrong to me. The lens setup seems dodgy to me. I tried with glasses but not green lens. Okay. I can see better than out of my fursuit without glasses. I'm not going to try glasses and green plastic; I don't want to scratch the plastic. I rejiggered it to be what I think is right and tried it on. The world is blurry and green' my eyes don't lie! There was an odd piece of black velcro with sticky back on the inside of the helmet; it's not clear where that's supposed to go. The suspension system for the helmet is cheesy; I may redo that with foam rubber. The strapping kit has a bunch of stuff; the Thermal Detonator is complete; the belt is all there. I'm missing screws and split rivets and washers, but these are easily replaced at a hardware store. "You came in that? You're braver than I thought!"

Any close-up screens will need lenses so you can focus on them. You'll just need different lenses. Grizff18, seeing as well out of a TK helmet as out of a motorcycle helmet is a tall order. MC helmets are required by law to let the rider see the instruments. All the MC helmet I've owned have excellent peripheral vision. (The helmets worn by the guys on the speeders give me the heebie-jeebies!) The biggest concern I have about active processing for screens and sound is processing time. Even if you use direct analog in and out for sound, any DSP will delay speech and hearing. Unless you want to carry a multicore i7 in your backpack, the best approach for audio would be primitive analog. For video, you'll always get lag, and that will disorient you like a bad VR setup. The analog solution here is left as an exercise to the graduate student in math and optics.

Bluetooth seems like serious technological overkill to me, especially with the need for a phone and the disadvantage of lag. A good basic mic wired with shielded cable, a 5W transistor amplifier (50 watts is way more than you'll ever need), and a small speaker are simple and reliable solutions. For hearing, I'd go the same route. If you keep it stereo and have reasonable fidelity, you'll get directional hearing. Again, use shielded cables on microphone leads to prevent EMI. John, I really like the Imperial Logo on the fans, though! That is a necessary mod! Is that switch DPST? I'm simplify things and eliminate single points of failure by writing the batteries and motors each in parallel.

God idea! I have an ancient pair of Rec Specs from when I played ice hockey (goalie). When my kit arrives I'll check whether that pair fits. Unfortunately, Lenscrafters don't carry Rec Specs any more; $100 for a pair was worth it. Go to your local ice hockey equipment dealer to get fog juice. Apply it like car wax before every troop, and probably on the inside of the helmet lenses too! Oh, the old link was busted. This is a newer offering from the same site: http://www.goodglasses.com/T-Zone-Prescription-Sport-Goggle-_p_493.html

This just got posted in "Boots, Soft Parts and other Accessories"; I think it will answer your question.