Hello everyone,
I'm new here and recently received my armor from jimmiroquai. Last year for carnaval in the Netherlands I build myself a Stormtrooper suit fully out of EVA foam.
Searching for shoulder bells out of hard plastic I found whitearmor.net and before I knew I did not only order a couple of decent shoulder bells but the whole upper body armor for a Stormtrooper TFA.
I now got from jimmiroquai:
- Shoulder bells
- Yoke
- Chest
- Biceps
- Lower arms
First of all I think it is good to mention that my intention at the moment is not to build a full stormtrooper suit, because I didn't have the money to buy the whole armor at once.
Probably next year I will buy the rest of the armor to finish the whole suit and make it more complete every year. The suit should be wearable for 8-10 hours for 3 days in a row in February/March being outside all the time. Quite crowded on the street and a lot of music, drinking and walking around. For the time being I will use for the lower body part my EVA foam parts.
Eventually my goal is to get a 501st approval, so what I am doing at the moment I want to do as good as possible.
The gaskets are being hand-made at the moment.
My first challenge is the yoke I got, I see pictures on this forum which have a yoke that looks quite different than the one I got.
The way the yoke is shaped at the moment I cannot cross my arms like in if you would like to hug somone.
My plan is to cut it down to a shape I've seen more on this forum.
I will then sand all parts with 220 grit and 400 grit (wet), bring everything to the auto paint shop and they will spray enough filler/primer on to have a smooth surface. I will then wetsand it with 1000 grid and then it will be painted white and then clearcoated.
Then the strapping will be attached. I'm thinking of using two straps of velcro for the shoulder bells.
Velcro sewed onto nylon strap, and glueing the nylon strap inside the yoke and inside the shoulder bells the opposite velcro side.
Also velcro on the yoke and on the chest piece to attach them together.
About the lower arms and biceps I will see later.
Wish me luck, it's my first build with hard armor