husky68

I'm still here! In fact I have a goal of doing something small each night to keep this train on track for joining the 501st. It is amazing how long this takes with too much over thinking and lots of do overs from mistakes. Best to learn now before I tackle the legs and the dreaded sniper plate. Still working on forearms but getting closer to finishing them. Waiting on third cover stip and then one more left, which includes a small trench fill strip trimmed to fit the gap. After this I will leave them for a while to get fully cured before taping them up for hot bath reshaping. TD got a second coat so might put that together in the mean time or get started on strips for thighs.

Ended up being home today so cleaned the sink and filled it with boiling water. Tested with some scraps first from Brian then started with one of my forearms. Going slow I started to see improvement in the shape I needed but at the same time the front inner strips started to weaken. These were the first strips I did before scoring with a knife, waiting 2 minutes before putting pieces together and drying for 48 hours. The back inner pieces held firm but soon the inner front gave way. So I was only able to get some curve change in one in the right direction. Pulled the loose strips open, even taking one completely off, and started cleaning old glue up. Started gluing them back together and hope it holds, might even fill trenches and put on cover strips before next attempt at hot bath.

Back at it and tried putting elastics in place on the body, all done except sides and crotch. Bit of tape on the sides and feels pretty good. The gap between back and kidney is bigger than I would like but will need to bend up the corners and re position elastics to pull that in. Also getting a gap between my back and back piece, maybe some bending there will help. The butt piece seems to float a bit and flare on corners, might be helped with crotch strap or need to re position two elastics and add a third. Standing a little tilted in the first photo. I got in some snaps and snap tools but I think the size is just a hair off the ones I got from Mark so they may not be compatible with existing ones. Still can use them for other spots but ideally would have liked them to be interchangeable. Although I have not tried making ones yet for an actual comparison. Next task I will go back to finishing the forearms and getting it strapped to the body. Then on to the legs, belt, TD, sides, helmet, etc. No shortage of tasks but putting the body together felt like progress.

Just before heading out on vacation decided to put in the front snap bases. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I was trying to sort out the strapping and thought maybe it needed to be addressed first. I'll put in the snaps reasonably close with neutral tension on the elastics and see how it looks when cured and worn.

Just wondering if this gap between back and kidney is acceptable or do I need to try and straighten out this edge to match?

Thanks, first armor so everything is trial and error. The elastic is pretty thick and measured to be without tension with a small gap, see how it looks after glue is set. My thoughts were more about sideways movement but if it sticks out I will have to adjust.

Wanting to keep the progress going I added some more snap mounts into the armor. Following the example of another build I put them on opposing angles to help keep the two pieces aligned. If needed can always add another in the middle.

Took a day off work and invited Bulldog44 over to my place for some armor building fun. It was great to ask direct questions and get answers to a bunch of questions. He brought some of his trimming scraps that will be great for filling the trenches in the forearms. Most helpful was the extra pair of hands and eyes to check body part alignments. We decided on the should strap snap placements and gap between chest and back pieces and glued in the snaps. Once the rest of the internal snaps are done I can move on to harder parts like belt and legs. With a bit of time left we also put a layor of paint on my TD tube. I failed to notice that a previous contact with belt sander was not sanded back down. Another coat of paint or two might help but ok with a slightly marked up TD. Oh, I also used a ballon to hold the tube and keep paint from inside of tube while spraying. Big thanks to Bulldog44 for making the trek and spending the day giving me a hand with armor.

This is the kind of reply I was hoping for earlier when I pondered storage. This looks great but the elastic might take up some storage space or get in the way of larger items. The caps are already a super tight fit and I have read some hot bath them to relax the plastic and avoid stress on the plastic. My tube has thick walls so I've got room to sand them down for a smoother fit. Might consider a locking ring or something with magnets.

I tried taping off the frown, maybe using more tape then needed but hopefully will do the trick. I also tried taping the vodocoder but found it to be rather tricky as the ridges are very faint. Added some pencil shading but still not sure how to get the tape to follow the curves that I want. Taking any suggestions on how to get it taped up clean.

Belt position looks good but the thigh strips need to be trimmed. Cookie box from Tokyo Disneyland.

Took the week off and was kept busy with life. Took out the forearms tonight and was thinking of filling the trenchs when I made a realization. The armor is 1mm thick and the ABS strips are 2mm. So this presents an issue for filling the trenches. Also it is likely I will have to do trenches for the shins and maybe the thighs so this will be a continuing issue. Maybe making some abs paste is a possible solution. Anyway, after deciding I needed some progress so I sanded down the edges of my TD tube and taped it off for future rattle can sparying. The center tape is smaller than the panel so there is overlap in case I reduce the size later. Maybe the glue will work the same on the paint but decided to leave some original material in case.

Attended my second armor party in Tokyo and concentrated on my TD. The CRL being 190.5mm and the reference image being 184mm, I've decided to go for CRL measurements with aspects close to the reference image. So I cut the end caps and used a belt sander to get them to 20mm ( image makes them look slightly different but they are identical.) The tube is black which have already purchased rattle can of grey to paint. The diameter is a perfect tight friction fit without glue and matches the CRL. The length was a bit over given the caps add an extra 10mm each so I also gave this a trim. Given some final fine tuning I should be able to get the CRL length of 190.5mm I'm always considering novel options and was wondering if anyone tried using the TD as a storage container? With the exception of the screws poking inside it is basically a hollow tube with end caps that could be removable. Even if it just held a repair kit inside. Also magnets could be glued inside to hold it to the armor/belt to reduce chance of it falling off or stolen by those tricky jawas?

Thanks, I think it is from earlier gluing where I didn't rough it up enough. Now I scratch cross pattern into the strips hoping to end the cycle of glue. I'm trying not to set my expectations on L3 but trying to build to the best of my ability which may one day get me to L3. I've seen other AP kits need to trim that last bit which is super close to the ridge. I've wondered about instead of cutting to try bending it up, but that is getting ahead of my initial goal of just making wearable armor that will make basic.