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Blast 'Em!

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Everything posted by Blast 'Em!

  1. I'm sorry to hear that Caleb, and I'm sure this was a difficult decision for you. I'm impressed with how you're handling such a challenging situation and I'm glad that you'll continue to share your expertise and enthusiasm on here. There's no reason to apologize for your hiatus. Your super detailed and informative posts and encouragement have greatly helped myself and many others. Stay strong, and we'll see you in white armor soon.
  2. Hey Jason, nice work on your build so far. In regards to your Imperial Boots question, I recently ordered an 11 from them earlier this spring. I wear a size 10 1/2 running shoe, but I have wide feet and rock an EEEE width. I too read that people recommended ordering a size up, so I ordered an 11 and hoped that the leather would stretch to the width of my foot. When the boots arrived I found that they seemed true to length (I have a 1/2" of room at the toes), and I was happy with my selection of an 11 because my feet aren't too cramped width-wise. Long story short, I recommend the 11s as a safe bet. From my experience, you could even go with the 10 1/2 if you're feeling lucky.
  3. Haha sorry for all the false alarms Caleb! I only had a few hours for "TK Time" last month so my progress has been minimal. I should have more time this month so more posts are in the near future. Thankfully I've been able to find a spare 10 minutes here and there to hop on FISD and see what other people are up to, which is still fun. I hope things are going well with you and your family too and its great news for all of us that more detailed MV posts are on the horizon. Cheers bud.
  4. Haha yeah I've found the same thing. I didn't use as much glue as I could have on my biceps and forearms, but then I switched to using lots of glue on the thighs and shins. Thankfully E6000 isn't too bad to remove if it gets anywhere or squeezes out around your cover strips. @TKSpartan recommended using a cotton rag and just rubbing it over the glue. Friction from the rag will heat up the glue and it should ball up and fall off the ABS.
  5. Hey Adam, the thigh strip looks good to me, but again my experience is limited. For your forearm, I've found that there's three things to examine if your having issues with glue holding Adhesive potential: you want to maximize the amount of surface area for your glue and make sure that the glue covers all of this surface (per Joseph's recommendation, I use a popsicle stick to spread the E6000 everywhere. Forearm cover strips are narrow, but it looks like you have over half the width of the cover strip available to glue which is great. I don't think this is part of the problem for you Surface prep: myself and others have had success sanding (220 grit) the cover strip and the surface of the armor to create a rough layer for the E6000 to latch on to. I've been sanding in two directions, effectively cross-hatching the piece, which might be overkill. I can't tell if you've sanded your pieces, but this might be a solution Alignment: If two edges have to considerably bend to meet up, your cover strip joint will be under a lot of stress while curing. The clamps and magnets we use help alleviate this issue, but sometimes a hot water bath is needed prior to gluing. I just learned this lesson with the rear cover strip for my shins. I don't think this is a big issue for your forearms.
  6. I've hot water bathed both ways, with outer strips and without outer strips. Either way will work. If you're looking to contour the form of the armor significantly, then I'd recommend not gluing on the outer strips so the piece is more moldable when heated
  7. Great work so far Chris! Love seeing the Hertl poster and jersey on your wall (I'm a Sharks fan)
  8. From my experience and what I've read on here, there's no significant impact on E6000. The boiling water may soften the adhesion of the glue, but it's probably a negligible amount.
  9. Hey Ryan, I recently hot water bathed some of my armor pieces and I tried to capture everything in my build thread. I need to do a second round of water bathing in the coming days, so this is a good refresher for me too. I think the main considerations are as follows: How big of a pot do you have? If it can fit the entire armor piece, great! Just submerge the piece, being careful not to let the plastic touch the walls of the pot while also not burning yourself in any manner (I've seen people use a string through the armor to hold it). If you don't have a large enough pot, like me, you can try a large bucket or your sink. Water temp: you want it as hot as possible (think rolling boil). ABS doesn't go through a phase transfer until it reaches temperatures above the boiling point of water, which is quite convenient for us. Dunk time: use a test piece of ABS, of equivalent thickness, to test how long it takes for the plastic to soften. For me, it was around 70 seconds I think, but this was partially because I had to pour my water into my sink, dropping the temperature. Setting the shape: pull the part from the water, mold into the new shape (use your hands, rubber bands, zip ties, etc), and then submerge in cold water. I've used a sink and a bucket for the cold plunge. I hold it in the water until I can feel the temperature of the plastic cool off (maybe 20-30 seconds). I tried using painters tape to hold my shins closed but all the tape came off in the boiling water, so I don't recommend tape. Depending on how much shape correction you get, you might need to repeat the process to get the desired change. Good luck bud, you got this!
  10. Nice work David, looking really clean! For reinforcing the edges of your chest piece, what kind of tape are you using (looks like drywall tape to me)? I'm planning on lining the neck and sides with ABS strips, like you, but I haven't seen anyone use tape like that before and I like the idea.
  11. Welcome Shawn! That's awesome that you and your son will be building together. Which armor did you guys choose?
  12. Hey Luke, I'll chime in and recommend going piece-by-piece for your return edges. I'm approaching it as you proposed- using fit to determine how much (if any) return edge I keep. I started with around 5mm of return edges for all pieces, and I've been modifying that amount right before I glue pieces together. Joseph has a great resource for return edges in his signature (Return edges 101) that I heavily relied on. Like you, I'm currently working on my Anovos kit from their initial run so I'm happy to share what I've learned over the past few months. Good luck bud!
  13. Yesterday I glued the front cover strip on my right thigh. I only have 12 of the 22mm N40 magnets, which I prefer to use when gluing anything with an inner and outer cover strip, so the left thigh will wait until today. After a month of working with those big rare earth magnets, they still make me nervous when I handle them. I've also spent over an hour cleaning up the glue from my biceps, forearms, shins, and thighs, prepping the parts for showtime. I don't yet have the scrap material to make my bicep hooks (I'm saving scrap for reinforcing the chest and back after I glue my snaps), so I'll leave those pieces for now. I think it's time to pivot to the helmet : 1. Use mineral spirits to clean up frown paint and around the vocoder. Re-paint frown, extending the edges 2. Dremel/ small file the edges of the eyes. 3. Paint ear screws white, swap current screws to the TD 4. Strip all Velcro from interior, using Goo Gone for cleanup. Clean interior of helmet with rubbing alcohol (maybe mineral spirits instead?). Mask features. Spray 3 coats of plasti dip, 30 min in between, and then let air out for 4-5 days. 5. Cut green lenses to size, attach lenses and frown with Sugru 6. Re-attach S trim, connecting under the chin 7. Test tactical pads, assessing if they're too tall/ will take up too much room For the Hovi tips, I'm still deciding between Tony's mic tips or just replacing the mesh for now. If I replace the mesh, I'll paint the edges white. Down the road I imagine I'll try and trim my ears so they sit flush.
  14. Nice progress Adam, it sounds like you're rolling up your sleeves and getting into the thick of it! I'm also working on my first build and I'll be going the shim route because my legs are too big for my Anovos thighs. As you mentioned, I'll be using a 20mm spacer (my supplied cover strip) to provide extra circumference, and I'll back it with a 40-50mm wide inner strip to provide structural support. On the exterior, I will use a 25mm cover strip to hide my 20mm spacer. I think it will look quite fine as it will match the cover strip for the back of the calves. Unfortunately my extra ABS material for this shimming is super delayed in the mail, so you'll beat me to the finish on the thighs. I like all of your proposed solutions, and I think you nailed your order of attack. We all learn on the fly while building these kits, and the good news is there's usually a fix for any mistakes we make. Keep up the good work!
  15. Like Caleb, unfortunately I haven't yet used those glues with ABS, but I'm sure someone with knowledge will chime in here shortly. I'm also on my first build and I chose E6000 because it's more forgiving, although it takes a long time to cure. Although I've researched a lot and gone slow, I've still made plenty of mistakes along the way and E6000 has allowed me to correct those mistakes (I had to pull apart my thighs and retrim them). These kits are tricky haha. You're doing the right thing asking questions- the amount of knowledge on this board is nuts. These guys and gals will have a solution for you and you'll be suited up before you know it
  16. Mario @TKSpartan provided me with great advise for removing glue. Assuming you're using E6000, if you rub over the glue with a soft cotton cloth, the friction creates enough heat to soften the glue and it will ball up and fall off. I've found this method to be the most reliable way to get E6000 off the exterior of my armor. For interior sections I'll be more hasty, using a scrap piece of ABS to chip away like clearing ice from windshield. Others have used a hobby knife, scoring the glue and the pulling it up (its pretty stringy).
  17. Haha I'm sure you're all good Fred- I'm finding there are many ways to go about assembling our armor kits. I've learned so much I'll likely buy another set of armor in the near future just so I can apply all the lessons and tricks I've picked up. I estimate I've spent around 100+ hours reading this forum and working on my own armor, so I wanna put all that time and developed skills to use again!
  18. Caleb your photo quality, post formatting, and level of detail continue to blow me away. Great work! For French Blue paint, I recently ordered this from Ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Model-Master-ACRYL-4659-Gloss-French-Blue-GP00463-Acrylic-1-2-oz-/233156684095. Model Masters is a Testors brand if I recall correctly.
  19. Joined the two pieces of my left thigh yesterday. Both thighs have now been trimmed and joined at the front via an inner strip. USPS still hasn't provided an ETA for my incoming extra ABS material, so I'll probably apply the outer cover strips to my thighs today and move onto other pieces. Next up: water bath shins and biceps again, then I'll do some final trimming on the tops of my biceps and inner forearm elbows (so I can fully bend my arm).
  20. Last night I continued addressing some issues I'm finding with my build. As noted by Glen above, getting my rear shin cover strips to close with velcro was going to be a tall task. The cover strips were just flaring up too much as-is. I did a quick test with the hook velcro to see if the tensile strength was sufficient to pull the cover strip closed. The answer was a resounding no, so I tore the loop velcro off my cover strips and will water bath these shins, looking to bend the cover strip to create a slight curve. On that note, I'm using sew-on velcro. When pulling it off the E6000, it came off more easily than I expected. Have others used this velcro with success, or do most people use velcro with adhesive and supplement with E6000? To continue my theme of going backwards, I pulled apart my second thigh and trimmed down the front return edges. Another 30 min of removing glue, re-sanding, gluing and clamping resulted in one more internal cover strip completed. Finally, I joined the pieces of my other thigh with my previously glued internal cover strip (as I'm typing this, I'm realizing "internal cover" makes no sense). Let's try again. I joined my thigh with the previously glued internal strip, getting me all set for shimming the back when my materials arrive. All-in-all, I'm still having fun and have been enjoying checking this forum way too much, so things are going well. I'm now far enough into my build to slow my pace to something more measured, but I still can't wait until my armor is complete and I can troop with you all.
  21. I'll add that from everything I've seen, Praetorian makes an excellent rubber blaster that will be great for trooping (less worry of dropping it or kids wanting to hold it). The detailing is pretty incredible for rubber and its obvious they take a lot of pride in their work. However, for the past 2.5 months I've been unable to contact them on Facebook. So depending on your urgency level, they might not work.
  22. The loop side of my velcro finished drying last night. I rough trimmed that velcro before gluing, and I still need to go back and trim any little bits that protrude past the cover strip's edge. I'm going to proceed with gluing the hook side of the velcro tonight, and then I'll evaluate how flush the backs of my shins can close. If there's still a significant gap, I'll pull the velcro off and do a hot water bath. A few posts back I got a little too excited with my thighs, thinking I could keep a 40mm return edge behind the front 20mm cover strip. Luckily some of you steered me straight on that. I started by pulling apart one thigh (I had all inner strips glued, shown below). Good thing E6000 is more forgiving than the Emperor. I pulled off all the glue from the thighs and inner strips, re-sanded everything, then glued and clamped the inner strip to one piece of the thigh. That was it for tonight. I misinterpreted the arrival of my ABS sheet, so I'm getting my thighs all ready for that day. To keep the thighs as large as possible, I will be using a 20mm wide shim in the rear of both and I'll make 25mm wide cover strips that match the backs of the calves. Behind those 20mm shins I'll have 50mm wide inner cover strips, creating sufficient strength in the joint.
  23. Yesterday I removed clamps and magnets from my rear shin cover strips to check em out. The bottom of one shin changed its form following gluing, resulting in this gap at the bottom. I'm hoping that can still be closed by my standard velcro. The top of that shin looked normal. I also learned that the cover strip protrudes completely tangent to the angle of your shin (see image above). So unless the backs of your shins are flat where the two sides meet up, you're going to have your cover strip angle above the other side. This all makes sense to me now, but I didn't think about this before. I considered another hot water bath to round my cover strip, but I opted to just glue the soft side of the velcro to the underside of the strip. Today I'll glue the scratchy side and see how well the velcro holds the cover strip down. Worst case I water bath the shins again and the velcro comes off, but then I'll just reglue it. I had a yellow mark on one of my forearm cover strips from god knows what. No elbow grease or water did anything, so I busted out the controversial Mr Clean magic eraser. This melamine foam is like super fine sandpaper so it quickly removed the stained area, but the result didn't look dull to me at all. I'll leave it as-is, and I can always hit it with some Novus if I want to polish it up. Lastly I spent another 30 minutes cleaning up excess E6000 from my cover strips. This is an ongoing process, but I'm close to having both biceps and forearms clean, then I can join them with elastic!
  24. Alright, round 2 of hot water bathing went much better. I started with my one shin. After realizing that this piece could fit diagonally in my sink, I quickly did the dishes then got to work. I filled one side with glasses so my minimal volume of boiling water would cover more of the shin. To try and control the shape of the shin, I used the best I had- zip ties and a clamp. I poured all my boiling water into this sink, waited 75s, then did a plunge in the cold sink. Success! Next up was the biceps. I couldn't fit them in the sink, so it was back to the Home Depot buckets. I took Caleb's advice and as a precaution insulated my boiling bucket with two other buckets. I was able to reshape both into more of a circle for now. I ended up shaping my back shoulder straps a little more too. I removed a little more of the return edge to allow the shoulder to flex more easily. Last up was gluing the rear covers strips on the shins. Like Kman, I glued the cover strips with only 10mm overlap so that the velcro can cover the remaining 15mm. Lessons learned from my hot water adventures: don't fear boiling water. The water needs to be as hot as possible to soften the plastic in a repeatable manner.
  25. Work kept me from making any progress during the week, but I'm happy to be back at it now. I ordered a 12x20" sheet of ABS from Terrell at ATA so I can make shims and new inner cover strips for my thighs. From a search on here, it seemed that ATA is a good color match for Anovos armor. Terrell was fantastic in quickly responding to me, and I should have the extra material on Monday. Then I rip apart all my current thigh gluing and start fresh. Yesterday I tried my first hot water bath and I learned a lot. I need to try again today. What have you guys used to hold your pieces in position? I found that all my painters tape almost immediately came off, and shaping the shins by hand was prohibitively difficult. I set out to reshape my backplate shoulder sections, my biceps' shape, and the gap in the back of my shins. I started boiling water in every pot we have, with a 5 gallon bucket with cold water and another to be filled with the boiling water. I also used a bucket lid on the hot water bucket, because I needed to fill each pot twice and I didn't want too much heat to escape in between. I started with a test piece of ABS (same thickness as my actual armor pieces) and found that when dunked in boiling water, it was moldable after 70s. I reshaped my back plate first. See the starting curve: The other side after shaping: Shins all taped up: Shins after multiple baths. One is done but the other needs more work. Biceps before the bath. They're ovoid in the wrong direction- I'm trying to make the more oval front-back so they fit normally. Also pictured, Joseph's centurion gloves! They were quite handy during this process. I was struggling to get one shin closed, and neither of my biceps were holding their new shape. So I tried to push my shin down through my bicep to hold both in place. Next I tried to jam a glass bowl in the middle of the biceps to create a circular shape (I had given up on the oval at this point). After 1.5 hrs of minimal progress, I stopped for the night. I think my shaping failures stemmed from water not being hot enough (I took too much time to fill the boiling water bucket), so I'm trying again today. Any suggestions are welcome! I found this article helpful when searching for more info this morning: https://thefrugalprofessor.wordpress.com/2016/08/21/reshaping-abs-plastic-parts/ More to come!
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