Doomsdale

Yeah, I should have took a picture before I trimmed. The WTF ab plate did not have much extra to create the sides of the plate, and had large dimples going into the sides of it, so I cut it all off. From other WTF threads, this seems to be the norm. I'm definitely going to try put some ABS behind and filling the seams.

Since I already had my paint stuff out from the helmet, I went ahead and finished the buttons. Now at last I've added the cover strips and velcro to the shins. I noticed when opening one of the clamshells, the velcro worked a little to well and got pulled off the back of the coverstrip. I'll either have to be careful opening them, or find a workaround in the future. Maybe its as simple are reapplying the velcro after roughing up the back side of the cover strip first. (Images flipped from mirror) And here's the test fit of the shins on my legs! A snug fit, but allays my initial fears. I noticed walking around that any hyperextension of my knee collides with the sniper plate a lot unless I hold up the whole shin slightly. Regarding the bottom of the cover strips, is there any criteria for if they can be squared off overhanging versus trimmed to the contour of the legs? It seems like the original armor had them squared off overhanging.

Thank you CableGuy! I appreciate those call outs, as I've started those changes to approximate those reference photos and others I've seen posted. Today I tightened my belt, pulled up the bootstraps, and jumped into the hot water. Bathing that is. I knew that I was going to have to adjust my calves/shins. So along with the shoulder straps that had to be curved, I grabbed the legs and also the ab buttons that I wanted to flatten out just a bit. My neighbor kindly lent his stockpot to do the boiling in. I heated up the water until it was boiling and began doing test pieces of scrap ABS. TESTING MADE THE WORLD OF DIFFERENCE WITH THIS. I can't reiterate that enough. The first few scraps I completed destroyed and warped. Okay, so I adjusted my timing. About 10 Mississippi's in the hot water, and then quickly into the cold sink water worked, while holding the new shape with my hands in between. The legs would prove more tricky, due to their size. I taped them up and submerged them one side at a time, flipping and rolling to get them even. Bath, sink. Bath, sink. Over and over until I felt the plastic no longer "stressing." (This step should have been done BEFORE I attached the sniper plate. Hindsight yo.) Then I removed the tape to assess. They were pretty darn close with tape alone. I continued just to fine mold them to clasp together naturally. Below is the before and after. Left: Right: The left leg has some wonky curved cut still I forgot to remove first. I'll need to tackle that before I get to the cover strip and possible second bath. Woo hoo! Hot water bath complete.

Okay! I think I'm done with the helmet for now! So excited to see this come together. On a side note, when I first go the helmet out of the box, I noticed a couple small flecks of red and blue color that I assumed were paint. So it wasn't until I started cleaning up my own paint that I realized mineral spirits wasn't removing them. Any idea what they are and how to remove it?

Update of several things. 1) I drilled a few new holes on the right ear and filled the old one with ABS paste. The screw still didn't sit the way I liked because of the interior angle of the helmet. To fix this, I took a small scrap of cover strip and sanded it into a wedge. Then glued it on the inside and drilled through. It helped a lot! 2) I decided to start over with the back vents, because the masking tape just left weird raised bits when I tried to extend the lines. I sanded the bumps down and then will repaint gray. 3) Cleaned up paint edges, especially the tube stripes. I also attached the HOVI mic tips. Oh yeah, it's all coming together. In the next day, I think I will spray some black rubber on the inside. I liked how this looked in other builds, but it shouldn't affect Centurion should it?

Okay, I've squared away the ears. Still need to just make the ABS paste to fill the hole. I've done painting in the mean time. The black vents got a bit out of hand, so I'm going to go back an clean them up with some grey paint. Not pictured, are the ears and hovi mic tips that I painted also.

Ah that's a good point! I'll have to do that before I drill any more holes.

And now the right ears. I cut one of the ears provided, but wasn't satisfied and started over on the backup pair. Got a better fit. I drilled the bottom screw hole at an odd angle. I'm going to use the hole in the underside, and drill outward from there to get a screw hole slightly higher on the ear so it can actually screw tight and bring the ear close to the helmet. Afterwards, I can fill the old hole with ABS paste and it will probably be hidden by the S rubber seal anyways.

Everybody said that ears would be one of the trickiest things to do, and they were right. I followed this guide pretty extensively and I still think I messed up a couple times. So hours of fiddling got me to here: I feel like it's pretty close, even if I felt like every step was an overcorrection. Although a few slips of the dremel left some scratches on the ear...anyone have a good idea on how to buff out scratches? Also, I need to figure out what WTF's complementary bolts have to do here. Does the longest one need to be cut off after installation? Or does it go somewhere else entirely. (The second from the bottom bolt will be replaced with a pop rivet once I get a new one.)

Yeah I'm in agreeance too. The WTF didn't have too much guidance on where to cut here other than following the back of the shell's line. Glad I'm not crazing when I thought I saw it dipping on the sides there. Thanks!

Good tip. I successfully drilled out the rivet. This time I kept that spacing in mind when aligning the parts and I feel like it helped. I think the results are much better this time around. I also learned my lesson and used a screw to hold them together before I rivet.

Okay, so I got the two parts together in a way I found pleasing, and fitting to the tubes. I gripped them together with magnets and clamps and drilled the holes for the rivets. But when it all came out... The holes I drilled went in higher than I thought I was drilling. And when riveted, the tubes aren't matching up. Looks like I'm drilling them out

Yeah I was struggling with this for a while. I started figuring this out late into the glue process haha. If I have to rip them apart for some reason I'm definitely trying that. I've put it off for a while now, but I'm feeling brave enough to start on my bucket. I found a few good guides listed below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqpMGao2_xw So here is my is my bucket so far after I've trimmed and sanded everything: The left side of where the brow sits is a little forward set due to the mold, but also looking at some references, a lot of buckets seemed to be uneven with where the brow trim ended. I think I will leave it as is.

Update on several things that have been drying in the background! Here's the sniper knee attached to the shin now: My flexible hand guards came in, and I glued them to my gloves. I also followed Ukswrath's ANOVOS build on straps between the forearms and biceps. All together:

Good idea, mine is a little slippy. So I contacted trooperbay, and thank the maker, they sent me some slightly bigger washers! Great service. These fit through a lot better, but were slightly thicker too. I was able to get them to work for me. While I waited, I applied the sniper knee to the left shin. Special thanks to big bertha clamp.

I think I'm gonna go the ABS paste route. It's about time I watch something melt. Yeah good eye, it was sticking up a bit. For my weekend project I decided to tackle the thigh ammo pack. And I felt like I was making good progress too. I trimmed it out. Drilled some holes. Then placed the first rivet. However I've hit a weird snag. NONE of the other washers will fit over the rivets. Even if I close them a little, they seem to get wider at the base than at the end. I ordered these off of trooperbay. Has anyone else run into this problem? I'm looking at buying slightly bigger washers. I don't think that will affect Level 3... Here's what I was able to accomplish this weekend at least:

Update on the assembly. I've so far completed the Forearms, Biceps, and Thighs. Currently finishing the last of the front covers for the shins. Forearms Biceps Thighs

I'm getting better at this gluing. I've done the left biceps now and have the right biceps going too.

It's so cold in my basement, I've been giving it several days to set enough. Came back to my left forearms and got...this. I think a clip slipped and started doing some weird stuff under the tape. Oh well. I'll rip this one apart and redo it. Meanwhile, I'm gluing the right bicep: Putting on the cover strips first. Then I'll wait a few hours for it to set a bit, enough for me to at least do the other half of the butt connection.

Okay, I've started using E6000 to glue the forearms together. It was a bit more difficult than I thought, but I eventually figured it out (with some minor overspill in places). I couldn't keep the thing together to glue it all at once, so I settled with gluing the coverstrips first, and then one side at a time. After having to redo the front strip several times, I finally got into a workable hold.

Okay guys, I've figured this mostly out, and I think I'm just a dumbass ha. I consulted some others and I think I'm just wearing them too high. I clasped them on over the boot this time and let them sit lower, and instantly felt much better. Now feeling confident, I went ahead and did the other shin as well. Yeah they're a little loose the back still and misaligned, but that'll fix when I put the cover strip on. On a side note, anyone have a good way of using imgur to shrink uploaded images? I've tried using their resizing setting while editing, and they look fine there, but whenever I post here they're still original sized gigantic.

Okay, so I think I have them sorted out for each side. I decided to measure the top and bottom of my right shin then halved the circumference measurements to measure back on each half of the shin armor. I added about an inch space just in case of over trimming. That wasn't enough haha. I'm glad I left some, but when I tried it on, it didn't meet at the back anymore. Uh-oh. Remembering some info from a return edge guide, I trimmed off some of the return edge at the top and that really helped bring them back together in the back. It's still very tight, and I'm wondering how much I've screwed this up. The whole radii of the shin seems skewed front to back, so I'm thinking if I need to, maybe do a hot water bath to push the skew more side-to-side dimensions? Anyway, pictures of the right shin after trim results (mirror corrected):

Working on the lower legs now and uh, I don't know if I'm drinking dumb dumb juice here. I don't know if I have these matched correctly. I can't search any answers either on which part goes to which leg. But the bottoms don't seem to match up? I didn't trim the other two just in case I screwed up these yet, but just eyeballing them, the other two seem to match fine length-wise. Also another silly question just for confirmation. It seems like in most builds, the cover strip will not cover the top entirely as the return edge flares out a bit. No matter, the left leg will cover it anyway with the sniper knee. But for the right side, this is still okay?

Both of your tips helped a lot I feel. I did some sizing and fitting and think I've reached a good cut on the thighs. I left a little bit of space in both. Enough to fit a finger between. Left side: Right side:

Hello! Back at it from a small mental break. I keep wanting to fix up what I have and eventually assemble with bonds, but I'm afraid of commitment. So to keep things moving I'll just remain doing what I know how to do: ripping at the seams I create. Thigh time. The right side: I opted for no return edge on the upper part for the sake of my moving areas. Left a return-edge on the bottom however: Without clear cut lines, I haven't started the back connection so I can fit it. I assume I have to cut off the lower part of it to match the ridges together and then fill with ABS. But what I don't see talked about is the apparent size difference between the two (about 5mm)?