Doggydoc

Hi Leif. Welcome to the FISD

I am need of some help with fibreglass work. On both of my costumes, I will need to enlarge my thigh and shin pieces. I will have to cut an opening in the thigh and create a gap in the armour and then fill it with fibreglass. On the shins, I may split the half of the piece and do the same type of expansion, or I may extend the fibreglass at the back to allow the 2 halves to meet and close. Has anyone done work with fibreglass that can outline how I need to achieve this?

Rubber gaskets arrived today from Thorsson and Associates Workshop. ‘They are well made and backed with neoprene, so they may not be too uncomfortable.

Welcome Chris. Looking forward to seeing your build. Ask lots of questions as you go. There are many very helpful and knowledgeable people here.

Hi Nicholas. I did not have to heat / boil my sniper knee plate. Just glued it in place in stages. I used E6000 and glued and clamped one side with the other side taped in position. I let the glue set for a few days and then glued the other side. Just took some creative bending and gentle force.

Hello Pascal. Welcome to FISD

I would think you need to either get a stronger or shorter elastic, if that doesn’t work, a nylon strap will hold it tight but may make you lose a bit of flexibility of your armour is snug.

I know a lot of people do 1 snap and get away with it. If you are active in your costume , 2 is probably better. When I did the blast a trooper things were popping all over the place. When just standing around, there is little risk of snap failure. The elastic allows for some release of the force on the snap as well.

Here is the photo of my Velcro on the straps

Good luck on your EIB approval

Yes. I used industrial Velcro and sewed it to the elastic by hand. @revlimiter is correct in that you just need a band of it to still allow the elastic to work. The only issue I found with sewing is that if you use the self adhesive Velcro, the needle picks up the glue as it goes through and it gets very hard to push through because it gets sticky. You just need to have some isopropyl alcohol to wipe it as the glue builds up. At hi Val also helped a lot to save your finger pushing it through. It is not visible, so it does not need to look pretty. I will grab a photo and post it for you.

Looking good Bart. Glad to see you are in the home stretch now. ‘I also had an issue with my elastics popping out from under my shoulder bridges. My GML asked for it to be fixed before approval. To do so, I simply sewed Velcro to the elastic under the shoulder bridge that was getting pulled out and then glued some Velcro to the shoulder bridge underside to attach it to. Very simple to do and very good result.

Awesome. Looking forward to following this build. I just got a resin printer too, so much detail compared to filament.

I started with a belt, which I found did not stay up because my belly is bigger than my waist. And if it sat on my hips, it could be seen under the ab armour openings. So I added suspenders to the belt to hold it up and it worked well.

Received the metal holster from Dantooine Props today. Looks great. Now I just need a blaster.

Hi Bob. Welcome to the FISD. looking forward to your build. Make sure you start a build thread and ask lots of questions.

Hi Greg. Welcome to the FISD. Looking forward to seeing you get your armour ready for approval.

Still not starting the FOTK yet but I officially started my deathtrooper today. Since this will be relevant for both builds, I am adding it to this build thread. So, when you order a fibreglass armour kit and BBB day arrives…. Even though it is almost irresistible to put the pieces on, it’s not a great idea as it is similar to rolling in fibreglass. I was itchy for days. I decided to coat the inside of the armour with plastidip to seal in the fibres. The issue is that it is winter here and I can not spray outside. The solution. Build a spray tent in the basement. I made a square frame with 3/4” PVC pipe and attached it to the metal support beams with rare earth magnets. Then draped plastic sheeting over the frame and closed the seams with tape. since there is no ventilation, you need to wear a respirator mask in there but it seems to be working well so far.

Hi Robert. Welcome. as Revlimiter said, Mark is best to contact by email. He does not have a website. I recently built an AP kit. It is a great kit. Always feel free to ask lots of questions as you go. There is a lot of great help here.

Very cool story. Congrats on your find

Happy Holidays to everyone. Thank you for being an awesome bunch of people.

Hello Hugo, congratulations on your approval and welcome to the FISD.

Hello Marc, welcome to the FISD. Glad to have you here. I am looking forward to your E11 a build and hopefully soon to follow your TK build thread.

The rest of the armour arrived today. Again, very happy with the quality. Looks like I will need to make some adjustments to the leg and arm parts as they are a bit too small. I can’t get my hand through the wrist opening. one other thing I am realizing is that when you try pieces on, the fibreglass is very itchy. I likely will coat the inside with plastidip, unless someone has a better solution. I also ordered a death trooper kit at the same time, which I am going to build first, so this one will be on hold for a bit.

Congratulations Luca. Awesome job. Glad you finally got it.