Tilheyra

The forearms and lower legs did not get any treatment from PlasticWeld before I switched gears to bring caulk into the picture. These parts have (or will) have caulk used to cover the seams, and as I bough caulk that can be painted over, the white paint will go over everything. The caulk is working quite well to hide seams between the parts of the forearm armor!

And this has been quite the learning experience! I have applied some caulk over the dried putty on the thigh armor and this has successfully blurred the roughness. I sanded and sanded the dried putty prior to doing this, so it has been a multi-step process. I will probably apply another layer or so of caulk before I consider it good. The biceps will get the same treatment. I still have to apply the paint to all leg and arm armor pieces, so that should help as well. EDIT: My lack of familiarity with the PlasticWeld material meant I did not recognize the level of sanding required to get everything off, and not to mention I put too much on the surface anyway. Unfortunately, although I can easily go out and get an electric sander, I do not want to run it in my apartment, and I have no access to an outdoor space where I can tackle the task (having just moved also means I do not know anyone local who can help...yet...). This is all to say I will be at a decision point eventually where I may want to affect a more thorough fix to this situation, but I am satisfied with my "fix" for now. Fortunately, I have much more familiarity with caulk (thanks to the many summers of house remodeling jobs with my grandpa), including removal from plastics, so a change to this arrangement may be in my future. I really don't want to use PlasticWeld again without more guidance from someone more familiar. As such, let these couple of posts stand as a cautionary tale. Here's what the thigh armor looks like right now:

Despite the turmoil today, I have made a lot of progress with my build over the last week, and the issues that presented themselves today are recoverable. The big piece of news is that I completed constructing the leg armor, and I constructed the arm armor as well! I was so excited about having constructed the leg armor that I wanted to take another photo of me wearing it! This time I was very strategic with the placement of the masking tape and hid it all from view! Here's the completed armor for my left leg (minus the kneecap armor), showing the velcro on the lower leg armor. This view shows what is the inner seam that will be between my legs when wearing the armor: I also constructed the arm armor. The first photo shows one of the two pieces of the forearm armor as it was being glued. The second photo shows the glued forearm and bicep armor on my right arm: I mentioned the modifications needed to enlarge the bicep armor in my previous post. Here's a photo of the bicep armor with the spacers created: I have made a lot of progress this last week, and even with the troubles today, I am still on course to complete this build within the next couple of weeks! I have decided that I will debut my armor at a con coming up at the end of the month. I live in Indiana, so I will be attending Indianapolis PopCon during the last full weekend of this month!

Alright, I have read through working with the epoxy putty and how others in those threads have worked with the putty. The final realization about limiting the epoxy putty came after seeing how far one tube of the putty went. Not far at all. Each tube costs $10, and I am not in the position to buy the required number of tubes, and it does not make sense to use the putty for every seam when many of them are sturdy enough after gluing with the E6000 glue. The big take away is that I should not cover every seam with that putty, and I should only use it where there is a benefit provided by the epoxy itself. Nevertheless, I ended up covering the seams of the thigh armor and part of the biceps prior to running out of the lone tube I purchased, so I went out and purchased a second tube to complete the biceps. In reality, the biceps are the only place where I should be using the epoxy putty, and this is due to my need to make the bicep armor larger than originally designed. I enlarged the bicep pieces just enough for my arms by creating spacers out of extra ABS plastic, with the space on the outer seam being 0.75 inches in width, and the spacer on the inner seam (which will be under my armpit) is 0.25 inches in width. I did this for both biceps. As I mentioned in my most recent post, the epoxy putty I am using is JB-Weld PlasticWeld. After failing to find it at my local hardware stores and big box stores, I was able to find it at the auto parts store near me. Here is what it looks like in the packaging: As seen on the packaging, ABS plastic is one of the materials it is meant for. Prep work required is cleaning the plastic and sanding the spot that will be covered with the putty. My God, the putty is awkward to work with!!! The epoxy putty is a 2-part formula, so it required kneading with one's fingers to fully mix the parts together to activate whatever agent is involved in the hardening process. The packaging indicates one is to knead the putty until it has a consistent color, and you don't only get the visual indication of color when the agent is activated, you also get a pronounced change in its level of stickiness! It will stick to your fingers (I wore disposable exam gloves, as recommended on the packaging) as soon as that occurs, and it is an annoyance the rest of the time you are working with it. Much of the putty did stick to the plastic, but an annoyingly sizable amount would remain stuck to my gloves. The instructions indicate one is to firmly press the putty onto whatever needs to be connected or repaired. I did so, but it was very difficulty to create a smoothed surface on the putty when a sizable amount sticks to your gloves. As such, following "firmly pressing" the putty to the working surface, I would remove my fingers, and some of the putty would remain stuck to my gloves, lifting away from the rest of the putty. This produced a jagged texture I could largely not get rid of. As overworking the putty results in even worse outcomes, I had to just accept that the putty would have to be jagged as it dried, and I would have a much more difficult time sanding. As I worked, I brough it some popsicle sticks to try and make the work a little easier, but this was to not avail either. The biceps ended up looking like this: Ultimately, the putty did its job of filling the seams and strengthening the biceps, but I am not pleased with the process. I also am not pleased with the amount that may need to be sanded off at this point, due to how jagged and rough the appearance is currently. For the remaining seams, I have decided to use caulk, due to my familiarity with the material. I may apply caulk on top of the sanded, dried putty to smooth out the appearance. Fortunately, there are many ways I can approach this to improve the appearance, and by no means have I made a mistake I cannot recover from. I don't think I will be using the epoxy putty again. Alright, enough with the trials and tribulations. I'll make another post right after this to talk about my successes with the build this past week!

UPDATE: I found something that works! More info at the bottom. Question for folks: What epoxy is best for covering and smoothing the overlapping joints in the leg and arm armor? I know I mention the 2-seam appearance in my previous post, but my intention has always been to cover and smooth over the actual seam created by bringing the pieces together. I have referred to the photos of the Movie Realistic Armor tutorial on the Imperial Surplus website, and it shows Perma Poxy stick being used. I can't seem to find that exact product online or in stores near me (but I found other Perma Poxy products meant for other materials than plastic). I want to be absolutely certain what I get will work before I apply anything. My local hardware stores and big box stores have the JB-Weld WaterWeld stick. Does that work? Unfortunately, the packaging makes no mention of ABS plastic. Does that work, or are there other recommended products? I did use JB-Weld PlasticWeld to (attempt to) smooth out the edges of where the thermal detonator holder attaches to the rear torso armor, but I have discussed how much of a headache that turned out to be, so I don't want to repeat that. The liquid nature of PlasticWeld made it very difficult to smoothly apply before it dried. UPDATED INFO: I realized I did not look at the auto parts stores in my area. I went to one and found the stick/putty version of JB-Weld PlasticWeld. The packaging specifically mentions ABS plastic as one of the types of plastic it is meant for! Once cured, PlasticWeld can be sanded and painted. As this is a very similar product to what is shown in the Imperial Surplus photo tutorial I will go ahead and use the PlasticWeld stick/putty.

Last night and this evening have been my time to glue together the different pieces of the leg armor. I still had some adjusting to do with the thigh pieces, so I glued the lower leg armor last night. Not surprisingly, my lower legs are a bit bigger than the armor anticipates, so I had to modify the procedure a little. I retained a small amount of the excess material from the molding process and allowed the front part of the lower legs to overlap the respective rear portion. This was glued and held in place with clamps and rare earth magnets. This means each side of the lower leg armor will have 2 seams (the seam where the parts join together and the built-in seam showing where to cut off excess material), rather than just 1 seam, but I can address that with whatever putty I settle on to smooth this out. The big thing for me is to be consistent when I deviate (but only deviate when needed) to keep appearances similar. I think this is the case for most of the femtrooper kits, be they Legacy Fem or FEM7, but I did need to allow the lower leg armor to open slightly to allow my foot and leg to go through, so the seams between my lower legs were not glued. These will utilize velcro to secure the armor pieces around my legs (with the strapping holding them up, of course). I assume that is what the indentations in this part of the lower leg armor is for. I still need to glue the velcro into place. I am now gluing the thigh pieces together. I had to measure, mark, remeasure, and remark a number of times to get this properly measured. I still have some pencil marks that need to be erased... I had to maintain some of the excess material in this are as well, but that was mainly to keep a consistent 2-seam appearance across all leg armor pieces. The other seams of the thigh armor will be glued once the seams shown in the photo set. It looks like this is my weekend project. I am moving quicker than I thought I would!

I was working with the thigh armor last night, but I couldn't resist the temptation to do a full test fit of the leg armor. I hadn't settled on where exactly to position to the knee armor, so what is in the photo is not final, and I still need to work on the final positioning of the thigh armor. Nevertheless, this did show the areas that still need trimming in consideration of what will be overlapped when glued together. Much of this excess is in the knee area, as can probably be seen in the photo with the top of the lower leg armor and the bottom of the thigh armor. At this point, the lower leg armor is ready to have the final bit of trimming and then gluing! One side of the lower leg armor will be glued (the outer side), whereas the other side (interior side) will have velcro to bring that part together. My legs are a bit too big to fit into the lower leg armor without this arrangement. I am going to go out and buy the rare earth magnets today to facilitate the gluing process. I'll also buy some sort of putty to hide the seams created in gluing the pieces together (recommendations welcome).

I didn't think about that big of a sanding block! I have been doing just a slight amount of spot sanding, but the large block makes a lot more sense.

I finally cleared the space and sort of set up my crafting table! I was able to do a little bit of work on the leg armor pieces by straightening the edges. I used by 18-inch rule as a straight edge and clamped everything down before using an Exacto knife to do the cutting. The edges are much straighter now, so I can move on to measuring and fitting these pieces!

I am happy to report that all armor pieces survived my move! I packed everything diligently and carefully, but there was always that tiny bit of ever-present anxiety, so it was certainly nice to take everything out of the box again! I will begin work on the leg armor this week!

I have to say, I haven't been this excited about any sort of lore since I was fascinated by Mass Effect years ago! Right now is a time in my life where I am able to focus on my interests once again, so this has been so much fun working on this armor build and reading up on Star Wars lore! I think it is a really good sign that I am just as fascinated with Star Wars as I was with Mass Effect. I have to take things one step at a time, because I still have this armor to complete, but I have already found myself scheming on another build! Perhaps something that is canon and would be 501st approvable. The Imperial Shock Troopers really interest me...but I shouldn't get ahead of myself. Plenty of time to scheme as I bring my current beloved build to completion! I've been waiting years to bring my FEM7 trooper to life after all!

I really like it the way it is now, but it also helps to have someone more experienced provide similar feedback! I appreciate that!

Here's a better photo of the armor pieces out in better light. The shine is a bit more muted than I expected, but it still looks pretty good to me. What do you all think? I can always put a glossier clear coat on the armor if needed. The tape in place on the holder for the thermal detonator will be removed when it comes time to attach the thermal detonator. I'll score/sand the part covered by the tape before gluing, and I have tape on the corresponding spot on the thermal detonator for the same reason. I also drilled a small hold in each to allow a pin to be glued in place between the two, which should provide a more of an attachment than just glue alone. I do not have pictures of the thermal detonator as I have not been able to complete the painting for it yet. One issue arose when attaching the holder for the thermal detonator to the rear torso piece. I ended up putting more bonding agent on than I should have, and it didn't look much better after I sanded the extra bonding agent by hand. I then used a Dremel to carefully remove more, but I stopped when I felt I was removing too much material. It doesn't look as apparent in this photo, but it does appear when looking at the armor close up (maybe I just notice it because I know it is there). When it comes time to wear this to cons, I guess if anyone wants to fixate on it, I think I will just say the extra glue was from a "field repair." Another small detail to discuss is the shadow effect I added to the chest armor. Many of the FEM7 photos I have seen have had some sort of shadow effect or weathering to emphasize the front 'plate' on the chest armor itself, so I wanted to try the same. I didn't do a full weathering as I could always add that later (but it would be harder to remove weathering if I did it now), so I took a regular pencil and traced the inside edge of this front plate. I think the results are pretty decent, and will be sufficient for the job. I did this prior to adding the clear coat, and I can tell from my above photo that the shadow is doing its intended job! Here's the shadowing before I applied clear coat to the chest piece: And with the painting for these pieces complete, I have to take a pause on this project for a week or so. I am moving multiple states away from where I currently live, so this all has to be put back in its original box for the move. A bit anticlimactic to have to pause this project, especially at this stage, but I will be picking it back up soon enough! I will be working on the leg armor when I pick this project back up. Any recommended build threads concerning leg armor that I should look at in the mean time?

I don't know if folks can see from this photo, but this is after finishing the painting and clear coat for the front torso piece. I ended up applying 4 coats of paint and 3 of clear coat. The white paint was Krylon All-In-One Satin White, and the clear coat was Rustoleum 2x Satin Clear. The clear coat does have a little bit of a shine and isn't too flashy, which is what I was going for. However, this photo was taken in the early evening, so different lighting conditions may give me a better idea of the sheen. All of the parts I was painting in my previous post were painting as shown in the photo: With the paint on the grass my friend finally has a reason to cut the unkempt grass...

I finally reached the point where I felt comfortable painting some of the armor pieces! I decided to use Krylon satin white for the armor, and I was a bit overzealous with the paint as I was only able to complete 2 coats by the time I got to the bottom of the can. Fortunately, the paint is pretty cheap! I was able to paint (you guessed it) the chest, back, front and rear torso, and the bottom piece. I'll buy more paint today to continue the process. I may stop after 3 coats, but I won't be surprised if a 4th coat is needed. After that, I will follow up with a satin clear coat and go from there.

I finally resolved the strapping situation!!! I accepted that I need to go with elastic to keep everything together properly, given that solely using velcro to address vertical movement between the chest and front torso and back and rear torso pieces was not working as I wanted. As such, I glued more snaps on the inside of the armor and made more elastic straps to address the vertical movement on the sides. This is the result: It is a behemoth of a strapping system, but none of it shows through when wearing the armor and having the spacers inserted! Some of the rougher velcro pieces are still in place as they are glued, but those will be ignored. Next, I will glue the folded-over parts of the elastic straps to prevent further fraying. I was waiting to do this until everything was finalized. And speaking of elastic straps, here are the straps I made for my shoulders. As I have seen others do with their armor, I decided to connect the shoulder strap/armor pieces using snaps. I also decided to use snaps to connect the pauldrons to my shoulders as well. The snap that is dead center is for the shoulder armor, whereas the snap off to the side is for the pauldron strap:

I went ahead and made the spacers out of 2mm foam and tried them out today. I intentionally cut the foam with excess, so now that I have seen how it fits I will trim the pieces. The next step is to heat treat with a heat gun, spray with plasti dip, and then paint the same color as the rest of the armor. The chest back and torso pieces are approaching the point of being ready to paint as well! The velcro effort from my last post did not go as well as I had hoped, so it looks like making a couple more elastic straps will also be part of my future. I plan to get that done before painting the chest, back, and torso pieces. The bottom armor still needs to be trimmed as well. Nevertheless, I am really excited about all of the work I have been doing on my armor! After these tasks, I will have to stop all progress for a couple of weeks as I am moving multiple states from where I currently live. I'm happy about the move, but not too happy about the need to pause this build. At least that will give me time to plan the other parts of the build.

Here's the current version of the interior velcro attachments. I think I also need velcro on the interior of the sides to further keep the pieces together in a vertical orientation. The elastic does wonders keeping things attached horizontally. The velcro attachments were in place during the test fitting shown in my previous post, so I think I did a good job keeping these hidden!

To prevent myself from getting overwhelmed thinking about what needs to be done with everything for the full set of armor, I've decided to see the chest, back, and torso pieces through to completion (minus painting) before moving on to anything else. I determined I was at the point of needing to sand off the last remaining excess on the edges of the chest, back, and torso pieces before proceeding to the next stage of test fitting. I went ahead and sanded the edges by using a couple of different sanding drums on my Dremel, sanding from roughest to finest grain, and ending with a a quick bit of sanding my hand using a really fine grit. All of this sanding brought the edges to their proper dimensions, straightened the edges as best as possible, and made these edges much smoother! I then proceeded to do a test fitting and found that, although the elastic I have to hold the torso pieces together and the chest and back pieces together work just fine, I need to have something to hold the chest to the front torso piece and back to the back torso piece. I tried as best I could to get the bottom of the back piece to line up properly with the top of the back torso piece, but I could not close that gap. As such, I decided to add velcro to these areas to allow myself more ability to adjust the vertical spacing of the armor pieces, as well as close the gaps present between those pieces. The velcro was glued onto the interior of the various pieces yesterday. The rougher side oft he velcro is what is glued to the interior of the pieces. The softer part of the velcro will remain loose pieces that will be attached when needed for wearing the armor. Today, I went ahead and did another test fitting. I am pleased with the progress so far! Nevertheless, I think I have more to do before I complete all of the test fittings. I found that I need to shorten the elastic straps at my sholders as the current arrangement allows the top of the chest and back pieces to sit a bit too far forward and backward, respectively, for my liking. The bottom piece clearly needs to be worked on in terms of how it attaches, and I may have more excess to cut off. Also, the newly-added velcro certainly helps keep things together, but I don't think 2 pieces of velcro for each will be sufficient. I glued the velcro to the areas closer to the center of my back and front, rather than to my sides. I think I will add further velcro to the sides (where the back and chest pieces butt together and the front and back torso pieces butt together) to help in these areas as well. Even with the addition of more velcro I am not very concerned about restricting my movement in these areas for two reasons. First, I attach the velcro with an eye toward a little bit of play, so this will be sufficient as to not restrict movement. Second, as I have mentioned this is a crossplay, I am wearing a corset when I am wearing the armor, and the corset itself restricts movement more than the armor itself would. I also made sure to perform common movements during my test fitting today, and I had no issues, so I think I am okay as it comes to movement. The photos below are of the test fitting today. I am holding the best piece in the first photo as I have not yet done any work to get that piece to attach properly. The other photos show other angles:

I would have preferred to keep the plastic for the spacer, but my greater familiarity with foam led me to think that is the route for these pieces (at least for now). I don't anticipate needing to use any other foam on this project, however! To try and keep the foam spacers looking like the rest of the armor, I plan to "treat" the surface with a heat gun, spray with Plasti Dip, and then spray with the same paint as the rest of the armor.

I was able to reglue some of the snaps in accordance with what you recommended! For the snaps I could not change, I will wait until they need to be reglued, and then follow your recommendation. As the snaps had fully set and cured on both the front and back torso pieces, I went ahead and made the elastic straps for those pieces (I used white elastic as these will be covered by the torso pieces and the spacers I am creating). This also gave me the opportunity to take a photo of the gap in the armor pieces on my sides. This is not the best of photos, but it demonstrates what I was discussing with wanting to create spacers to fill this gap. Unfortunately, the ABS plastic spacers are too rigid to be able to shimmy into place, so I am not considering making the spacers out of 2 or 3 mm foam sheet. This would, of course, be sealed prior to painting the same color and at the same time as the rest of the armor. I am very happy with the fit of the torso pieces with the elastic strapping! They stay is place really well! However, that may change when I finally wear this to my first con with this armor, but I will consider this a success at this point! Although the chest armor is in the photo, I have not completely positioned this where I want it, so the position my change. Here's the ridiculously zoomed-in bathroom mirror photo of the armor gap:

I have been thoughtfully progressing on gluing the snaps and working with the elastic. I have also cut out the two spacers to their rough dimensions. As shown in the photo, I have been using spring clamps to help the gluing process. In similar fashion to what others have shown many times before, the clamps stay on for 24 hours to allow for the E6000 glue to cure properly. Of course, I made sure to use a little soap and water to clean the pieces before applying the glue. I plan to have 3 elastic straps on each side. One each at the top and bottom of the front and back torso pieces, and one where the chest and back pieces meet under my arms (I will also have shoulder straps). As for the spacers I mentioned, although the following explanation will make a lot more sense when I can take and show a photo of the spacers, the following is my plan: The spacers will each have only one snap, which will be positioned to attach to the lowest piece of elastic on each side. The top of the spacers will be allowed to float. The spacers will be floating between the elastic straps on the interior side and the ends of the chest, back, and torso pieces on the exterior side. The snaps on the ends of each elastic strap will prevent the spacer from moving too far forward or backward, and the same is for the single snap attaching the spacer to the bottom elastic strap. I figure the bottom edge will have the least amount of movement, compared to twisting side to side near the top, so that is why the snap is on the bottom. Finally, the spacers will have rounded corners so as not to jab at my sides. Anyway, here's a photo of the gluing process:

I was able to make some progress yesterday! I had a friend come over to help me with measuring the chest, back, and torso pieces. After trying the pieces and measuring, I went ahead and cut the remaining excess from those pieces. The photo shows the chest piece after the remaining excess has been removed, and you can also see the cut line on the front torso piece. As I anticipated, I am just a bit bigger than the front and back torso pieces allow, so they do not butt up with each other. As such, I cut off as little as I could from those pieces (just cutting off the curve edge from the manufacturing process). I am toying with the idea of creating a spacer to fill the gap to give the appearance of the white armor fully wrapping around my body on each side. I was not surprised by this as this is a crossplay, so I knew some modification may be needed to get the armor to fit my body. However, aside from the modification using the spacers, I am wanting to follow the guidelines for building stormtrooper armor as close as I can, due to how well-tested those guidelines are. I still need to do the sanding and finishing, but I think I will work on the strapping for these pieces before moving on to anything else. At least for the chest, back, and troso, I am going to go with snaps to attach the elastic. Not sure about the rest of the armor yet.

Thank you for pointing me to the legacy stormtrooper threads! I see a lot of useful information. It's a good thing there are numerous similarities between the FEM7 and legacy armor!

I was able to finish the rest of the preliminary cutting of the excess material today (at least what I am able to cut prior to measuring). Here are some photos showing the arm and shoulder pieces prior to cutting, after cutting, and the whole set after preliminary cutting! Now it seems I am in a holding pattern until my friend can help with the measuring and fitting. Perhaps I should spend this time to plan the strapping. Hmm....