CloseTheBlastDoor

Ooh, I missed that one, thanks for pointing it out!!

I decided that I couldn’t wait until warmer Spring weather to make progress on the thermal detonator, and because I had a number of other paint projects pending, I constructed a little spray booth. The walls are 10 mil vinyl, which have miniscule thermal mass, but it’s enough to contain a small space, and not have the heater running for hours to get up to temperature. In about 20 minutes, I got from 55F to 70F. 70F is the minimum temperature specified by Testors. I kept the spray can and the tube in there to warm up a bit longer, then got to painting with two coats of Testors 1237 spray primer: Looks like I also primed the thermometer! I was going to leave the heater on for a while after this, but then started to get paranoid that volatile fumes + electric spark = no more workshop. So I turned it off. I let this dry for ~24 hours, then applied 3-4 coats of the Testors 1260 Dullcoat. Here’s hoping it’s good enough! While waiting for the paint to dry (haha), I think I’ll work on shaping the bars using the other piece of sacrificial PVC that I had bought earlier. This way, I could get the curves right without risking scratching the paint off of the real thing. Hi @MaskedVengeance, I had another look at the TD part of your build thread - which choice between ‘2” raised’ and ‘2” lowered’ did you end up going with?

Thanks, Glen!

I told myself I wouldn’t post again until I made some progress! A few things I discovered: My photos before were of me putting the left bicep on my right arm (as evidenced by the “thumbprint”) The left bicep assembly has an oval opening on the bottom, while the right bicep is much more circular. I don’t know why this is so, but in the WTF forum on FB, this was also pointed out. It’s something everyone is aware of, including Walt, and it needs to be rectified. More on this later. So because when I was fitting the left bicep on my arm, I felt the squeeze on the short axis of the oval against my arm, and thought that that was as far as I should go. Much too big. So I need to work on that. I took to focusing on the right bicep. Per Mario’s advice, I got to roughly 7.5mm on each side on the front of the bicep. I also decided to further sand down the return edges on the bottom. I tried to test fit everything before committing to gluing. Not glued yet, just practicing with clamps and magnets: At the top, the two halves kinda peak, instead of making a straight, continuous edge profile. I hope that’s OK, and that since it’s under the shoulder bell, it should not be an issue. After gluing, waiting, and peeling, I got the first cover strip in place! PandaProps was also very helpful here. Feeling a bit more confident, I glued the backside strip as well. I don’t have massive biceps by any standard, but I did go wide of the 15mm a bit. For the left bicep, since it was needing to be reshaped, I was concerned about the return edges getting some stress. So I knocked down the remaining piece of return edge. I then got a piece of scrap 4.5” pipe I had lying around in the workshop, and rubber banded each half to it. And here’s where it gets weird… I didn’t have a pot tall enough to get full immersion, so I pulled out the sous vide gadget, filled it with very hot water, and set the target temperature to 200F. Pipe end. Bicep strapped with rubber band(s): The dunk! This turned out to work quite well. Immersion time was 30-40 seconds, and I did each half at least twice. The left and right biceps look a lot more similar now: I then got the edges cut and sanded down and started gluing. Since the left bicep was stretched out, the edges didn’t quite meet in a straight line, and I”m hoping that the glue and cover strip will provide a little bit of assistance here: I have glued each strip one by one in the hope of learning and refining my technique. I’m pretty close, although there is still some sloppiness in the form of glue residue, scratches, and dull spots right along the edge of the cover strips that I’m not sure are OK. Once everything was glued, the final step was to even out all the return edges. I learned a lot on this, hopefully it makes everything else go smoother. I hope this is all good enough! Thanks to everyone thus far for all the great advice!

Question: Is it OK to leave this part of the bicep trimmed as shown, or should I remove what's shown in red? This is the outside half, if it's not clear.

Aha, gotcha! I haven't ordered that stuff yet, but looks like it's time.

Thanks, Mario! Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying here, can you clarify?

More biceps! I am starting to worry that since I have so many questions about what is the simplest part of the armor, it’s going to get worse going forward! Still working on the fitting, following others’ suggestions to get the return edges down. Following @gmrhodes13's excellent suggestion of using a Dremel (at lowest RPM, wearing PPE) to work down the edges, I got them down some more, and sanded everything. I’m sure some of you will say that I should get them down even more, but I’m still chicken about this. I sized the halves to my arm as best I could, but I’m really confused about why there are ridges near the abutting edges. Other vids and threads I’ve looked at do not seem to have this. What I’ve got right now is ridges quite far apart from each other, where a 15mm-wide cover strip comes nowhere close to covering them. First picture shows how far apart these ridges are after sizing. Black China marker is the centerline where I’d want to cut each half: This pic shows that distance compared to the width of a 15mm cover strip: So the strip seems way too narrow. What is up with those ridges? What might I be doing wrong? I don't think that completely removing the return edges would make up for this much margin.

The photo does indeed look weird. The opening on the top of each half is larger than on the bottom, though. I also noticed that there is curvature on one outer half, but not on the other one. See these two photos for comparison: Side in question (curved): Other side (straight): So I think it's OK orientation-wise, but there is a question of quality/consistency here. Which Dremel attachment do you use for trimming? The rotary saw, or the sanding drum, or something else? Thanks!

I trimmed away the excess plastic, and got to work on one of the biceps. Test fitting them shows quite a misalignment on one side. Seems like I would have to trim back a lot for it to line up: Because I haven’t gotten over my fear of overcutting the plastic, I trimmed out the round edges quite conservatively, and plan to sand and trim more as I go: A few questions here. I tried a loose fitting on my arm, and I notice quite a gap between my arm and the outer bicep half on the top side: Is it supposed to be that way? Related to this, there are raised ridges near where the bicep halves come together, am I meant to keep them parallel (brackets in red the same size)?

Wow, I had no idea you could do that! I worked with acetone quite a bit in my last job. I am embarrassed to admit that I think it smells kinda good, haha. Could explain my behavior

Taking a good look at the bicep parts, I’m noticing a few things that I hope are not a big deal. For one, there’s a lot of lumpiness that I’m hoping will get mostly cut out. Are most kits like this, where they’re not too smooth? Second, I see lots and lots of surface scratches because all of the parts were in one big box, and not really separately bagged or padded. So from the east coast to here in California, they were just rubbing against each other in transit. I took some Novus to the scratches, and got it looking a little better, but not completely back to pristine. That I had to do this in the first place is not terribly pleasing. I will need to do this for practically all of the parts. Maybe I’m being anal, because I’ve worked a lot with acrylic before, but I feel like this could have been avoided with a bit more conscientious packaging. Lexan shears are still en route, so I'm going to mark cut lines on the return edges while I wait.

Thank you for the tip on the heater, and for the links!

Thank you, Sha Sha!

Well, the temperature in my garage is in the 50’s (Fahrenheit), and will be for quite some time. I need to have it at about 70 so the Testors primer will perform properly. So unless I build a small temperature-controlled enclosure (which is somewhat of a possibility), I’m going to put painting the TD aside, and move on to the biceps. I’ve watched the PandaProps vids on YouTube: Anywhere else I should be looking in this forum? Any caveats with matching up the outside halves with the inside halves? Which side is the one with the thumbprint, left, or right?

Thanks! Yeah, I'm a bit of a woodworker myself, too. Jigs help me consistently make the same mistake

I was not particularly happy with the 127mm length of the control panel. So I tore off the tape at the ends and affixed the caps more tightly this time. I then remeasured and gave myself ~12.7mm spacing (half the 1” bar I have) on each side, and got a little closer to 124mm. I drew suitable cut lines with some margin so I could rough cut it with my bandsaw. I bought some more 2” PVC and used it sacrificially to get the trimming as close to square as possible. The factory end of the pipe was pretty close to square with some light sanding. I used @MaskedVengeance's method of marking/sanding the edges. This is the before shot: As I mentioned in my last post, the button protrusion behind the control panel got in the way of getting the panel flat onto the tube. I drilled a hole on the sacrificial PVC to get this lined up, but was afraid to do this with the actual pipe. But I took @gmrhodes13's advice to go ahead and drill the hole, rather than mess with the plastic. So I had some room to make fine adjustments, I drilled the hole a bit large. It will be covered anyway (those photos later in this post). (ignore the black markings) This went only kinda OK. I had one stray knife cut, and now there’s the cut going into the panel, with some China marker sunk into it! No photo, too embarrassing! I then tried cutting the other side using the jig, but that was impossible (at least to me). I ended up not using the jig, and free cutting the curled edge first, then adjusting and sanding. Frustratingly so, I did not have enough good plastic to achieve the 95mm arc. Backing off as little as I could from the plastic that was lumpy due to forming, it came to about 92mm. I then refitted all the tape and cut the mask out for the control panel. Ready to paint now, but it’s too cold in my garage for the paint to dry properly. Will wait. Paint mask, and hole marked for button clearance: Yea Forstner bits!

I had thought of doing exactly that, but was worried about not getting it registered accurately enough. But I guess a bigger hole is not a problem, since it's covered anyway. So yeah, sounds like a plan! Thanks!

Well, hmm, I found out that the back of the button on the control panel protrudes a bit too much, that it interferes with me being able to place the control panel flat against the tube. I could drill a hole in the tube to provide clearance for that, but getting that just right seems problematic. I’d much rather try and flatten out that bump. Any suggestions for how to do that?

well now, you got me all curious! I think I am like you!

Thanks for your suggestion! I am not a perfectionist, but I pretend to be one

OK, I found the Testors 1237T primer at Michael’s, and I also have some leftover Testors clear dullcote from another project, so I started some fitting/taping/masking. I fitted on the caps snugly, then taped the rest of the tube up to the edges of the caps: I then removed the caps and put tape abutting the first set of tape, then removed the first set of tape so that this second set of tape resembled placement of the caps (yeah, I wasted some tape not thinking through it all): I then added blue tape so I could size the masking for the control panel, and measured 12mm in from each cap’s tape. But I’m finding that this brings the control panel to >127mm long (instead of 122mm). I am thinking that I should cut 5mm off the tube, resand and retape. I must have mismeasured and gone over the 7-½” overall length requirement. Or should I leave it? Opinions?

Thank you for the warm welcome, James!

Thank you, Jeff, it's good to meet you!

Oh, I will certainly take advantage of this wording! . You are right about the CRL image not having the 12mm spacing. Thank you.