tedyer

Did you also sand the armor pieces in addition to the helmet? The thought of sanding all of those pieces sounds daunting, but if it's a good idea and will improve the final result, I'm all for it.

Of all the pictures I've seen in regards to priming, it's always been the helmet that gets primed prior to painting. For those of you who have spray painted your armor, did you use a primer on all of the pieces? Or did you just spray them white directly? Tom

Would you happen to have the specific product name from Plastidip by any chance? I went to their website, and it looks like they have a million products. I'm curious as to which one you used, and the size container you bought. Thanks!

Thanks. I looked through many of the EIB photos of ATA builds and I think they all had the return edge. I've realized the amount of edge visible will vary according to the person's size and how much was trimmed off to make a piece fit.

After some time away from the armor, I've been working on it for the past week or so. I more or less have everything trimmed, but as I'm looking at the chest piece I'm not sure exactly how much I should trim of the neck and sides. The collar of the chest piece is tricky since the return edge is flat for half, and then more perpendicular to the chest on the other half. As a result it looks skewed. I guess my question is, has anyone trimmed their armor so that there is no return edge or "thickness" to any of their pieces, whether it be chest, back, arms or legs? Or would it be in my best interest to leave some of this? Tom

I received my ATA helmet kit last week and I've start to do some of the initial trimming. I've been referring to all of the other threads and they've all bet a tremendous help, but my paranoia in making sure I don't make any drastic mistakes has led me to post this. Could anyone offer their opinion as to how these penciled trim lines look so far? My plan is to leave a little extra beyond the line just in case. But some of the demarcation between the smooth part and the extra plastic isn't exactly clear to me.

I've been cutting up some pieces of extra FX ABS to use for the snap tabs, but I seem to be running into the same problem others have had as well and that's the issue where the back of the snap does not fit flush against the plastic tab. I've tried cutting longer tabs but I end up needing a real long piece in order to get enough surface area to glue to the armor. The question I have is, has anyone tried using the white webbing (used on the shoulders to connect the chest and back) as tabs? I would think that it would be flexible enough to not have the issue of needing to cut a long piece just to get surface contact. I'm using E-6000, and I can't see any issues with the glue on the nylon material. Plus it would fit nicely along the contoured parts of the armor. Thanks for any input!

I am so glad you posted this picture of the back of the FX thighs. I'm putting together an FX as well, and I've been pulling my hair out trying to figure out how the heck these things go together and what I'll need to trim Did you do any trimming on the thighs, or were they left untouched in the back for the most part?

So you would angle the trim all the way to raised portion of the plastic, about 3-4"? I suppose my other option would be to raise the smaller piece a fraction of an inch, then trim on both the top and the bottom of the armor. Maybe this way the cuts won't be as significant. Thanks for your response!

Hi all, I've begun to assemble my FX armor, having finish the first bicep and currently working on the second. My next step was going to be to do the forearms, but I have a question about whether I'll need to do some trimming. When I line up the two pieces of the forearm (with the bottom seams flush and even), I end up with about an 1/8'' of armor from the back piece higher that the smaller piece. My question is, should I trim this or leave as is? Also, if I need to do some cutting how should I cut it? In other words, should I gradually angle the trim upwards on the back piece? Or round it off? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!