Need some advice for forearm fitting

[bm459]

I glued together one of my forearm pieces last night and I'm not entirely happy with the results. I have an AM kit which has the nice folded-over lip to give the illusion of thickness. Problem is, I had to trim a lot of the forearm piece to fit my arm nicely. I cut about 1.25" off the inner piece. Anyway, the pieces don't match up very nicely anymore, mostly because the lips don't line up and it leaves a pretty big gap between the parts. So, I'm looking for some suggestions/advice on how to make the piece look a little more uniform.

 

Take a look at the pics to see what I mean:

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Thanks.

Edited December 5, 2020 by gmrhodes13
link not working, removed gmrhodes13 2020

[pandatrooper[TK]]

Will you be leaving the armor glued as is or will you be adding some cover strips on top? if you add cover strips, the ends can extend about 1/8" past the armor and it will "hide" the gape slightly.

 

If you've already glued the parts, the only way to minimize the gap is to use a heat gun or heat sealing iron, and manipulate the plastic to minimize the gap.

 

If you assemble the kit with butt seam edges, and use a cover strip, you can hide those irregularities a little better. It's tough with the AM kit because it's sort of oversized and made to be "one size fits all" but you're going to run into situations like this where the parts don't fit perfect.

 

Even if you decide to leave it as is, I think it's fine. It's not a huge gap and only picky people like us SW nerds will notice.

[RogueTrooper[TK]]

I think you could do the heat sealing iron method. It's very quick and you can get a great finish to it. But do some test first on scrap material to get the hang of the process.

 

If you want to achieve a more accurate look to the screen TKs, then add the finishing/cover strips.

 

And just remember, the original screen used armor wasn't assembled perfectly either.( a lot of wonkiness to them) So, do your best

 

 

Here's the link to "using a heat sealing iron": ----

 

Also, here's Terrys' HOW TO videos, They're great:

 

 

Edited December 5, 2020 by gmrhodes13
link not working, removed gmrhodes13 2020

[bm459]

Nice, I really like that heat sealing iron idea. I've never even heard of that tool before. Looks awesome. I was thinking of using a heat gun, but I may have to go out and pick up one of those irons.

 

I'll post pictures of my results, once I get around to trying to fix it.

[TKFIU]

Dan - I'm working on an AM build as well and am similarly unhappy with the gap on my forearm pieces. I have a gap on what was to be my right forearm piece, but I've decided to turn it over to use it as the left forearm. This will keep the gap on the bottom and keep it less noticeable. I did pick up an iron though, so I might try to seal it down to eliminate the gap. I'm curios to see your progress.