AM 2.0 build (ANH Stunt) by Rystan

[Rystan]

Its going well! I'm not quite sure how to approach fitting the torso pieces... have any ideas?

My plan is going to be start with the cod and work my way up and back for fit.

[Shank_O_Potomus]

Are you planning on splitting the abs into 2 pieces like panda trooper did in his AM build? 

[Rystan]

Are you planning on splitting the abs into 2 pieces like panda trooper did in his AM build?

I wasn't planning to, unless I have to. My guess is that he had to for height reasons? At 6' 2", I shouldn't have that problem.

[Shank_O_Potomus]

I wasn't planning to, unless I have to. My guess is that he had to for height reasons? At 6' 2", I shouldn't have that problem.

Okay I'm about 6'4" so I guess I wont either

[Starfox2010[TK]]

What a coiky dink, im 6'2 lol  Have you guys found out what has a return edge and what doesn't?

 

any word on leveling out the wrist side of the forearm?

 

Im kind of working on everything as im waiting for my forearm to be ready.  Rystan, I had the same problem trying to glue the cover strip (i've been on the same forearm for a week.) i've even tried flatening the cover strip area a bit since my forearm joint on one side was at an angle. 

 

Also,  have the magnets been your worst nightmare yet? 

[Rystan]

What a coiky dink, im 6'2 lol  Have you guys found out what has a return edge and what doesn't?

 

any word on leveling out the wrist side of the forearm?

 

Im kind of working on everything as im waiting for my forearm to be ready.  Rystan, I had the same problem trying to glue the cover strip (i've been on the same forearm for a week.) i've even tried flatening the cover strip area a bit since my forearm joint on one side was at an angle. 

 

Also,  have the magnets been your worst nightmare yet? 

 

Every time I think I know which return edges go/stay, I either get confused or see conflicting information searching through old threads.  I've taken to trying to hone in on individual pieces as I'm working on them.  When I find conflicting information, I tend to "side" with the person with the highest post count.  If I can find something by gazmosis or one of the other high ranking FISD even better.

 

The magnets have been working okay, but not particularly great either.  I've found if the joint I'm gluing is under any sort of stress, the magnets don't really have enough strength to counteract it.  I'm likely going to see about getting some longer clamps and look into some sort of "wrap strap".  Worst comes to worst, I'll just stand here and hold the damn forearm for 24 hours lol.

[Rystan]

any word on leveling out the wrist side of the forearm?

 

And no, the forearms have sat since the last update.  I found some time today during daylight hours so I worked on those things that require ventilation (spray painting helmet interior, acetone on boots to finally remove shine), and/or noisy tools (teeth and other helmet work) that I wasn't able to do normally after 10 p.m. when I've been doing most of my work.  I'll have a more detailed post on that progress probably tomorrow.

 

If I'm going to have everything done by Fan Expo Canada in 18 days, I feel like I've got to start making progress on the torso.   The work on adjoining the arm and leg halves is a known process at this point...trying to tackle unknowns early to make sure I have time to adapt if needed.  Probably means I'm going to have to break out the sewing machine soon lol

[Manzilla]

Holding them for 24hrs? Now that's dedication!!!

[Shank_O_Potomus]

I think I'm going to make a 7mm line from the edge and use the heat sealing iron to make a flat edge going along the forearm which I can then glue upon

[Rystan]

I think I'm going to make a 7mm line from the edge and use the heat sealing iron to make a flat edge going along the forearm which I can then glue upon

A heat sealing iron sounds like it might do the trick, and Pandatrooper, among others I'm sure, have done amazing things with one but I don't know yet whether I'm ready to spend the money on a tool I'll likely use once.

 

I've got access to a heat gun I just have to go pick it up. It's going to help with the bends in the belt ammo belt and shoulder straps.

[Shank_O_Potomus]

A heat sealing iron sounds like it might do the trick, and Pandatrooper, among others I'm sure, have done amazing things with one but I don't know yet whether I'm ready to spend the money on a tool I'll likely use once.

 

I've got access to a heat gun I just have to go pick it up. It's going to help with the bends in the belt ammo belt and shoulder straps.

I got mine for like $20 and I've used it on multiple occasions throughout the build. Just from experience with the heat gun, I'm more concerned about using it. I would fry the plastic 

[Rystan]

I wasn't planning to, unless I have to. My guess is that he had to for height reasons? At 6' 2", I shouldn't have that problem.

Seems like from some of the reading I've been doing on the topic, another advantage from having the cod separate Ishtar it makes partial disrobing (or going to the bathroom) easier. Worth considering just for that I think.

[Starfox2010[TK]]

Just out of curiosity, whats the difference between a heat sealing iron and a regular iron?

[Rystan]

The boots are currently on hold waiting for me to pick up more acetone and the rain to stop here in not so sunny western New York.

 

Boots, part 2:

 

So after a trip to Home Depot early last week, I'm in possession of a quart of Acetone.   And then it only took until Sunday for the stars to align and the clouds to part so that it was dry enough to sit out and scrub for 2 hours).  [Okay, Saturday was nice, but took the family to the County Fair to eat bad Carney food.]

 

Boots after phase one of deglazing from last week:

 

After about an hour of scrubbing, one done:

 

I was more methodical about the scrubbing process once I saw Ron's "after photos" and knew how far I had to take it and that I wasn't going to ruin the boots.  Before I just rubbed randomly until the rag was black and then switched spots on the rag and kept going until my hands were purple.   This time I targeted a single 1" area of the surface of the boot, scrubbed it down until the sheen was gone and then moved on until the boot was "done".

 

You'll notice the carcasses of the abandoned vinyl gloves in the lower right.  Rookie tip: turns out, vinyl gloves get eaten by acetone.  Fortunately, as the result of either already scrubbing the top layer of shine off, or the use of a thicker cloth, I didn't end up with "purple" fingers this time.

 

 

Boot 1 was tolerable, boot 2 took a lot more patience, so I moved out to sit by the pool while the kids swam and used the "carrot" of a dip as the reward for finishing.

 

 

 

Speak now or forever hold your peace (preferably with horror stories of what'll happen if I don't take it down further), because I'm declaring done and moving on to the white paint unless I hear otherwise.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Rystan

[Rystan]

Just out of curiosity, whats the difference between a heat sealing iron and a regular iron?

 

I'm going to have to defer that question to someone more knowledgeable...with either device. 

[Manzilla]

They look good Mike. When I do my boots (soon I hope) I will make sure to get a good set of gloves. Great work so far.

[Rystan]

They look good Mike. When I do my boots (soon I hope) I will make sure to get a good set of gloves. Great work so far.

 

Thanks Bryan, glad my ramblings are useful to someone else besides being just a confidence booster for me to finish.

[Rystan]

 

So the secret?

 

 

Well, that was the answer for one of the pesky forearm seams:

 

 

Ironically, this was the forearm that I needed to tear apart and re-glue once I figured out the "trick".

 

 

This was the less pesky one.  The trick seems to have been:

a) a line of tape down the seam.

clamps on both ends.

c) wrap a metric ton of tape around the middle pulling as tightly as I could without ripping the tape.

d) magnets...(although my love affair with magnets is coming to an end...likely going to go from doubling them up to 3 or four per bundle as they're not really pulling the ABS together, just more holding it in place.)

 

 

Waited 24 hours and took the tape off.  Left forearm is now curing with outer cover strips on both sides (YAY!):

 

Got my hopes up that the right arm was going to play nicely, but nope:

 

* For those of you used to previous versions of the AM (or NE, among others) the molded ridge on most if not all of the AM 2.0 armor pieces have been removed at this point.  (I'm under the impression that this is a good thing, see: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/25603-tk-31198-requesting-anh-stunt-centurion-status-ata108/page-3#entry327644)  This makes the assembly more difficult because it's not just measure 7.5 mm and cut from both sides and glue to a relatively flat surface.  But without a molded ridge, you're working with a multidimensional/3D curved surface.

 

 

Back to what I "figured out", when I pushed down on the seam, I noticed that now it wasn't even sitting flat and there was a couple spots where it was overlapping every so slightly.  After grieving the loss of time wasted, I decided the correct course of action was to pull the seam and start over.   So after peeling, scraping and sanding dried E6000 from everything, I was determined to slow down and get the surface of the seam to sit as flat as I could with before grabbing the tube of glue.  As I mentioned above, since we're dealing with a multidimensional curved surface, the answer is not a straight cut between point A and B, but rather some sort of curved cuts to get the final forearm to sit flush and flat when pulled together.   Since I'd already confirmed that my wrist end opening and elbow opening were at the circumference I needed them to be, I had to be careful to avoid removing any ABS from either of those ends.   Armed with a box cutter, I would push the two pieces together looking for any places where the inside seam edges came together too much or prevented it from laying flat, carving it down where necessary.  I repeated until I was happy with the seam.

 

Here is what the seam looked like while I was gently holding the two ends together:  

 

When pressure is applied to the face of the forearm seam, it lays flat and was ready to get the inner cover strip added:

 

Notice the distinct lack of moar tape needed to keep everything flush and happy.   Hopefully tonight the outer cover strips can go on this one and I'll be ready to move on to other pieces armed with new knowledge.  

 

 

 

[Rystan]

Helmet progress (and possibly where I made my job more difficult than it needed to be...cause that's never happened):

 

 

Took the Dremel sanding head to the teeth from the inside until an opening big enough for a needle file from my newly purchased set was opened in the center of each tooth hole.

 

I know some of you will be shocked that I didn't take an in-process picture at this point, but here's what the teeth look like trimmed:

 

Some of the edges appear like they could be more trimmed, but they only really show up from the camera flash and aren't noticeable until you're within kissing distance.  If they need to be filed further, I should be able to do so without problem.

 

Next up, masking/protecting the outside surfaces so that I could spray paint the interior black:

 

 

 

I tried to keep the tape as closely to the edges as I could get it, although it dawned on me about half way through that overlap into thin air was okay and even if I was a little short in places, almost every exposed edge of the helmet is either covered by trim, the ears or is otherwise not visible inside the cap.

 

Then came masking the interior of the face:

The goal was a perfect seal on the edges of the eyes and teeth, but as it's mostly covered by lenses or mesh, if a little overhang of tape caused a spot to be left white, not a big deal.

 

Off to the great outdoors for a few coats of spray paint:

 

 

Once the paint dried and the tape came off, there was a few spots where the black bleed under the masking tape (probably could have used the frog tape I bought for the boots for this), but a quick wipe with some acetone got the paint off without trouble.

 

Now here is where the process went south.   I decided I wanted to use ABS paste (http://www.whitearmor.net/fisd/HOWTO:ABSpaste) to hide the seam between the cap and back, like here (http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/28001-am-3-piece-helmet-vs-others/?hl=abs+paste#entry354022)

 

 

Reusing some of the return edges from the arms, the acetone from the boots and an empty vitamin glass jar (see, I learned a lesson about acetone eating things...especially considering that's the whole point of the ABS paste process)

 

 

Cut the ABS isn't little strips:

 

Added the acetone (just enough to cover the slivers) and waited until it's runny.

 

Where I could have (and should have) done better was to mask the area off with tape before applying the paste.

 

After lots of sanding:

 

 

Still more sanding to go...and I'll likely be forced to paint the whole thing white in order to even out the color.

[Starfox2010[TK]]

Hey Rystan, 

 

I did something like that but a little more ghetto rigged. I will find out if it works tomorrow.  I used those ratchet bar clams and applied pressure from both sides and also using the magnets. Too embarrased to take the picture unless it turns out good LOL.

[Rystan]

Hey Rystan,

 

I did something like that but a little more ghetto rigged. I will find out if it works tomorrow. I used those ratchet bar clams and applied pressure from both sides and also using the magnets. Too embarrased to take the picture unless it turns out good LOL.

Yeah most of those pictures were from days ago and I waited until I had it figured out before posting.

[Red_2[TK]]

Looks great! Keep it up!

 

Does anyone know if the Bass Amsterdams, once painted white, will be Centurion ready? Only difference I see is the 

elastic part has a slightly different U shape.

 

Looking to buy some boots to paint too.

[Rystan]

Looks great! Keep it up!

 

Does anyone know if the Bass Amsterdams, once painted white, will be Centurion ready? Only difference I see is the 

elastic part has a slightly different U shape.

 

Looking to buy some boots to paint too.

 

Thanks Ryan!  When deciding what boots to buy, I also noticed a lot of Centurion concern re: the Bass Amsterdam boots.  I eventually took a leap of faith on them when I waited almost a month with no response from TK Boots.

 

I know there is at least one Centurion with them: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/27699-tk-32627-requesting-anh-hero-centurion-status-ne125/  (There might be more, I just started at the top and kept opening threads until I found at least one)

[Red_2[TK]]

Well, hopefully it works out. I'm about a day away from pulling the trigger on boots.

 

I know we're into details here, but I'm hoping that U shape is one people are less stringent on.

 

Can't wait for my armor to arrive.

 

Onward!

[Darth Aloha[Admin]]

Here are some boot painting threads:

 

• http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/27114-dyeing-black-boots-white/
• http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/24897-painting-my-loake-boots-white/
• http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/24775-painting-my-black-chelsea-boots-white/

SorenM's thread is my favorite.

 

There are probably more threads. These are the ones I found quickly.

 

Angelus leather dye is your friend  

 

-Eric