AM 2.0 build (ANH Stunt) by Rystan

[Rystan]

SUCCESS!

 

 

It's rather ironic (coincidental, thank you, Alanis Morrisette!) that my first finished armor piece, left forearm, is completed on:

 

 

(Yes, I'm a southpaw)

 

Success on the right forearm too!  everything on the troublesome seam is laying flat and ready for cover strips.

 

 

All the pieces are likely going to be getting a Goo Gone bath due to all the masking tape used in the process.

[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.

 

I picked these up today too and am going to see how well the work to wrap future pieces (http://www.walmart.com/ip/Velcro-Reusable-Ties-Black-4pc/17617478)

[starsaber25[Admin]]

Mike did you make anymore progress with the sanding of the ABS paste?  I may have to whip some up for my build and I'm wondering if it will be worth it or not.  In your experience now, do you think that you would always have to paint after you do this?  Or do you think you would be able to sand it and not have to paint it?

 

And I have a pair of Bass Amsterdams as well that I am going to paint soon.  I must have saw that same centurion thread because I wanted to make sure they would fly.  I don't see why they wouldn't.

[TK Rome[501st]]

Hey I've got my own AM build starting up but I've run into a snag. One is I too got the double left shin but the problem w a s resolved with troopergear. My other problem is that I am having trouble attaching the left ear. It looks like it might be too short and when I get the two top screws in the bottom won't line up with the rest of the helmet. Any tips?

[Rystan]

Mike did you make anymore progress with the sanding of the ABS paste?  I may have to whip some up for my build and I'm wondering if it will be worth it or not.  In your experience now, do you think that you would always have to paint after you do this?  Or do you think you would be able to sand it and not have to paint it?

 

And I have a pair of Bass Amsterdams as well that I am going to paint soon.  I must have saw that same centurion thread because I wanted to make sure they would fly.  I don't see why they wouldn't.

 

Hi Steve, I'm probably going to have to pick up some finer grit sandpaper to make any further progress on smoothing it out.   Using the return edges from the arms should have helped with keeping the colors the same, but I have been wondering if the acetone altered the color during the melting process?   An issue also could have been the brush I used.  I'd read that the acetone can eat the bristles of certain types of brushes, so some of the color difference might have come from the colored bristles of my brush (I did lose a few bristles into the paste while applying and had to pick them out, so I probably wasn't using the right brush).  I'm holding out hope that sanding is enough.   The lesson I learned here, which I should have known from previous drywall spackle jobs is that "less is definitely better".  The more you slather on, the more you have to sand off.

 

Hey I've got my own AM build starting up but I've run into a snag. One is I too got the double left shin but the problem w a s resolved with troopergear. My other problem is that I am having trouble attaching the left ear. It looks like it might be too short and when I get the two top screws in the bottom won't line up with the rest of the helmet. Any tips?

 

Hi Romen, thanks for the vote of confidence by asking for my advice.  There's many more skilled builders on here than me.  I think the left ear is a pretty common problem for all of the NE/AM helmets.  I haven't gotten to the point of installing the ears yet, but in some test fits I can definitely see that it's going to be a hurdle to overcome.  I commented on someone else's thread yesterday (http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/28277-2nd-am-20ne-helmet-build/) about the ears.  My suspicion (and what I've been reading on the other AM builds of those who have gotten farther on the bucket than myself) is that while the ears came trimmed, it wasn't necessarily trimmed to the point of a "perfect fit".  You might be able to trim a bit more to get it to fit better.   I know at least one person went back to troopergear to get an untrimmed left ear to see if he could get it to fit better starting from scratch.  I don't know if it was successful yet or not.  I've also seen a bunch of screen captures from ANH that show that the ears didn't fit perfectly there too, so it might not be a huge issue? 

 

My other suggestion would be to look for inspiration among the EIB & Centurion requests forum.  Which isn't to say do what they did, or use any of those pictures as your own build target (I have a feeling our armor is always going to be in a state of tweaking...almost there...) and we're being judged on screen-accuracy, not necessarily what others have done.  But they should at least show what's possible to accomplish.  I know I've looked specifically at the [NE] & [AM*] threads for inspiration, but I've noticed that you probably won't find very many people who kept the NE bucket for the higher ranks.   Most of the NE armor threads went with an ATA bucket.  I did find this (http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/27326-tk-31426-requesting-anh-stunt-eib-status-ne/) from May of this year, but he is missing some pictures and his EIB is still pending.

 

I personally don't want to bog their threads down with questions, but it might be a place to start looking and then reach out to the individuals with specific questions.  Everyone I've seen here is readily helpful.

[MightyTank[501st]]

To help with the new AM 2.0 Helmet build:

 

The problem people are having is the aligning of the bottom holes but it's not difficult to do if you use this little trick. 

Because the back of the helmet is a wider tube, exactly the same as the screen helmets and the front tubes are smaller, there is large gap between the joining region which is covered by the ear piece. 

The ear piece should be mounted exactly as designed via the two screws and then rivets or bolts used to secured the front and back pieces, but these are not visible, they're under the ear pieces. 

Once the left piece is mounted, and all of the holes are drilled, the lower tubes on the left side will not line up, nor will the hole on the bottom of the ear piece. 

To keep tolerances very clean and tight and bring the lower side tube regions together, they will need to be pushed and it's a very tight fit. Sometimes having two people helps. 

The way I prefer, by myself, is to carefully take a thin phillips head screw driver and run it through the outer side of the ear cover and then through the hole in the lower edge of the back piece and then through the hole in the left side of the lower edge of the front plate.  Something like a shish-kabob.

 

Now, once the screwdriver is pushed through, the builder needs to carefully push the pieces together while very slowly and carefully pull the upper handle of the screw driver towards the bottom and it's important that it's NOT JUST THE SCREWDRIVER pressure but also someone pushing all three pieces together. 

Once the holes line up, carefully remove the screwdriver while keeping pressure on the pieces so they do not  move, and the second the screw driver is removed, place the bolt into the hole, run the nut down and slowly tighten.

Once everything is assembled, the builder can add a little ABS cement along the edges to add some strength. 

You'll immediately see that when everything is tightened, the  helmet will become incredibly tight and very, very rigid. The measurements of the ear pieces will be almost dead-on to the original screen helmets but the strength will be much greater. 

Also, the inner edge of the tube is much, much deeper on our helmet and the other one piece (back and dome) which others are forming are extremely shallow and they look odd when being worn.  Just too much gapping and you can see too much of the wearers head. 

 

On our helmet, the builder can leave the inner tube edge wide or they may carefully trim the edge making it shallower. 

I'm sorry for the problems with the  assembly, perhaps building to such a tight tolerance was not a good idea but I just hated to create something which wasn't extremely strong as conventions can be hard on helmet as do packing and shipping. 

I do believe the tighter build tolerances really helps to make a higher quality and stronger helmet. 

[Rystan]

 

To help with the new AM 2.0 Helmet build:

 

The problem people are having is the aligning of the bottom holes but it's not difficult to do if you use this little trick. 

Because the back of the helmet is a wider tube, exactly the same as the screen helmets and the front tubes are smaller, there is large gap between the joining region which is covered by the ear piece. 

The ear piece should be mounted exactly as designed via the two screws and then rivets or bolts used to secured the front and back pieces, but these are not visible, they're under the ear pieces. 

Once the left piece is mounted, and all of the holes are drilled, the lower tubes on the left side will not line up, nor will the hole on the bottom of the ear piece. 

To keep tolerances very clean and tight and bring the lower side tube regions together, they will need to be pushed and it's a very tight fit. Sometimes having two people helps. 

The way I prefer, by myself, is to carefully take a thin phillips head screw driver and run it through the outer side of the ear cover and then through the hole in the lower edge of the back piece and then through the hole in the left side of the lower edge of the front plate.  Something like a shish-kabob.

 

Now, once the screwdriver is pushed through, the builder needs to carefully push the pieces together while very slowly and carefully pull the upper handle of the screw driver towards the bottom and it's important that it's NOT JUST THE SCREWDRIVER pressure but also someone pushing all three pieces together. 

Once the holes line up, carefully remove the screwdriver while keeping pressure on the pieces so they do not  move, and the second the screw driver is removed, place the bolt into the hole, run the nut down and slowly tighten.

Once everything is assembled, the builder can add a little ABS cement along the edges to add some strength. 

You'll immediately see that when everything is tightened, the  helmet will become incredibly tight and very, very rigid. The measurements of the ear pieces will be almost dead-on to the original screen helmets but the strength will be much greater. 

Also, the inner edge of the tube is much, much deeper on our helmet and the other one piece (back and dome) which others are forming are extremely shallow and they look odd when being worn.  Just too much gapping and you can see too much of the wearers head. 

 

On our helmet, the builder can leave the inner tube edge wide or they may carefully trim the edge making it shallower. 

I'm sorry for the problems with the  assembly, perhaps building to such a tight tolerance was not a good idea but I just hated to create something which wasn't extremely strong as conventions can be hard on helmet as do packing and shipping. 

I do believe the tighter build tolerances really helps to make a higher quality and stronger helmet. 

 

 

Thank you MightyTank for posting this!  I'm sure the instructions you posted will help with the assembly.   The changes that have been made to the AM 2.0 armor definitely seems to have addressed many of the complaints people have had with the AM armor of the past.  Thank you for the hard work, I can't wait until I've got mine assembled fully.

 

So, taking a look at the botton picture in this post (http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/28115-fuumantroops-am-armor-build/page-2#entry357306), is this how the bottom of the ear should look?  Or should it sit closer to the bottom opening?

 

It sounds to me like we're all suffering from new parent syndrome and being too gentle with our new "babies" when we might need to give it a little tougher love to make sure everything makes it to the tighter build tolerances.

 

Thanks again!

 

(P.S. I just checked and my shins have been delivered today, so thanks for that too!)

[Rystan]

My posting of updates has fallen slightly behind the build progress.  Mainly because if I want to get everything finished in time for Fan Expo Canada on Labor day weekend, I need to get my butt in gear and build progress takes precedence over writing about building.  14 days until I leave might be possible, but it'll take a strong push (and hopefully very few mistakes/mishaps)

 

 

In order to try and finish on time I put together a punch list of everything I have left to do to make the kit wearable/501st-approvable.  

 

 

Yes, the clipboard came out.  That's page one of 3 btw.  I tried to break everything down as small possible without completely micromanaging myself and also make sure I didn't forget anything.  (On that note though, I stopped the list at like 165 items and realized when I got it printed out that I forgot the Thermal Detonator so it's more like 175 to go now.)

 

Yes, I've got my eye on EIB/Centurion but that will likely come later as there's some key items left to purchase/build: e.g. E-11, latex hand guards, etc.

 

Like everyone else, the limiting factor will likely be gluing/drying time and too few clamps.  I have about 15-20 and it's not enough.

 

Every time I had a pair of spare clamps this week it went towards affixing the multitude of snap plates to armor:

 

 

 

And so on...

 

On the snap plate side, for any of my fellow current builders, I'll show some detail of the process.

 

There's been reports of the metal of the snaps melting the armor when the E6000 cures (http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/21449-e-6000-snaps-heat/)  The common wisdom is to put tape over the back of the snap.  Most seem to suggest duct tape, but that sounds like a lot of cutting to get small squares (cause ain't nobody got time to cut out tape circles).  I opted instead of duct tape to use electrical tape as the width of the tape is already the right size for the snap plate so it only took a cut across to get a square the right size:

 

I also rounded of the corners of each plate to avoid snagging on under suit or anything else once affixed using scissors and a sanding block.

 

I also test snapped each male plate to a female strap to make sure that none of the snaps were loose prior to gluing them down.

 

 

Between the tape and the male snap back, the plates don't fully set flush with the armor, so I attempted to use a hair dryer on high to attempt to get them to sit a little flatter.

 

 

 

It didn't work all that well, but the For Sale sign ABS was thin enough that they have a little bend to them so after clamping for a day, they sit "okay".

 

More updates to come, but it'll have to be later.

[I'm Batman[501st]]

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

It will take a very long time to iron a business shirt with a heat sealing iron

[I'm Batman[501st]]

As mentioned in that thread you posted about the e6000, it's probably all a myth. As everyone posted in it, and I concur with my build, no probs at all with e6000 against the metal snaps. Maybe some minor distortion under the snap plate but nothing that will be visible.

[Rystan]

(P.S. I just checked and my shins have been delivered today, so thanks for that too!)

 

The shins are great and definitely left & right as promised!  Once I had the shins in hand I was able to figure out a sure-fire way to tell them apart.  I wrote up documentation in a separate thread here (http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/28321-sure-fire-am-20-shin-identification/) to allow future/current builders to avoid having to read my whole build thread to find the info.  Hope it helps!

[Rystan]

As mentioned in that thread you posted about the e6000, it's probably all a myth. As everyone posted in it, and I concur with my build, no probs at all with e6000 against the metal snaps. Maybe some minor distortion under the snap plate but nothing that will be visible.

 

Thanks Ian, the pictures in the original E6k heat thread were enough to sell me on there being a legit problem.  Seeing as I don't foresee myself being able to replace my armor any time soon, I figured it was safer to err on the side of caution on this one.

[Rystan]

Time for some torso fit pics thanks to the assistance of my older son:

 

 

First up, just the abs, kidney & butt..

 

Front:

 

 

Left side:

 

 

Right side:

 

 

Behind:

 

 

The abdomen piece sits just about at the bottom of my rib cage and the cod is in fairly tight on the jewels.   The kidney is aligned to the top of the ab plate with the butt coming directly below that.

 

Everything seems like it's in the right place, although there's quite a breeze on the backside that'll take some getting used to.

 

I've got overlap between the kidney and abs so some trimming will have to occur.  The only question I have is: how snug should the ab plate be to the body?

 

Once I know that, I should be able to map out the cuts on the sides for the abs and the kidney and then extrapolate the carve-out at the bottom of the kidneys to determine the sizing of the butt plate.

 

 

 

Now with the chest and back added on:

 

Front:

 

 

Left side:

 

 

Right side:

 

 

Behind:

 

 

 

Now this is where it gets interesting in terms of questions re: trimming.

• The overlap of the chest/abdomen seems like the chest is too high up.  Where should the neckline of the chest sit?  In the pic I'm pretty sure it's right up on the neck below the Adam's apple.  It feels to me like it might need to be down lower near the top of the sternum?  This will cover up more of the ab plate and bring the bottom of the chest down closer to the front button panels.
• There's an abundance of overlap in the shoulder bridge area between the back and chest as well.  I know that whole area is going to be underneath the plastic shoulder straps and connected via a cloth strap, so most of it can/needs to go.  Any advice on where the chest and back plate should be cut at the shoulders?
• On the sides, the chest and back are taped together for now (and I know when finished there won't be any connection on the sides between these two pieces but the lack of trimming at the shoulders was causing them to flare out without it), and there's definitely an overlap there too.  Should there be?  And if so/not, I'm assuming the back plate would be the one to get trimmed?
• On the back side, there's overlap of the back plate and the kidney plate, and I know there shouldn't be.  Trimming anything off the kidney would raise the butt (to keep the top of the kidneys lined up with the top of the abs) and that doesn't really seem like an option (recalling the breeze discussed above).  Trimming the bottom of the back seems like the answer, but again before I know how much to take off the bottom, I need to know if the top of the back is in the right spot.  Where should the top of the back plate site with regards to the neck?

Anything else anyone see that I should be aware of?

 

[Rystan]

Butt and cod trimming:

 

Butt plate pre-trimmed:

 

 

Looking at other reference photos such as this one (and given the shape of the untrimmed piece):

(I pretty much keyed in on the lower left set as it's got the size & shape for both front and back visible.)

 

So I started by removing the entire flat section:

 

 

and just cleaned up the corners and smoothed in the transition of the side return edges:

 

 

 

 

Cod pre-trimmed:

 

I marked off where I thought the cut should go (again based on the reference image):

 

 

You should be able to faintly see the pencil line.  I first tried using a compass, but without a flat surface to pivot on, it proved frustrating and unsuccessful.  What I eventually found that worked was to use the overworked roll of masking tape I had laying around by setting the roll of tape over the peak of the cod, sliding it up so that the outside of the tape was where I wanted the cut to go and traced along the curve of the tape onto the ABS, like so:

 

 

 

Now, once I get the sides of the abs, kidneys and butt plates trimmed, I'll be set to drill the holes in the sides and bottoms of the pieces for the necessary snaps & split rivets.  (To my fellow in-process builders: Here's one of the places where it makes sense to know before hand if you're going for EIB/Centurion to avoid extra work later on.)

 

 

[chrskmbr]

Thanks for the great build, waiting until December to get my AM armor. I'll be keeping an eye out here for other problems you may have. Are you from Buffalo Rystan? I'm from Rochester, just wondering. When I spoke to a guy from Garrison Excelsior he didn't know of anybody that AM yet

[Rystan]

Thanks for the great build, waiting until December to get my AM armor. I'll be keeping an eye out here for other problems you may have. Are you from Buffalo Rystan? I'm from Rochester, just wondering. When I spoke to a guy from Garrison Excelsior he didn't know of anybody that AM yet

 

Hi Chris,  thanks for the complement.  Honestly, it's a little daunting at first, but you pick up confidence pretty quickly as you start ticking items off the to do list.

 

Yeah, I'm from Buffalo now.  Spent a lot of time growing up around Rochester.   I haven't gotten too active with the garrison yet.  Hope to do some trooping once the build is done though.

 

There's a lot of history with the AM armor, but they've done a lot recently to address many of the major concerns.   I doubt it's perfect, but then again who's is.  I'm beyond thrilled with mine so far.

[Shank_O_Potomus]

Looking good Mike! Keep it up!

[Rystan]

Looking good Mike! Keep it up!

Thanks, Ryan. Glad to hear you're getting settled in at school.

[Rystan]

Looking good Mike! Keep it up!

Thanks, Ryan. Glad to hear you're getting settled in at school.

[Starfox2010[TK]]

I think our kidney plate is long.  I was looking thought request topics and it looks like our ab is suppose to meet the kidney and the but is suppose to meet the cod (like underwear).  Raise your kidney piece to where its bottom meets the bottom of the ab piece (where it dips into the cod piece).  I might trim the kidney from the top side since the lower side dips. 

 

from the back [O II] plate, I trimmed right where you have the vertical line tape.  I also trimmed from the top around the same area.

[Rystan]

I think our kidney plate is long.  I was looking thought request topics and it looks like our ab is suppose to meet the kidney and the but is suppose to meet the cod (like underwear).  Raise your kidney piece to where its bottom meets the bottom of the ab piece (where it dips into the cod piece).  I might trim the kidney from the top side since the lower side dips. 

 

from the back [O II] plate, I trimmed right where you have the vertical line tape.  I also trimmed from the top around the same area.

 

I'm not saying your wrong (or even that I'm right).

 

Where did you see to line the bottom of the kidney to the bottom of the ab piece?  All the pictures I'm finding of in-process torsos have the tops lined up:

• http://www.whitearmor.net/fisd/Tutorial-abkidneybutt
• http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/21003-help-with-sizing/#entry259733
• http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/11638-am-armor-adding-rivets-to-left-abkidney-plates/#entry144364

I think Pandatrooper had to do so much cutting to the AM kit because he's 5' 8" (http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/10434-pandatroopers-am-build-threadam/page-2#entry137833) and took a lot off all the torso pieces.

 

The bottom of the ab/kidneys should be hidden under the belt anyways.    I think (can't find verification yet) that the "tail" of the butt plate is going to hang lower than the bottom of the cod to allow for the butt plate to curve under and come forward once the underside strap is connected.

 

Looking at the AM & ROTJ back plate comparision in the first link above, there's definitely room to cut off from the bottom of the back plate though.

[Rystan]

Was still looking at various threads and started again noticing the notch cut out of the bottom of the kidneys (like in the picture show here: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/26001-haribon72s-anh-stormtrooper-ne-hero-build/page-2#entry329580) which is needed for Centurion now I believe too.  

 

The only way you'd be able to have material available to cut that notch out is if you align the kidney and ab tops.  If you aligned the bottoms, there wouldn't be room for the notch.

[Starfox2010[TK]]

Yea you're right .  I wonder what's making the backside so long?  my but plate sits low if I have my back plate joing the kidney instead of overlapping it. 

[Shank_O_Potomus]

Did y'all find a difference between the outer biceps? Or are they the same?

[Rystan]

Did y'all find a difference between the outer biceps? Or are they the same?

I think they are the same. They had no variance in fit before I assembled them.