Tee-Bowls[501st] Posted August 11, 2016 Author Report Share Posted August 11, 2016 Time for a major update! First off I found the solution to my forearm problem. I decided to trim the inner forearm instead of the outer and the fit is much better than anything I've ever had. So I had this potential set up for the belt. I figured the extra spacing would secure the belt and stop any potential wiggling. So after designing the set up It was time to sand down all the pieces for the belt. Everything set up for sanding. The sanded TD pieces. The sanded and rounded belt spacers. The left drop box. The right drop box. The left inner forearm. The left outer forearm. (The lines were from the previous trimming plan. They have since been erased.) The right inner forearm. The right outer forearm. (The lines were from the previous trimming plan. They have since been erased.) I then decided it was time to readjust the helmet. After a bit of trial and error I finally got it to a point I like. The new right side of the helmet looking at it. The new left side of the helmet looking at it. So now it was time to start the ears! Slightly finished ears that need to be sanded. Fitting of the ears pre-sanding, After liking how everything looked it was time to drill the inner holes for the EAS. Then it was the ears turn to have the discs section sanded. Fitting the sanded ears and added the Mic tips. After having everything sanded down it was time to start finishing the belt. Punching holes for the belt. Trying the screw with the spacer attached. Gluing down the post part of the screw attachment. All the holes punched. The front of the attached belt. The back of the belt. After all that work I realized I didn't need the spacers I built. Next up was attaching the holster. I found a lovely graphic that had all the measurements on it to make sure it's in the right spot. How it hangs from the belt. Of course I couldn't wait to put my E-11 in the holster to see how it looked! Phew! That was suppose to be a few smaller updates but I was in a work zone and I kept going. If there's anything that needs to be fixed or I didn't add the right angles, photos, or anything like that let me know and I'll post them when I can. Up next is heat molding the belt and drop boxes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tee-Bowls[501st] Posted October 10, 2016 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2016 A major update for tonight! Over the month of September I realized I didn't like the bend of the belt so I tried to add snap to fix the problem. It didn't really change anything so I'm not going fight with it. I did make my first set of snaps. I also sanded down and shaped my posterior armor. I painted my mic tips black as well. Now onto the start of my October updates. I sanded down the inside parts of my helmet so I could Prime and plasti-dip the inside. I also taped everything up. I also figured now was a good time to start priming/painting the old drop boxes to see how the process reacts with already painted pieces as well as painting the old shins to see how the process works. The Primer. Everything Primed last night. The added Plasti-dip and the final layer of paint on the test objects that were sprayed tonight! If this process works out I'll know what to do with my paint and try to get caught up on my building so I can try to make my end of the month goal! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tee-Bowls[501st] Posted November 8, 2016 Author Report Share Posted November 8, 2016 So I made some major progress this month but due to circumstances such as illness I was unable to make my Halloween goal. I'm aiming for finishing sometime in November. So back to my test paints, everything worked out much better than before. One change I'll be making for my actual armor is including some time for sanding/cleaning of the primed pieces. I spaced on it during the test process and I feel my pieces would've come out even better. Here's an example of how it came out on the Right shin. The Plastidip came out great on the inside of the helmet. So moving on to the major update of items. It was Cover strip making time! Then came sanding/rounding off the cover strips. The Right Forearm ready for gluing. The Left Forearm ready for gluing. Both Shins. The Biceps Then it was time for gluing! The Glued Biceps The Glued Forearms The Glued Shins Then it was time to work on the Thighs! What was trimmed of for my short legs. The thigh cover strips. The sanded/rounded cover strips plus the bicep hooks. Then it came time to start of the kidney and ab plate shims. I'm still working on the shims so I'll post pictures when I'm happier with them. This was just the inner support pieces. The glued thighs. Not a huge fan of the thighs and how thick a lot of my cover strips are so instead I'm going to be trying what HansDC did with his thigh fix on a majority of my pieces. It'll make it easier to fit my body into the different armor parts if I'm not stressing so much about the size of the cover strips plus I can hopefully get Centurion that way. Fast forward to last Saturday I figured while I'm prepping to deconstruct and rebuild some parts I could start painting some of my other pieces and setting up locations for snaps/rivets/strapping. Here's where I drilled the holes for the posterior armor snaps. All the pieces set out ready to primed. Right after everything was primed. Sunday morning after everything had dried. The plan for tonight is to re-sand these pieces so they'll be ready for the final coat tonight or tomorrow. There's plenty of work left to do but I feel this is the closest I've even been to finishing! If you notice anything that I can try to change or fix please don't hesitate to let me know! Yes my cover strips are super thick and i plan on changing them. The shims are not finished yet so please don't think they are. Other than that I'll get back to building! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tee-Bowls[501st] Posted November 9, 2016 Author Report Share Posted November 9, 2016 So last night after some light sanding with 600 grit sandpaper and cleaning of my pieces I decided it was time to make everything white and glossy! For the most part everything came out great! However there were still some spots that "wrinkled/cracked" with the paint. One of the TD end caps. One of the shoulder straps. A little on the belt. Hopefully once everything is pretty dry I'll be able to sand it off and repaint. This whole spray painting for the correct glossiness has been super stressful. Luckily one of the major sections that set me back looks like its going to dry and look great! The face plate The cap/back I'll be adding detail work very soon and maybe have my first 100% finished piece! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kacrut[501st] Posted November 9, 2016 Report Share Posted November 9, 2016 I really enjoying your build thread(a lot of pictures) and Thanks for sharing it with us here. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tee-Bowls[501st] Posted November 10, 2016 Author Report Share Posted November 10, 2016 (edited) Thank you! I try and take a picture for every step I take. Not only does it help me remember where I messed up, but it might help somebody else someday. I'm trying to live by the motto of this forum "Troopers helping Troopers". Edited November 10, 2016 by Tee-Bowls 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tee-Bowls[501st] Posted November 10, 2016 Author Report Share Posted November 10, 2016 So last night I was able to do a little work, not as much as I would've liked but I had to finish grading papers and writing a test. I was able to get some accomplished so that's the important part! So the bad(ish) news first. I did have some pieces that had paint issues. The 'ish' part of the news is I was able to sand and scrape the old paint off so It's not terrible. Old paint scraped off and sanded. The problem areas resprayed with primer. Hopefully everything will fill in correctly and look smooth. The good news finally! All of the other pieces came out great! I didn't really take a lot of pictures of these pieces yet but I will. I was excited about the helmet! Here is my helmet! I was so excited I had to snap a picture before I was even able to put the ears on. Here are the attached ears. I also tried to glue my mic tip mesh. I'll probably have more to post tonight when I get home and get to work. If anything doesn't look right so far let me know! Thanks again for checking out my thread! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ukswrath[Staff] Posted November 10, 2016 Report Share Posted November 10, 2016 Looking good Tyler. I would suggest squaring off the teeth. Should look like this .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tee-Bowls[501st] Posted January 9, 2017 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2017 Well after a productive November and December I figured it was time for a major update! So be prepared with a major photo filled update! Going back to some pieces that needed a respray. The turned out alright. I would rather have not messed up in the first place but I think it will be alright for the most part. The belt in the middle is pretty much the worst part. The middle section is a little rough when looking directly at it but from far away it doesn't look that bad. The shoulder strap came out alright too. I plan on sticking the messed up section towards the inner part of my neck and to the back so it isn't seen. As did the end cap for the TD. I did trim/square up the teeth. Hopefully it's enough of a trim. I added in the frown mesh with velcro so if I need to trim more I can. I added the snaps to the bottom of the posterior armor. Attachment of the shoulder bells to the chest section. For some reason all of my other photos did not transfer so I'll have to retake them/ post them later. The only one I have is a combination photo I posted on Facebook/Instagram of a partial test fit/helmet picture/original armor kit. Now the ab sections has been painted (sadly not shown here) and the kidney /posterior parts are attached with snaps. I'm still working on the biceps and thighs as well as the electronics for the helmet. It's all a work in process still. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tee-Bowls[501st] Posted January 23, 2017 Author Report Share Posted January 23, 2017 It wasn't shown beforehand because the pictures were lost but I had filled in the ab shims with apoxy and painted over them in a rush to finish. However the apoxy was still extremely visible and it created a very noticeable seam. At this point I'm still doing everything for Centurion but I'm not sure if I'll make it there. I've been working on the same set of armor for over a year and a half now. I'm ready to just finish so I can work on other projects. With that being said I did try to sand down the apoxy off of the shims and I plan on repainting them when the weather allows. I also wanted to try on my biceps and mess around while wearing them considering I have the full upper body at least put together. (Yes I know my biceps are on wrong). I've also attached the black straps for the shoulder bells/biceps. The action shot. I've also realized my right forearm the wrist is pretty large and it causes the piece to slid around. I'm planning on fixing that as well. For Christmas I received a Stormtrooper snuggie as a joke. However, it comes in handy when I want to stay warm while playing Star Wars Battlefront. It feels good to kickback and relax after a long day of blasting rebel scum! There is quite a lot of small tweaks that I need to make to fully finish off some pieces so I can start to see myself as a real TK soon. I hope to get more done as soon as I can. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tee-Bowls[501st] Posted April 17, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 17, 2017 (edited) As soon as I can turns out to be a few months later lol. Even through it's been some time I was still hard at work. Saving up my photos until I could make another major push and here it is! Fist up was rebuilding the thigh. I started on the left first. After ripping off the old cover strips I had to rebuild the inner sections so I could attach a "Cover Strip". After creating the extension pieces I figured it would be a good time to give them a test fit. Here is the front of the left thigh. Tape was definitely my friend. The back of the left thigh. The test fit. I didn't like the way it gave my leg extra space so I decided to taper the extension. Here is the tapered product from the from. I repeated the same process for the right leg. Here is is before the tapering. After the tapering. Now I did use the cover strip construction method however I didn't want such massive cover strips because it would look too weird. So instead I went hunting here on the forums and found a thread by HansDC and how he used apoxy to fill in the gaps to try and make it look like one piece connected by a false cover strip. The false cover strips. Here is the front of the right thigh with the gaps filled in. The back of the right thigh with the gaps filled in. The front of the left thigh with the gaps filled in. The back of the left thigh with the gaps filled in. The front of the right thigh with the "cover strip" attached. The back of the right thigh with the "cover strip" attached. The front of the left thigh with the "cover strip" attached. The back of the left thigh with the "cover strip" attached. Then is was time for painting/Repainting a few sections. The repaint was for the sides of the ab section, kidney plate, and the new right forearm cover strips. The new cover strips for the right forearm was due to how loose it appeared/felt. So I remade it to fit better. The painting for the first time was the new biceps, thighs, and ammo pack for the right thigh. Here is everything after being primed. Here is everything with the final coat. The dried thighs. The ammo pack attached to the thighs (with the appropriate rivets) and the thigh strapping system from Pencap510. The glued shoulder straps. At this point I've pretty much finished the armor. So I figured it was time for a full armor test fit! I know my thighs are hanging low. I'm getting a better set of compression pants to they fit up higher. Here are some other photos I took just messing around. Pulling out the big gun (DLT-19)! And finally one with my bucket off. My TD fell off but I couldn't stoop down to pick it up . Hopefully I'll "break" the armor in and be able to move easier as time goes on. There are still some minor things I need to fix. My right shoulder strap broke off or came off rather, so I'll be re-gluing that along with touching up some spots with paint. I'm disappointed in myself over the thighs. I feel that they didn't come out the way I wanted them too. I doubt I'll be able to make anything but basic approval because of them which sucks because I've done everything else, but I understand . Probably at a later date I'll either buy a new pair or completely start over on a new set. However I'm proud that I stuck with it and continued to work even though I experienced setbacks. It's been a long time coming and I'm so close to finally joining the 501st!!! Although now I'm already starting to plan the next set of armor! Edited April 17, 2017 by Tee-Bowls Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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