trooper96[501st] Posted June 1, 2015 Report Share Posted June 1, 2015 (edited) According to the CRL, the highest level of accuracy in building a suit of armor requires that, ideally, there should be no gap between the abdomen and kidney armor. For me, that would mean shimming the kidney plate. That seemed like a lot of work, especially to make it look seamless. If the kidney plate had just a few more inches of wrap, it would make it easier on people like me, who are not the ideal size to fit the armor. I started a project to make a kidney plate with at least 6" more wrap. That would close up my gap nicely with a little to spare. Here are a couple of pictures of a pull we made this weekend from a rough sculpt. Still some uneven places that need to be smoothed out, as well as some texturing from the mold that will need to be sanded away. I did a trial fit with an ab plate, and it appears to function nicely. Edited February 22, 2021 by gmrhodes13 photos updated gmrhodes13 2021 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crusader_6[TK] Posted June 1, 2015 Report Share Posted June 1, 2015 I'll be following this closely!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tusken RTT Posted June 1, 2015 Report Share Posted June 1, 2015 Awesome job! Should sell a bunch! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt[501st] Posted June 15, 2015 Report Share Posted June 15, 2015 Ha. I am doing the same thing. But I did the cod first. Let's make a deal 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trooper96[501st] Posted June 17, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2015 Here's the kidney plate assembled with the torso armor. Wow, I didn't realize how round my midsection was until I saw this. I should really consider losing weight! As you can see, this was the test piece. There is still some uneven textured places. I will use this for our 4th of July parade and fix it later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trooper96[501st] Posted September 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 11, 2015 (edited) This is how the finished extended kidney plate looked in my approval photos... Edited February 22, 2021 by gmrhodes13 photos updated gmrhodes13 2021 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knockerbot[501st] Posted September 11, 2015 Report Share Posted September 11, 2015 I don't want to make it seem like I'm judging in the least because it looks like you did a great job, but why didn't you split the shims between the ab plate and kidneys? It would have been twice the shimming but you could have gotten the space dead centre on your side there and it would look a tiny bit more proportional. <br><br> This is exactly what I'm going to have to do too even though AP is forming in an extra 3 inches per piece. So I'll make sure to curse my own name when I'm doing twice the work for a few inch different result on a seam lol. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trooper96[501st] Posted September 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 11, 2015 I don't want to make it seem like I'm judging in the least because it looks like you did a great job, but why didn't you split the shims between the ab plate and kidneys? It would have been twice the shimming but you could have gotten the space dead centre on your side there and it would look a tiny bit more proportional. <br><br> This is exactly what I'm going to have to do too even though AP is forming in an extra 3 inches per piece. So I'll make sure to curse my own name when I'm doing twice the work for a few inch different result on a seam lol. Not at all. Actually, my first thought was to extend both, but that would mean modifying two molds instead of just the one. I may still do that when I get the chance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knockerbot[501st] Posted September 11, 2015 Report Share Posted September 11, 2015 (edited) Well you did a good job by the looks of it. Do you have any close ups of where the seam between the plate and shim are? Did you do a return edge on the top and bottom of the shim? I'm on my phone and can't tell if you did. Edited September 11, 2015 by Knockerbot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trooper96[501st] Posted September 12, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 12, 2015 Thanks. There is no seam. It's all one piece. I vacuum formed the kidney plate with the sides extended. There is a return edge on the top and bottom that is blended with the edge that was already there. Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knockerbot[501st] Posted September 12, 2015 Report Share Posted September 12, 2015 Lol yeah you said pull right in your first post, totally missed that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trooper96[501st] Posted September 12, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 12, 2015 It would probably look even better if I extended the ab as well, putting the joint closer to the middle of my side. Eventually, I will probably do this. Always looking for ways to improve. Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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