hupspring's ANOVOS build

[hupspring[TK]]

I got my BBB Tuesday afternoon (1/26) so I can finally start my build! I've been reading build threads and researching since I ordered the kit back in April 2015, so I'm ready to dive right in.

 

I've seen some comparison shots of the Anovos helmet with a few other brands, but I haven't seen any with an AP bucket yet. Anovos on left, AP on right.

 

 

The first thing I did when I took everything out of the box was to put the helmet on (couldn't help myself). I don't know if I like the liner they used and may end up switching it out with padding. There were some issues with how they built it that I don't like, most notably the bad trimming on the ears (looks jaggedy) and a gap between the front faceplate and the back between the ears and rubber trim.

 

 

 

The rubber trim is also not long enough, so the right side is goes to the end of the trap, but the left side falls a little short. The Anovos bucket is on the left in both pics.

 

 

 

Overall I'm happy with the bucket since I got in at the Tier 1 price. I don't know if I'd pay the current price for the kit though.

 

My helmet collection slowly grows. FX, Anovos, AP.

 

Edited January 28, 2016 by hupspring

[hupspring[TK]]

I spent a little over an hour doing some rough trimming, starting on the smaller parts. At first I tried the score and snap method using a hobby knife. It took 3-4 passes of the knife, and even then bending the ABS didn't want to break. If I bent it and did another pass of the knife it would cut through, but that wasn't possible on the curves.

 

My first part was the wrist, and it came out okay.

 

 

One problem was that the knife slipped a little on one of the curvy parts, and this happened.

 

 

So after that I decided to try the lexan scissors. I have both the curved and straight scissors, and both come in very handy.

 

 

I finished off the wrists using the lexan scissors. 

 

 

 

 

Next up was the biceps. These were also done solely with the scissors.

 

 

 

 

And the shoulder bells.

 

 

Before I started trimming, I put blue painter's tape inside each piece and labelled what the piece is. I know the Anovos numbers are on the outside of each piece, but I want to make sure I don't put wrong parts together.

[hupspring[TK]]

I took a small break to watch a little tv with my 3 year old. He wanted to wear helmets while we watched, so that's what we did.

 

 

I then moved on to one of the calves. I realized after trimming the wrists, biceps and shoulders that my fingers were killing me from using the scissors. It does get tedious to trim long sections with the scissors. So I decided to try the knife again, especially on the longer sections like the calf.

 

And of course something would go wrong. I somehow slipped while scoring and did this.

 

 

But I continued with the score and snap method for the long sections of the inner and outer halves of the calf, and used the scissors for the end sections. It worked out pretty well after the initial slip.

 

 

 

And that is where I stopped for the night. I wanted to keep going, but I think with the scissors I won't be able to do too much cutting each night if I want to use my hand the next day. Using the score and snap method on the long sections and the scissors on the curved/end parts seems to work well for me, and hopefully I don't have any more unwanted slices on the rest of the parts.

[Bulldog44[TK]]

Great progress. Thanks for posting the helmet comparisons, very helpful to see all the differences in each of them. <br>

Good luck with the rest of your build!

[charlesnarles]

lol yeah lexan fatigue is real <br>

Keep up the good work

[magni[TK]]

DUDE! Put the knife down. Seriously though,your putting to much pressure on the knife.you score with several passes letting the tip of the blade do the work.I'm not a fan of this method. I used tin snips,way easier on the hands and no Wolverine claw marks! Hopefully you can polish those out with novus. Especially the one on your right thigh.good luck and take your time, it's not a race it's an adventure.

[hupspring[TK]]

I may have to get some tin snips if they are easier on the hands than the lexan scissors. Luckily the scratch on the calf should be covered up by the cover strip so I'm not worried about that one. If anything I can make some ABS paste. There is a ton of leftover scrap ABS.

[spyder918]

Thanks for the AP comparison!

[starsaber25[Admin]]

Hey Richard.  You are moving right along with your build.  Like what has been said already, you should try and not put so much pressure on the knife.  I built my whole entire MTK kit using the score and snap method and I liked how it went.  You just gotta take your time.

 

I love the comparison photos.  While i like some aspects of the Anovos armor the AP helmet just looks so much nicer in my personal opinion.

 

Great Start!

[Sparkydefay]

Great thread so far! Can't wait to see the final product!

[hupspring[TK]]

Tonight I did a little more trimming for about an hour. I trimmed the other calf using the score and snap method for the long sides, this time scoring lightly about 5 times. I also went a lot slower than previously which worked so much better. A couple of times the knife wanted to stray, but since I was going slow I was able to correct it before anything bad happened. The curves/ends of the pieces are still troublesome with the knife, so I still swapped to the lexan scissors for those areas.

 

 

I mentioned earlier that the snap part of the score and snap method was a bit difficult - here is an example of trying to snap a section after scoring several times.

 

 

Is this normal or is it just the ABS being flexible? Bending it back the other way usually gets the break, but sometimes I have to go back and forth a few times before anything happens.

 

I realized that I didn't open the bag of parts with the velcro and webbing, so I opened it up to see what was in there. I found the neck seal and unraveled it (it was wadded up into a cute little cylinder), and tried it on. It was really hard to get the zipper up. I took it off and tried again - once I got the zipper to the puffy parts, it didn't want to go up any farther.

 

 

I found that if I pressed on both sides of the zipper to flatten the puffy parts, the zipper would be able to go up.

 

 

However, I was still unable to zip it up while wearing it. Is this common? Am I going to need to make sure the puffy parts are flat along the zipper?

 

Back to trimming, I grabbed the left thigh parts and once again went with score/snap on the long parts and scissors on the ends.

 

 

 

And another stopping point for the night. Less done, but I feel like I'm getting much more comfortable with these methods. 

[Airborne Trooper[501st]]

On those long straight pieces, make sure you are scoring against a ruler so your lines are straight. You should have to score like 2 or 3 times with an exacto blade. I used a #2 for my whole build. Once it was scored, back and forth and it came out perfect. Scissors or tin snips for the curves and smaller parts. 

[allan1313[TK]]

For the neck seal I found it easier to zip up if the zipper was on the front of your neck, then spin it around to the back.

 

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[manyhighkicks[TK]]

On those long straight pieces, make sure you are scoring against a ruler so your lines are straight. You should have to score like 2 or 3 times with an exacto blade. I used a #2 for my whole build. Once it was scored, back and forth and it came out perfect. Scissors or tin snips for the curves and smaller parts.

Why didn't I think of that! I was sitting here wondering how anyone could keep their cut lines straight, since I had some "straying" issues as well.

 

Duh!! thanks for the tip! Adding a ruler to my list.

 

 

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[hupspring[TK]]

Why didn't I think of that! I was sitting here wondering how anyone could keep their cut lines straight, since I had some "straying" issues as well.

 

Duh!! thanks for the tip! Adding a ruler to my list.

 

 

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Agreed, good tip. I will try that tonight!

[Airborne Trooper[501st]]

You're going to want clamps and rare earth magnets to hold it in place 

[Sleestak]

Yes, even with a ruler be careful and take your time. Like Airborne said, I would suggest clamping the ruler to the piece if at all possible. 

[hupspring[TK]]

Just a small update for tonight. I tried using a metal ruler as a guide to score along, and it worked pretty well. I used a mix of magnets and clamps to hold the ruler in place to make sure it didn't move at all. And although it did work well, my largest metal ruler is only a foot long so on the longest side of the thigh, I had to score from the end to the middle, move the ruler, then score the rest. I think need to get a longer ruler.

 

But I did finish trimming the second thigh, so now the limb parts are all rough trimmed.

 

 

I then started on the kidney and found that the ABS is really thin on this part. On my first light pass with the knife, it cut right through. Just lightly scoring is enough to trim this sucker!

 

 

So far I only trimmed the left side and the bottom, and the left side was the really thin part. The bottom took two passes of the knife and I was easily able to snap it. It was a little thicker but not a whole lot. Be careful when trimming this piece!

Edited January 29, 2016 by hupspring

[The5thHorseman[TK]]

ABS is really stretched at this point of the kidney plate, and the more it's stretched, the thinner it gets. So nothing unusual here. So be careful when trimming like you say.

[Airborne Trooper[501st]]

Go to Michaels or Hobby Lobby and get yourself a longer ruler. You'll need it to cut out finishing strips anyways. 

[hupspring[TK]]

I was able to finish off the rough trimming on the torso pieces. Since there were a lot of curvy trim lines, I just used the lexan scissors for the majority of the trimming. I did get a pair of tin snips and they helped out a lot on the bottom and corners of the molds since those areas are thicker, but I liked the lexan scissors better for the rest of the cuts. The tin snips aren't as easy to maneuver and the cut lines were more jaggedy.

 

I thought the torso parts would take longer to trim since they are much bigger, but it actually went pretty quickly. First up the ab and chest were trimmed. There's that weird distortion on the ab that others have noted. 

 

 

The back, kidney and butt plate were trimmed next.

 

 

I have to figure out how much return edge will be left on each part. I need to read up on some other build threads again to see how much others have left in each area.

 

I also tried on the neckseal again, taking allan's advice and zipping it up in the front then spinning it around to the back. It worked much better than trying to zip it up in the back. However, it seems to be a bit large on me. I don't think I'm supposed to be able to do this:

 

 

I may have to get a new neckseal or somehow modify this one to fit better.

[hupspring[TK]]

After getting the initial trimming done, I decided to start fitting the forearms. I read a few other build threads where they kept the ridge on both halves 8mm and trimming off the rest so that when they are joined together, the cover strip will fit nicely on top. That's what I decided to do. I used a metal ruler to trim one side, then put that one on top of the other side and clamped it down to check for placement. Instead of using the ruler for the next cut, I just used the edge of the previously cut half as a guide for the knife. It worked well, but I should probably not be so lazy and use the ruler next time just in case.

 

 

Once that was trimmed, I taped that side together and tried to figure out how much I would need to cut on the other side. But first I had to remove the return edge on the wrist side. I was scared of cutting off too much and probably ended up not cutting off enough, but that can be sanded down later.

 

But how much return edge can be removed from the elbow side? I've read that just the inner half can have the return edge removed, but can I remove more on the outer half?

 

 

After fitting the parts and putting my arm in and out about 30 times, I trimmed off the overlap and taped up that side. I did both forearms before calling it a night. 

 

 

I want to start gluing on the cover strips (I'm probably going to do inner cover strips first, then the outer cover strips) but first I should sand down the edges and figure out the return edge amounts. 

Edited January 30, 2016 by hupspring

[manyhighkicks[TK]]

Nice progress! Glad to see you having success so far.

 

 

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[hupspring[TK]]

I didn't have much time to do anything yesterday, but I did trim most of the return edges from the wrist side of the forearms. I can still probably take a little more off but it's looking better.

 

 

I may just start sanding the rest down and see how it looks. Still haven't decided if I want to use the rotary tool for sanding or use sandpaper. If I use the rotary tool I'll probably practice at different speeds on a scrap piece to make sure I don't screw anything up.

[The5thHorseman[TK]]

For the torso part, I would suggest to remove almost entirely the return edge you left at the neck opening. You don't need much at all at this place, and leaving it might make it more choking than it already is.