hupspring's ANOVOS build

[hupspring[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.

 

 

Although I like how the return edge looks, it does get uncomfortable in places. Any areas I can remove it for comfort I will definitely do.

[SlyFox740[TK]]

I like how the Anovos kits actually have the notch in the top of the thighs, very screen accurate!

 

Edited February 1, 2016 by SlyFox740

[NorthernGator]

Thanks for the detail you give about things like the difficulties trimming. Lots of builds say " Then I trimmed everything" and it is all miraculously finished. There are lots of small challenges I am sure that will help us first time builders once we get started. <br><br>

Looks great so far, keep going!

[sylverbard[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.

You want it large. The sweat drips down inside it, and you want airflow around your neck. Too tight and you'll be fiddling with it like wearing a starched collar and a badly tied tie.

[sylverbard[TK]]

Also...buy curved up right angle tin snips. Smaller radii are possible.

[hupspring[TK]]

You want it large. The sweat drips down inside it, and you want airflow around your neck. Too tight and you'll be fiddling with it like wearing a starched collar and a badly tied tie.

 

Thanks for the tip. I'll wait on doing anything with the neck seal until I'm actually able to put everything on and test it out. That would be great if I can use this one and not have to spend more money on a new one.

[hupspring[TK]]

Thanks for the detail you give about things like the difficulties trimming. Lots of builds say " Then I trimmed everything" and it is all miraculously finished. There are lots of small challenges I am sure that will help us first time builders once we get started. <br><br>

Looks great so far, keep going!

 

I considered not showing my mistakes, but I figured it might help others to not make the same ones. Plus the more experienced builders can tell me how to do it right when I do make those mistakes.

[hupspring[TK]]

I had a few hours today to play with the armor. Since I had all of the rough trimming done, I could finally start doing some fun stuff! I decided to start with the arms since they are the smaller parts and would probably be easier than anything else. I already fit the forearms, so I did the same with the biceps. I forgot to take any pictures of that process, but it's pretty similar to the forearms.

 

Up until this point, I did everything upstairs since there was no mess/vapors/dust flying around. However, it was now time to start sanding the edges. I moved to the garage and decided to set up the rotary tool on a workbench so that I could hold the piece to be sanded with both hands. I used a portable vise/clamp to hold the rotary tool steady.

 

 

I also put the rotary tool on a very low setting (mine goes from 1 to 5 - I started at 1 at first, then increased it to 2 when I got comfortable with it). Don't forget to peel up the plastic wrap that is on the armor before you start sanding - luckily I read someone else's build about this a couple of days ago or I would have forgotten!

 

 

I took it easy with the sanding just doing light passes along the trim lines, getting rid of jagged edges left by the scissors. Once that was done, I used sandpaper to further clean up the edges and make them smooth. I'm not sure what grit my sandpaper is...I had some laying around but it wasn't that rough, probably around 600 grit?

 

Once the sanding was done, I started making some inner cover strips using leftover scraps that were cut off the larger pieces. I think there was a large part from the chest and back that worked great. I measured the length where each cover strip would go (leaving a quarter inch or so on both top and bottom - I didn't want them to be flush) and made them about 15mm wide (since I'm just doing the forearms and biceps right now). I put the scrap ABS on a piece of wood, put the metal ruler on top of that, and clamped them down onto the piece of wood. Then I just used a box cutter to slice the excess plastic off (I didn't bring a hobby knife to the garage and the box cutter was there and worked really well).

 

 

After I cut the inner cover strips, I pulled off the plastic (don't forget to do this!) and I sanded the tops down so they were more rounded and smooth. I don't remember which build thread I read this in (I've been reading so many lately) but they mentioned doing this so that the inner cover strips won't snag on your undersuit. I then lightly sanded the back of the inner cover strips (the side that will be glued to the armor) and also the inside of the armor where the cover strips will be glued which should help with adhesion.

 

I used a pencil and marked the spots where I would be putting the glue (I'm using E6000) on both the armor and cover strips, then the gluing began!

 

 

Maybe a bit overkill on the clamps...

 

I ended up only gluing on three inner cover strips - one on the inner left forearm, one on the outer left forearm, and one on the inner left bicep. Then I ran out of clamps and magnets (probably because I went nuts and put too many on each part). Later I realized I had more clamps upstairs, but it was too late to go back and glue another cover strip on.

 

 

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to glue the two halves of the forearm together and maybe get the inner cover strips on the right arm parts. 

[Order-66[TK]]

I enjoyed your other builds. They helped me with my build. I am loving this thread. Thanks. Great job Richard.

[rangerryan]

Awesome thread man.  This is going to be insanely helpful for me!  I'm working on the same kit and it's my first build ever.  Thank you in advance! haha

[Trogdor[TK]]

Gluing or clamping sand paper down on a flat surface helps sand those long straight bits or even tricky spots like the wrist end of the forearm. (For those that don't have a belt sander)

Edited February 3, 2016 by Trogdor

[hupspring[TK]]

I haven't been able to do much over the last couple of days, but I did manage to glue the two halves of the left forearm and bicep together on one side. I also got the first inner cover strip on one half of the right bicep.

 

 

I have tomorrow off so I'll have most of the day to work on the armor. I'm hoping to finish gluing the arms together with the inner cover strips, start putting on some outer cover strips, and also start fitting and assembling the legs.

[Cicero1981[TK]]

Thank you for taking the time to post this!  I will be starting my first kit build as well.  Look forward to your next post.

Cheers

[hupspring[TK]]

As I was off from work today, I was able to spend several hours working on the armor. The day really flew by! Most of the morning was spent fitting the thighs and cutting them to shape. I followed ukswrath's post to fit the thighs (it's a very good tutorial). 

 

I also started using a pair of pliers to assist in the 'snap' portion of the score and snap method. Previously I was just using my fingers to bend the piece to be removed, but for pieces that are much narrower it was getting harder to do that. Pliers really helped to get the bend and snap the excess pieces off.

 

 

After a couple of hours I finished getting the thighs fitted. I made sure to wear my undersuit pants while test fitting. I was also watching tv at the same time and found out I should be paying more attention to the armor than the tv. I put another small scratch in one of the thigh parts when I was scoring and looking at the tv instead of the knife. But I was happy to finish putting together the thighs!

 

 

I took a lunch break then went to the garage to do more work. First up was creating inner cover strips for the thighs and one of the forearms. Since none of the ABS scraps were long enough, I used a plastic "No Parking" sign to cut out the strips. This was a tip I read in a few other build threads sometime last year.

 

I measured the six inner cover strips that would be needed and labelled the strips as well as the spot on the thigh parts where each strip would be going. I decided to get back to labelling everything since I almost glued a cover strip on the wrong part of a bicep earlier.

 

 

Then I got to sanding the thighs. The rotary tool was used for the rougher bits and everything else was sanded down with sandpaper. I also sanded the inner cover strips like I did in a previous update.

 

Finally I did some more gluing on the arm parts. Tomorrow I should be able to get the biceps and one of the forearms glued together with both inner cover strips. 

 

 

Overall I had a good productive day. I kind of want to get more clamps and magnets so that I can glue more parts together at the same time. I could have glued some inner cover strips to the thighs but I have no more clamps or magnets to use.

[hupspring[TK]]

Didn't have a chance to do much tonight, but I did manage to glue the biceps to both inner cover strips. I also found out that I didn't remove the plastic covering on one of the inner cover strips that I made for one of the forearms. The cover strip just pulled right off, leaving the plastic glued to the forearm. I have no idea how this happened since I wasn't using the side that had plastic on it as the gluing surface.

 

 

I pulled off the plastic and cleaned up the glue, lightly sanded the area again and correctly glued the cover strip back on. I need to make sure I pay better attention when gluing!

[hupspring[TK]]

Tonight I was able to fit and trim the calves, again following ukswrath's tutorial. However, for the left calf, I forgot to trim only from the rear outer half and instead trimmed evenly on both halves so the inner half is a lot shorter at the top than the outer half. Hopefully it's not that big a deal! After trimming the calves, I sanded the bottom and taped them together so that I could try them on over my TKBoots. I wear size 11 normally, but I have wide feet so I got the size 12s. And I have skinny ankles so the boots are pretty wide around that area. I didn't think about that when I fitted the calves, so it might be a bit of a tight squeeze getting the calves over the tops of the boots.

 

 

 

Back in the garage, I glued an inner cover strip onto one of the thigh halves. The biceps are both done with inner cover strips, and both forearms have both halves connected by one inner cover strip so far.

 

 

Tomorrow should see the forearms fully connected and I want to start measuring the outer cover strips for all of the arm parts.

[hupspring[TK]]

Small update today. I finished gluing the forearms to the remaining inner cover strip and measured the outer cover strips for the biceps but haven't cut them yet. I had a side project that I was working on - a duct tape mannequin based on pandatrooper's tutorial.

 

It took about a roll and a half of duct tape and some pvc pipe and fittings for the inner framework, total cost was under $20. 

 

I didn't measure the pipe for the legs correctly, so they are about a half inch to an inch too tall. And I accidentally glued the "neck" connector upside down, so I had to drill out the top to fit in the "head" pipe. 

 

 

The overall frame is slightly too tall but once it's all stuffed (I used newspapers) and taped back up, it looks great! Especially when I start putting armor on it.

 

 

I used black duct tape for the areas between armor parts. Now I need to get some armor built to get my life-sized Stormtrooper toy displayed.

[hupspring[TK]]

Yesterday I cut the outer cover strips for the biceps and glued one cover strip on each bicep. I cut the corner notches and lightly sanded the edges before gluing them on.

 

 

I didn't do much else but I did buy a few more supplies at Home Depot for when I start working on the helmet. I also got some storage shelves that I put together that is going next to my workbench. Now I'll be able to put all these armor parts in the same area instead of scattered throughout the garage.

[hupspring[TK]]

I've been trying to do at least one thing every day on the build, even if it's just something small. Yesterday I didn't have time to do much, but I did measure and cut the outer cover strips for the forearms. I also finished the biceps and today I was able to glue on the first outer cover strips on the forearms. 

 

 

I do have a question on the biceps - the tops of my biceps are uneven, and I saw that ukswrath had one uneven spot and just trimmed that off. But if you look at mine, three of the four joins are uneven. Should I trim the tops down or is it okay to leave it as is since the shoulder bells should be covering them up anyway?

 

Edited February 10, 2016 by hupspring

[CRISTONAMO]

trim the inner bicep top to its even with the flat part, and for better comfortablilty, remove the return edges on the bicep.

[hupspring[TK]]

trim the inner bicep top to its even with the flat part, and for better comfortablilty, remove the return edges on the bicep.

 

Thanks for the advice Cristian. I've been debating on the return edge but I think I will remove it on the bicep so it's more comfortable. 

[kman[TK]]

Take a look at the screen-used arm photo in ukswrath's build thread. I can't recall which page, but it was quoted several times after, so shouldn't be too hard to find. The screen-used biceps had horrible edges, so no big deal. Cristonamo's advice seems sound.

 

Incidentally, it's completely unnecessary to remove the cover plastic except the very small area you need to sand or glue, on the cover surface. Sandpaper and Dremels cut right through the cover plastic no problem, so it can stay there all during trimmingm keeping that finish as pristine as possible.

[hupspring[TK]]

Take a look at the screen-used arm photo in ukswrath's build thread. I can't recall which page, but it was quoted several times after, so shouldn't be too hard to find. The screen-used biceps had horrible edges, so no big deal. Cristonamo's advice seems sound.

 

Incidentally, it's completely unnecessary to remove the cover plastic except the very small area you need to sand or glue, on the cover surface. Sandpaper and Dremels cut right through the cover plastic no problem, so it can stay there all during trimmingm keeping that finish as pristine as possible.

 

I think one of the first items I sanded with that plastic covering on, the plastic started fraying and being annoying so after that I peeled it up from any edges I sanded. It might have just been a weird section that happened the first time, but I figured it would happen again. Having the plastic peeled up does get really annoying though, especially when you are measuring or removing painter's tape after a fitting!

[Airborne Trooper[501st]]

You're going to be polishing the armor anyway so pull off the saran wrap! 1000 of TKs before never had any and survived lol. 

[hupspring[TK]]

Here are some updates for the past couple of nights - more measuring and gluing! I measured and cut inner cover strips for the calves and the outer cover strips for the thighs. I also glued the front of one of the thighs together using the inner cover strip. 

 

 

When gluing it together, I put the end clamps on then all of the magnets, then I realized that the two halves weren't closing properly. I should have put on painter's tape before putting on the magnets to hold the two halves together which is what I've done on other pieces. But I was able to put tape on afterwards and it still worked out well (it just looks messier).

 

The cover strips are all done on the forearms now, so I want to connect the forearms to biceps to shoulder bells. I set them up on my duct tape mannequin to see how it's looking.

 

 

I'm going to try to make it to an armor party tomorrow to ask some fitment questions, but I also want to see if anyone here has some advice. If you look at the side, the shoulder, bicep and forearm match up.

 

 

But if you look at the front, the cover strips on the bicep and forearm don't match up.

 

 

Is this okay? It's like this on the other arm as well (but not as bad). And I don't know if you an tell from this picture, but the cover strip on the forearm shifted slightly to one side after I put the clamps on. I didn't notice this until the next day after it had dried. It's off by 1 or 2 millimeters, but should I pull it off and re-center it?

 

Also, how low can the chest and back plate be (ie. how far away from the neck)? If I have them as they are in the pictures, then the kidney will be a few inches away from the back plate in order to line up properly with the ab plate. And putting the chest any higher will start putting a gap between it and the ab plate.