Stratcat96's Anovos Stunt (first time) Fitting and Strapping Thread

[Stratcat96[TK]]

Well after 4 months of building, my TK armor is finally done. I didn't do a build thread, because like so many others I diligently followed Ukswrath's build thread, and asking questions when I needed help

 

Well now I'm in the final stretch with fitting and strapping. There are so many very knowledgeable people here and I'm kind of running blind at this point. I've decided to use the Anovos Velcro for fitting, and once that's done pulling some of it out and replacing with industrial Velcro and the rest with snaps.

 

I already received my pencap garter system and have the snap plates drying on my thighs, so I'll get to that later..

 

First up, putting the torso pieces together. I figured the best thing to do was to get my chest and back connections set.

 

As I said, I used Anovos' system with Velcro.

 

This pic is just to illustrate how I set it up inside, back, kidney, and butt were all aligned flush with each other.

 

So I put everything on, and tried to align the back plate as best I could, fitting it to the form of my back.

 

 

 

As you can see, the kidney is flailed out. I'm sure that will wrap around with strapping and the belt.

 

Right off the bat I detect a problem-- the butt and kidney are too high. I also put the ab plate on and confirmed that I can't push it up high enough to align it with the kidney..

 

Next up: I took some advice to start with the bottom. I snapped the crotch together and put the ab/butt and kidney on, lined them up, and put the backplate on lining up with my shoulders and back. Once that was lined up I had a helper attack the Velcro and put on the belt.

 

 

 

Now I've got some gap.. The backplate was still to my feeling not quite high enough so I adjusted it up. I didn't get a picture but it's now a little less than an inch gap.

 

Now at this point I could hot water straighten the tabs on the backplate but without having a reliable measure due to the kidney and ab not being secured enough to call them perfectly aligned I wanted to hold off..

 

I thought about it, and decided I don't want to do a semi-permanent set of strapping incorporating the rivets. I'm 5'10 and 180lbs and dropping (I lost 15lbs so far while building). I've been told at my height I shouldn't have a gap, so that makes me question my ab/kidney alignment even more.

 

I was pleasantly surprised to see the kidney wraps around with a sliver of a gap at MOST.

 

I decided on 2 2" elastic straps on either side to pull everything in and keep the front and back together, and (hopefully) keep the ab and kidney aligned. The reason I want to go with elastic rather than webbing is so there is a bit of flex in case I need it. If not, then the two halves will be together as intended.

 

 

These are just two pieces of 2" Velcro to illustrate what I have in mind.

 

I planned on putting two 1x2 snap plates 1 inch from the edge on both sides of both pieces. (I cut the elastic straps to a length with the 1" inset in mind, although now I'm questioning whether I should have planned for them to be right at the edge.) the reasoning for the 1" inset is so the plates could be mounted to have the elastic on the bottom and top edge, which because there's rivets in the way would require the snaps to behind them.

 

 

Hopefully my math is right lol so I figure that's 1" of travel, another inch for the snaps. That's 4 inches of elastic per side between the ab and kidney. I added another inch to fold over and double up on the end where the snaps will go.

 

I cut a total of 4 6" pieces of elastic, and 8 1x2 pieces of black webbing. I doubled over the ends of the elastic and seed them down

 

 

I tried the "hot nail" technique to put the holes in, but it just didn't work for me because the holes were coming out all over the place.

 

I hopped on the computer and made a template so the holes would be evenly spaced and be in the exact same spots on every piece.

 

 

 

Taped it to the piece and used a punch to do the holes. Much easier, at least for me.

 

 

 

Once the holes were done in everything, I started adding snaps

 

 

 

 

 

That's it for tonight. Since I'm really thinking that perhaps I should just use the snap plates right on the edge of the kidney/ab I stopped with putting snaps in and just have one elastic piece completed. I'll have to think about, but if anyone has input I would be very interested to hear.

 

My hopes are the with the ab/cod together and aligned I can determine where EXACTLY the back plate falls on my back without a gap and if I have to, bend the tabs to fit me better.

 

As my title says this is my first time doing this so any and all advice is welcome!

 

 

 

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Edited July 18, 2016 by Stratcat96