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Nytetrain's AM armor rebuild


Nytetrain

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So its been in storage for a couple of years and like I said my father and my son put this together quick and dirty. I went though and pulled all the industrial strength self-sticking Velcro off. It leaves a tough amount of residual adhesive behind.

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Its super sticky and I was trying to figure out how to get it off. I did a Google search on how to remove adhesive from ABS plastic. This armor is made with acrylic capped ABS and I didn't want to ruin the high gloss finish. There where suggestions from isopropal alcohol to products like WD 40 and Goo Gone. Which I have all of them so I started there. The first forearm took me an hour using a combination of all three along with an old gift card as a scraper. I then washed it in dish washing liquid and warm water to get the chemical residue off.

After the first piece of armor was cleaned I sat down and took a break and started thinking... "This is going to take forever". I picked up the next piece and started rubbing it with my thumb and the adhesive started peeling back and I ended up with a little ball of it stuck to my thumb. I tried getting it off and my thumb was stuck to the armor. I pulled it off the armor and it pulled up the next bit of adhesive. I thought to myself "huh... I guess there is something to fighting fire with fire" and just continued doing this until all the adhesive was lifted from the armor. Took me ten minutes to do the next piece and so on and so on. The ball of adhesive in my hand was getting bigger and bigger but I managed to clean the whole suit in about 2 hours. It was also cleaner then using the chemicals, less work and less smelly.

This looks like the Velcro came up at one time and he tried gluing it back down with something else. Nothing can be done about this mess. No big deal though it wont be seen and most of it will get trimmed away anyways.
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Finished and cleaned part
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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey all,
An update on the Stormtrooper build... so there has been a change of plans for this particular set of armor. The wife has decided that she wants this suit so, I am building it for her. I have been given permission, with much sweet talk and cajoling, to buy another set. So, on with the build.

Notice this lip... this older type of armor used a method called the overlap method of construction to simulate the finishing strips on the armor used in the movies. These need to be trimmed down and modified to an acceptable butt method and then covered with finishing strips.
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Marked where I wanted to put tape:
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Because of the nature of the plastic it's hard to see pencil or pen lines so I use blue tape for my cutting line:
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This bicep armor is fit to my wife's arm and taped together to make sure it still fit her. If not, we can remeasure and trim some more:
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Bicep mostly completed with cover strips... Just needs a sand on both ends to make everything flush and it's ready for the next phase. It looks like the finishing strip is crooked but it really isn't. These biceps parts are large at the top and taper quite a bit at the bottom:
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I cut the finishing strips a little long for trimming... I am going to do this a different, easier way when I do the forearms.

Joint is now butted together and covered with a covering strip:
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On to more cutting, sanding and fitting. Until next time.

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Coming along nicely, tape works well as a cutting line.

 

Just nip off the corners of the cover strips, will stop them digging in when moving

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Yea, I did that initially but I cut the strips too long and I am going to lose my 45s when I sand the ends flat. After I sand the ends down I will rework them back in. The other bicep is correct as well as the forearms.

Edited by Nytetrain
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