Sha Sha's (Slow) KB FOTK Build for Short Troopers

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

I have elastic from my biceps to shoulder straps similar to OTTK.

 

Here you can see the hook areas for using the stetch bands like other new era costume builds.

 

Your backplate is angling backwards.

 

Also ab and belt on an angle. You may also want to trim down the rear of the forearms a little as they do touch.

 

I would trim your shoulders down, they do look a little large.

 

 

 

[shashachu[TK]]

3 hours ago, gmrhodes13 said:

I have elastic from my biceps to shoulder straps similar to OTTK.

Just to clarify, you mean from the biceps to the shoulder bell?

 

For the forearms, I don't think I have a lot of room to trim them because of the detailing on the back. I suspect if I can add strapping to keep my biceps up they won't touch.

 

Re the ab/belt tilt, I noticed that in the photos as well. I have scoliosis so my right hip naturally sits higher than my left, so I think that's probably why. I'm not sure I'll be able to do too much about it, but I'll see. It's not as pronounced in other photos so I think it's more of a dressing issue, or things shifting around.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

42 minutes ago, shashachu said:

Just to clarify, you mean from the biceps to the shoulder bell?

Yes elastic from the biceps to shoulder bell.

[ukswrath[Staff]]

10 hours ago, shashachu said:

 How do you all attach the biceps? Is it just the velcro on the gaskets or do you strap it to the shoulder bells?

 

I connected mine to my inner suspension harness. Very similar to how the movie armor was done. Though this option is obviously not required.

 

 

 

[shashachu[TK]]

11 hours ago, ukswrath said:

 

I connected mine to my inner suspension harness. Very similar to how the movie armor was done. Though this option is obviously not required.

 

 

 

 

oh that's a really interesting method. does the strap go through the gasket at some point then? I should probably just take another look at your build thread haha!

[ukswrath[Staff]]

2 hours ago, shashachu said:

 

oh that's a really interesting method. does the strap go through the gasket at some point then? I should probably just take another look at your build thread haha!

Yes to the gasket question, not necessarily my build thread 

[shashachu[TK]]

Well medium sized snafu this morning. The top of the calves were too large, and although they were only glued on the outside, I decided if I only brought them in on one side, things would look lopsided, so I needed to pull them apart. I can't remember what glue I used to put them together, but on at least once side I must have used CA glue because the ABS ended up tearing pretty badly. Oops! I cut off the rest and will need to decide how to proceed.

 

I am leaning towards a repair, but I also have the 850 armor, but the pulls are terrible so I think that might annoy me even more. The only risky part about a repair is that the calves are going to need to flex so I'm not sure if that's just asking for trouble.

 

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Ouch, a difficult area for sure. You may be able to cut off the damaged area in a strip, add a stiffener behind (which will be the base of the closure) then replace with a strip on top, if that makes sense, I bit like a OTTK side shim.

 

Something like this

 

 

 

[shashachu[TK]]

Yeah exactly; I'm thinking of something like a shim. 

 

I also just had a thought that the KB shins are basically symmetric besides the black oval at the ankle; I might consider actually swapping them so that the messed up area is on the inside of the left shin rather than the outside of the right.

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Ouch! 

On a positive note, like you already figured out shimming, and maybe abs paste might be in order. Im sure 850 would be happy to supply you with with some scrap for the paste. 

[shashachu[TK]]

I've been bad about updating this thread, but I have been working on the costume.

 

First, the shin repair. As I stated above, I decided to swap the shins so that the messed up part will be on the inside. The KB shins appear to be identical, so it wasn't a huge deal. I used shims and ABS paste and some Bondo spot putty to repair the torn calf and it ended up looking pretty good. I'll need some more work to really make it disappear but otherwise I was happy with the result:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During this time, I actually realized my feet are small enough compared to the size of the shoes/shins that I can just glue them shut. This also makes it so I don't have to worry about the repair flexing. I went ahead and glued them with E6000:

 

 

 

[shashachu[TK]]

In the meantime, I decided to finally finish assembling and painting the SE-44C that I'd printed a while back.

 

 

 

I did make the trigger moveable but otherwise didn't add any electronics: https://photos.app.goo.gl/RgeCtCCKYu8H7RwCA

 

It's not 100% flawless but I'm happy with the result. Thank you to @The5thHorseman for making these incredible files available to us!

[shashachu[TK]]

Beyond those major updates, it's been tons and tons of small TODO items to inch closer to the finish line. 

I assembled and tested the holster:

 

 

 

Attached the 'kit kat' boxes:

 

(pre-sanding) 

 

 

Re-created the oval detail on the shins:

 

 

 

Assembled the spats:

Hea

 

Heat shaped the knees and sewed Velcro onto the gasket to attach them:

 

 

Created a tab/magnet system to keep the sides of the chest and yoke together:

 

 

A short video showing it in action: https://photos.app.goo.gl/JPp7zLxjMh2unCoD8

 

I don't have any photos at the moment, but I also added snaps to the ab suspender and the underside of the yoke which keep it in the same place. I also have a nylon strap/snaps as a failsafe for the chest in case the velcro doesn't hold. Initially I tried to make the strap in ABS so that it could actually keep the chest on without any Velcro but I need to reposition the snaps or possibly use slightly thinner ABS because the snaps kept popping out. 

 

 

 

[shashachu[TK]]

With more items ticked off, I decided to do another suit up today. These are stills from a video so the image quality isn't amazing, and I dressed myself so there are a number of dressing issues, but I'm happy with how everything is coming together.

 

 

 

 

 

Still TODO from from the fitting/assembly/strapping point of view:

 

- I still need a way to keep the biceps up. I've been considering various methods such as strapping them to the shoulder bells (the same thing I did with my OTTK), or possibly adding some kind of strap with a snap or buckle to attach them to the shoulder gaskets.

- There is also nothing keeping the spats in place on the shin, so I'll add some Velcro.

- I have an idea to attach elastic to ankle sleeves, and attach them to the bottom of the knee gaskets in order to keep them from riding/bunching up. This is particularly necessary since my shin armor is fixed and I have to slip my legs/feet in vs closing the armor around my shins.

- The inside point of the shin armor really digs into the inside of my knee (the top of my tibia) so I am planning on cutting them down some. Looking at the Anovos/Denuo Novo armor, the inside point is quite a bit shorter than the outside so I'm assuming this is fine. 

- Finally, one danger of taking 8 years to build a set of hard armor is accounting for body size changes. I have been lifting weights consistently for the last 6 years, so my arms and legs are bigger than they were when I first started this project. I already made the biceps slightly bigger, and I am considering doing the same for the thighs.

 

After all the strapping and fitting it will be endless sanding and painting, but I do feel like the end is in sight!

[shashachu[TK]]

For your amusement, here are two videos of me getting myself dressed. It is much harder than the OTTK haha!

 

This first one was the first try and you can see I did things in a non-optimal order which made things a lot harder than they needed to be:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/AGHJoMYBU7XWxhmS7

 

The second time went much more smoothly:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/3f23cqS73UQzKiW56

[shashachu[TK]]

Have been knocking off items from my TODO list.

 

First I decided to add straps and buckles to the gaskets to keep the biceps in place:

 

 

They work well to keep the biceps up and not hitting the forearms:

 

 

It did remind me, though, that when my biceps are in place, I can't put my arms fully down because they hit the sides of the chest. I think if I cut the inside of the biceps lower I could make it slightly better, but it's hard to say unless I actually do it, and then if I change my mind it would certainly be a pain to fix.

 

 

Since the biceps now pull a bit at the shoulders of the gaskets, I added a higher chest strap to keep things in place:

 

 

The next project was to add elastic to the bottoms of my knee gaskets, attached to (cut up) ankle sleeves in order to keep the knee gaskets from riding up. It actually works decently well, so I was happy my idea worked out. I don't think I'll be able to 100% keep the knee gaskets from bunching up but it's a lot better. As a reminder, this is necessary in my build because my calves are glued shut, and I need to slip my feet into the calf armor/boots.

 

 

You'll also noticed that I decided to rotate the knee gaskets by 90 degrees so the seam is on the inside of my knee. I found that having it on the back of my knees really made the bunching worse. This means I had to remove and reposition the knee armor velcro as well.

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Look great Sha Sha. Nice progress

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

Awesome work Sha Sha !! 

[shashachu[TK]]

I was thinking I was pretty close to the painting stage, so I went ahead and sanded all the ABS parts to get rid of the gloss and get a nice consistent surface. I did a pass with 120 grit, then 220 grit, then washed them.

 

 

However, after trying on upper body again, I really think I will need to shorten the biceps because I feel like the kid from The Christmas Story who can't put his arms down:

 

 

I am thinking that if I were to shorten the biceps from the top, they'll still hit the chest but not as badly. The thickness of the 3D print vs a vacuumformed chest is a big disadvantage here.

 

 

In order to test out my theory, I made a bicep piece out of paper and trimmed it shorter:

 

 

 

Taking a look at other builds, it doesn't seem to look ridiculous.

 

When I was looking at my bicep pieces, I also saw the clip sits high compared to other people's builds, so I think I should be able to trim from the bottom as well, which should allow me to drop the entire bicep lower, and make it so I don't have to trim as much from the top. I like having the biceps high because it gives me a lot more arm mobility but this might be an area I'll just need to compromise.

 

I've marked in tape where I think I'll trim. (The upper trim is at the top of the tape):

 

 

As is the way of things, when I was pulling the back armor off, it split at the middle seam:

 

 

I realized I'd only glued that seam, though, so I went ahead and 'welded' the entire seam together with a soldering iron, as well as backed it with a thick piece of ABS. I welded from both the inside and outside so that will make finishing a bit of a pain, but probably good that I reinforced the seam as the back armor gets a ton of flex when I put it on and take it off.

 

Edited to add a photo of the welded back piece. Obviously it will take a lot more work to hide the seam:

 

Edited June 2 by shashachu

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Cardboard bicep was a great idea and not expensive if you trim too much 

 

It doesn't look like you need a huge amount removed going on your full kit-up photo

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Wow, outstanding work with the mods Sha Sha. Ingenuity at its finest. 

 

A little helpful hint. Every seam, including those you had to create to accommodate for sizing, will stress and flex, especially when  installing and removing the armor. Naturally this will have an adverse effect on your paint job. Cracking seams/paint is a very big issue with this armor. May I suggest you follow up the non factory seams with plastic welder, at least on the inside of the armor. Its strong, somewhat flexible and it's sandable.

 

I love seeing all your hard work and dedication. It reminds me of Diana's TK. Keep up the great work.

[shashachu[TK]]

8 hours ago, gmrhodes13 said:

Cardboard bicep was a great idea and not expensive if you trim too much 

 

It doesn't look like you need a huge amount removed going on your full kit-up photo

In this photo the biceps aren't strapped at all so they're sitting pretty low. And actually last night I went ahead and trimmed one of the biceps 😅. It was slightly impulsive so hopefully they're not too short haha

[shashachu[TK]]

24 minutes ago, ukswrath said:

Wow, outstanding work with the mods Sha Sha. Ingenuity at its finest. 

 

A little helpful hint. Every seam, including those you had to create to accommodate for sizing, will stress and flex, especially when  installing and removing the armor. Naturally this will have an adverse effect on your paint job. Cracking seams/paint is a very big issue with this armor. May I suggest you follow up the non factory seams with plastic welder, at least on the inside of the armor. Its strong, somewhat flexible and it's sandable.

 

I love seeing all your hard work and dedication. It reminds me of Diana's TK. Keep up the great work.

 

Thanks so much for the kind words.

 

And you mean something like JB Weld? These are the seams in the 3d print, for what it's worth. I agree they're going to be the weakest part of the build which is scary because they're also under the most stress. 

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Just now, shashachu said:

 

Thanks so much for the kind words.

 

And you mean something like JB Weld? These are the seams in the 3d print, for what it's worth. I agree they're going to be the weakest part of the build which is scary because they're also under the most stress. 

You're quite welcome, and well deserved.

 

JB or Devcon (what I used). Most are quite similar and will definately help with the support. In some areas (with the highest amount of stress) an inner coverstrip with plastic welder might also be a good idea.

[shashachu[TK]]

I was messing around with the positioning of the biceps last night and I think one of the issues was that I added the strap to the gasket. While I like this because it's easy to strap in myself, it also pulls the biceps inwards which pushes them into the chest piece and forces me to hold my arms out. I think if I changed the strapping to be connected to the shoulder bells instead, it would pull the biceps away from my armor, giving me a little more room.

 

Either way I think I'm going to be pretty mobility restricted, but I won't feel like my arms are being held out quite so much.

 

It's funny too because there is a huge gap between how the armor looks (pretty good) and how it feels (not great) which I think is the way of the FOTK. I'm extremely excited to get this armor done but I also know there's a reason folks do not troop often in it.