Tilheyra's FEM7 Build

[Tilheyra[TK]]

Hi, Everyone!

 

After many years of wanting to build my own femtrooper armor, I am finally taking the leap by building a FEM7 kit!

 

My kit arrived in the mail a couple of days ago, and I have since been removing a good amount of the excess material as I work toward the measuring and fitting phase. As I am still very early on in my build, I hope to be able to use this forum to ask for advice and seek feedback from those who have experience building any of the various stormtrooper kits! Thank you to @Vicky_Velocipanda for encouraging me to discuss my build here!

 

I'll make a post with some of my progress photos so far in a little bit!

[Tilheyra[TK]]

These two photos show my progress so far. The first photo serves as the "before" image, with the pieces having been laid out just after coming out of the shipping box. The second photo shows the work I have done so far. This work encompasses cutting much of the excess material off the areas of the pieces that will not butt against or overlap other pieces. I am leaving just a little bit of the excess material on with the expectation that this final bit of excess will be removed when I sand the edges with the sanding bits of my Dremel and a sanding block.

 

The excess material in places that may butt up or overlap will remain until I have the opportunity to measure and then fit the pieces, which needs to wait until my friend is available to help me (I imagine this will be way too aggravating if I do this part myself).

 

Anyway, here are the two photos:

 

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Nice work

[Tilheyra[TK]]

Thank you! I'm trying to be super diligent and careful as I progress! I want to make sure I do things right.

[Tilheyra[TK]]

I was able to finish the rest of the preliminary cutting of the excess material today (at least what I am able to cut prior to measuring). Here are some photos showing the arm and shoulder pieces prior to cutting, after cutting, and the whole set after preliminary cutting!

 

Now it seems I am in a holding pattern until my friend can help with the measuring and fitting. Perhaps I should spend this time to plan the strapping. Hmm....

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 19, 2023 by Tilheyra

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

Welcome to FISD .  You may want to take a look to this section for some reference for your build. 

 

https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/forum/151-legacy-stormtrooper-build-threads/

 

 

 

 

[Tilheyra[TK]]

Thank you for pointing me to the legacy stormtrooper threads! I see a lot of useful information. It's a good thing there are numerous similarities between the FEM7 and legacy armor!

[Doggydoc[Staff]]

Hi Tilheyra. Welcome to FISD. 
Looking good so far. 

[Nairy[Staff]]

Welcome Tilheyra! Keep up the great work!  Research is key! 

[Tilheyra[TK]]

I was able to make some progress yesterday! I had a friend come over to help me with measuring the chest, back, and torso pieces. After trying the pieces and measuring, I went ahead and cut the remaining excess from those pieces. The photo shows the chest piece after the remaining excess has been removed, and you can also see the cut line on the front torso piece.

 

As I anticipated, I am just a bit bigger than the front and back torso pieces allow, so they do not butt up with each other. As such, I cut off as little as I could from those pieces (just cutting off the curve edge from the manufacturing process). I am toying with the idea of creating a spacer to fill the gap to give the appearance of the white armor fully wrapping around my body on each side. I was not surprised by this as this is a crossplay, so I knew some modification may be needed to get the armor to fit my body. However, aside from the modification using the spacers, I am wanting to follow the guidelines for building stormtrooper armor as close as I can, due to how well-tested those guidelines are.

 

I still need to do the sanding and finishing, but I think I will work on the strapping for these pieces before moving on to anything else. At least for the chest, back, and troso, I am going to go with snaps to attach the elastic. Not sure about the rest of the armor yet.

 

[Tilheyra[TK]]

I have been thoughtfully progressing on gluing the snaps and working with the elastic. I have also cut out the two spacers to their rough dimensions. As shown in the photo, I have been using spring clamps to help the gluing process. In similar fashion to what others have shown many times before, the clamps stay on for 24 hours to allow for the E6000 glue to cure properly. Of course, I made sure to use a little soap and water to clean the pieces before applying the glue.

 

I plan to have 3 elastic straps on each side. One each at the top and bottom of the front and back torso pieces, and one where the chest and back pieces meet under my arms (I will also have shoulder straps).

 

As for the spacers I mentioned, although the following explanation will make a lot more sense when I can take and show a photo of the spacers, the following is my plan: The spacers will each have only one snap, which will be positioned to attach to the lowest piece of elastic on each side. The top of the spacers will be allowed to float. The spacers will be floating between the elastic straps on the interior side and the ends of the chest, back, and torso pieces on the exterior side. The snaps on the ends of each elastic strap will prevent the spacer from moving too far forward or backward, and the same is for the single snap attaching the spacer to the bottom elastic strap. I figure the bottom edge will have the least amount of movement, compared to twisting side to side near the top, so that is why the snap is on the bottom. Finally, the spacers will have rounded corners so as not to jab at my sides.

 

Anyway, here's a photo of the gluing process:

 

[TheRascalKing[TK]]

2 hours ago, Tilheyra said:

I have been thoughtfully progressing on gluing the snaps and working with the elastic. I have also cut out the two spacers to their rough dimensions. As shown in the photo, I have been using spring clamps to help the gluing process. In similar fashion to what others have shown many times before, the clamps stay on for 24 hours to allow for the E6000 glue to cure properly. Of course, I made sure to use a little soap and water to clean the pieces before applying the glue.

 

Couple tips - scuff the pieces lightly with sandpaper or an emory board before gluing instead of washing them and possibly leaving soap residue. This allows for better mechanical bond and freshly scuffed plastic is "clean" by nature. 

 

Also, ensure you're clamping the material (in this case ABS, though mounting my male snaps to nylon web that conforms to the shape of the armor better is my preferred method), not the the actual metal snaps themselves. I've seen the metal react with glue and warp, and you really want the ABS to be what's glued in. 

 

Keep at it!

[Tilheyra[TK]]

22 hours ago, TheRascalKing said:

Couple tips - scuff the pieces lightly with sandpaper or an emory board before gluing instead of washing them and possibly leaving soap residue. This allows for better mechanical bond and freshly scuffed plastic is "clean" by nature. 

 

Also, ensure you're clamping the material (in this case ABS, though mounting my male snaps to nylon web that conforms to the shape of the armor better is my preferred method), not the the actual metal snaps themselves. I've seen the metal react with glue and warp, and you really want the ABS to be what's glued in. 

 

I was able to reglue some of the snaps in accordance with what you recommended! For the snaps I could not change, I will wait until they need to be reglued, and then follow your recommendation. 

 

As the snaps had fully set and cured on both the front and back torso pieces, I went ahead and made the elastic straps for those pieces (I used white elastic as these will be covered by the torso pieces and the spacers I am creating). This also gave me the opportunity to take a photo of the gap in the armor pieces on my sides. This is not the best of photos, but it demonstrates what I was discussing with wanting to create spacers to fill this gap. Unfortunately, the ABS plastic spacers are too rigid to be able to shimmy into place, so I am not considering making the spacers out of 2 or 3 mm foam sheet. This would, of course, be sealed prior to painting the same color and at the same time as the rest of the armor. 

 

I am very happy with the fit of the torso pieces with the elastic strapping! They stay is place really well! However, that may change when I finally wear this to my first con with this armor, but I will consider this a success at this point! Although the chest armor is in the photo, I have not completely positioned this where I want it, so the position my change.

 

Here's the ridiculously zoomed-in bathroom mirror photo of the armor gap:

 

[TheRascalKing[TK]]

I just wanna circle back super quick btw, if anyone else reads this - I didn't mean to say don't wash your parts. Absolutely wash your parts. It's a good habit and will help help your chances of avoiding paint reactions at a minimum.

 

I literally got some fresh ABS pulled parts in yesterday, and they were covered in a light grease, probably some kind of mold release or something, and I washed everything with a soft sponge and dish soap before doing anything else.

 

I mean specifically that washing a part is not a part of my, and probably does not need to be part of your, regular glue preparation technique. A light scuff will definitely help. E6000 is fantastic when applied correctly for its designed use. Agreed, no need to redo the other ones, but that should help moving forward. 

 

Progress looks great. We admittedly don't see the use of a lot of foam over here, as we generally try to stick to the same production techniques as utilized in the sources we replicate... but here's a perfect example of "why not?" and keep us posted with how it works out! Especially after paint, just aim to have it be indistinguishable from the rest of the armor and it should be fine.

[Tilheyra[TK]]

I would have preferred to keep the plastic for the spacer, but my greater familiarity with foam led me to think that is the route for these pieces (at least for now). I don't anticipate needing to use any other foam on this project, however! 

 

To try and keep the foam spacers looking like the rest of the armor, I plan to "treat" the surface with a heat gun, spray with Plasti Dip, and then spray with the same paint as the rest of the armor.

[Sly11[Admin]]

Definitely mold release Justin, very common practice, even more so on parts that have miner undercuts, like a cap n back of a OTTK bucket. It certainly makes the plastic pop off a mold easier in my experience pulling ABS.

 

Welcome to FISD and our new Valkyries section Tilheyra!

As you can see we have members and staff all willing and ready to offer you the best advise in support, to get you approved and trooping in this fantastic kit.

A pleasure to have you aboard.

[Tilheyra[TK]]

To prevent myself from getting overwhelmed thinking about what needs to be done with everything for the full set of armor, I've decided to see the chest, back, and torso pieces through to completion (minus painting) before moving on to anything else. I determined I was at the point of needing to sand off the last remaining excess on the edges of the chest, back, and torso pieces before proceeding to the next stage of test fitting. I went ahead and sanded the edges by using a couple of different sanding drums on my Dremel, sanding from roughest to finest grain, and ending with a a quick bit of sanding my hand using a really fine grit. All of this sanding brought the edges to their proper dimensions, straightened the edges as best as possible, and made these edges much smoother!

 

 

I then proceeded to do a test fitting and found that, although the elastic I have to hold the torso pieces together and the chest and back pieces together work just fine, I need to have something to hold the chest to the front torso piece and back to the back torso piece. I tried as best I could to get the bottom of the back piece to line up properly with the top of the back torso piece, but I could not close that gap. As such, I decided to add velcro to these areas to allow myself more ability to adjust the vertical spacing of the armor pieces, as well as close the gaps present between those pieces. The velcro was glued onto the interior of the various pieces yesterday. The rougher side oft he velcro is what is glued to the interior of the pieces. The softer part of the velcro will remain loose pieces that will be attached when needed for wearing the armor.

 

 

Today, I went ahead and did another test fitting. I am pleased with the progress so far! Nevertheless, I think I have more to do before I complete all of the test fittings. I found that I need to shorten the elastic straps at my sholders as the current arrangement allows the top of the chest and back pieces to sit a bit too far forward and backward, respectively, for my liking. The bottom piece clearly needs to be worked on in terms of how it attaches, and I may have more excess to cut off. Also, the newly-added velcro certainly helps keep things together, but I don't think 2 pieces of velcro for each will be sufficient. I glued the velcro to the areas closer to the center of my back and front, rather than to my sides. I think I will add further velcro to the sides (where the back and chest pieces butt together and the front and back torso pieces butt together) to help in these areas as well.

 

Even with the addition of more velcro I am not very concerned about restricting my movement in these areas for two reasons. First, I attach the velcro with an eye toward a little bit of play, so this will be sufficient as to not restrict movement. Second, as I have mentioned this is a crossplay, I am wearing a corset when I am wearing the armor, and the corset itself restricts movement more than the armor itself would. I also made sure to perform common movements during my test fitting today, and I had no issues, so I think I am okay as it comes to movement. 

 

The photos below are of the test fitting today. I am holding the best piece in the first photo as I have not yet done any work to get that piece to attach properly. The other photos show other angles:

 

 

 

[Tilheyra[TK]]

Here's the current version of the interior velcro attachments. I think I also need velcro on the interior of the sides to further keep the pieces together in a vertical orientation. The elastic does wonders keeping things attached horizontally.

 

The velcro attachments were in place during the test fitting shown in my previous post, so I think I did a good job keeping these hidden!

 

 

 

[Tilheyra[TK]]

I went ahead and made the spacers out of 2mm foam and tried them out today. I intentionally cut the foam with excess, so now that I have seen how it fits I will trim the pieces. The next step is to heat treat with a heat gun, spray with plasti dip, and then paint the same color as the rest of the armor. The chest back and torso pieces are approaching the point of being ready to paint as well!

 

 

The velcro effort from my last post did not go as well as I had hoped, so it looks like making a couple more elastic straps will also be part of my future. I plan to get that done before painting the chest, back, and torso pieces. The bottom armor still needs to be trimmed as well. Nevertheless, I am really excited about all of the work I have been doing on my armor!

 

After these tasks, I will have to stop all progress for a couple of weeks as I am moving multiple states from where I currently live. I'm happy about the move, but not too happy about the need to pause this build. At least that will give me time to plan the other parts of the build.

[Tilheyra[TK]]

I finally resolved the strapping situation!!! I accepted that I need to go with elastic to keep everything together properly, given that solely using velcro to address vertical movement between the chest and front torso and back and rear torso pieces was not working as I wanted. As such, I glued more snaps on the inside of the armor and made more elastic straps to address the vertical movement on the sides. This is the result:

 

 

It is a behemoth of a strapping system, but none of it shows through when wearing the armor and having the spacers inserted! Some of the rougher velcro pieces are still in place as they are glued, but those will be ignored.

 

Next, I will glue the folded-over parts of the elastic straps to prevent further fraying. I was waiting to do this until everything was finalized.

 

And speaking of elastic straps, here are the straps I made for my shoulders. As I have seen others do with their armor, I decided to connect the shoulder strap/armor pieces using snaps. I also decided to use snaps to connect the pauldrons to my shoulders as well. The snap that is dead center is for the shoulder armor, whereas the snap off to the side is for the pauldron strap:

 

[Tilheyra[TK]]

I finally reached the point where I felt comfortable painting some of the armor pieces! I decided to use Krylon satin white for the armor, and I was a bit overzealous with the paint as I was only able to complete 2 coats by the time I got to the bottom of the can. Fortunately, the paint is pretty cheap!

 

I was able to paint (you guessed it) the chest, back, front and rear torso, and the bottom piece. I'll buy more paint today to continue the process. I may stop after 3 coats, but I won't be surprised if a 4th coat is needed. After that, I will follow up with a satin clear coat and go from there.

 

 

 

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

looking good !  nice work 

[Tilheyra[TK]]

I don't know if folks can see from this photo, but this is after finishing the painting and clear coat for the front torso piece. I ended up applying 4 coats of paint and 3 of clear coat. The white paint was Krylon All-In-One Satin White, and the clear coat was Rustoleum 2x Satin Clear. The clear coat does have a little bit of a shine and isn't too flashy, which is what I was going for. However, this photo was taken in the early evening, so different lighting conditions may give me a better idea of the sheen.

 

All of the parts I was painting in my previous post were painting as shown in the photo:

 

 

With the paint on the grass my friend finally has a reason to cut the unkempt grass...

Edited July 15, 2023 by Tilheyra

[Tilheyra[TK]]

Here's a better photo of the armor pieces out in better light. The shine is a bit more muted than I expected, but it still looks pretty good to me. What do you all think?

 

I can always put a glossier clear coat on the armor if needed.

 

 

The tape in place on the holder for the thermal detonator will be removed when it comes time to attach the thermal detonator. I'll score/sand the part covered by the tape before gluing, and I have tape on the corresponding spot on the thermal detonator for the same reason. I also drilled a small hold in each to allow a pin to be glued in place between the two, which should provide a more of an attachment than just glue alone. I do not have pictures of the thermal detonator as I have not been able to complete the painting for it yet.

 

One issue arose when attaching the holder for the thermal detonator to the rear torso piece. I ended up putting more bonding agent on than I should have, and it didn't look much better after I sanded the extra bonding agent by hand. I then used a Dremel to carefully remove more, but I stopped when I felt I was removing too much material. It doesn't look as apparent in this photo, but it does appear when looking at the armor close up (maybe I just notice it because I know it is there). When it comes time to wear this to cons, I guess if anyone wants to fixate on it, I think I will just say the extra glue was from a "field repair." 

 

Another small detail to discuss is the shadow effect I added to the chest armor. Many of the FEM7 photos I have seen have had some sort of shadow effect or weathering to emphasize the front 'plate' on the chest armor itself, so I wanted to try the same. I didn't do a full weathering as I could always add that later (but it would be harder to remove weathering if I did it now), so I took a regular pencil and traced the inside edge of this front plate. I think the results are pretty decent, and will be sufficient for the job. I did this prior to adding the clear coat, and I can tell from my above photo that the shadow is doing its intended job!

 

Here's the shadowing before I applied clear coat to the chest piece:

 

 

And with the painting for these pieces complete, I have to take a pause on this project for a week or so. I am moving multiple states away from where I currently live, so this all has to be put back in its original box for the move. A bit anticlimactic to have to pause this project, especially at this stage, but I will be picking it back up soon enough!

 

I will be working on the leg armor when I pick this project back up. Any recommended build threads concerning leg armor that I should look at in the mean time?

 

 

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

14 hours ago, Tilheyra said:

The shine is a bit more muted than I expected, but it still looks pretty good to me. What do you all think?

 

 

it's a preferences matter, to me it looks nice, other people would like more shiny. Nice work.