maxsteele

I don't have any recent pics, because it was 11pm and I didn't want a mirror shot, but last night I put on all of my upper armor, neck seal and helmet. I had tape holding the other side of my shoulder strap in place, to gauge the tightness of the strap, and I don't have my biceps connected to my forearms yet, but man - I was looking like a Stormtrooper. I felt the size of my shoulder bells were looking fine. They push out some from my arms, but I like the look. I wouldn't want to use bicep hooks because that would bring the biceps up much too high on my arms, but they definitely want to migrate down over my elbow sometimes and twist a bit. I'm not sure how to remedy that, but it's a minor issue at the moment. I feel like I could troop with the way they are right now. The other side of the shoulder bell elastic is currently drying, and once that's finished I'll size up, cut, and glue in the elastic to connect the biceps to the forearms. Once that's complete, I'll paint the ab buttons, glue those panels on, glue the shoulder plastic on, and put the holster on my belt. That will complete my upper armor.

Glossy ABS is fine. No need to re paint anything. For painting prep on the buttons and helmet, clean the surfaces with a soft cloth, water, and some non-abrasive dishwashing soap and dry thoroughly.

Now that I have the assembly of my helmet finished, I wanted to cut back the length of the ear screws (three on each ear) and mic tip screws. I have found that with my dremel tool, I cannot maneuver it to get a straight cut down on the screws. That's not going to work. I have had two people tell me that it's better to cut the screw once it has the nut threaded onto it than before, because the cut can make it so the nut will not thread onto the screw correctly. Now I have a dilemma. I shall ask the experts here. Should I: 1) Leave the screw lengths the way they are and figure out some type of cap method to prevent the screws from jabbing and scratching me? 2) Take each screw out I want to cut and do a straight cut with the dremel, and hope that the nut will thread back onto the screw? For those who have cut their screws down, how did you do it? For those who have left the screws the length they are, what did you do to cap them?

Here is where you want to start: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/11538-the-various-types-of-armor-and-where-to-find-them/

Thanks Diana for the link to the helmet liner! I am looking for padding to go in my ATA helmet, and these look like they'll do the trick! I ordered the medium one and should get it by the end of the week.

Hey all, My build is still going. I had a bad filling done a couple of years ago and needed to get a root canal. The tooth is feeling much better now. I wasn't really feeling up to doing anything on my build until that was resolved. A couple of days ago I cut off about 3mm from my shoulders. We'll see how much of a difference that made with their fit. Tonight I have glued the straps for my shoulders and glued in the snaps for my thighs. I made double snap plates for those in case one snap fails. After that glue has dried, I'll work on the straps between the forearms and biceps, and the strap around the shoulders that holds them against my arms. I'll probably need to get a heat gun to bend the edges of my ammo belt to secure it to my thigh. I have decided to not punch any holes through my ab plate and opted for gluing snap plates on the ab to hold my belt in place. If later that doesn't hold up, I can always drill and install snaps directly into the ab.

I am a big fan of using webbing snap plates rather than ABS snap plates. They adhere to the ABS well, they take e6000 nicely, and they will conform to the surface if they're getting attached to an area that is curvy. You can also use a cheap soldering iron to burn the hole for the snap, which gives the added benefit of sealing off the hole when it makes it. I took a precaution and covered the part of the snap that touches the ABS with a round piece of duct tape. There have been threads talking about e6000 having a reaction with snaps and causing damage to the plastic itself. Nothing conclusive. It didn't take me much more time to cut out and put some duct tape circles in place.

Yeah, if I had the chance to do everything over again, the first complete fit I'd do is the ab and kidney. Most everything else revolves around those two pieces. Biceps, forearms, and shins can be fitted independently from the ab/kidney, but every other piece relies on how the ab/kidney sit on your body.

Yeah, you definitely want to do the tapering of your thighs. The fitted pic you took looks nice, but of course you don't want them hugging your legs. A little room is fine to have. The way I shaped my thighs was I did the necessary 20mm spacing on the front for the cover strip. After that, I wrapped the thighs around, found a nice comfortable shape where they follow the tapering of my thigh from the top down to the knee area, and taped it off. Then, I used a ruler to match up the front cut lines with the back, made marks at the top and bottom of the thighs, and then drew a line connecting the two marks. That became my straight cut line. That will remove all of the proper lengths from the top to the bottom and give you a nice straight cut line for your finishing strip in the back. One other tip - you don't know exactly how high you're going to wear your thighs until you put on your ab plate. I'd recommend doing a test fit of the ab and the thigh pieces to see how far up you're going to have the thighs. That will let you know if you need to bring the thighs in more or less before you do your cuts.

I gotcha Jonathan. This part is making me more nervous, because it seems like it's not just "Take a measured amount around the whole shoulder". It seems like it needs to be cut at an angle to visually follow the contour of the side of the chest piece. I just haven't seen anyone describing this before, and I'm not sure the best way to approach that. I think I'm going to decide between one of two choices - cut the same few mm from all around the shoulders and see how the fit is changed, or just attach all the strapping to the shoulders as-is and just have bigger shoulders. I think if I go with the second choice, I always have the option of correcting it in the future if it's a big issue. Removing the strapping will be easy with using e6000. I feel like I'm getting too close to the end of my build now to start second-guessing how pieces fit on me, and I should continue moving forward with construction. I absolutely appreciate the suggestions and feedback! Please don't take this as "I'm not going to listen to what anyone is saying anymore!" I rely heavily on the opinions and suggestions of everyone on these forums for my build.

Hey Tim, I'm looking over some RT-MOD builds, and I'm not sure about trimming length of the forearms. You'd be cutting off dimple detail and I'm not sure you'd want to do that. The cuts you can absolutely make are taking off the return edge on the wrist ends completely. This will give you more room to get your hands into the forearms and may help you to determine the fit better.

Yep! Trim the front, top and back makes sense. I'll be sure to document this part along with some keywords in the post, so others can see what it means to trim down the shoulders if they're too big. I'll trim off a consistent measured amount around the bell, maybe a couple of mm at a time. It seems having the elastic strap at the bottom would help to know how much to trim, but of course it would be glued down to where I'm trimming, so that doesn't seem possible. I'll trim a little and then see how they fit. Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

When you're suggesting trimming, are you saying to shorten the bell by trimming the area that touches the bicep, or trim the area that runs parallel to the chest? If you mean trimming the long part, did you trim both the front, back, and up where the shoulder meets the bridge? As in, did you trim the same amount all on one side, up, and back down on the other? I don't think you meant trimming the bottom, as the length of your shoulders looks the same as mine. I think I understand that trimming the length wise parts of the shoulders would allow the elastic that wraps around the arm to pull the shoulder tighter onto the arm, while not overlapping (under lapping?) the chest. Am I making any sense? This is a part of the build I've really had an issue understanding since I started researching everything. Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

Thanks Lighty for the tips! Good to know I have the spacing correct from the shoulder bridge to bell. I'll also make sure to keep the bottom elastic taut enough so it'll hold the bell down on my arm. As for the the bottom of the shoulder overlapping behind my chest plate, I was looking at screen captures and found these troopers: I think these troopers have the overlap of the shoulder bells that you are referring to? If they don't, then I don't think I'm understanding what you're meaning by the bells looking too large and how to trim them down.

One other item I'm wondering about - how taut should the elastic that holds the shoulder down onto the arm be? Should there be any slack there at all, or pulled just enough so it's flat across the shoulder, but not pulling the elastic yet?

With this type of build, does the chest plate go under the ab plate? I could be very mistaken, but I think because of the way the ab is cut, it is supposed to go under the chest plate and the areas on the ab that are cut out are to accommodate the female anatomy when it's underneath the chest plate. I think I found a pic of the armor you have:

Hey everyone! Back with some more updates! I've installed the snaps to hold the chest down to the ab, and put the snaps in on my shoulder elastic to snap in the shoulder bells. Here are pics of the test fit for my left shoulder. I have the elastic taped into the shoulder. How is the distance from the shoulder bridge and the general fit looking? I have not put in the elastic strip to hold the shoulder down on my arm yet. I taped down the ABS bridge piece just for visual reference: If that's all looking good, then I'll glue down the elastic inside the shoulder for that connection, put in the strap to hold it down to my arm, and then work on the distance for the right shoulder bell.

This was the file kit I purchased for my teeth: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000UCREE8/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Stacy, I don't know how much build advice I'll be able to give you as I'm not familiar with how suits should fit on women, or how this particular suit design fits, but I can tell you I had never done anything like this before I started on my TK either. There have been several times where I thought I was in over my head. One part in my build I actually cracked the side of the ab piece installing a split rivet and I thought I would have to junk it all. Not only was I able to repair that, but I was able to get some in-person assistance from a friend who had just finished his first TK build and got the rest of the rivets installed. You can absolutely do this! You don't need to put any kind of time constraints on your build. Work on it when you can, and it will be finished when it's finished. Please feel free to post pics of the pieces you're working on and ask questions on any part of the build you're having trouble with. There are many experienced people on these forums that can help solve most any issue you will have during the course of your build.

I have found the search feature on the forum... lacking. Here's a tip on how I search the forums: When you go to Google, type in the search terms you want to look for, and end it with "site:whitearmor.net" . This will apply your search terms only to this site. For example: AM build site:whitearmor.net The first link that shows up is Pandatrooper's build. You'll see plenty of other threads as well.

From the guys who brought you the Stormtrooper Twerk video, it's MTV Cribs - Star Wars Edition! While I admire the creativity with this, I have to wonder why they used Rubies costumes for every single TK? In the pool scene, I believe that's a screen-accurate C-3PO, and the Jabba puppet looks pretty good as well. There's also a TIE Pilot in one shot. It seems like they had support and people from 501st / Rebel Legion members, but they still used Rubies costumes.

Congrats Jason! I hope to join you soon as well! Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

I took an xacto knife and pushed it between the armor and the finishing strip at one end, and slowly cut away the threads of e6000 holding it together. Once I got about an inch of the finishing strip separated from the armor, I slowly pulled the rest of the strip away and it just came right off. So very easy to do. I ended shaving off anywhere from 10 to 30mm of ABS from each bicep. I put the biceps up on my arm where my real biceps are and flexed to check the fit. At full-on flex my muscles were just starting to push against the biceps. That is the right size for the biceps. I'll get the finishing strips cleaned up and glued back down and start with the forearm / bicep / shoulder attachment again.

Thanks Ty. I've been trying to talk myself into the delusion that my biceps are the right size. They're not. When I put my arms to my side and my inner bicep piece snugs up to my inner arm, there is a good 1 1/2 - 2 inch gap on the other side between the outer bicep piece and my outer arm. That in turn pushes outward on the shoulder piece, which makes it not sit right. It's all sorts of messed. I pulled the right bicep apart. It took me 5 minutes. All hail the great and powerful e6000! That stuff is awesome. I think I'll even get to re-use the same cover strips.

I fit my biceps incorrectly. Probably because I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I should have fit the biceps so the inner piece with the curve fit nicely with my arms pressed down at my sides, and then trim the outer piece to fit around my outer arm. Because of this, when the inner bicep piece fits against the inside of my arm, the outer bicep piece bulges out. That bulge also pushes out my shoulder pieces, and then it's all off. I'm thinking I need to take my biceps apart. I did use some super glue to close a small gap on one of them, but hopefully I can get that apart without much trouble.