maxsteele

I used curved lexan scissors. I have an ATA helmet, and I marked with a pencil where the indent was between the piece you need to keep and the extra. It's there, and you can see it / run a pencil in the groove. I ended up cutting a bit too much from one of my eyes, because this was my first time really using those scissors, but if you look at the reference photos, you will see that there were all sorts of different thicknesses of edges left behind after the eyes were cut out. Just remember that we are putting all of this time and effort into having this one perfect Stormtrooper helmet, and when they were making helmets for the movies they were making a bunch of them in a short time. However you end up finishing your helmet, it will be yours, and it will look great!

Aaah, I see. I am 5' 10", and I believe the armor I have is sized exactly for someone that is 5' 10", so I might not have to do this. I see what you're talking about with the cut-out in the back and it's good to know I can do that if I need to.

My pic of having the cover strip on there might be misleading the issue I'm having. The restrictive movement I'm experiencing isn't related to the cover strip. I only put that on there for show to see what it would look like once I had the cover strip in place. It's simply the bottom of the thigh pieces where I'm feeling restrictive movement, and it could very well be because I don't have the backs sized up yet, and extra material in the back is causing the front to sit weird. I think I'll concern myself about the bottom return edge on the thighs after I have it fitted to my legs. That's going to be the next step on those. Thanks for the input Steve! I was able to nicely take down the return edge on the elbow side of my forearms. They are at a good length now and feel pretty good when wearing them. I'll look to taking down that return edge on the tops of the shins. I thought they seemed a little thick, but didn't want to start cutting them just yet. It feels like I'm at the point in my build where I'm going to start cutting pieces to fit to my body. I am fairly certain I am not going to tackle this on my own, and hope I'm able to find some local resources to give some in-person assistance with that.

I'm curious - you said "I removed them on the bottom side of course" in reference to the return edge on the bottoms of the thighs. I've been researching thigh pieces, and I have yet to find anywhere that says to remove the return edge at the bottom of them. Could you show me where you found the info that says the bottom return edge on the thighs should be removed?

Oh, they're not catching on anything. It feels like I'm only able to bend my leg about 25 degrees before the thighs stop me. It could just be because it's not completely fitted to me yet. So, are all of the return edges supposed to stay at both the top and bottom of the thighs?

I've made the front cuts for my thigh pieces. Here is the left thigh And here is the (slightly blurry) right thigh. I've attached the 20mm cover strip with magnets for looks. When I did a quick test fit, I noticed the bottom return edge on these certainly caused some impaired movement. I haven't seen any threads talking about how to treat the bottom return edge on the thighs. Thoughts?

Thanks for the extra abs tip! The cover strip you see in the photo is from the sheets of abs given to me to cut specifically for cover strips. It seems to match up pretty well. I'm at least going to use the extra for inside strips if I need them. I could always use the extra for the outside as well and use the strips I already cut for the inside. Also, thanks for confirming I have my pieces lined up correctly. It took looking at quite a few threads to determine the right match-ups. The two pieces really go together nicely once you have the front cut right. Here is my right shin You can see it at the lower part of the shin where I could cut another 2mm off of the outer piece here. If I don't, the cut line will be a little off-center. Right now the finishing strip is lined up with the cut line in the middle of it, and the strip edge on the inner piece is right on the bend, where the strip edge on the outer piece has that 2mm extra. Definitely more difficult to cut small amounts of abs away. It probably wouldn't matter too much in the grand scheme of things, but I like to have as much symmetry as I can. After evening up that shin piece, I'll be cutting the front of the thigh pieces to take a 20mm finishing strip. After that it'll be time to figure out how to cut-to-fit the back parts the biceps, forearms, thighs, and shins. EDIT: Here is a test fit with my undersuit and my boots

I've started trimming the front of my shins. Here is the left shin (I think?) with both pieces trimmed 10mm in the front to take a 20mm finishing strip. I've taped the top and bottom and used magnets to attach the finishing strip to see how it looks. There is quite a bit extra to take off on NE pieces. This is the size of the piece I cut off of the left outer shin piece to get down to 10mm in the front:

I cannot answer your first question. As for your second, you want to remove the return edges at the bottom of the shins. If you don't, they will chew up your boots and sizing will be off. I have not seen anything that says to remove or shorten the return edge at the top of the shins, so I am leaving mine alone for now.

It is 100% nerve-wracking cutting and assembling an expensive kit. But I'm also slowly getting over my nerves and feeling more confident as I build, and I haven't made any fatal mistakes yet!

Nice work! If you want to, you can use a fine brush and put some black acrylic paint around the tops of the soles to completely get rid of those paint bleed spots. For my build, I had some unfortunate razor cuts into the paint a little higher up from the tops of the soles in a few places. All I did there was raise up the black line I painted a little bit more and it covered them right up. The only way you'd be able to tell is if you were looking directly at the shoes at eye-level.

I am 5' 10" and 195 lbs. I'm going to need to trim quite a bit from the arms and legs to fit my body. I'm not sure how much I'll have to trim from the ab / kidney parts to fit around my waist, as I haven't tried to fit those pieces yet.

When I was marking the first line on the front of my shins to use for measuring 10mm and then drawing the cut line, it looks like the metal ruler I was using to make the first line cut into the armor at the bend of the edge which gets glued. It's just enough of an indent that I can feel like if I scrape my fingernail across it. Does anyone think that will cause an issue as a weak point down the line?

My opinion is: I am currently building this armor kit (minus the helmet). I have seen several builds on the forums for this kit. People are successfully approved and trooping in this armor. This kit can accommodate the larger trooper, but can also be cut down to size. I think that's really all that needs to be said.

Work is slow, but steady. I have cut off the return edges at the bottom of all my shin pieces. Next up - taking a look at my thighs. I've started doing research to find out what I should modify on the thigh pieces before sizing. Here is what the size of the return edge looks like on them This is the top. Should I reduce / remove the return edges at the top / bottom for the thighs?

You certainly got your blue tape to stick better than I did! Looking great!

Here's a great shot of how tmorrow182 set up his snaps / straps system: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/23278-ne-armor-build/page-6#entry311505

I used the Angelus white on my fabric portions and it covered well with 5-6 coats.

Alright, here are shots after cutting the front part of my right forearm to be 7mm on each raised ridge. Is the right forearm opening more oval than the left? It seems to fit, but it's certainly a different shape. Note that all I did was cut the two sides to be 7mm on the top joining piece. Here's the view from the elbow side. I have trimmed down that return edge since this photo was taken. Here's the view from the wrist end This is after I sized it to my arm and taped it down. Does that shape seem correct? Here's what the elbow side looks like fitted to my arm. Shape look alright? Here's what it looks like on my arm (yes, I know I don't have my undershirt on) Another large selfie shot showing the wrist end once I've sized it to my wrist Here are several body shots with the forearms on. I am wearing my undershirt in these shots The usual feedback is, as always, appreciated!

Looking good! Good luck on the build! We're all counting on you.

I think so? I would be cutting length-wise at an angle so more (or less) was taken off of one end than at the other. This is the other part that concerns me doing by myself without having any experience. I might save the cut-to-fit parts of my armor for when I can meet up with a garrison member in person to do it.

Yeah, that's a good idea. So if I'm seeing this correctly from my photo, I want the two pieces in back to meet up vertically with where the two pieces in front meet up? That way it makes the butt joins line up together? I think that's right. And if I follow the idea of trimming less than marked, going by my second photo, if where I marked became the actual cut lines, I would cut to the left of the number 1 line, and the same distance to the right of the number 2 line? I think that would leave both pieces longer. Also, I don't think I'm going to have an equal amount taken throughout the whole forearm pieces. Would it work if I found the cut line on the wrist side, the cut line on the elbow side, and then drew a connector line straight between those two down the length of the forearm, making that my full cut line? Does that make sense at all?

All of it makes sense. After looking at 20 different threads, I had figured out about trimming the excess off at the wrist. The sizing-to-fit is my next nail-biter set of cuts. I trimmed my right forearm on the front part last night. Next step for the forearms is the dreaded trim-to-fit step and deciding what to do with the outside return edge at the elbow. I may trim down the outside elbow return edge, or I may just trim it all off. In order to trim it down, I'll have to do it free-hand, which I'm not so good at. Removing it all simply requires following the inside groove that the return edge makes with an xacto knife. That's simple.

The best way to line up your forearm parts is first, knowing which dimple piece goes to which arm. The piece with 11 dimples is the left arm, and the piece with 12 dimples is the right arm. Once you determine that, when you look at the dimpled left arm piece, you'll notice a raised molded edge on one side, and no raised molded edge on the other. That raised molded edge gets matched up with a raised molded edge on an inner forearm piece. Each inner piece will have a molded edge - so how do you tell which one gets matched up? The main way I used, is you can see on that outer piece there is a clear "elbow end" and "wrist end". The piece just tapers narrower down to the wrist side. With the inner pieces, one side of the piece has a rounded opening, which is the elbow side, and the other side has a more straight-across side, which is the wrist end. when you match up an outer piece with the left inner piece, and get the molded edges lined up, that rounded opening on the inner piece should be matched up with the wider side of the outer piece. If it isn't, then that's the wrong inner piece.

I am a little concerned with the reaction on seeing the return edge I have on the elbow side. Those parts are lined up at the elbow right now. I lined up ends to match up if the return edge was still present at the inside elbow piece, since that's how it would be lined up if the return edge was still there. I'm not sure what it would mean to "even up that return edge" when I'm done with construction. What would that entail? Would I be making the return edge thinner? I'm now thinking I should just cut it off and have no return edges anywhere on my forearms.