maxsteele

Hey Chance! The armor is looking great! I don't really have any big suggestions to make for you to change. You could work on getting your right shoulder piece to come forward more. That would make it match the minimal gap you have on the left shoulder piece. Also raise up your right thigh to match the height of your left thigh. Your left bicep looks bigger than your right. You might want to bring the left one in some more. Conversely, your right forearm looks bigger at the elbow end than your left forearm. I'm not sure how much it will matter, but I did notice your tube stripes may be a little far down on the cheeks. It's best to have them be a pencil-width from the cheek edge, and yours seem to be 2-3 pencil-widths. Good luck with EIB!

I wouldn't worry about trying to live up to other people's build threads. This thread is all about your build. We're all here to help you get it to look as best as we can! Pics are invaluable in letting us see what your build looks like and make suggestions for fit and placement. For your thighs, don't worry about trimming the tops until you get the entire upper half of your armor fit properly. Once that's all in place and strapped up, you can then wearing you your thigh pieces with the garter and see how they fit along with your cod. You may find you can pull your thighs up high enough so they don't interfere with the tops of your shins. And finally - there's no rush. I took a year to complete my set. Take your time and before you know it you'll have a great-looking set of armor and your TK ID!

I assume you'll have a neckseal?

Big congrats Jason!

I've seen anywhere between 1/8" to 1/4"

I did 20mm on the fronts of the shins / thighs and 25mm on the backs. Perfectly fine to do so. For the thighs, have you closed the backs yet? If not, have someone squeeze each thigh so that the whole piece gets close to your legs, from the top to the bottom. Then mark where the overlap in the plastic is, take the thighs off, find a center line, and cut down the center. That will give you a nice tapered fit.

This is something that I've seen come up in several builds where people have the extra material in other suits (NE, AM 2.0). I've had some disagreements with people, but I believe the snap should go at the end point of the ab piece, no matter how much extra material is there. For an example, here is where I am expecting to put the snap on my NE set: Does this go with what you're referring to, Steve?

Yeah, those pieces look good. The biceps will be "a little loose", because you're not always flexing your bicep muscles. How do you keep them up? Bicep hooks!

You can never have enough clamps and magnets.

I had the exact same questions, Christian. What I found was if you get the ab / kidney / butt / back plate sitting on your body correctly, you can then hold up the chest plate to where you want it to be lined up on the ab plate, and that gives you the size of the gap between the back plate tabs and the front plate tabs. Then you know how long to make the shoulder elastic. For the cod strap, it's the same thing. Once you get all of the top pieces in place, you can play with the length of the cod strap until it's fitting you properly. I'd suggest putting everything on that you have right now and taking pics from the front, back, and sides. Then we can see how it's all lining up. When it's all in position, you'll know how long to make the shoulder elastic and cod strap.

Oh - the plastic shoulder bridges. Gotcha. I would be hesitant in cutting those. check to see what some of the other AM builds have done in the past with those. I don't recall reading about anyone cutting them shorter.

Biceps should be snug enough that when you flex your biceps, they touch the bicep pieces.

Is it an official change now to move the notch requirement to Centurion? Or is it still in discussion with a formal proposal to follow?

Are you referring to the shoulder strap that wraps around the arm, or the strap that connects the shoulder up to the shoulder elastic to hold the shoulders up?

Looking good! I'm quite sure no one at the party noticed the little details. You were a Stormtrooper for them. I'm thinking you might be able to move the snap that your shoulders connect to more forward, in order to close the gap between the shoulder and the chest plate. From the pics it looks like you may have that snap toward the back plate tab, and I think it'll bring the shoulders closer if you move it toward the chest plate tab. Gotta love those armor bites! Those really let you know where you can trim the pieces more.

The shadow seemed a bit too strong on the back with the shoulder bridges, which prompted my thought for heat bending them. I would absolutely not suggest to use a heat gun on those bridges, though. The safe way is to put them in a pot of boiling water for 15-20 seconds and then hold them in the position of the bend until cooled. I did several pieces like that and it worked great without a fear of melting the plastic.

It's better to do it when it's dry. Otherwise, you're kind of spreading it around instead of scraping it away.

Use a toothpick dipped in paint thinner. It'll clean those bleeds right up and not damage the plastic. Here's what my tube stripes looked like before I cleaned them up: And here's the after:

Hey Teet, Looking good! Some suggestions I have: Your shins should come down on top of your boots more. Right now you have the bottom of your shins riding on the tops of your boots. They should be coming down the front of the boot and cover about half of the side elastic on the boots. The shoulder plastic looks to be hovering a bit high when it comes over the back plate. You may want to try and heat bend them so they hug the back plate a bit more. Something that's a little more difficult to change is how your thighs fit at the top. There seems to be quite a gap between your leg and your thigh pieces at the top. You may wish to bring that fit in more at the top which will make them look less big on you. Also, the left thigh looks like it's hanging lower than the right, but I think that might be the fit at the top of the thigh more than a strapping issue. I think the painted traps on the temples and the back of the helmet seem a little small. I don't believe any of these will affect EIB, but could be some modifications to make. Good luck on your app!

Took you long enough to get these photos up! Looking great Jason!

When you flex your biceps, do they touch the parts where you have a gap? If so, then you're done. You can also help the fit by thinning / removing the bottom return edge, and slimming down the top return edge, if you wish. That can help with getting them over your forearms.

My research says both AP biceps are the same. http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/25442-ap-biceps-left-or-right/?p=320264

Ah, the back-to-kidney transition is looking much better now, and your ab-kidney transition is lined up better. I think the issue you're having with the butt plate is a case of "junk in the trunk" Do you have the strap from the butt plate to the cod in place? That may pull the butt plate down some and help with alignment. Or, it might just stick out the way it does because of your body shape and that's just the way it is. I can tell you I had issues with how my butt plate flared out all the way up to my final suit-up before taking approval photos. I seemed to help it by trimming the return edge thinner (which it looks like you already have) and I heat-bent the butt plate tab to curve better for the meet-up with the cod on the other side. Then it started behaving itself after that and the strap between the butt and cod.

I took the label to mean it was a Stormtrooper helmet from the "Rebels" animated series coming out this fall. That's how I read it.

Sorry - I was being facetious. They're stating on that site the "Episode VII" helmet design they made meets or exceeds 501st standards. The 501st doesn't have a standard on that helmet because it isn't even verified that it's a helmet used in the movie. That, and they have it listed on that website as a "Star Wars Rebels" helmet.