maxsteele

Definitely worth a try. I kept the outer return edge, but I have seen builds that get rid of the whole return edge at the top and it's not noticeable.

Interesting. Thanks for the info on the Exec Time. I just had an exec time of 5.28 when I clicked for "New Content" on the site.

Yep, not just you, Derrek. I've noticed intermittent times where pages on whitearmor.net will never load, then refreshing the page will make it load. This morning, however, there's a big issue with loading up pages. It isn't the network connection that the forums are on, because I get a constant 50ms ping to the server. There is an issue with the database that the forums are using, either software-based or hardware-based. I hope the IT guys running this site are able to find it.

Yep, I had to take apart my biceps, re-size, cut, and re-glue them. I also removed the return edge on the inner part of my thighs and trimmed them down at the inner tops so they would stop catching on my cod and be able to pull them up to close the gap between the cod and the thighs. What are you using for a strapping system on the thighs?

This is Vader's lightsaber: This is his backpack:

Dan, a holster is needed for base approval. As Steve said, what matters is which TK you are doing. If you are making an ESB TK, then your holster is good as-is. If you are making an ANH TK, you will need to make the modifications Steve has listed and mount it as the diagram shows that Eric posted.

Alright Jeffrey! Your build was certainly one I followed for helping me out with my NE build! I'm happy to see you've picked it back up and looking forward to your submission photos!

I got home this evening and measured my TD. From end-cap to end-cap, it is 196mm. That's 7.72 inches. That makes it over by just under .22 inches. However, the gaps between the control panel and the end-caps are certainly almost 1 inch. I think my overall length is ok. If I wanted to do this by the numbers, I would need to take .11 inches off of each end, or 2.8mm. However, that would still only close the gap between the control panel and the end-cap to approx. .75 - .8 inches. If I wanted to close that gap more, I would have to make my TD shorter than 7.5 inches end-cap to end-cap. The control panel and end-caps shipped to me at the dimensions they currently are. I'm not sure the best way to proceed with this.

Thank you very much Steve! What a world this would be if TK builds we're making local news! I know you want those snaps and rivet to be on my armo, and I do promise I will get them there. After a year, I was just done with this build. Yes, I believe I will cut the sniper down. I have felt some rubbing there and hopefully that is the spot it's coming from. I had been seeing other NE builds with no mention of modifying the pipe for a shorter length. I'm pretty sure I was at the 7 1/2 in mark from end cap to end cap, but I will absolutely check when I get home ( currently on a weekend vacation in SLC). If it is too long, that will be the first change I make. I'll figure out how to cut that pipe! Thanks to everyone for the congrats and following my build. It was a crazy year and gave me much more confidence in my ability to take on a project like this again!

With the way the brow trim dips a bit in the middle, the helmet looks sad.

Oh no, I know this isn't one of ours. I believe they were in the square area around the Space Needle. This was yesterday, 8/6. You know, for tourists to take their pictures with Darth Vader and the poor crippled Stormtrooper.

A friend of mine is visiting Seattle, and she found this horribly disfigured TK by the Space Needle. And I believe Vader is wearing.... a backpack?

Not a problem guys! I asked hundreds of questions making my build, and received a lot of assistance from the guys here. I'm happy to relay the answers I received. I honestly don't know how to handle the measuring / cutting if there is no marked area for the front cover strips. I hadn't really seen any tips regarding that. I'm curious how that should be measured and cut.

You don't need to add that extra ABS plastic in-between the folded elastic. Just folding it over is enough. I used a cheap soldering iron to burn the hole into the elastic for the snaps. I'd like to give you some advice on how to proceed with your cuts, but for my kit, I had raised edges on the front cover strips, so I knew exactly how much to have on each side (7.5mm), and laid down the 15mm cover strip. The measuring / fitting / cutting I had to do was only for the rear cover strip, which I overlapped the extra, found the mid-point across from the front's cut, and that told me where my cut lines should be. I am not sure how you determine where to cut for the front cover strip when there isn't any mold indicator.

For straight cuts, I measured and drew my lines, then I taped down a metal ruler on the line I wanted to cut, and ran an xacto blade down against the ruler 4-5 times. Then I removed the ruler and snapped the plastic off at the score line. Nice clean lines. If there was any issue with that, I cleaned it up with some sandpaper.

I had a problem with my forearm closure as well. Here's what I did: First, I used a U-clamp on each end of the forearm to keep the ends tightly in place. Next, I put strips of painter's tape down across the strip, pulling them as tight as I could. After that, I put magnets on along the strip and clamps between the magnets where I could reach. Finally, I wrapped an elastic band around each end of the forearms and pulled them tight, which pulled the two pieces in and gave some more downward force to let the glue adhere better. Here's a photo without the elastic bands tied:

Let me see if I understand what you're saying - are you saying that you used the same measurements for each piece? If that is the case, what you want to do is cut the pieces to fit your body. The left and right forearms are shaped differently. That's just the way they are. You'll possibly need to cut more from one arm than the other arm. If you haven't already done so, you trim the front pieces of each forearm to 7.5mm on the raised or straight edge that you'll lay the cover strip down on. This makes a 15mm cover strip sit half on one piece, half on the other piece. Once that's done, tape those two pieces together, then wrap the pieces around your forearm. When you find a good fit from your wrist up to your elbow, tape it off, and remove your forearm to make sure you can still get your hand out. Now that you know the extra you need to cut off, use a ruler or another measuring tool to match up the cut in the front to where it will be straight across in the back. Mark at the wrist and elbow ends on your overlapped pieces, and that's where you're cutting. Then you lay down another 15mm cover strip, and your forearm is complete. I'm not sure how AM marks where the cover strips should go, but here's what the front cover strip area on my NE kit looked like before I put down the cover strip. I had already measured and cut so it was 7.5mm on each raised end: Next, I wrapped it around my forearm, found a good fit, and this is how I marked where I was cutting: See how the cut lines are directly across from the front cover strip cut? And I mark the same spot on both pieces, as well as marking it on the wrist side in the same fashion. Then I drew a connecting line down the length of each piece from the wrist mark to the elbow mark, and that was my cut line for each piece. And finally, a finished forearm:

I bought a pair of these from Home Depot: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Grease-Monkey-Neoprene-Large-Long-Cuff-Gloves-23403/202188317?N=5yc1vZc5r1Z12kx They come about half-way up my forearms. I just tuck the extra underneath my undersuit sleeve. I also put my gloves on first, then pull my forearms over them. I find this better for me because otherwise I'm having to stuff my gloves underneath the forearms, which never works out well. For your belt, it's the bottom belt type with the bottom rivet covers that you do not have cut out yet.

Nah, he couldn't have used the whole tube on just the thighs. I will say I used 2 full tubes that size for my entire build. That includes everything that needed gluing - snap plates, strapping, cover strips, belt rivet covers, sniper plate, and the thigh battery pack (for stability).

Do the only come in that two-tone color? They would need to be solid black. Honestly, you don't have to go that expensive for gloves. These neoprene gloves from Home Depot work, and they have the diamond cut pattern on the finger tips like screen-used gloves: ---------

Yeah, teeth look great Andrew! I probably spent at least 10 hours filing those damn teeth. What you'll find is you file them, and you think, "I could file them some more", then you file them some more and think, "I could probably file them a little more," then you have to make yourself stop. Once you paint the frown grey, you'll say: "Wow! I didn't realize the holes were that big!" It's a good thing to have that thought.

Woo hoo for test fits! I still remember my first test fit when I looked in the mirror and thought, 'Wow, I'm turning this pile of plastic into a Stormtrooper!' Alright, critique time! Here's where it becomes a size and placement game. Your chest plate is much too low. The neck line should be up at your neck. Here's what my chest looks like. I also cut away the return edge around my neck line. It's not strangling me, it's just up where my neck is. You'll notice that the curved tabs on each side are up on my shoulders and nestle down onto the front of my shoulder: As you've already discovered, your back plate is too far up. I'm thinking this may just be a matter of how you're hanging the pieces right now. If you bring the chest plate up, that will bring your back plate down, and you may not have to correct anything with your elastic straps connecting the chest and back. Here's a side shot so you can see where the curve of the top of the back meets and follows the curve on the back of my shoulder: And here's a rear shot so you can see where the top edge of the back plate is sitting on my back. I had to cut off those pointy ends on the tabs of the back plate and do a smooth transition with sanding. The inside return edge wasn't as important as the outside, and when you have the shoulder bells up against the chest / back tabs, they do a good job of hiding any trimming that needs to happen for comfort. Alright, I'm going to get a bit graphic in my next part, as I'm going to be talking about the cod area. I positioned my cod so the rounded cup part is fit just like a jock strap cup. It's right up snug against my boys, but not going up past them so the edge is digging in. Once I found the good spot for my ab, that in turn determined the spot that my kidney would sit at on my lower back, which then put my back plate in the right spot, which then let me fit the chest plate in the right spot. I did not make my chest-to-back straps until I had my ab / kidney / back 100% in-place and strapped in. That then allowed me to see what I was working with on placement of my chest, where I wanted the bottom of the chest to be in relation to the ab, and then determine how long the straps would be. The bottom of the back plate needs to be touching the top of the kidney, and getting those straps in place first will give you a much better time at getting the chest plate in place where you want it. Your current shoulder straps may be fine if you're able to bring that ab plate up, which brings the kidney up, get the back plate down, and then you know how you're going to place your chest. But I repeat that you should get your back strapped to your kidney before you move on to chest placement. One other thing - make sure you're wearing your neck seal when you work on chest placement. The gap between your neck and the chest plate will increase when you're wearing the neck seal.

Painting inside the helmet is 100% preference. I didn't paint the inside of mine. I would think that it would be easier to paint inside the helmet before piecing it together, otherwise you're having to get the paint literally inside your helmet. If you do it when it's still in pieces, you have more control on where the paint is going.

Thanks Zixx for your extremely kind words! Thank you for the notice on the helmet painting. I do not consider myself artistically-minded at all, and I kept track - it took me over 20 hours of painting to get the results I have. I am fortunate my patience paid off. I will absolutely get the rivet / snaps installed, as well as the elastic bands to hold down the shoulder bridges in the back. Yes, I do have the black elastic arm bands. You can see one of them on my right shoulder in my action shot. I mentioned in my build thread that I'm going to "take a break" working on this armor, as it took me almost a year to get to this point. I do promise to go back to it and get those details added for a Centurion application. The forearm gap is a puzzle for me. I was struggling with getting the proper elastic positions between the forearms and the biceps, and I found a few builds that gave some good measurements. I feel the distance between the top of the forearm and the bottom of the bicep is at a really good spot, and I have full range of movement when I bend my arms with no armor pinching. Dropping the forearms would certainly require pulling up the elastic and re-gluing them, and I have a concern that I'd lose my mobility. The gloves I have certainly bunched up at the wrist end of my forearms, but I believe that happened in part to my biceps' / forearms' lack of connection to my shoulders. I went with the "free float" method, and I'm currently gluing in bicep hooks, which I did not have for these photos. I'm hoping those hooks will keep my forearms more stable, which will lower the attention drawn to the gap at the gloves. I've also seen commentary which said it's better to have a gap at the wrists than a gap at the elbows. This might be a case of exactly that. I'd also like to figure a way to keep my glove ends tucked nicely under my forearms so that bunching is minimized / eliminated. I haven't seen any mention of how people handle that, or if it's even a problem for others. EDIT: Something that may be making that gap at the wrist end look larger are my handguards. I do not have them attached to my gloves. I'm using elastic glued inside them and sliding them over my gloves. It looks like they're not back as far on top of my gloves as they should be, which is the only distance comparison the eye has to go on when meeting up with the wrist end of the forearms. I think one of the first accessories I need to get are the flexible hand guards and get them attached to my gloves. That may resolve my gap issue right there. EDIT #2: I'm not fully suited up, but I believe I fixed that wrist gap. I got the hand guard to sit in the proper location on my glove, I tucked my glove into the sleeve of my undershirt to keep it from bunching out, and I have my bicep held in place with a hook around the shoulder elastic. It's not the best quality, but I think you can get the idea:

You have extra flashing on the ends of the butt plate that you shouldn't need to have there: Before: After You don't show it, but if you haven't already, there's extra on the ends of the chest plate to cut off as well: