shashachu

Walt redid the TD end caps a while back to fit on the pipe easily, but I wonder if there is some pile of old end caps lying in the shop. My kit came with one new (bigger) cap and one small cap. I was able to make the smaller one fit with the heat gun.

Ah yeah I got you now. Yeah I have several inches of overlap between the chest and back so I'll definitely be able to trim the back.

I'm not sure I know what you mean.

Definitely cut the cod - makes a world of difference. Cricket pasted it back together with ABS paste, but I just tucked it behind the ab and strapped it.

GREAT job with the ear trimming on the helmet. Are you planning on trimming back the teeth any more? If you trim to where your pencil lines are, I think they'd look perfect. I personally used Testors paint, but either Humbrols or Testors should work if you use the right colors. I also love hand painted helmets, and it's surprisingly fun to do. I did use stencils from Trooperbay, though. For return edge, I agree that the ab return edge looks a bit big, but it's up to personal preference. I think you'll want to think about trimming back or even getting rid of return edge for non-visible areas (e.g. top of ab, top of biceps) for comfort. Also remember that there should be NO return edge on the wrist end of the forearms for Centurion.

Hey! Any update on the liners? Definitely still interested.

So something that's finally sinking in is just how BIG the FOTK is compared to the OTTK. I got really discouraged last night because I decided to try on the chest and back, and they just looked silly on me. It looked ok when it was just the armor: But on me, I was swimming in it. I really wanted to just give up on the whole project, but I spent some time today looking at some builds photos on the KB Facebook page, and there were a few troopers who also had slim frames who somehow managed to make the armor work without doing any major surgery on the kit. I recalled everyone saying that the gaskets would add some bulk, so I decided to just try it. I have a set of custom gaskets coming from Teresa, but in the meantime I have a too-large gasket set from FN armour that I decided to try. I started by trimming and taping the ab/kidney. The chest/shoulder gaskets were so big I couldn't even get the biceps on, but once I had the chest/back/yoke on top of the gaskets, the abdomen, and added the helmet, I dare say that everything actually looked pretty ok: When I'm not wearing the ab, you can see how small my body actually is in the armor: Nevertheless, tonight was the first time I actually felt a bit of confidence that I'd be able to pull this off.

I was thinking I might just cut off the chest that has the orange peel texture, so I may also have to recreate the rectangle details. I think I'm ok on the yoke trimming, but I'm pretty sure I did remove more of the side return edge than is ideal, but the rough trim that KB did on the yoke didn't leave me much choice. If I end up running the shoulder bell straps and the shoulder bell metal tab through the return edge, I think I'll need to add some reinforcing material there. They sent you a whole b grade yoke? That's pretty cool! I still have a bunch of ABS from my OTTK kit, so I'll use that to reinforce the yoke.

Ahhh how have I missed all the updates?? Looking great, Christine! I had no idea the WTF ab plates are nonstandard since it's the only kit I've worked with. Really fun figuring out the quirks of each makers' kit.

And the trimming continues, this time the chest, back, yoke, and yoke connector. The pulls in these areas are not the best, unfortunately. The sides of the chest have a bit of an orange peel texture: and the plastic is very very thin. I had some cracking on the back already, just from trimming. The yoke is so thin that it's actually floppy - is this typical? I did have a question about the trimming of the back and yoke. I was planning on leaving the return edge on the top of the back, and trimming back the yoke so that the filled seam isn't right on the corner. Here's how much back return edge I have right now: And I'd trim off about here on the yoke: Does this seem like a reasonable idea? Or do most people trim off the top return edge of the back so that the back and yoke meet at the corner?

I used a heat gun, too. It was quite a lot of effort, though. I essentially had to heat the fronts of the shins while overcorrecting the position of the backs of the shins so that they cooled somewhere in the middle. A bit hard to explain, unfortunately. And re your belt position, make sure it's not sitting too low - it should be touching or even slightly overlapping the ab buttons. I had to reposition the snaps on my belt and I also added some Velcro to keep the belt up. Looking great!

Nice work, Jeff! You've obviously done your research and your detailed build thread is going to be really useful for future WTF builders. As for the shins, one piece of advice I picked up when building my WTF kit was to get the shins lining up properly even before adding any closures. I used Velcro on mine so might be slightly different, but I heatgunned the bejeezus out of my shins to get them lined up. Here's a shin while gluing: And here's a shin after lots of heating and reshaping, no Velcro:

Got a bit of time last night after SVCC to do some more trimming work on the kit. I realized I'd left too much edge on the flat panel on the inside of the right forearm, so I trimmed that off and also trimmed the left bicep and forearm as well as both shoulder bells. It's been an interesting experience working on a kit I know I'll be repainting later. While I agonized over every little scuff and mark on my OTTK, I freely draw cut lines in black sharpie all over the FOTK. ------------ I will say that my experience with the KB kit so far has been in line with what I've read in other builds, in that the cut lines tend to be a bit ill defined, and the pulls are quite soft. The trapezoid bicep details, for example, are barely there. Also, the indent on the chest is very soft. I was going to try to make the cutout detail in the ABS rather than using the resin insert, but it being as soft as it is, I may not have a choice. Now that he's moved to a new shop with a bigger vacuumformer, perhaps the pulls are sharper. And maybe I'm just getting used to the ridiculousness of the sizing, but I will say that the arm pieces don't look *too* crazy to my eye. --------------- I'm definitely going to have to significantly resize the biceps, but I'm less worried about it now, especially since I remembered that the inside seam is filled, so I don't have to worry about the inside and outside seams being lined up. Lastly, I finally saw a FOTK in person at comic con! I think he was actually visiting from a neighboring garrison and I didn't actually talk to him, but I definitely creeped on him (well his suit anyway) a lot. So if this is you...sorry. ---------- Both Praetorian Guards are from my garrison, and I thought they looked amazing.

Thanks! I just requested access to the forums.

Thank you, Luc! Do you have a build thread or any photos to share?

Yes, I will definitely need to at least heat bend the back, as it's massive on me. (I also have a KB)

Thanks for the input! I've never worried about the E6000 pulling apart on my OTTK. Is there a worry that the bondo/filler would crack if the parts are only held together with E6000, or is it actually that the parts might come apart?

To be honest, I think I'm going to be making it up as I go along. As I mentioned, I think the built-in details make this a much tougher build to modify for small troopers, although I know it can be done (I've seen photos of a 5' 3" woman in KB armor). I'm actually more worried about the width of it - the chest and back are extremely broad on me. The craziest thing I was thinking about this morning was heat bending the back to make it narrower, and slicing out a strip from the middle of the yoke and connecting it back together. Since the armor has to be bondoed/sanded/painted anyway, that opens up the door for a lot more drastic modifications.

Hahaha no pressure! Thanks for the suggestion - edited the thread title as well as put my height/weight info. I'll probably end up going for EIB, but I may not go for Centurion due to the requirement of rubber gaskets. But never say never.

It's that time again! I bought a Standard Line Anovos TFA helmet a while back, and had been thinking of pulling the trigger on a KB FOTK kit for a while when I happened upon a garrison friend selling a KB kit and a bunch of accessories (blaster, pistol), so I jumped on it. I knew that it would be a much more challenging build for a short and slim trooper (I am 5' 3", 125 lbs) than the OTTK due to all of the molded-in details that I can't just chop off, so I let it sit in the box for quite a while, and instead did a lot of research, primarily studying Ruthar's and Anzo's fantastic KB build threads. I finally had some free time a few evenings ago and decided to stop procrastinating and just jump in. The first thing I did was take inventory of all the armor bits in the box. (Yo dawg, I heard you like boxes...): Everything looked complete, except my TD has the same trimming error that Anzo's did, where they accidentally cut out a big semicircular chunk of the top of the TD. I decided to just not worry about it, as I'm thinking of ordering the new KB resin TD anyway. Somehow having everything laid out like this actually made the build seem *less* intimidating than when it was all sitting in the box. I guess just seeing everything together makes me realize it really is a finite amount of work. Like my OTTK, I decided to start with the biceps and forearms. It actually took me a few minutes of staring at EIB and Centurion applications to make sure I'd picked the proper 4 pieces for the forearm, but eventually I rough trimmed and taped everything together for a test fit. Lolz. Somehow it looks semi-reasonable in photos, but in person, the bicep is RIDICULOUSLY large. Like...I could fit both my arms in it at once. I am not going to do any resizing until I have my gaskets, but it's clear I'm going to have to do some major work. The good thing about the overlap construction for the inner bicep seam is that it gives me quite a bit of flexibility in terms of resizing. My plan is to take the heat gun to the bicep pieces to give them a much tighter radius (I used the heat gun a ton with great success in my OTTK build), then do a lot of trimming from the rear piece to preserve the details in the front piece. The one thing I will need to be careful of is that the outer and inner seams don't get too asymmetric, as I'll be taking most/all off the rear piece. I'm also planning on trimming for length from the top, as the cut should be hidden by the shoulder bell. For the forearms, I don't think I'll be able to do much in the realm of resizing for width, but they're not as wide or long as I was fearing; I should be able to take my helmet off and on myself, especially if I add the 'Finn notch.' Also, the good thing about having tiny hands is that I'll be able to completely glue the forearm closed, instead of having to leave the wrist end unglued like most builders. I bought the kit with a set of FN gaskets that proved to be much much too large, so I have a set of Soulart's gaskets in order. But just for kicks, I tried the elbow gasket on with the bicep and forearm, and now I know how NASA astronauts feel in their super bulky space suits. Question for other FOTK builders - is it a mistake to do the build with E-6000? With the number of times I pried apart and reglued my OTTK parts, I'm nervous about using weld-on or whatever more permanent glues most folks use. Any thoughts? That's it for now! Hope to have more progress soon.

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I would be in for a liner as well!

Got it; that makes sense. I actually fixed the pull-through by backing the canvas end of the rivet with a thin piece of ABS - like a plastic washer. I think I may go ahead and switch to Chicago screws for this build. Thanks for the input, everyone!

The hole in the canvas was burned with a soldering iron. The rivet breaking was really strange - I thought it was set properly, but maybe not?

True. I was trying to avoid buying another tool for a single use, but they're probably a lot stronger than pop rivets.