TheLorelei

@Frank75139 - Welcome to the maelstrom that is my mind. For those of you still with us, I hammered the beginning of the next bend using the file as my edge again. That left me here so I measured 1" from the bend and cut there with a pair of aviation snips (which are the bee's knees). It does pay to be somewhat conscious of the direction your aviation snips are made to cut so you don't get the harsh curve on the side you want to keep. I did not do that. Read and learn. Test fit with the pipe again - looking relatively good! I fiddled with the distance between the vertical piece and the curve a while, then finished the second clip (which I had been making on the remaining piece of aluminum all along). It took some work to make them even, bending with my hands and occasionally a pair of pliers, but it was fun. Figuring out where to trim the round part was a bit challenging as the many pictures of real O2 canisters didn't have the angle I wanted. Turns out it's really (really) hard to get pictures of an O2 canister from the side. Placing the control panel (?) at the angle I wanted and making the straight parts of the clips perpendicular to the ground gave me a line at which to trim the clips, right below the panel. A little snipping, and here we be! The shape was satisfactory, but the finish was awful. Couldn't imagine letting Lord Vader see me in that condition. Hit it with a little sandpaper, and it looks great! I highly recommend wet sanding to avoid all the aluminum dust. Here's where it stands now, with my freshly painted screw heads. Speaking of which, I believe these to be the proper screws. If anybody needs to correct me, now would be a good time.

Great feedback on the eyes - y'all rock my socks. My usual TK work day (Friday) ended up being more of a helmet electronics research day with a side of O2 canister (have I mentioned I've decided to refer to it as the O2 canister? I ran across a thread somewhere discussing it and it really does make so much sense that it's that and not a thermal detonator, I mean a td is an entirely different object that you throw and whatnot, AND a td is a sandy just in case we wanted to make the acronym even harder to work with, and with a realistic imagined (oxymoron, anyone?) function fully fleshed out I've come to the conclusion that it's an O2 canister and not a thermal detonator) -- I say, O2 canister clip building. I ordered a 4' piece of 1" x 1/16" aluminum from work, and armed with a couple rusty old files (my favorite kind), a vise, a hammer, some aviation snips, the leftover few inches of 2" PVC pipe out of the 1' section I bought for my canister, and pictures of screen used O2 canisters, I set to work. First: the only moral to this story is that the proper aluminum is easy enough to bend and you can make half decent things by just looking at reference pictures. Only one O2 canister clip tutorial is available any more (that I could find) and I preferred a more accurate hole spacing and different clip style (NOT screen accurate) so I branched out. I drilled a hole in the aluminum at a random end point and screwed it into my spare PVC then hand bent it around to touch about half the pipe. As you can see it springs back out a bit. A little hand bending (applying EVEN pressure) quickly got me to the desired curve. Tadaa Note that I am not worried about where the curve lands right now - I will trim it down later. This is all about the clip part for now. I set the aluminum in the vise as best I could, with a rusty old file in front of it to provide the actual edge I'd bend on. Pulled back on pipe and bent aluminum away from pipe like so But here's where things got annoying. Sure, I had a nice first angle there, but getting the second bend so close to the first required some pounding with a hammer and it still didn't get very far so I bent it over the file manually again. Worked ok. Not great. There's a clamp-aluminum-on-either-side-of-the-bend method that I'm sure would've worked better but I had neither the clamps nor the patience for it. Then I began actually caring about measurements and measured 3" (plus a bit for good measure) from the bend, to hold the belt. You read that right. Purists, avert your eyes/come back when there's a less offensive post below this. I'm making my clips bend back on themselves to wrap securely around the belt. WHY? I'm gonna ruin what I always considered a great Lorelei-trivia answer and tell y'all that I'm scared stiff of Jawas, and once I heard that they occasionally steal O2 canisters just to be "funny" I swore I would make my O2 canister absolutely Jawa-proof. It's a matter of safety. *serious face* *cracks up* *back to serious face* I plan to put these lower bracket pieces between the layers of my belt. They shouldn't be visible at all. Honest. And if they are I'll make new, accurate brackets in two shakes of a lamb's tail. To be continued!

Tony has a nice little tutorial of reinforcing the attachment points for the brackets here Not sure if that's enough of a photo set for you, but it's a start. Definitely shows how they end up.

JUST IN CASE anyone thinks I'm joking about that reference notebook - And look how much room I've left in the binding posts. *Ominous music*

TK Life with Lorelei has repetitive episodes - Lorelei consults her 80 page reference notebook, reads 7 relevant threads, cross-references all advice given in said threads with movie stills, and still sits on the floor cradling the relevant armor piece unable to bring knife/file to plastic until she posts for confirmation on her build thread. But really, I'm glad you're not all *completely* sick of my questions yet. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh yeah, teeth are nowhere near done. I'm just not entirely paralyzed by fear on them, though. Haha. Back to work!!

Eye questions. I'm neck deep in pictures of ANH stunt eyes, don't worry, I'm just scared of cutting my own wrong. Here's where they stand now, for reference when looking at the back - These lines I sketched where there was a significant dip in the plastic. Seems to be the proper cut line. It would definitely reduce the depth of the eyes a lot, which I fear, but recognize the necessity of. Another observation which I'd like the accuracy of checked, please, is that many stunts' eyes go near clear to the inner edge of the nose bridge. Hardly any depth left there. So here I sit, analyzing proper Wonk, and being torn between idealization and accuracy. Halp!

Great, thanks! We sell some Testors sprays at work, too - got one to try this evening. Primer really does seem to be the right color. Nice work-around!

It did end up darker than I would have liked, too. :/ maybe now that it's nice and smooth I can hand paint over it with the Testors. I have a gut feeling I should. Though let me consult my fellow paint experts and see if the Testors will bond to the weird wonder that is Rust-oleum...

Last Night in Review I did Things. Many Things. I feel quite accomplished, and so excited about this build in general. Look at all these [predominantly] smooth edges!! Woo! I got a round of advice and turned my oversized button plates into these marvelous masterpieces: And you know what else I did? Left my cutproof gloves in the rain and didn't wear them and cut BOTH of my hands in a matter of an hour. PPE, people, PPE. I'll be cleaning up all these edges a bit more but I'm still quite pleased with the work the ol' non-Dremel Dremel got done. I put it in the vise like so and gave myself the luxury of using both hands (not pictured - once more, where's my third arm when I need it?) to draw my pieces across the sanding disc. It made for a much smoother sanding time, bracing my elbows against my torso and swaying back and forth. Dancin' with Smudge already. Speaking of button plates, I followed this billhagram for initial sizing which matched my ATA ab in every dimension except one. The vertical sizing on the smaller button plate is glaringly different. Weird, huh? Oh well. I ended up sanding down past those dimensions a couple mm anyway, but it was a good jumping off point. The buttons on this ATA panel have always bugged me - they're just so BIG - maybe they look even bigger than they are cause they're skooshed into a shorter space? - but I digress. I also barely started trimming the ears. I stopped filing them before I got to the proper spot, I know. I've seen plenty of tutorials on working with them, but the fact that my kit came with two sets right off the bat makes me feel like I'll need them... these and the forearms are the only things really bugging me at the moment. The forearms are so so thick I can't seem to bend them at all. Taking the return edge down some more may help. We shall see. One last thing - the TD tube! I went with a generic Rust-oleum grey. Anybody following along think it's very important I use the Testors grey from the traps/tears/buttons instead? Over and out!

Thanks, all! Glad to hear the edges of the button plates are sharp. Mine still are. That's exactly what I meant about the return on the lower edge of the chest! Not that it's *required* necessarily, but that it's a definite hallmark of a stunt vs a hero. Hm.

Haha, join the club. Gotcha. Riiight, GML. Lemme shoot it over to mine. Thanks!

Man, I'm beginning to not know what to do without your quick replies, Rat! Cool. Rounding corners is easy enough. Seems to me the old suits had real sharp edges though. I mean, look at Luke's suit here. http://s1082.photobucket.com/user/fisd1/media/ANH/bluray/2 cropped/abdetail.jpg.html And his button plate is cut pretty much to the raised part! Argh.

Wow. Great pictures. Gotcha! Thank you again! Ok. Every time I take a picture the button panel seems to grow a cm. It looks well within the raised are from here, though! What say, all? Trim it down more? I know people sometimes get snagged for this on EIB apps.

Yeah, true, I just spent a while poring over Centurion submission posts again too. Down come the edges!

Right ho, Dan, absolutely. I trimmed the arm cutouts before those side edges and decided to fix them before trimming the sides. No real reason. However, I'm interested (and relieved) to hear that I should take more off of the arm cutouts anyway. I cut along the trim lines and figured I'd check sources later, but assumed the trim lines were correct. You know what they say about assumptions - sometimes you're wrong! Thanks for the reference pics. Man, I just feel so weird taking all that off. As for the kidney, there is a little ripple there. It's not just the lighting. It would look better cut along that ripple too. Will modify. Thanks again!

Perfect. I'll give the cod and ab some alignment marks accordingly so when I'm ready to place it vertically I'll know where it goes horizontally. Return edges trimmed... And I made my first significant mistake, overtrimming the side of the chest, so I mooshed some ABS paste on there and will sand it back into a tolerable shape. The ABS paste is dry on the outside, but still wiggly. I'm guessing I should've applied thinner layers. Hm.

Here's what tripped me up! My cod DID come centered. Lining it back up by the little ridge left here - - I get this - - when really, I should be getting this, yes? - Thank you guys again, so much!

It's a weird and wonderful world, Frank.

Oh, my. You know, I *thought* I noticed that the button plate wasn't centered with the ridge on the cod somewhere along the line (perhaps when I cut it off? Sigh) but assumed I was wrong... thank you guys!! And thanks for the advice on the return edges, Frank. I've been avoiding cutting them due to sentimental attachment or something. I'll do that now. Those reference pics help a LOT. But are you sure about the bottom of the chest? It seems like a Hero thing to me, and Stunt should have the return edge. :/ I was even planning on sinking fake screw heads in the return edge to mimic the bracket mounting. Considering it might be nice to take a smidge off the bottom of the chest it may prove necessary to remove it, but I hate to look Hero. Do you think it's necessarily Hero-like? Mind your business Frank. But really, I gotcha - I have no particular love of Delco, given my druthers I'd rather be almost anywhere else barring p****burgh - but that's actually a Pokemon Go raid party jersey, from our Delco group. Whole other level of nerd I'm afraid.

Ohh - that makes sense. Didn't occur to me. Strapping (and the function/form thereof) is definitely what I'm least clear on in this build. It feels like longer than 5 days since I posted. So much has happened. On Monday, I spent hours hot water bathing my armor and did a dry-fitting of my torso pieces to get a feel for how much trimming I have to do. On Tuesday, I left for Disney World to spend a couple days ogling real live (FO)TKs. Now I'm back, and spent today gluing interior cover strips on my thighs, biceps, and one forearm (ran out of magnets and clamps for the second forearm due to coming down pretty hard on a couple cantankerous strips), AND dove into trimming Smudge's eyes and teeth. Highlights reel: HOT WATER BATHING I'm ending up with that same kidney-ab overlap that Cricket did. It makes me feel better to know that she fixed it - it's annoying the beans outta me. I molded all sorts of things with surprising aplomb, but got a bit ahead of myself attempting to head Trooper Dumpy Butt Syndrome off at the pass and definitely over-molded the butt. It's now in the running for becoming the bane of my existence. But anyway. I bent the shoulder bits. Yay. DRY FIT After shifting the ab (I mean the ab this time, I swear) around and seeing how it affected the entire front and back of my torso, I've come to realize that I'll likely just have to pick where I want the middle chest buttons and fit the rest of the torso accordingly. The position above is one I really like - aside from it being off center and me holding the chest a bit too high. As you can see, I've cut the cod off of the ab. That was actually one of the first things I did when I got the kit. I just forgot to mention it. I also gave the entire kit a bath with dish soap to get any mold release off. This concludes my setting the record straight as far as things I neglected to mention earlier. This is AFTER much shaping of the kidney! It was BIG, y'all! Still a ways to go. Also here we see the weird butt situation. I've stopped banging my head against the where-does-the-butt-sit wall, though. I'll fit it all based on the ab. Unless someone says that's bad. DISNEY! I drop about 20 years off my age when I see a stormtrooper. Went with the AT-AT pic to keep the 5-year-old Lorelei face to myself. BUCKET WORK Great time-filler while E6000 dries. Sketched and trimmed bucket back, keeping in mind the asymmetry of the ATA bucket and leaving extra beyond the intuitive cut line on the right side. Dremeled out the backs of the teeth and eyes to facilitate filing. Filed the eyes a smidge to get a feel for it and left Smudge at that for the night - he's looking so very TK-like already! It's so exciting! Time to print out more bucket pics and tape them up all around me as I file tomorrow.

Ha, I was just feeling guilty about not taking pictures of every step. Y'all are great. you're definitely not alone, Craig!

I've been told to leave it a little wider than that, for what it's worth. Add a millimeter to each side for instance, after dividing the appropriate cover strip width in half.

Congratulations!

Right, Rat. Definitely. I wouldn't smooth the seam over or anything, just attach the pieces permanently from behind to prevent the kidney (look! look! I know what it's called!) from sliding over the butt, as I suspect it might without that return edge to keep it in place. Boy. That's a scary prospect. It would be clean, though. Hmm. I'll try it all on and see what needs to come off, then make the call. Maybe a bit off each is called for. So you don't see a reason why connecting the kidney and butt plate would make the armor even less comfortable than it [reportedly] will be though, eh?

Yes, where I have it taped. By ab, I meant kidney. The entire time. Sorry... will edit for those who haven't read it yet...