troopermaster

Brow trim should not protrude past the trapezoids.

That's exactly the way I believe the original helmets were painted and evidence proves it. No masking of the eyes or teeth. Just focus on spraying the outside of the helmet and don't worry about any overspray on the inside. Overspray can be seen on the inside the original helmets so that's something you want, ideally. If you're going for an aged look then go for an off-white gloss spray rather than bright white. Good luck

ROTJ belts are made from 57mm poly webbing, not canvas, and that equals approximately 2 1/4" wide. You might want to update the CRL.

I measured my bells earlier today for what it's worth. They were 305mm long and 300mm around the lower edge. They do curve nicely. Here are some photos I took a while back that might help you.

You got them on correctly. It will be a case of trimming them with the curve and maybe a slight alteration of the strapping. One thing to note is that the bells will be pulled down now the arms are connected, so have the top bell strap with the snap really short to allow for some stretch. The original bells were free from the arms so nothing pulled on them and it's a bit harder to achieve the same look when the arms are connected, but it's not impossible

Do you have the shoulder bells on the correct sides? They look wider from the rear view than the front so you might want to swap them over? Daniel is right about trimming the bells curved. You can see your bells look straight. They should follow the contours of your chest and back plates ideally.

I measure the gap on the inner swoop of the forearms. This will guarantee you have the same gap that you might not achieve when measuring the outside gap. Another thing you might not have considered is having the inner forearm length the same. If you measure up from the wrist to the lowest part of the inner swoop it should be approximately 22cms, then you can have a 4cm gap between the bicep and swoop. This is how I assemble my kits anyway. Again, the biceps should be strapped from the bells and sit inside the bells about half way when they are not worn. One thing that might be causing your bells to slip above your biceps is the RS bells are quite narrow and if the lower end of the bells are not as wide as your biceps, they will naturally want to creep above them.

Much better

As you 'should' know the biceps were not connected to the shoulder bells on the original armour so they will slide down like in the photo. You can clearly see gaps between the biceps and bells. Plus the actors were small, like 5' 8" or less, so even when the arms were pulled up they may appear to have little to no wrist gap. So again, the elbow joint and comfort should be the priority. Over and out

It is irrelevant. Who cares about wrist gap? So what if you have it? Honestly, would you rather have your inner elbow pinched to heck just so you don't have some gap at your wrist when you have your arms down? Seriously?

The CRL need to be rewritten. The original knee plates didn't follow the tops of the shins exactly and it's asking a lot to do so. I think you should just get them on as neat as possible, regardless if they slope one way or the other, they should just look neat. I remember one of my guys cutting his shin plate because it was mentioned his knee plate didn't follow the shin. It was an extreme measure but that's the lengths some people will go to in order to fit in. I think Pam's knee plate looks spot on now

Your first attempt looks the best and probably feels the best too. You want to have your forearms up tight against your biceps to reduce the amount of gap between them and minimise the chance of pinching. Ignore how much gap you have on your wrists, it's totally irrelevant. Any wrist gap goes as soon as you start carrying your blaster. Try to focus more on the elbow. The biceps are usually about half way into your shoulder bells as a guide, but you may need to have them slightly lower or higher - whichever feels the most comfortable.

The problem with the RS shins is the original it was cast from had two identical shins made up from 2 outer left halves and 2 outer right halves. These two parts were never meant to match up because they were supposed to match up to inner halves (not present on their original). People go out of their way trying to make them into something they are not meant to be. That said, they can be reshaped using the hot water bath method. In regards to the knee plate not matching up, see above But again, I wouldn't worry too much about it. The originals were exactly the same if you look closely at the knee plates. Not many matched up perfectly. You can go overboard trying to match everything up for your own pleasure but when you scrutinise the original ANH armour, you will see thy are far from perfect and to me, that's what makes them look fantastic

You're welcome Another trick you can do if you still have trouble with gaps on the lower 'tail' of the ear caps is to remove the lower rivet or screw holding the helmet together and push the tubes into place, then drill a new hole through the ear cap and tighten it up. This will bring everything together. This is why I always temporarily screw the helmet together when I build one rather than rivet straight away, so I can make any adjustments if necessary then rivet when I am happy with everything.

The ears are one of the things that a lot of people struggle with. Looking at the way you have assembled your helmet, it has the face plate attached lower than usual and you have to lower the ear caps to suit. You might struggle to get a satisfactory finish if you keep them at the same height as you have the now. The other option is to reposition the face plate so the side tubes meet up better with the back of the helmet.

I would concentrate on #3. Having the biceps and forearms as close together as possible will make bending your arms more comfortable. The elbow joint gap should be the same on makes of armour but the amount of wrist gap should be irrelevant since the priority should be how the armour feels. You only get the wrist gap when your arms are straight down which is rare when you're wearing armour. Take a look at the original ANH armour to see how much wrist gap there is when the troopers are not carrying their blasters.

Your lower ears are very thick over the tubes, almost double (if not more) the thickness of the original helmet it was cast from. I would think about trimming them down more.

You want a smooth finish on the trim. Look for a 10mm U-trim with a 3-4 mm channel gap.

No, that's not how it works. You would only cut out the neckline of the chest plate if you was short. This allows the chest to sit lower and not dig into your neck. If you're tall, you will have no real adjustment between the armour parts, just over your shoulders so the gap would be bigger between your chest and back plate to allow your tall body to fit inside. I do all the fine trimming with a Dremel grinding stone then scrape off the swarf with a blade and finish with fine sand paper.

The back torso parts only go together one way with each part butting up against each other. I always leave a small gap between the parts to allow them to move as you walk but essentially they are butted up. The shoulder area and chest overlap are where the adjustments can be made. At your height you are pretty much maxing out the size, so when you strap the chest using the original strapping brackets, you don't really have any adjustment there. Your main adjustment will be the white elastic shoulder strap length. You will find the armour feels much better when you have strapped it with elastic. Taping it together is fine to get a basic feel for the armour but it doesn't allow any movement like elastic does. I don't quite understand your concern about the return edges. Just leave enough to attach the brackets (7-8mm) and a few mm's everywhere else.

E6000 should do the job so make sure you apply a thick bead of glue and clamp it for a good 24 hours (48 is better) It looks as though the thighs are still curved where the joints are that may be making gluing the flat strips difficult. You can add reinforcing strips to the lower ridge (rear knee) to make it secure. Trimming the ends of your joining strips should always be done prior to gluing. It just makes it so much easier but I don't think it's a requirement? Some of the original armour strips were squared off.

I'm not exactly sure but it's easily 3-4" wide at the top. I will use whatever size is needed to make sure the thighs fit the wearer. I would rather use a wider strips to fill the gaps than go to the extremes of shimming and filling that never looks quite right to me.

M3 black pan head slotted machine screws.

You don't need to do any how water treatment to the forearms. They are supposed to be oval shaped. I would completely remove all of the return edge on the inner half of the forearms on the elbow swoop. With regards to the joining strip edges not being straight, that's exactly how the originals are and the best way to get the edges cut is to simply lay your joining strip onto the armour, mark the half way point of the strip onto the armour on both ends, then draw a line between the two marks and trim. Now you know for sure your strips will fit onto the armour without any problems. It's quite normal to have some of the joining edge showing under the strips so try not to be too critical.

There's a big difference, actually. While the principle of using nylon webbing may sound more practical, it gives zero stretch and limits your movement in armour. Not only that, the zero stretch means it will pop your snaps or crack your armour when you move around too much. I know some people use webbing exclusively but I would strongly advise against it and use elastic instead. If you use quality elastic it will last a long time and if you have to swap it out eventually, so be it.