Another AM armor build[*AM]

[silverBoyd[501st]]

yeah....the bicep is just on my arm right now. I know it will line up to the shoulder bell groove but when you put your arm in the flex position...isn't the thumbprint on the top of your bicep? The way the AM armor is it feels like you can only put the bicep on one direction that's comfortable. I feel like if I rotated the bicep when I have the armor on I won't be able to get my arms up to take my helmet on and off.

[theisaac]

I had to heat gun mine to get it to open up more naturally. The "oval" opens so its more comfortable the way you have it now and it will want to rotate that way. Its because most people dont have as much of an oval bicep as we do. I've noticed I've had to adapt my armor a lot to fit my body shape rather than follow the contours of the molds. AM is made for bigger / taller frames but even AM struggles to accomodate in some pieces. Until I can diet down enough to get my arms to the 15 inch mark I'll be fighting the biceps of my TK armor.

[silverBoyd[501st]]

yeah....my bicep pieces are an oval shape. I can tell they'll already be the most uncomfortable pieces.

 

These biceps are going to be the bane of my existence. I tried wearing them correctly turned to see how it felt and the biceps for the AM kit are too oval shaped. I've already assembled them using the butt joint and outer cover strip method. But if I have them turned on my arm like they're suppose to be then I will have no mobility and can hardly lift my arms up to put on or take off my helmet. Perhaps I'm not lining them up properly in the mirror.

Edited April 26, 2012 by silverBoyd

[theisaac]

thats the beauty of the butt joint. you can start over and put thicker shims if you need to.

 

I would try the heat gun / hairdryer first to VERY CAREFULLY heat and squeeze to reshape the oval. I would heat then squeeze to the right shape then dip them in a bucket of cold water to help shape them up. This made them fit 100% better on me. I was able to flare the oval the other way a bit and I can move in mine now.

 

I was in the same spot as you are now before I did this. I also cut down the sides of the "U" shape to make that bigger since its hidden under the shoulder bell anyway and this made a HUGE difference in the fit. Give it a shot and I think you'll be surprised at how much room you can make in there for your arms. I get it though, just a glance through my build so far and 75% of the build is me pissed off at my bicep pieces.

[silverBoyd[501st]]

Thanks Isaac...I'll try the heat gun / hairdryer process. Think i can heat and squeeze out the shape while they're already butt-joined? I got to get it fixed....otherwise the plastic is going to cut into me. It already is if I turn them the way they're suppose to.

[theisaac]

you'll be surprised at how well the butt joint will hold. You'll see that if flixes most at the joints because the forsale sign is so thin but I didnt have one come open at the seams from the heat gun method. You shouldnt have an issue.

If it does though, just use it as an excuse to re-shim with a 1/4 or 1/2 inch more forsale sign to give you a little more room. Your outside cover strip should still cover the gap and the outside strip is just cosmetic the stress happens on the inside one anyway.

 

Isaac

[silverBoyd[501st]]

Thanks for the tip man.

[silverBoyd[501st]]

I've been swamped at work with deadlines as well as everyday family life. Haven't had much time to work on my armor since Tuesday. The only pieces I have completed so far are the biceps (which I'm taking a heat gun to today to open them up more), the shins and the helmet. I'm planning on getting ALOT accompolished by the end of the weekend. I have all of my torso pieces trimmed and edges sanded smooth. Now I just need to fit them to my body and trim. Also, planning on finishing my forearms and thighs this weekend too. For some reason the thighs seem daunting to me. I know i'll have to possibly cut 1-2" from the top becuase otherwise they dig into me. But i'll just have to wait and see once i do a test fitting.

Edited April 27, 2012 by silverBoyd

[silverBoyd[501st]]

I'm on a mission to make some major progress on my build this weekend. Waiting for my inner shims for the butt joint assembly to cure on the forearms. Some say that the arm pieces don't need inner shims but I like the idea of the extra strength. Took me about 45 minutes to finally get the best fit for my forearms. They feel good.

 

Think I have enough clamps?

[silverBoyd[501st]]

Woke up this morning and started to work on gluing the forearm halves together. I'll add the finishing cover strips tonight to finish them.

I'm really pleased with how they fit. At the wrists I have just enough room to tuck in my gloves. I originally thought I'd have to taper the cuts but a few straight cuts in the "crescent moon" shaped halves brought the wrists in nicely. One side may have a very slight taper but it's not obvious it's a tapered cut. Especially after I put on the ABS cover strips.

 

Next up today, taking a heat gun to my finished biceps to give them a more rounded opening rather than the oval shaped openings they currently have. After the bicep are fixed i'll start the thighs are possibly dive into sizing / test fitting the upper body areas. Im curious to try out my suspenders I bought for holding up the abs / kidney / butt plates. More updates & pics to come later today after I take my daughters to play at the park

[theisaac]

Nice man! Keep up the updates!

[silverBoyd[501st]]

Had to pause working on my armor this afternoon. Our washing machine decided to overflow and flood my hallway. Now i'm just sitting down to "try to" fit the torso to myself with a dry fitting (using painters tape). It's daunting. I have seemed to fit the ab/cod, kidney and butt plate roughly using suspenders and tape and it look ok. No pictures yet. Nothing worth seeing. I can already tell that I have a good 5-6" on both sides between the cod/abs and the kidney plates. So that's some shimming I can already see in my future. That's one reason I bought the AM armor. It's built for the bigger trooper in mind. Any tips? How should I approach the torso? It's looking overwhelming already.

[theisaac]

I took a spare sheet of abs that came for the belt and used that for cod/kidney shim. What I did was butt up one side so its flush then measured the gap on the other side. Take that and divide by 2. Thats how much you have on either side to hide. I took that number and added a 1 inch to it so i had a half inch on either side to keep the joint covered. (think cover strip only its not glued on both sides)

 

Then i used straps like im sure you've seen everywhere on just about every build in the last year to make the cod kidney open like a clamshell. If you are going EIB and there isnt a reason NOT to, then you'll get some closed rivets that will also hold the shim on the left side. I went to ACE Hardware and they called them Culinary Rivets or Cutlery Rivets.. something like that. They press together. I'll take pics of mine if you want to see it and think it will help.

 

My AM chest needed to have the top straps cut off a huge amount to make it sit right on my body. The bottom of the chest should sit just above the button box on your ab plate. Once you get your ab/kidney sized up then you can see where your chest wants to sit and trim from there. If you look at my build you'll see what i had to do to get my chest lower. You'll see a pic of the chest and the formed shoulder straps, not the ribbed add on ones but the ones formed on the chest was making the chest float up on my neck. That was after cutting about 1 1/2 inches off already. So I lobbed a total of about 3 or 4 inches total to get it lower. You will want to experiment for yourself though.

 

I was in the same place that you are in and I drew a blueprint on paper to help me visualize it and went from there. You will need a spotter for sure though to make sure its fitting right. Have you reached out to your local Garrison yet? I went to an armor party that mine had and it was a HUGE help. You'll find lots of ideas and people who know how this stuff fits.

 

How did the biceps come out? Did you heat them and stretch them out a bit yet?

 

Isaac

[silverBoyd[501st]]

Isaac...you ROCK brother. Thanks for the tips. Right now I'm gluing on the final ABS cover strip to one of my forearms and watching Empire Strikes Back. I'd love to see a pic of two of the rivets as well as the inside snaps and what-not of your inner torso. Especially the shim on the side of the ab / kidney piece if you don't mind. I'm skipping the thighs at the moment. I'm wanting to get at least the ab and kidney fitted by tomorrow so that I can justify how high my thighs need to go without bumping into the lower cod region, y'know?

 

I can already tell that my AM chest and back molded straps will have to be cut down significantly. As far as the biceps....I did heat them up with a heat gun and slightly shaped them to be less oval. You can really feel a bit more room once they're on the correct way. I can still feel a slight "bite" but I think everyone experiences that.

 

I have been in contact with my local garrison since last July. Have even been a "wrangler" for them at a Star Wars Night Hockey Game event. No armor parties though. Unfortunately. That's why I'm always on these forums and the Carolina Garrison forums asking for tips, researching, etc...

This build is straight-on TD. I finished my MTK helmet last year, already built my backpack, I've completed a Hasbro E-11 mod with a Doopydoos Resin Kit and I have built a T21 (Lewis Gun) Blaster from scratch. All I need to do now is finish this armor build, get dirty and get approved. I also already have all of my pieces like the boots, pauldron, etc. Still need to make a neck seal though.

[silverBoyd[501st]]

making some snap plates for my heavy duty snaps. I picked up some 1.0mm (0.040" thick) Styrene Plastic sheets at my local Hobbytown shop. $4 for 2 sheets isn't too bad of a price I guess. I was thinking of cutting up some FOR SALE sign material but thought this stuff would be a bit more durable since I had experience using styrene sheets to hand make parts for my T21 Blaster build a few months ago.

Not sure why but I decided to use my curved Lexan scissors to give the snap plate bases nice rounded corners. (Those scissors are not made for people with big fingers)

Tonight I'm hoping to get the butt & kidney plates attached together

 

 

**just a side note - Is it just me or does anyone else on here watch the movies or listen to the soundtracks while assembling armor?**

Edited April 29, 2012 by silverBoyd

[theisaac]

ya man, great idea with the styrene!

 

You'll spend a few hours getting all the snaps in place. Once you get them on the suit and the webbing gets attatched you'll really start to see your suit come to life. I'll post some pics of the inside of my suit this week to show you how I did mine. Not that its the right way but it holds it together on my wonky frame. You'll find what works best for you. For the most part the ab / kidney back all just sit flush to each other. The sizing comes into play for the chest and where it overlaps and sits in relation to the ab plate. Mine is strapped so it cant ride up and stays in the sweet spot of hitting right about an inch over the button plate on the ab.

[silverBoyd[501st]]

Yeah, the snaps are taking some time. I got about 15 male snaps & snap plates made up. Now I need to make the female snaps that will be attached to elastic.

 

Question - Did you just use the elastic and the soft velcro that was included in the AM kit? I'm wondering if I can put the female snaps and button covers attached through the soft velcro that is already sewn onto the straps that came with the kit. I just didn't want to spend anymore $ on elastic unless I really have to.

[tkrestonva[TK]]

Question - Did you just use the elastic and the soft velcro that was included in the AM kit? I'm wondering if I can put the female snaps and button covers attached through the soft velcro that is already sewn onto the straps that came with the kit. I just didn't want to spend anymore $ on elastic unless I really have to.

 

The answer to that is yes. You can drive the snaps themselves straight through the soft velcro. Like you said, since you have it anyway you may as well use it.

[silverBoyd[501st]]

Thanks for the tip Brian. Any advice on getting a hole punched through the elastic and soft velcro?

 

I've sketched up a few ideas for strapping. I'm planning on using a shim to close the one side of the "clamshell" and closed it off using rivets. But for the side that will close after I'm inside. How should I go about that closure? Using canvas to close it off? Using the FOR SALE sign material like I'll use on the other side that will be riveted except I'll velcro the shim in?

 

Edited May 1, 2012 by silverBoyd

[Arnie_DK[TK]]

Be carefull when using styrene, as its not really that durable. I can easily scratch and if theres a scratch the next step will be that it snaps in two. Kinda like the score and snap method, only with very little effort.

 

Otherwise it looks like you have it all planned out quite well

[NastyNoah[TK]]

Thanks for the tip Brian. Any advice on getting a hole punched through the elastic and soft velcro?

 

Punching holes through the elastic can be done with the post of the snaps. Just apply a little pressure and stretch the elastic a bit and the post will make it's way through. As for the Velcro I would try an ice pick or a leather punch.

[tkrestonva[TK]]

Exactly - something like an ice pick. As I recall, I used a deactivated soldering iron to punch through.

 

As for the strapping, I would try to mimic the screen-used suits as much as possible (but using snap plates instead of wire brackets). So in your example, you would need three snap locations on the butt, kidney bottom, kidney top, and upper back as I recall - as opposed to the two that your diagram shows. They would also be placed as close to the return edge as possible without being actually on it.

[silverBoyd[501st]]

Exactly - something like an ice pick. As I recall, I used a deactivated soldering iron to punch through.

 

As for the strapping, I would try to mimic the screen-used suits as much as possible (but using snap plates instead of wire brackets). So in your example, you would need three snap locations on the butt, kidney bottom, kidney top, and upper back as I recall - as opposed to the two that your diagram shows. They would also be placed as close to the return edge as possible without being actually on it.

 

ok....I"ll plan on putting 3 sets of snaps on the butt to the kidney and also 3 snaps from the kidney to the lower region of the main back piece. I bought a set or suspenders that have the alligator clips attached. I really want to utilize them. I'm thinking of taking off the alligator clips and attaching some snaps to the bottom of the suspenders that will in turn, connect to the the inside of the ab piece and then to the upper portion of the kidney plate? I've been searching for pics of how others did the strapping but haven't found too many. I think I'm just overthinking ot all really. How's the best way to close in both sides of the lower torso armor? Since I'm a bigger build than the average Stormtrooper, I have roughly 5" or so where I'll need to shim the gap closed. I'm thinking FOR SALE sign riveted in place permanently to the left side but on my right side between the ab and kidney plate...what's my best way of going about that part so that I can still get in and out to put it on? Like I said, I think I'm overthinking everything too much

 

Also, should I use ABS Glue in small doses to glue in my snap plates so that they stay secure? I was thinking of using E6000 but E6000 has a little bit of flexibility, right?

Edited May 1, 2012 by silverBoyd

[troopermaster]

This strapping is simple and very effective.

[silverBoyd[501st]]

thanks for all the tips. Especially the inside pic of the torso strapping. I tend to overthink things I'm working on. I don't know why...but I had no problems building a T21 blaster and a TD backkpack from scratch but this armor (although i've been researching and reading forums for a few years) gets me stumped from time to time.