AM 2.0 build (ANH Stunt) by Rystan

[SCTrooper[TK]]

Oh I forgot, your gloves sound too long. You really don't need heavy-duty chemical gloves. Pick up some black neoprene gloves at the hardware store, the are much more confortable and easier to wear. Maybe you can return the other gloves and get a balaclava.

[Freak Nasty Fester]

No problem,

 

PM me your email and ill send it to you.

 

Starfox, can I possibly get a copy of the instructions as well?

[Starfox2010]

Starfox, can I possibly get a copy of the instructions as well?

Yea, PM me your email address.

[Dark PWF[Staff]]

Good build so far, Mike.

 

Even in the face of some difficulty you're working it out and doing research. Definitely bodes well for your final product. Are you building your kit to EIB/Centurion standards?

[Freak Nasty Fester]

Mike, do you have a picture of the three button ab detail for Sandie's that came with your kit?  I've dug through my AM 2.0 kit from TK Tupperware and can't find one.

[Rystan]

Mike, do you have a picture of the three button ab detail for Sandie's that came with your kit? I've dug through my AM 2.0 kit from TK Tupperware and can't find one.

What I thought we're the TD ab buttons we're the uncut river covers for the belt. Although it came with two sets. I'm not building a Sandie so I'm not totally sure all of what goes with their costume.

[Freak Nasty Fester]

Same situation here.  It should be three large circle that goes in the same spot as the detail with four medium circles.  I'm not seeing a separate piece though.

[Rystan]

Good build so far, Mike.

 

Even in the face of some difficulty you're working it out and doing research. Definitely bodes well for your final product. Are you building your kit to EIB/Centurion standards?

Thanks Tim! I am looking to go for Centurion but might have to swap out some pieces at some point or so I've read to get there. I should be able to get EIB as it comes.

 

I followed your build pretty closely to tide me over while waiting for my armor to come. Yours turned out great!

[Rystan]

Same situation here. It should be three large circle that goes in the same spot as the detail with four medium circles. I'm not seeing a separate piece though.

Have you consulted with MightyTank?

[Freak Nasty Fester]

Have you consulted with MightyTank?

I've emailed questions on the two left shins and on the helmet, but have not heard anything back so I'm not going to hit him with another.  I'm pressed for time, but also trying to be respectful as I'm guessing this shin issue has him scrambling....

[MightyTank[501st]]

Did you email me, or Tupperware?

 

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk

[Freak Nasty Fester]

Did you email me, or Tupperware?

 

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk

Tupperware.  I asked earlier and was told you are one in the same.  Are you a team or totally unrelated?

[MightyTank[501st]]

Same armor, different people. Shoot me the email and I'll take care of you. [email protected]

 

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk

[Freak Nasty Fester]

PM sent to Mighty Tank

[Rystan]

So when we last left the Telemundo soap opera "Todas las imágenes del antebrazo"  (All the forearm picutres), our plucky hero (That's me...and hey, it's my story, I'll tell it how I want to.) left off with the decision:

 

Do I:

A ) Remove 17.5 mm from the red sections & 27.5 mm from the blue halves.

or

B ) Since the over all ABS being removed is 55 mm + 35 mm, or 90 mm, remove 22.5 mm  ( 90 / 4 = 22.5) from all 4 sections to keep the proportions even.

or

C ) Remove some amount only from the blue side (which will ultimately be the side facing the front when the armor is being worn)  [i'm thinking 22.5 to be on the safe side...can always take more later).  Repeating the same process for the elbow end front only, get the inner & outer cover strips installed.  And THEN worry about the red/back side of the forearms (taking new measurments).

 

My gut (and memory of looking at other build threads) tells me that C is probably the best/safest/right answer.

 

 

 

So, I decided to pull up my big boy pants(*) and went with option C.

 

I chose to start with the front facing side of the forearms so that if I ended up with a wonky looking side (eg. the cover strip too close or far away from the dimples) it would hopefully end up on the back instead of the front.

 

I made my measurements and took about a quarter (minus a mm or two to leave extra if needed) of the total amount being removed from the inner and the outer each.

 

 

I clamped a metal ruler along the marks to both draw the above lines and as a guide for the box cutter for the score and snap method of cutting.  I've found that drawing the line with the pencil even though I plan to cut the same line allows me to gauge as I'm cutting (and after the snapping) to see how much the tip of the blade tended to "dance" and come off the guide ruler.  

 

 

After cutting both pieces, I decided that the good idea was to "waste not" and reuse some of the trimmed pieces as the inner strip as they we already roughly the right length and complementarily (I think I just made up a word) curved to the forearm pieces already.   I rounded off the corners as well as contoured the ends to match the profile of the armor pieces so there wouldn't be any unsightly overlap.  I sanded the whole shim and the inside edges of the forearm pieces, liberally applied E6000, let it sit for a few minutes while I prepared my taped magnet pairs.

 

 

(*Yes, I'm calling my Star Wars pajamas my big boy pants!)

 

Inside view:

 

 

Outside view:

 

Rinse and repeat for the other forearm:

 

 

And we wait:

 

Now that we've watch the above 2.5 times, I can begin working on the backside of each forearm.   (Note: the observant among you, which frankly is all of you, will notice that I chose...yeah we'll go with chose over forgot...to wait until after the front side was glued before measuring and making the backside cuts.)  It made for some tight work so rather than use the box cutter to score and snap, I opted for a pair of "titanium" scissors to make the cuts at that point.   It was so tight and I want to make sure I could get them cut and glued before going to bed so they could dry/cure all night that I neglected to take very many pictures.  

 

\\

 

As many of you are aware, navigating little packets of magnets (say that a few times fast) in such tight corners made me long for the days of playing Milton Bradley's Operation.

 

 

It sure would be nice to have a few extra arms when trying to get the forearm pieces, shims, clamps, magnets and tape...lots of tape into place.

 

 

24 hours wasn't really enough time to let the front edges settle flush and they started to peel up when applying pressure on the backside so they received some extra glue and clamped/magneted/taped a second night.

 

 

2.5 more cantina performances later:

 

right forearm:

 

left forearm:

 

 

There's still a good bit of separation between the inner shim and the armor halves (still only on the front halves...so much for them going smoothly by going first)

 

Should I deal with getting them flat/flush before adding the outer/visible cover strips?

 

 

If so, any suggestions for combating the pulling/separation?  I'm thinking that I might have to employ the use of a heat gun to stop the pieces from trying to pull apart.  I'm hoping that the visible cover strips will help keep it flat/tight provided I can get enough pressure on them while they're curing.  Thoughts?

 

I'm also thinking that before gluing the cover strips I should probably deal with the wrist edge jaggedness, seen below:

 

 

 

Finally...(I know...me too)

 

 

I know I have to wait until the rest of the arm armor is finished in order to check for fit, but I think the length is pretty good.  It pretty much fills my entire naked forearm from wrist bend to elbow bend and there isn't a ton of gap at either end...will worry about that for now...

 

[Manzilla]

Nice detail Mike, and entertaining all at the same time 

[Rystan]

 

Next up, some questions:

 

 

For the butt <--> kidney plate...there's a slight curve in one part of the kidney plate, does it go

 

Up High:

 

 

Or down low:

 

 

I feel like it makes more sense to go down low to closer follow the curve of the lower back, but the problem I notice there is that the two pieces end flush if arranged like that.  With the curve near the top, the kidney plate sticks out toward the front of the body further than the butt plate.  (circled in the above picture).  I know there's supposed to be some sort of notch at that point so I either am going to be trimming from kidney plate to match up to the butt plate, or trimming both to add the notch (after figuring out where the cut between the kidney and abdomen pieces needs to be (remember, tall and skinny guy here so I won't need to shim, but rather remove plastic in most cases)

 

Thoughts?

 

 

Also coming up soon (still need to do some more research), butt and cod trimming:

 

 

 

I still need to investigate where/how much needs to get trimmed (return edges, how round, and how much to leave between the legs, etc)...not really soliciting for the info at this stage, but if someone's got advice or pointers, I'm all ears.

 

I've seen some people go with suspenders, I'm assuming they'd go between the kidney plate in the back and the abdomen in the front?  Necessary?

 

 

On the biceps, I've removed the bottom return edges and the return edges along the outside of the arm (I'm seeing that you want to keep at least some if not all of the inner bicep edge.    I measured up some marks for cutting the bicep, but I stopped because I'm not particularly happy with the test fit.  It fits snug once it's on my arm and I can flex/move my arm fine once it's on, but sliding it up/down my elbow/forearm scrapes pretty fierce, mainly because the outer bicep pieces are pretty boxy at the bottom.

 

 

The circumference measurements at the forearm bulge/elbow bend are pretty similar to the bicep as I measure it, but I could definitely use it to be more rounded at the elbow.  Do I just cut/glue/cover strip it and then attack it with a heat gun to round it out?  Or back away from the measurement a bit so I've got room to slide it on?

 

 

 

[Starfox2010]

I was just asking myself the same thing on the rim from the wrist side. Hopefully someone could chime in on this.  I had a mess of a time gluing, The inner shim had shifted a bit  I wish I had extra hands too. Damn magnets.

[Freak Nasty Fester]

Guys, I've followed the same process as with my clone.  Clones don't have finishing strips or seams so it can be a real pain in the rear end as you have to Bondo and then sand like mad at the butt joints.  Basically I get the two pieces to where the taped together sub-assembly feels comfortable on my arm and then create a joint cut on both pieces.  I do this by creating a common line at the overlap and then separating to cut individually.  THen I bring the two pieces back together and check fit on my arm as well as if the two cuts line up without spaces, etc.  Only then do I glue.  I'm using a CA glue with activator so the set time is minimal.  I used the same adhesive on my clone.  In neither armor set did I use two shims (internal only on a clone due to no seams as mentioned earlier.)  With the results from the clone, I am not using both an internal and external shim.  I will try to post pictures later to illustrate.

[Freak Nasty Fester]

OK, I'm going to contradict myself a little here.  After writing the above post, I started working on my thigh pieces and ran into a potential snag.  See, I have some big ol' Jerome Bettis type thighs and if I want to keep the 7/8" finishing strip width in front (I can't I need to bump it up to 1") I have to have the thigh backs touch in back with no overlap.  Seriously, I am cutting off absolutely nothing off the back.  So, an interior shim might be needed in back to guarantee strength at that joint.

[Shank_O_Potomus]

Hey Mike, how did you determine the left and right bicep. Which arm does the spoon go on?

[Rystan]

Hey Mike, how did you determine the left and right bicep. Which arm does the spoon go on?

 

The thumb/spoon print goes on the left, per: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/7263-bicep-question/

[Shank_O_Potomus]

The thumb/spoon print goes on the left, per: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/7263-bicep-question/

Great thanks! Hows the build going?

[Rystan]

Great thanks! Hows the build going?

Pretty good. Got a bunch more done today since I could work outside and before 10 p.m. will have pics later.

 

How about with you?

[Shank_O_Potomus]

Pretty good. Got a bunch more done today since I could work outside and before 10 p.m. will have pics later.

 

How about with you?

Its going well! I'm not quite sure how to approach fitting the torso pieces... have any ideas?