Please help me ! AP Armor Build

[Tusken RTT]

Great job!  Looks perfect. 

[Spycee[TK]]

Ok, what's left to do :

- Thermal detonator - I melted a bit of one of the caps :-(

- Boots

- Velcro on the shins

 

Here are some shots with the armor :

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A bit of strapping :

 

[Tusken RTT]

Heck yea!  Looking great, congrats!  It's like running a marathon for sure.  

I cant tell if you glued your shin coverstrip or not.  I messed up and made mine only 20 mm and I dont think it is quite wide enough- I did not do my homework and should have went with 25mm.  That's my next of endless tweeks. 

[Spycee[TK]]

Yeah it's a marathon ! I don't think 20mm will be enough to be able to withstand the pressure... I hope you still have enough ABS. You can try though, maybe it will be OK.

 

Oh, and I still have to do the ABS paste for the shims !

[The5thHorseman[501st]]

A good thing to do would be to shorten the straps that go from the top of the shoulder bells to the shoulder bridge straps. It's an easy but also quite efficient way to help reducing the gaps of you have at the shoulders at the moment.

[Spycee[TK]]

Yeah it was bothering me all the time I wore the armor ...  I constantly had to try to pull them higher, it didn't feel "right" when moving the arms.  And I think the black elastics around the biceps were too low, and dragging the shoulder bell lower than it should.  I'll have to remember to pull them higher.

 

Another thing to do : a checklist of things to do in order when putting the armor on : after I finished, I saw I forgot the neck seal      And one of the gloves fell on the floor ...  I was lucky my wife didn't have her cellphone in hand to take a picture !

[Spycee[TK]]

I think I have a little problem : I got the TD clips, but it seems that they are not cut at the right place :

 

 

 

The screw holes are not at the same place as other TD clips I saw on the forum.  Well, I think the holes are at the right place but the clips are just longer than they should be.  Because of that the TD "plate" is placed higher than I see on other TD.

 

What do you think ?  It does not bother me a lot, but I don't want to have a problem for certification (I intend to go Centurion at a later time).

[Spycee[TK]]

Some pictures on the armor :

 

 

 

It seems way too high for me ...

[Tusken RTT]

Someone mentioned the TD being high on mine as well;  would be interested to see what folks think.  I dont see any other way to move the plate down?

[Spycee[TK]]

I would cut the metal closer to the screw holes if I was sure to do a good job, but I never did something like that on that kind of metal.

[The5thHorseman[501st]]

Like you said, cut the end closer the screw hole. It will be more accurate and also bring down the panel.

 

Nothing difficult to do if you have a dremel. Just draw a guiding line where you want to cut, make sure the clip won't move and just cut through it. Watch for the heat but you shouldn't have too much trouble here. You can also easily do that with a hand-hacksaw if you prefer.

If you're not confident, practise few times just above your final cut line.  

[Tusken RTT]

Great call guys;  I went to the garage and hit my clips with the hacksaw then the file, took only a minute or so.  This will look much better!  You will be fixed up quick Alex.  

Edited November 22, 2014 by Tusken RTT

[Spycee[TK]]

Finally I tried to cut the clips, and it was a complete success    I cut it with a metal grinder and sanded it after.  Thanks for your advices !

 

 

 

 

 

And after ...  I tried to fill the shims with ABS paste.  What a disaster.  I tried to make it larger to soften the transition, but now I just have a large band that I can't remove the scratches made by sanding.  I trired Novus 3, 2, 1, alouette !  How the hell can I sand it to make it even with a tape to protect the polished part ???  I finished sanding it with a 400 sandpaper, but I think the larger scratches are still there and the 400 one didn't remove them entirely.  Here is the result :

 

 

 

After this disaster, I tried it narrower on the other side :

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, and I began removing the black paint on the boots, but I ran out of deglazer on the second boot ...  So I have to buy another bottle tomorrow to continue.

[Tusken RTT]

TD looks great, I'm sure glad you posted about it!  

 

Not a disaster at all on the shims, just takes time.  I did both methods as well with the paste, the wide and the narrow on the seem, but each gets you to the same place after sanding I learned.  I ended up not taping off when I sanded, as it blended in better to the original plastic I thought.   I had to repeat a few small divets a couple of times with some paste, but eventually you will fill that seem and it will be smooth like all one part!  Just a pain I know.  I started too with medium sandpaper to get the bulk of the paste down, then the finer and finer grit.  

 

Dont forget that color/brand plastic spray paint I posted in the kidney shim post- when you get it sanded down to just the fine seem line that you can barely see, give it a couple of very light dustings with the paint without taping it off.  Let it dry and repeat.  It will transition perfectly into the original and will make your seem disappear!  Your kit is AP and the color is a spot on match.   The polish then is the very last step. 

[Spycee[TK]]

I'll stop with the shims for now, I'm too frustrated ...  I'm not able to get the gloss on them.  I tried the paint on ABS pieces but it's not working, I'll have to do some tests someday.  I took pictures and it looks very nice on them, depending on the light it's very easy to see the seams with the sanding.  I don't think it can't stop me from getting the armor approved.  Is it ?   

 

 

Edited November 23, 2014 by Spycee

[Tusken RTT]

Looks great to me- I cant even see the seam!

[Sly11[Admin]]

That's a bloody good job Trooper

 

 

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[Spycee[TK]]

That's the problem... It looks perfect depending on the lighting. If you look at it to see the gloss, you would see that there's no gloss on the seam. One of the pictures I already posted shows what I mean.

[Sly11[Admin]]

Hit it with Novus Polish that stuff is da bomb.

 

 

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[Spycee[TK]]

Doesn't seem to work... But it helped a bit. I'll try to do a couple more shots of Novus to see if its better.

 

Thanks !

[Sly11[Admin]]

Did you use to he system 1, 2, 3. Also if you have a polishing bit for your Dremmel, it will make a difference, then use a softer buffing bit.

To be honest, when your out trooping, you will be the only one that notices it's there, to the children you will be the perfect Stormtrooper.

 

 

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[Clamps[TK]]

you can likely lose those scratches with the use automotive wet sanding paper in the 1000-2000 grit range. should help you blend the edges a bit as well

[gazmosis[501st]]

Sanding to a gloss should be a progression. Jumping from 400- novus is a huge step. There are so many more progressive grits before the novus that will get you a better gloss

[Spycee[TK]]

Thanks for the ideas ! I'll search for a finer sandpaper this week, I don't know exactly where to get it. 400 was the finest I was able to get at the hardware store.

[I'm Batman[501st]]

I would have thought most (decent) hardware stores should have similar to 400-600-800-1000. You would possibly then need to try a hobby/craft store for finer than 1000. I didn't read back through your earlier posts, but make sure you're using wet'n'dry paper. The regular stuff is no good and may only go to 400 or so.