Kredal's ANH Hero build [AM2]

[Kredal[TK]]

It's ok, I wasn't using it anyways. (:

[ukswrath[Staff]]

It's ok, I wasn't using it anyways. (:

 

lol

[LoveMonkey[501st]]

Your build is coming along nicely! And thanks for taking the plunge on the thighs so I have a guide when I get to mine.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Kredal[TK]]

Got the first thigh cover strips gluing.  I stuck with 25 and 30mm since that's what's on my shin armor.  It'll look good, I promise.  (:  

 

 

 

I also cut the end off the cod plate, and started the curve.  There's an indent in the rounded part at the bottom, I'm not really sure if that's the cut line or just an artifact of the mold, so I cut well beyond that. It's not cleaned up at all, so it's still rough.  I just wanted to make sure I could fit in it and the kidney plate without needing to shim.  Survey says: Yes!  I taped up one side to act like the elastic clamshell, and put on the kidney and ab/cod combo, and the other side comes almost exactly to the right place.  With an elastic snap and a belt on that side, it'll fit wonderfully with no trimming or shimming.  Horray again for AM2!

 

 

(no pictures of that test fitting, sorry.  Maybe later)

 

I painted up the ab buttons too.  Put down the templates, did a coat of nail polish, then pulled up the CRL and painted according to the diagram.

 

(Oh, I trimmed the plates yesterday.  Cut down to just the edge of the pyramid they come on, and then lined it up with the button plate spots on the ab armor to get final cuts... cut there, then sanded the edges smooth.)

 

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Looking good Josh coming right along. 

[Airborne Trooper[501st]]

I don't think you're using enough magnets, throw on another 20 or 30 

Looking good though! Be glad you don't have the shim because it is a pain in the butt!

[Kredal[TK]]

This weekend and the rest of this week is threatening to be crazy busy, which means very little time for armor-building.  And looking at what I have left to do, it's making me crazy thinking how close I am, but still need lots of dedicated time at the bench, that I'm not getting!

 

- Do left thigh (cut, fit, glue)

- Cut and attach ammo pack to right thigh

- Trim butt plate (bottom pokey bit), back, and chest return edges (at the top and top sides)

- Cut squares out of kidney plate

- Strap together all of the body plates with clips and elastic bands, and make clamshell opening

- Make straps to go between all the snap plates everywhere

- Do the shoulder straps, sew in snaps for arm assemblies

- Glue on ab button plates

- Make the belt assembly with plastic belt and drop boxes

- Make thermal detonator assembly

- Fit and adjust as needed

- Sand edges, Novus outside everywhere

- Take all the pictures!

 

Rough estimate looks like 10-20 hours of work, spread out as I wait for glue to dry and stuff... AHHHH

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Sounds like fun.

[rduda]

So, if you round off the cod where do you put the snap? Sorry I haven't seen this yet, very interesting!!

[Kredal[TK]]

I just grabbed this picture from a random Centurion request thread:

 

 

The top of the picture is the butt plate, with the really long piece between the legs shortened and rounded out a little, and the bottom piece is the cod, with the snap/rivet about 3/4 of an inch away from the end of the curve.

 

So that's what I plan to do. (:

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Good plan

[Kredal[TK]]

My first day of building anything in over a week! Yay!

 

Got a lot done, but not a lot of pictures.  Boo!

 

Ammo pack is on the right leg.

 

 

I used the paint stick method of bending it with my heat gun, that worked really well (almost too well, a couple of the bends went a bit too far, but it's pretty solidly attached to the leg, so no biggy.

 

The speed rivets gave me some trouble.  I've never used them before, and don't exactly have the right tool for the job, so I improvised.  I used a big pair of pliers that could fit around everything, covered the outside edge of the rivet with a couple layers of tape, and another layer on the jaw of the pliers, but it wasn't enough to keep the pliers from marring the rivet.  Hopefully a layer or three of white enamel paint will be enough to make it look not terrible.  I used Tony's measurements on the outside edge, 10mm on the ammo pack, and 6mm on the thigh, and then wrapped around to the inside, pulled as tight as I could, and marked where to drill on the inside thigh.  Squeezed on the rivet on that side, and a little E6000 over the knee, and that's done.

 

 

 

Next I started on the other thigh.  Did the usual measuring on the front, cutting down, trying it on while squeezing the back, taping that closed at an angle, trimming the back, yadda yadda, and got the inside strips glued in.

 

 

 

Then I did up the thermal detonator.  I drilled a small hole in the middle of the tube where the cover plate would go, in order to give air a place to escape when I put on the end caps.. otherwise it would be full of pressure (not much, but enough to keep the E6000 from behaving, probably. Anyway, the hole gets covered, so no problem.

 

I test-fit the cover plate and the clips I got from Evilboy... turns out they wouldn't fit together nicely, so I trimmed a little bit from the back of the cover plate (closest to the round element, that won't be very visible), sanded the bottom of the plate, applied glue liberally, and plopped it down, centered between the end caps.  Taped it up really tightly, and worked on the clips.  I had some phillips head wood screws laying around, so I used them.  I might get flat heads later, but these will work.  I drilled pilot holes through the cylinder, one at a time, as I screwed in the screws.  Really close to the end caps, of course.

 

Here's some pictures of the "finished" product. Needs tape removed and painted screw heads, but anyway.

 

 

 

 

Oh, and the whole thing is within spitting distance of 6.5 inches long out of the box, so I didn't mess with that at all.

[Chills[TK]]

Great looking build, so far, Josh. 

 

One thing about your thigh ammo pack, it should be angled up so that the top of the pack touches the bottom of that coverstrip. 

[Kredal[TK]]

Great looking build, so far, Josh. 

 

One thing about your thigh ammo pack, it should be angled up so that the top of the pack touches the bottom of that coverstrip. 

 

Great note, thanks!  Fixed.  Yay E-6000!  (:

[Kredal[TK]]

OK, tackled the belt this morning.  I thought "hey, it's a belt, how hard can it be?  Turns out: this hard.

 

There are a LOT of moving pieces here, a lot of different attachment points, and a lot to think about as far as order of operations.

 

The plastic belt comes in at just under 4 inches tall, so I didn't cut anything from the top or bottom, or it would end up too skinny.  I drilled 1/8 inch holes on top of the dimples that are molded in, and cut 1/2 inch off the corners at a 45 degree angle.  I found the center of the cloth belt, marked it all, drilled out the same 1/8 inch hole, and did the same to the end holes.  Done and done. Not so bad so far.

 

I made cuts of 1" elastic for the drop boxes about 8 inches long, used my heat gun to melt the ends, and then figured out how low the holes would have to be in it to fit over the cloth belt to have minimal gap between the plastic belt and the top of the outside of the drop box.  Guesstimate made, I used my soldering iron to poke holes through the elastic.  Ended up smelling like fresh-from-the-dryer underwear, which is weird, but not completely unexpected.

 

 

I drilled a 1/8 inch hole through the back piece, about an inch down (there's a mark on the back piece, but it seems way too high for me, so I moved it. Take that!  Then I lined up everything, and used a normal pop rivet, with a washer inside, to attach the loop of elastic to the back of the drop box.

 

 

The fronts didn't fit on by themselves, so I sanded the edges of the back boxes until they would fit.  Didn't use any glue, they're held on by plenty of pressure.

 

Repeated for the other side, and here you go!

 

 

The next thing I did was attach snaps to the belt and to the ab plate.  I figured out where the farthest-out ammo boxes were on the belt, and made a pencil line in the middle of those on the cloth belt.  That would be the horizontal center for the snaps on the belt.  I laid the belt on the ab plate where it needs to go (1/2 inch below the ab button plate cut-out thingy), and held it in place with magnets.  I made marks on the ab plate where those vertical lines ended up, and figured out how low I could put the male parts of the snaps on the ab plate and still have the back snap piece fit into the plastic.  Turns out, about 15mm below the top edge of the belt.  Easy enough.  Measured 15mm down on the belt, drilled holes, put female snaps.  Put the male snaps where I decided they would go, and snapped it together.  There was a tiny amount of leeway in the front of the belt, but when it's all put together, it should be stretched tight enough, so no worries there.

 

 

 

At this point, I realized that the drop box elastic would go right through where the outside rivets holding the plastic belt onto the cloth belt would be.  So I figured out EXACTLY where, and drilled a couple more holes with my soldering iron (making sure to mark L and R drop boxes, as the holes weren't centered in the elastic)

 

From there, assembly could start.  Riveted the center holes together, using a washer in the back.

 

 

 

Then I slid on one of the drop boxes, riveted through the plastic belt, drop box elastic (front), cloth belt, drop box elastic (back) and a washer.  Barely had enough room on the rivet to fit everything on, so held it all with one hand while squeezing the rivet gun with the other... Whew!

 

(washer not shown below, but make sure you use one!)

 

 

 

After that, I snapped it onto the ab plate, and tried it on for the first time!

 

 

I glued on the rivet covers, and they're clamped down now.

 

 

 I still need to put on the holster, but that can wait until tomorrow.  It's 1:30 now, and I haven't eaten anything yet today!

[Skypig]

How did you attach the male snaps to the Ab plate?  Did you drill a hole and mount them, or did you just glue them on?

[Kredal[TK]]

I drilled holes and mounted them with the snap backings.  I had to find a hard raised surface to hold the backing steady while I hammered.  Tricksy!  I think if I were to do it again, I would just rivet it in place like making snap plates.

[Chills[TK]]

Hey Josh, before you go further with the belt, I have to point out it's a bit low. It should be high enough where the top covers the bottom of the button plate on the ab just a little. 

 

I suggest that you add two male snaps higher up. 

 

Otherwise, the belt is looking great.

Edited July 17, 2015 by Chills

[Kredal[TK]]

Thanks for the advice again, Chris!  Luckily, I can do that without too much trouble.

 

However, I realized that the belt would be going over a lot more surface area when it goes over the button plates, and that might (will!) impact where the snaps go.  So that means I had to glue on the button plates, which I really didn't want to do until about the very end, to keep them from getting scuffed up too much.  I might cover the buttons with painters tape while I'm doing all the strapping to protect them.

 

Anyways, glued on the buttons.

 

 

I'll install new snaps tomorrow after these are firmly in place, to see what needs to change as far as positioning goes.

Edited July 17, 2015 by Kredal

[Chills[TK]]

Glad I could help out, Josh. You're really doing a bang-up job!

 

It's funny you said that about the buttons. I was worried about them getting messed up, too. I glued them on and didn't paint them until the end; however if yours get a little knick here or there it's easily fixed with the Testors. Your idea for some tape over the buttons should protect them just fine. 

 

Hey, before you drill more holes, is it possible just to flip your belt 180 degrees? I know that means redoing your drop boxes, but that might be easier than messing with male snaps on the ab. I remember how hard it was to get those suckers installed. 

Edited July 18, 2015 by Chills

[Kredal[TK]]

Flipping the belt would put the snaps WAAAY too low.  They're only 15mm from the top edge of the cloth belt, so upside down, the belt would cover most of the button plates.  (:  Really, adding new male snaps isn't that difficult, now that I know what I'm doing.  Also, the new ones won't be impacted by the bottom edge of the ab plate where it returns to make the cod plate.  That was the only super tricky part about the current ones.

 

Anyways, it's too late now, since I went ahead and put on the holster.

 

DO NOT USE FOUR FASTENERS UNLESS YOU'RE MAKING A HERO TK. CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED.

 

Now that that's out of the way:

 

 

I used this template:

 

and just fudged the distance between the top of the holster and the bottom of the belt to allow room for the top two Chicago screws through the holster's leather.  I drilled holes through the leather and the belt, cleaned up the extra cloth mess as much as possible, and screwed in the back side of the C-screws.

 

Now I really can't do anything until tomorrow.  Thigh is drying so I can't assemble it, ab button plate is drying, so I can't do the new snaps or start strapping the core pieces.  It's also really hot in the garage, so I suppose I can take a break.  Been out there most of the day doing this much.  Got a TON accomplished today!  Yay!

[Chills[TK]]

Gotcha! Sounds like you've got the right plan in mind.

 

I also used Chicago screws for my holster; its great being able to take it off the belt for transport. 

 

Oh, one other thing I noticed about your belt (pleaaaaaaaase don't kill me): the 2 outer rivet covers should be much closer to the edge of the belt. I also originally thought they were centered between the edge and the first boxes, but they aren't. They're supposed to be just a few mm away from the edge, but centered top to bottom. 

 

You can kinda see it here. But check out the Centurion applications, you'll see it there.

 

http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/gallery/image/2265-stanh94/

[Kredal[TK]]

Quick day today:  Got the left thigh together and gluing the inner strips to the other half of the leg.  Tonight I'll take it off clamps long enough to add the outer strips, then reclamp it all together.

 

Added new snaps.  I did have to move them in towards the center a little bit (maybe 1/4 inch change all told.)

 

 

It's half-covering the bottom buttons on the ab.  Right?

 

I also pried off and cleaned the outside rivet covers, and moved them as far as they would go to the outside edges, while still covering the rivets.  I'm NOT moving those.

 

[Kredal[TK]]

I went to a little comic con today, saw a couple 501st members, no TKs though... but it got me remotivated to build armor, so I went for the biggest section yet: internal strapping!

 

Using Mr. No Stripes' awesome kit:

 

 

I started with the butt to kidney connection, and moved my way up.  I had to keep repeating "strap, then screw" to remind myself to put the strap on the bracket before screwing in the second side.  I only missed once.

 

 

The center bracket is (duh) centered, and the outside ones, I went two inches in on the narrowest piece of the join (back and chest, basically), and just drew the line down to the other one, and made that my first hole.  Supposedly, you're supposed to use that 2-inch mark as your center for the side brackets, but since this is fat-person-armor, they would be way off to the sides if I did that, so I adjusted for my body type.

 

I used this video to learn the approximate locations, as well as how to line up the chest and ab plates:

 

https://youtu.be/5jW6s9Izqsk

 

Once I had all the holes drilled, I started assembly.  Working on the back, I put all the straps in the butt plate, and screwed in one screw for each bracket on the kidney plate.  

 

 

From there, it was pretty easy to run the second half of each bracket through the strap and screw it down.  I thought it would be very challenging, but the elastic is pretty stretchy, so it was no real big deal.

 

It turned out that 5 of the screws that came in the kit didn't fit on the nuts... they were just cut wrong or something, so I made a run to Ace Hardware to look for replacements.  I couldn't find the right size screws in pan head, so I bought 6 phillips screws... I used them for the ab plate, since that set will never be seen by anyone other than me.  Don't tell anyone, they're not authentic!  Shhh!

 

Protip: Put the straps in the chest brackets, then run them through the ab plate.  Since the ab sits inside the chest, it's easy to get to everything you need to.  If you do the ab first, then try to attach the chest, you're gonna have a bad time.

 

Once that was done, it was time to put it all together!  I measured 10mm for the top and bottom of the ab plate (above where it turns into the cod), and took the halfway point between those two points for the third connection.  Measured down 10mm, and I had my drill points.  Transfered those points over to the kidney plate, and we're golden.

 

Drilled holes big enough for the split rivets, and made 50mm long sections of 1" elastic.  I drilled a couple big holes in a piece of wood 25mm apart, then used that as a template to poke through the straps with a soldering iron to make holes for the rivets.  After making sure a split rivet would fit through them all, I came back inside... It was 90+ in the garage, and the soldering iron and heat gun didn't help matters.

 

I also used a long piece of scrap ABS cut in half to make an internal support for the clamshell part.  So it went split rivet -> body plate -> elastic -> ABS scrap -> washer.  The internal ABS is just another protection for the elastic strap.  I'm not sure if it's needed, but I saw someone else do it.

 

I covered the heads of the rivets with tape, taped down everything internally, and had my wife hold up the armor so I could get in there with a screwdriver and hammer, and not worry about bending the armor.

 

OK, enough typing, here's some pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's really starting to look like a thing!

 

I need to put on the shoulder straps, right side strap and snap, cod-to-butt strap and snaps, and that will be done.

 

Then it's a matter of strapping up the limbs, and I'm ready to go!

[Chills[TK]]

Great work on the belt, Josh. Looks MUCH better. 

 

Also, you did a lot of strapping in one day, excellent! Keep posting those pics; you're cruising along.