Shouder Bell Sizing Help

[Curanthir]

I am just finishing my last forearm, have both biceps and the chest+back trimmed and finished. I am preparing to set up the strapping for the arms, but with my AM 2.0 kit, the shoulder bells are huge. I am certain that I need to trim them a bit (I'm pretty thin but tall), but I have no idea what I am aiming for. Looking at a bunch of pictures, I can't quite tell what size and shape I am going for. What should I be measuring my shoulder bells against for trimming? 

 

Also, I notied that the black bicep strap is mandatory on the shoulders, but my arms are so long that the bicep barely overlaps the shoulder (close to what is shown is some pics of Han Solo). Should I just attach a long hook to the biceps to make it work, or should I not worry about the overlapping?

[pandatrooper[TK]]

You should take a photo in costume so we can help. It's kind of hard to judge just by description.

[Curanthir]

 

 

 

There are some pics. the shoulder bridges aren't glued down yet, just there to see how the positioning works. My right bicep is too high in these, the left bicep is in the proper position.

[Sly11[Admin]]

Hi Curanthir they do look a little long, and wide . The width is the easy part to fix as there is no return edge to worry about.

First work out how much you want to bring them closer to your chest and shoulder bridge. Once you have that measurement (1/4", 1/2" ) what ever it might be you then need to mark a trim line evenly around the bell. This is easy. Grab a pencil and some coins and make a stack that takes the point of the lead at the desired height (the amount you have decided to trim off)

Place the bell on a flat surface hold your pencil on top of the coin stack.

The idea is to keep the pencil in one spot and carefully slide the bell around the pencil leaving a perfectly level trim line right the way around the base of the bell. Trim this off with either a box cutter using the same method and lightly scoring as you would if making cover strips using the score and snap technique, then sand the edge lightly to smooth off.

 

The trickier part.

The bottom of the bells which have the return edge are probably angled so if you trim this off you will need to make a new return edge as well as following the contour of the bottom to keep the angle.

There is a thread on making return edges here on FISD, if I have some time I will try and find it and post the link for you.

 

Hope this makes some sense for you.

 

 

 

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