Chest and back pieces help.

[ehinote2187[TK]]

Hello, everyone. 

 

I'm near the end of my build and did a test fit. Here's a few pics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My chest, and back, pieces have me a bit worried. I keep reading that AM is the largest armor for bigger troopers, yet I had to add shims to the ab and kidney armor. I think that part looks great now. But the size of my chest and back armor seems to be small for me.

 

You can see on the pictures that there's a considerable gap between the chest and shoulder bells. It's the same way in the back, possibly even bigger. 

 

I guess my question is would this pass inspection for approval, or would I need to find better fitting pieces/possibly shim the ones I have now? I'm not looking for EIB or Centurion. 

[justjoseph63[Staff]]

Not sure about passing for 501st approval, but a few things I could suggest are:

1.  Tighten up the connection between your shoulder bells and shoulder bars.

2.  Raise your belt to where it either touches or slightly overlaps your ab plate button plate.

3.  If you can, cut down the circumference of the bottoms of your calf pieces, which will make them ride higher and not touch the bottoms of your boots.

 

On a side note:  I would paint the ear screws, bucket screws and thigh ammo pack screws white.

 

Really nice paint job, by the way, and PERFECT job on the forearms

Edited November 10, 2015 by justjoseph63

[DarkTrooper[TK]]

A member of our garrison created his own back and chest pieces for 'larger' troopers. He could probably help you out. I'll PM you when I located his info

[ehinote2187[TK]]

Joseph, thank you for the points. Yes, I do need to address those issues. And thank you for the praise!

 

1. I have a small bit of elastic holding them on, I guess I could shorten them up or switch to webbing. I'll play around with it. 

2. I have not yet secured the belt to the ab plate. I will do this either with snaps or velcro.

3. Are you talking about the part where it droops down? I can definitely do that. 

Addendums: Yeah, I need to paint those. I hadn't yet because I simply forgot. Yay, something to do while waiting for my final pieces! lol

 

 

Daniel, that would truly be awesome. Please, by all means, let me know about the chest/back pieces. Seeing my complete* build on me is just... yeah, I want to look closer to the part.

 

*nearly

[Plasma]

Hi there, 

 

I am not an armourer  and others are better placed to advise but from the Incinerator that I recently completed I can offer the following suggestions:

 

1. If you will forgive me, you are a larger framed guy. Your breastplate looks way too small and does not wrap around to the side. I am surmising that the backplate is similarly small? There is armour for the larger frame and I myself used the RT-Mod which covered my 42" chest.

 

2.It looks as if the Ab plate needs to be strapped properly to the rear armour to eliminate those gaps at the side.

 

3.The whole Ab plate/cod piece looks as if it needs to be lower. This will reduce the "black" between the cod piece and legs, perhaps make the belt sit better (it needs to be a littler higher as stated before). If the larger chest plate is substituted, there should be a sufficient overlap with the Ab plate then.

 

4. I can't see the strapping properly but I found 2" elastic to work better for the thighs to Ab plate and also for the upper to lower arms where it stopped the upper arms moving annoyingly and also pulled up the lower arms a little.

 

5. Strapping in general is very important for getting a good fit and varies from person to person.

 

6. Forgive me, but the helmet looks too small. Again, I am not an expert but I think there are varying sized helmets available and a larger one would look more in scale.

 

7. There looks to be a lot of room around the bottom of your thigh pieces. You should be able to fit your hand int there comfortably - no more. Are they able to be reduced?

 

I hope that helps. More photos as changes are made will help others assist you.

 

It is a lot of trial and error - it took me 3 months to get it right for trooping but even now, I still find myself tweaking it here and there.

 

Best of luck.

 

 

Larry

Edited November 12, 2015 by Plasma

[Darth Havoc[TK]]

To get a good reference you will need to take pics of front, back and sides both with arms down and arms raised. Couple things I see that were already mentioned above. You may want to taper the thigh armor at the knee so you don't get the "church bell" look. Shorten the elastic from the shoulder bell to the elastic strap under the shoulder bridge. The CRL and screen grabs don't have the hooks and straps on the biceps. That is on ANH. I originally built my ESB with them and got rid of them. You can't run an elastic strap from the inside of the bicep armor to the inside of the shoulder bell (back side where tricep is) Set it in that groove in both and that will keep them aligned. I fear you may have trimmed too much off your chest armor. I say that because I'm 6'02 265 and my chest piece is a lot bigger than that, that is if you have the AM 2.0. Your missing your belt boxes on your belt. Just some things I'm seeing but see what the pros have to say

Edited November 12, 2015 by Darth Havoc

[ehinote2187[TK]]

Yeah, these were spur of the moment pics. I just got excited. 

 

Thighs are actually snug all around on me. My legs are beefy up top to the knee. 

 

Is the elastic around the bicep something they will ding you on? I've heard otherwise that it doesn't matter.

 

Sadly, that is the way the chest and back came (to my knowledge. Had a "friend" trim them before he disappeared). The only things trimmed on them, that I recall, were the lower sides to reflect what is in the movies, as well as the shoulders. The curves at the arms are the way I received them. I did get this kit over 2 years ago when it was still AM v1. I'm really thinking now on just getting a new set of 2.0 chest and back pieces if they are larger than the v1s. 

[Darth Havoc[TK]]

You shouldn't get dinged for the bicep straps. I don't see the clips on the biceps to hold the strap though. I had them and removed them, just keeping the strap going from the bicep to the shoulder bell. I'll try to attach pics from my build if I can get them to work. You should move this or start a build thread under ESB. You will get the experts to chime in

[ehinote2187[TK]]

Oh, no worries, Jamie. I do appreciate the feedback. I did actually have the clip things, but I removed them. 

 

This thread was mainly started to address the chest and back pieces. I do have a build thread in the ESB section, there are more detailed pics there. 

[Roaster[TK]]

Hey chap - seen this thread and have to say first and foremost I'm not an armourer and well done that man for working hard to get where you are.

 

I do however have a RT-Mod suit and it's built for the bigger trooper. I have 46" chest and it fits me well, the thighs were a problem and I ordered some Troopermaster thighs and have shimmed the rears to allow a good fit.

 

You can get this to work so don't stress - it just takes time and effort and patience.

[ehinote2187[TK]]

Hey, Mark! Thanks for the kind words. I actually have just been approved with everything as is! Not gonna sweat it now, hahaha. 

 

Yeah, you should see the shims on my thigh pieces. Freaking huge!