hupspring's ANOVOS build

[Pyrates[TK]]

whats 197 in real money

 

(Yes this is a joke. Also what crazy altitude are you at if water boils at 91C?)

3,557 feet -

 

(The actual answer is about 8500 feet)

Edited March 6, 2016 by Pyrates

[hupspring[TK]]

I did some more work on the bucket today. I removed the painter's tape that I had used to mask the eyes and teeth and had to do some plastidip removal around those areas where it built up around the tape. Then I stuck a piece of paper over the eyes on the inside and drew an outline several millimeters wider than the eyes are. I also drew in areas where the screws would go to hold the lenses in.

 

Several months ago I bought some Apoxie Sculpt that I was going to use on my Doopydoo's blaster but never got around to using it (I still need to finish that blaster!). The Apoxie Sculpt works like green stuff - you mix two different parts in equal amounts and you have time to mold it before it hardens. I've never used it before and I wanted to try it out and see if it would hold in the screw holder thingies that the eye lenses will be screwed to. For the screws, I'm using some from an old computer. I mixed up some Apoxie Sculpt and stuck it in the helmet with the screw holders pressed into it.

 

 

I have no idea how this is going to turn out, hopefully it works! Since I had some Apoxie Sculpt mix left over (I mixed up way too much) I busted out my blaster and filled in some spots that I wanted to fix before.

 

I bought some pads that I will be using in my helmet, but I also like the hard hat liner. Unfortunately, the one supplied by Anovos doesn't have the adjustable mechanism in the back and I don't want to use the velcro they had on it, so I put the liner on my head, marked where it came together, and glued it with E6000. I'm going to try the liner in conjunction with pads which should help with air flow a little.

 

 

And yesterday I mentioned that I would be able to wear everything except the calves and helmet today - here is the result!

 

 

The helmet is my wife's AP bucket (which I need to dirty up for her Sandtrooper someday). Overall everything feels good, but the thighs are a little large and the right arm is riding too high (way too much wrist is showing). I also need to glue on the plastic shoulder bridges still. And I'm not going to be using those plastic hand guards - I have latex/rubber ones that I will glue onto the gloves.

 

I was going to try to use the Anovos belt and stiffen it with some plastic, but after wearing it with everything on (including a Hyperfirm E11 in the holster), I think I'm going to just order a new canvas belt. The Anovos canvas belt just really sucks. And it's too big - I can't tighten it enough because I run out of velcro to stick it to in the back. 

 

And I couldn't resist an action shot which my son wanted to be in.

 

[hupspring[TK]]

Tonight I didn't have much time, but I did drill holes into the eye lenses and place them in the helmet using the brass screws I previously bought for the ears (I did have to cut off a little over half of the length of the screws, but otherwise they fit just fine). I also sanded down the lenses since I used tin snips to cut them out, and there were some jaggedy edges.

 

 

I need to paint the Apoxy Sculpt black so the mounts blend in better but I couldn't wait and wanted to get the lenses on. I'm also trying out various hard hat liner / helmet pad combos to find something that I like, but so far I haven't found a good fit.

[hupspring[TK]]

Not a whole lot done in the last couple of days. I still haven't decided how I'm going to set up the hard hat liner and padding in the helmet. I'm so indecisive. I did glue on the front outer cover on the left calf tonight, and tomorrow I'll do the right calf. I might even try getting the sniper knee on the left calf tomorrow too!

[hupspring[TK]]

Tonight I glued the front outer cover strip onto the right calf. I thought I would be able to also glue the sniper knee plate onto the left calf, but after taking the clamps and magnets off of it, I noticed the cover strip was offset at the bottom.

 

 

I'm pretty sure when I put the calf on the shelf to dry last night I bumped one of the clamps which might have caused the cover strip to shift. Or I just didn't line it up correctly when I put the clamps and magnets on (I'm going to pretend it was the bump). I already peeled it off and cleaned up the glue residue, so tomorrow night I'll have to re-glue it again.

[welshchris77[TK]]

 

Tonight I glued the front outer cover strip onto the right calf. I thought I would be able to also glue the sniper knee plate onto the left calf, but after taking the clamps and magnets off of it, I noticed the cover strip was offset at the bottom.

 

 

I'm pretty sure when I put the calf on the shelf to dry last night I bumped one of the clamps which might have caused the cover strip to shift. Or I just didn't line it up correctly when I put the clamps and magnets on (I'm going to pretend it was the bump). I already peeled it off and cleaned up the glue residue, so tomorrow night I'll have to re-glue it again.

 

secure your cover strips with masking tape before putting the clamps and magnets on, E6000 is notorious for moving as it dries!

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

I did all of my cover strips one side at a time. This meant I could ensure everyone was lined up nicely before the glue set.

[hupspring[TK]]

I thought I had it lined up but I guess I was rushing it and didn't check after the clamps and magnets were placed. And I usually use tape to hold it down first, but the cover strip sat so well that I didn't think I would need it. Lesson learned!

[hupspring[TK]]

Another small update today. I glued the shoulder bridges to the chest last night and I also moved the snap plate in the chest (for the chest to ab connection) up higher. The spot it was in was causing the chest to not go any lower which was in turn was causing the neck area of the chest to poke my adam's apple whenever I looked down. Not comfortable.

 

 

Today when I tried it on, the shoulder bridges looked great, but I moved the snap plate a little too high which is now causing the chest to cover the top button on the smaller ab button plate. So I moved that snap plate a bit lower which should fix that problem. But now the chest is back on the rack waiting for that to dry. And I wanted to suit up again tonight

 

There's another armor party tomorrow (postponed from last week) that my wife and I are going to, and I think I may bring my calves to have them checked out. I also just got my new TKittell belt today so I may bring the Anovos belt tomorrow to dismantle it. But I might also be helping out on my wife's armor, so I don't know what I'll be doing really

[hupspring[TK]]

Went to the SoCal Garrison armor party today and got some advice on my calves and I was able to do some sanding/cleanup on other parts, but mostly I worked on my wife's sandtrooper armor. It was an FX kit that we bought from a 501st member last year but there were some fitment issues that we needed help with. One of the LA squad guys at the armor party was really helpful and we got a lot of the leg pinching issues resolved. I also got some advice from Echo (didn't know it was him!), and after talking to him later found out who he was. It was pretty cool meeting him.

 

When we got home I was able to measure and cut the rear outer cover strips for the calves and glue on the strip for the right leg.

 

 

I may have gone overboard on the clamps again...I also painted the frown on the helmet, but I don't think I did the best job. How does this look?

 

 

I can probably paint more on the tops and bottoms of the teeth. Or are they fine how they are?

Edited March 14, 2016 by hupspring

[blackyck[501st]]

Looks great! Full house today! Lots of good tips.

 

 

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[kman[TK]]

Looks good! I'd paint the tops and bottoms of the teeth a bit more, though. You don't want overpainting, but you don't want white teeth facing forward, either.

[hupspring[TK]]

I think I need to get some new paintbrushes - mine are old (from painting minis and model buildings) and are showing signs of wear. I was scared to getting too high or low which resulted in not going high or low enough.

[manyhighkicks[TK]]

Agh! Wish I had known you were there- I was, too! We will have to meet up at the next one.

 

 

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[hupspring[TK]]

Agh! Wish I had known you were there- I was, too! We will have to meet up at the next one.

 

 

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Definitely! I'll probably be at the next one that they do around the Brea area - my wife wants to bring her sewing machine next time so she can help anyone with little sewing projects since I had her do all the sewing for my elastic folds and the shoulder elastic buttons.

 

On a side note, one of the Anovos builders suited up at the armor party and got her submission pictures taken. Looked pretty good!

[hupspring[TK]]

Last night I glued the remaining outer cover strip onto the back of the left calf - all that's left for the calves is to glue on the sniper knee and add the velcro to the cover strips.

 

And since I got my new canvas belt a few days ago, I finally started taking apart the Anovos belt. So far I drilled out the rivets holding the plastic portion onto the canvas belt but that's as much as I've done.

 

 

People at the armor party said they've either just glued on ABS strips and riveted those to the new canvas belt, or used velcro instead of prying off the button covers and risking breaking them. I'm still pondering what I will do.

Edited March 15, 2016 by hupspring

[hupspring[TK]]

So I'm going to put the sniper knee on the left calf, but I want to make sure the placement looks correct. Is this good for the front positioning?

 

 

Or should it be exactly centered to the cover strip? And is that gap under the bottom okay? I can't get it to lay flush without having the sides flare out. I already trimmed the right side of the sniper knee (the right side when looking down at your leg) in order to fit that side. 

 

 

I will probably start gluing it on tonight.

[kman[TK]]

That would work for the sniper knee, but not ideal. I think you want to make a cut to the edge, like this, so the line runs vertical:

 

 

Removing that extra bit of material (perhaps from both sides?) might allow you to press the center in more so it actually contacts the cover strip at the bottom. You can actually trim a bit (not TOO much, but a bit) more off if you need to, to give you room to push it closer. Ukswrath took some off the sides of his, as well.

 

It's definitely a fiddly process and involves a lot of playing with it before everything finally lines up.

Edited March 16, 2016 by kman

[hupspring[TK]]

I'll do a little more trimming - I was scared I was going to trim off too much on that side, but looks like I can take off a bit more.

[hupspring[TK]]

I trimmed a little more off the side and tried out a hot water bath for the sniper knee - after putting it in the water for about 15 seconds and then placing it onto the calf, the sniper knee fit much better with almost no gap at the bottom. So I glued just the middle area for now and clamped it how I want it to sit. 

 

 

Tonight I'll glue the sides down and hopefully it will all work out well and I won't need to pull it off and redo anything.

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

Wish I'd done the hot water on the sniper. Might have ended up a bit straighter!

[hupspring[TK]]

I wasn't able to do anything today (was busy at a steampunk outing - there was a Hasbro E11 that was steampunk-ified and looked cool and I totally forgot to take a picture). Last night I was able to do a bit of work though.

 

The sniper knee is finished gluing and looks pretty good. I'm glad I didn't have any issues with it as I read a few other builds where it wouldn't stay put or line up correctly. I'm guessing the hot water bath really helped out in that area.

 

 

I started work on my new canvas belt, marking the spots for the holes. I got a hole punch set from Amazon and tried using the 1/8" punch for the holes, but after the first hole it wouldn't punch through the canvas and plastic any longer. I was using a rubber mallet to hit the punch with, so maybe it wasn't using enough force. I didn't think of that, and instead just used the soldering iron to burn the holes.

 

I also decided not to pull off the button covers on the plastic belt since there are so many horror stories of the pink epoxy breaking everything. So instead I used leftover cover strips and put in pop rivets to connect the strips to the canvas belt in the spots where the rivets in the plastic belt would have gone. Then I glued those strips onto the plastic belt in the correct spots. I almost forgot to slide on the drop boxes before gluing it together...luckily I remembered in time.

 

 

I also used the line 24 snaps on the belt and had to replace the male snaps I had previously put on the ab since those were the weird sized ones supplied by Anovos. I must have measured wrong and had to redo one of the female snaps on the belt - it was about half and inch too close and had to be moved. And for the record, I ruined another 5 female snaps putting those two in (although two of them I had to pull out because I put them in the wrong way, and one had to be removed when I found out it was too close).

 

The last thing I did was touch up the helmet frown, getting a little closer to the top and bottom of the teeth. I do agree that it looks better this way instead of showing so much white at the tops and bottoms.

 

 

My goal tomorrow is to connect the holster to the belt, and get the velcro on the back of the calves.

 

I'm so close I can taste it!

[welshchris77[TK]]

Looking good Richard, I used my soldering to burn holes through the nylon webbing for my snaps, holding it over a scrap of timber with a hole underneath it but sewed the nylon to the elastic first, also had a wet rag ready to wipe any melted plastic from the soldering iron tip between doing holes 

Edited March 20, 2016 by welshchris77

[hupspring[TK]]

Looking good Richard, I used my soldering to burn holes through the nylon webbing for my snaps, holding it over a scrap of timber with a hole underneath it but sewed the nylon to the elastic first, also had a wet rag ready to wipe any melted plastic from the soldering iron tip between doing holes 

 

My soldering iron is all black now since I didn't know I was supposed to wipe it down after burning holes in the nylon. Luckily it's a cheap soldering iron from a computer toolkit that I got for free a long time ago. Plus I've never used it for anything else before (I have no idea how to solder ). 

[welshchris77[TK]]

My soldering iron is all black now since I didn't know I was supposed to wipe it down after burning holes in the nylon. Luckily it's a cheap soldering iron from a computer toolkit that I got for free a long time ago. Plus I've never used it for anything else before (I have no idea how to solder ). 

You could probably still clean it off next time you fire it up, may as well keep it even its a cheap one, you may need it again sometime.

If you can put stormtrooper armor together you will be able to solder no problem, its a lot easier than it looks