themaninthesuitcase Anovos ANH Stunt Build

[ScaryGuy[TK]]

Good job on repainting the entire helmet, respect! I don't have enough faith in my painting skills to try that yet. I will only repaint the frown.

 

Btw Chris, I e-mailed Spalding and they sent me the M3.5 screws in an envelope with regular mail. I received them today. Thanks again for offering to help me with those.

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

Accomplished a fair bit today in the time I had but a lot of it was "rinse and repeat" type stuff.

 

Started the day with coat 3 on the bucket stripes. This gave them a nice good colour, but still room for one more. Another 6 hour clock.

 

 

Next I glued the second end of the elastic I had to remove from the shoulder bell to fix the crack. Whilst I was there I glued the elastic to join to the shoulder strap. Looking at the reference these almost touch the shoulder strap. I've left about 5mm from the shoulder strap to the bell to match this.

 

Whilst the glue was out I glued on the large ab button plate.

 

 

Next up was a job I've been dreading - the shin closures. There seems to be little reference on this other than some badly angled images. I added the end holes 25mm in and the middle hole split the difference. The distance in was around 6mm to give some meat to the bit that's left. I used the same 5/32 drill I used for the snaps as testing showed this seemed to be a good size. This was all marked up on some masking tape, a pilot drill was added using a ~1mm drill in a pin vice. The main hole was done with a power drill VERY carefully.

 

 

I also glued in the elastics, aligning them with the holes. I left a small a gap to let the stretch of the elastic to work. I also only glued about half their length for the same reason. Enough to hold them but not so much they can't stretch.

 

 

Last night I used some E-6000 to "tack" the brow trim in place. Just a few spots on the inside, one at each end and one in the middle. This was worthless. The second I removed the clamps it came away. I guess the glue didn't want to stick to the rubber trim.

 

So instead I used some UHU.

 

 

This stuff seems to have done the job, and sets far faster, as in 30 minutes fast. It's similar in many ways that it dries to a rubbery texture and is only semi permanent. It should be removable from the bucket if ever needed.

 

Because I have them, and it can't hurt to have a spare, I made up the hand guards. The gloves are heavy duty marigolds, pretty tough might get some for the house too!

 

 

Last job before I packed up for dinner was the shoulder elastics. I wasted a bunch of time setting up the sewing machine and trying to machine sew them. I gave up pretty fast and just hand tied them with a reef knot. Yes those marks are all on the protective sheet.

 

 

This evening once the kids were in bed I did a 4th coat on the bucket stripes. I found it incredibly difficult to tell which ones I'd done vs not done. I guess this shows that I didn't really need to do this coat but I'd started so I finished it.

 

Tomorrow I will try get the last of the elastics finished, to join the bicep to shoulder bell. With that done the main armour is done as far as I can think. I'll also get the templates removed and see what hides underneath. I suspect I'll have a small amount of clean up to do, but once that's done I can start putting everything back together.

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

Just pulled off the masking template whilst the girls had lunch.

 

 

Pretty happy with the result. The gloss did it's job for the most part. There's 1 place where I did a lousy job burnishing down the template, the rest are all where the template creased. There's only so much you can do when that happens so pretty happy with how small the bleeds are. I've cleaned up most the tape reside now with some masking tape, just dabbing the sticky side pulls away the glue that's stuck.

 

For the bleeds I'll use a tooth pick dipped in thinners to clean up.

[welshchris77[TK]]

Just pulled off the masking template whilst the girls had lunch.

 

 

Pretty happy with the result. The gloss did it's job for the most part. There's 1 place where I did a lousy job burnishing down the template, the rest are all where the template creased. There's only so much you can do when that happens so pretty happy with how small the bleeds are. I've cleaned up most the tape reside now with some masking tape, just dabbing the sticky side pulls away the glue that's stuck.

 

For the bleeds I'll use a tooth pick dipped in thinners to clean up.

Excellent result Chris,

Well done 

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

Was hoping to post a picture of my almost complete bucket last night but the Hovi tips are in "a safe place". This safe place isn't the bin (yay for having some heavy duty gloves) so hopefully they will show up soon.

[Airborne Trooper[501st]]

Tube stripes came out beautifully

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

After last nights "not a tantrum" this morning I ended up routing through our bins in a state of paranoia. Obviously this was stupid and once my wife got involved this evening the Hovi tips showed up. Inside the armour bin, neatly tucked inside the chest......idiot.

 

 

Note the nice thick zip lock bag chosen to keep them safe. Formerly home to my Namisu Nova Fountain pen. A bargain of a pen that one.

 

So now on with the 2 day progress update.

 

First I finished of the main armour by making the last elastics I needed which were to join the shoulder bell to the bicep.

 

 

These were done pretty fast. Apparently I've gotten pretty adept on the sewing machine and punch pliers now.

 

This gave me 1 fully completed set of armour ready for it's first proper fitting. Hurray! I've not done a full suit up yet as I wanted the bucket to be done first. When I was fitting the elastics I noted I bought my left elbow when bending it. I trimmed ~2mm from the forearm return which seems to fixed it. I also trimmed about the same from the shoulder bells to reduce the flex needed to get them on the bicep.

 

 

Once that was done I started getting the bucket together.

 

 

After adding the ears started to work on fixing in the visor. The supplied visor is nice and wide and goes over the ear screw area. With this being the case I decided to use these to hold it in.

 

I initially tried to measure the centre of the visor but found it quite off from the curve cut into it.

 

 

So from here on accurate measurements where mostly abandoned for positioning and eyeballing it all took over. I only used my vernier to measure the centre distance for the holes.

 

After a bit of positioning and checking I was done.

 

 

There is a small gap to the face which should help with some ventilation into the bucket.

 

 

Looks good though. This was also the point I discovered I'd misplaced the hovi tips so spent the rest of the evening turning the house upside down.

 

This evening, once the wife found the tips, I carried on building the bucket back up.

 

I started by adding the S trim. When this came off there was a small (say 2mm) gap at the join. For whatever reason I had about the same in excess. This suits me just fine as it forces the trim back in and means no glue is needed to hold it in. You also can't see the glue left that was holding it on before which is certainly a bonus.

 

I also added some padding. I ordered some helmet pads from China a while ago which all fit with velcro. Of course this isn't an ideal fit despite the adjustable nature of them. They are all 3/4" thick and I need a thicker one at the front and a thiner one at the rear. So after some minor surgery where I cut one pad in half and glued it to another to make an pad about 1 1/4" thick and one about 1/2". I used some of the velcro tape from the Anovos kit to add the loop to the back of the cut pad.

 

 

This gives me a pretty decent fit and I can move my head with out much wobble. I can also swap out the thin pad for a regular one to get a more snug fit if needed. I also have the start of a chin strap which I will finish another day.

 

Currently it goes bucket - washer - nut - visor - washer - nut. I think I'll probably remove the nut between the bucket and the visor and put the chin strap there instead. This will mean the strap elastic can't stretch over the nut and come off.

 

And I'll sign off for the night with my finished bucket:

 

 

 

 

 

Next job: Belt

[kman[TK]]

Nice work with the pads! As soon as I figure out fan positioning and the lenses, I'll be installing mine, too. (finally!)

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

Nice work with the pads! As soon as I figure out fan positioning and the lenses, I'll be installing mine, too. (finally!)

I'd fit the pads first, I suspect you'll want the bucket held secure.

[kman[TK]]

I'd fit the pads first, I suspect you'll want the bucket held secure.

I need working room inside the helmet more, for installing the lenses. The fans won't actually be in the way, they're just higher on the list. Also, if I end up needing to install the battery packs into the main part of the bucket, instead of hiding them in the tubes, I'll need to plan that in concert with pad placement.

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

So today work began on the belt upgrade.

 

Step 1: Ordered a new belt from RWA.

 

 

Before starting the belt looks all pretty and all but it's basically rubbish. 2 layers of super thin canvas couldn't support a fly never mind a blaster in the solid holster supplied, even with the 4 screws used to hold it on.

 

First job was to get the plastics off the belt. I did this using a drill larger that the rivet in the drill on a slow speed. My drill has 2 speeds so I selected the slow one. Using the too large drill means you'll drill out the centre before the out side due to the profile of the drill. Then you can remove the washer and canvas

 

 

This was done for all three of the rivets and the plastic was removed from the belt and the drop boxes were now free to be removed. A handy IKEA coat hook was used to support the belt so that the boxes were not crushed when drilling as it happened to be the right size and was to hand.

 

 

Next I needed to move the rivet button caps from the other side. In all their wisdom Anvovos used some nasty pink epoxy for this which really doesn't want to come off.

 

I began by protecting the surrounding plastic with some blue masking tape. For the first button I used a fully extended snap blade utility knife to slowly cut and pry at the epoxy until it have up and the cover popped off.

 

 

I started the same way for the 2nd but there was a section toward the centre of the belt that was too well glued and prying to hard would have ripped the plastic. To cut this with the utility knife wasn't going to happen. Luckily I have a very fine saw called a jewellers saw. Think coping saw but even smaller.

 

 

The stirring stick is there to lift the cover away and reduce damage to it.

 

After a bit of careful sawing the second cover popped off also.

 

 

You can see there was a small amount of damage to the rear but nothing too big. I doubt you'll see this when re-attached but it will be oriented to hide this was best I can when re-glued.

 

The same technique was used on the middle cover. One side came off pretty easily as it seemed to not have much glue there. The other side was trickier. The cover was positioned close to the bump so getting the saw in was tricky. Once in I started sawing but obviously messed up the angle as the blade snapped. These saws are barely long enough with only about 1cm of extra length to saw in so the snap rendered it useless for this job. I've ordered some more but they won't be here until Thursday, all 36 of them.

 

To make sure I didn't loose the covers I did remove I've stored them in the belt. This photo is evidence of this so I won't turn the house upside down looking for them. Some 2" tape is making sure they don't come out.

 

 

Once the blades arrive I'll remove the 3rd cover ready for the new belt. I've not decided how to attach the plastic to the belt yet. Rivets are traditional, but Chicago screws seem like a safer option given the nightmare it's been so far. The covers will be re-attached with E-6000 which will be far less permanent. I also need to remove the remaining rivet and epoxy. Seems like the only real option is some burrs and a demel, maybe a sanding drum or a grinding stone. What ever is used I need to be careful to keep the heat down to prevent melting. I'm going to see what I can get in town otherwise it's another order to Amazon.

 

I finished the evening by removing the elastics from the drop boxes to allow for proper positioning and accurate attachment. I was hoping to pull out the elastics but they are super glued in and curve into the interior of the box. The 2nd best option seems to be to cut the elastic. I pulled the elastic as taught as I could then used a scalpel to cut as far down into the gap as I could. This means there's no elastic poking out and I can hide all this behind the new elastic.

 

 

I don't have much good reference for attachment other than this:

 

 

This looks to show that 1" was used rather than 3/4" that Anovos used, which is nice as I have loads left from the shins. And it looks like they are attached about 1/3rd down in the centre. What is not shown is how they are attached. There's a small bit of brown which looks to suggest contact cement but there's also a small fray at the crease about 3/4" down from the edge which may be where a rivet was/is. Though that said the holster rivets say this is a hero belt so maybe none of this is relevant.

 

I believe the standard is a rivet these days. If so what size do I want? I am guessing I would need a washer too, ideally on the inside face to but that won't happen here as I can't get them apart. How far down should these be attached? I'll do a couple of test runs on scrap before I do it live.

[kman[TK]]

Good call taping the button covers into the belt. I can't tell you how many times I lost those suckers in the time between rebuilding, LOL.

 

I think you know my firm pro-Chicago screw stance for the attaching the ammo pack to the belt. Works brilliantly, and easy to remove anytime. Once they're on, just put a dab of E6000 on the exposed screw top, just to protect the ab plate a little from scratches. (the actual thread is a little sharper than a rivet would be, otherwise, nearly identical) (Then just peel it off if you actually need to remove the ammo pack at some point)

 

A good grinding tip for the Dremel will make short work of the epoxy, although getting the rivet that still stuck in there out is a little trickier. (that's when I damaged one of my button covers, trying to pry it out after chipping away the epoxy)

Edited March 29, 2016 by kman

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

Things didn't exactly go to plan to night. Guess this is one of the pitfalls of the Anovos kit as I'm far from the first to face this problem.

 

The blades for the saw came last week so after a break for the weekend today I got back to work removing the middle cover. Using the same technique to saw the epoxy away. Sadly it didn't quite go as well as hoped.

 

Due the design of the belt it's hard to get the saw exactly level. This meant I ended up sawing through the main belt rather then keeping level along the join.

 

 

The above shows the damage and my first cuts to remove the damaged area. I decided cutting the rest out was the safest option to minimise damage to the belt.

 

 

Once removed the result was quite frankly, horrific. But fixable.

 

So Carpe Jugulum and all that I got on with it.

 

I started by routing through the bag of scraps and found a nice flat bit a little larger than a credit card. This was cut down to about 1x2" and then the corners were rounded off to about a 5mm diameter. One side was rough sanded to give a key, as was the back of the belt. I then used neat acetone, painted on with a cotton bud, to melt a small layer on the back of the new part. This acts like an adhesive and will be pretty strong as it will melt the two layers together. It also drys fast which is handy.

 

 

With the new glued in part acting as the main fix the rest is mostly cosmetic at this point. The damage extended a little beyond where the cap will cover it. Before going further I used some blue tape to protect around the damaged area to prevent any further damage.

 

 

The hole was then roughly filled with the ABS paste I made from the scrap cut from the amour. This is the same stuff I used to fix the cracks earlier in the build. It's been sat for a couple of weeks so more acetone was added to thin it out a bit where it was starting to thicken. I'll leave this overnight to go off and then sand off the excess tomorrow. It will probably need some low spots filling as with any filling procedure.

 

Once the filling process is complete I'll re-drill the hole for the rivet*.

 

I also now have a set of China's finest [sic] burrs.

 

 

These can be yours for about £3 if your patient for a few weeks or £11 if you want them now. I paid £11, obviously. These will be used along with assorted standard dremel tools to remove enough of that horrid evil pink epoxy glue and the remaining rivet from the caps.

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

So there was this weird bright thing in the sky today so I decided to do some work outside.

 

I started by clamping the first of the button covers into a workmate. I went with this as it's what I have and the clamp things have a V groove to hold things in place meaning I didn't need much pressure at all.

 

 

The first job was to smooth off the rivet which is a bit mangled from the previous drilling. I used a sanding drum to flatten off the mess. This created a fair bit of heat. In fact I burnt a finger checking for heat. Fortunately no plastic was melted but I started using some wet kitchen towel to cool it after that.

 

 

Having a fancy flexy thing made this far easier. The multitool mount was clamped to the workbench to ensure it wouldn't fall off.

 

 

After sanding the rivet smooth it was drilled out. After a while the bond to the epoxy broke and allowed me to remove the washer whole.

 

 

Using a ball burr from the chinese burr set I ground out as much of the remaining epoxy as I could. I set the speed fairly low at first and wound it up a little once I got the hang of the tool on the epoxy. I erred on the side of caution, I only need enough space to cover the rivet and I didn't want to grind out any ABS and cause a weakness/hole.

 

 

Once I was done I noticed the were some small scratches on the front of 2 of the covers. Clearly I should have applied tape to protect these, normally I would have done but apparently I forgot this time. Fortunately it will buff out.

 

 

I finished off for the evening sanding off the excess paste applied to the belt. The centre had sagged a bit as it set bit this will be hidden so isn't a big deal. What I also noticed was I'd not filled the whole length of the saw marks. Once the excess was sanded level I used a 10A scalpel to just clean out the rough edge of these saw cuts and give a decent area to fill. This time I used a tooth pick to be a bit more controlled when applying the paste.

 

 

I also applied some paste to the saw damaged areas on the rivet covers. Once all this is set I'll sand off the excess again. For the front of the belt I'll start with 180 to level then move on to 320, 600 and if needed 1200 wet and dry to get a decent finish before applying some compound.

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

This evenings broadcast is brought to you by Bulleit Bourbon and Coke.

 

The work started by once again removing the excess ABS paste with some 180 grit.

 

 

This left a nice big mess of scratches as you'd expect. So to resolve this it was time to work through the grits. 180 -> 240 -> 320 -> 320 wet -> 600 wet -> 1200 wet. This gave a nice smooth surface to polish up.

 

 

The same car polishing compound I used on the bucket was used here and did a pretty decent job. Once polished out I could see a few small scratches still. There will be a couple of reasons for this: 1; changing grits too soon 2; only being able to use the paper in 1 direction due to the space limits. Whilst there are still marks you're going to have to look for them and anyone that close to my gentleman area is going to get moved along with the butt of an E-11.... You'll also notice theres a whole mass of air bubbles and saw marks still. These will be under the cap and so I'm not going to kill my self to fix them.

 

In conclusion, close enough for Imperial work.

 

I also used the 600 and up on the covers. This cleaned up the worst of the scuffs, only a couple of marks really remained, and again you'll need to be looking for them.

 

 

My rivets arrived on Monday to attach the elastic to the drop boxes. I also got the longer ones needed to attach the belt to the plastics. I've gone off the idea of Chicago screws and will use the tried and tested rivets and washers.

 

The drop boxes are nicely stuck together with superglue so I won't be able to fit a washer as you'd normally want to. So to check it wouldn't fall apart on me I tested the rivets in some scrap.

 

 

Using a 4mm washer gives a nice and solid fixing and no hint of any damage to the plastic.

 

 

Without the washer there's a small amount of damage noticeable but nothing major and it seems like it will be plenty strong enough given the near zero stress on them. I'll run a 2nd test with a doubled over bit of the elastic to check if I want to use the 8mm or the 10mm long rivets as this will be a 1 shot deal to get right.

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

The belt has been made so hopefully I'll have some updates soon once that arrives.

 

Today I added a chin strap to my bucket.  I used some 3/4" black for this.  Lengths where just guesstimated by holing thing to my head with the bucket on.  It's basically 2 lengths with the ends folded over and sewed.  I then punched a hole at one end of each with the smallest punch I have and a prym snap to join them.  

 

The strap is held in by the ear screws.  The come through the bucket through the elastic then through the visor.  Finally there's a washer and a nut.  The screws are 30mm and so a bit long.  I can get the bucket on with these just fine but at some point I'll probably trim them down to 25mm ish.

 

 

I can do the snap up under my chin reasonably easily or if needed do it up first then put the bucket on and pull it down under my chin.

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

Pretty much done now! How close you say? Why listen closely and I shall recount the tale.

 

The new RWA wife industries belt came of Friday. This is a 4 layer canvas belt as per the originals.

 

 

It's also beige, but this will be resolved later in our story.

 

First job was to punch all the holes. I started by finding the centre of the belt and marking it on some 2" painters tape. I then aligned up the plastic and marked out the two end holes as well. The ab snaps are centred under the 1st "bump" on each end. This means the snap won't rub on the plastic.

 

The holes where punched out with my multi punch thingy. Unlike the elastics the canvas punched super cleanly and easily.

 

 

According to reference the belt should centre on the button plate not the actual centre.

 

 

So with this in mind I taped the belt with the centre hole below the button plate and marked out the points for the snaps on some painters tape.

 

This took a couple attempts as the tape didn't stick to the belt well at all. I also think I ended up a little too off centre but not so much that I am worried.

 

Drill, snaps, boom. done. The ab snaps where a pain as my tools are designed to be in a holder. In the end I used a lump of wood for the under side and carefully held the round over tool and hammered that.

 

 

At this point I addressed the boring boring beige. This was a simple case of 2 coats of shoe and canvas whitener. It's not pure snow white but I don't like the look of those belts on other troopers I've seen. This is a nice medium I feel.

 

 

At this point I cracked out the rivet gun. 10mm Rivet > washer > belt > plastic > washer. This was a simple job and wasn't as scary as I'd expected.

 

The drop boxes were next. For this I used a ruler! No eyeballing things this time. 3" for the belt, 1" to the hole and about 9mm for the plastic that extends past the belt. Double this add a bit and cut, then punch a hole at the measured distance.

 

Before riveting I test fitted the elastic and found it wouldn't quite go over far enough. To remedy this I added a small notch to the elastic on the back to go round the rivet. I've not done the front as for some reason this didn't seem needed. I guess the gap for the snap is enough room for it to move into.

 

 

I also started adding the rivets and snaps for the belt as shown but with a washer rather than a cup:

 

 

Having done one I really like the method as it makes it really fast to attach or remove the belt vs chicago screws. I'm yet to do the 2nd as I wanted to double check a measurement. It's 5" for the hole centres on the Anovos holster but if I ever want to replace this with a less stiff one I want the measurements to work on that too.

 

Caps where glued on that evening. I found the rivets were a bit too tall to fit under the caps to glue well. Looking at the rivets I could see the top was excess I could file off, which I did so. This let the caps glue on cleanly and with a small dab of E-6000 in the middle, not a mountain of pink epoxy....

 

The snaps on the holster where a bit more work. The leather they used is SUPER thick, about 4mm thick if I had to guess. This means the snaps wouldn't protrude through enough to crimp. To fix this I used a dremel.

 

With a sanding drum (use a new one, the old one I was using took ages. Swapped to a new one took seconds) I thinned down the leather until I could get the needed clearance for the snap to crimp. The blue tape is a guide to stop be going too far down where you'd see it below the belt.

 

 

Theres not a huge amount crimped but the load isn't working on it in that direction so I am happy it will hold okay.

 

 

I also trimmed off the 2nd hole from the straps as they are for heros not stunts.

 

 

Armour DONE (less 1 rivet....)

 

I'll do a full suit up once the soft goods arrive this week. I've been using some cotton tights until now which do work fine (and may be nice for winter troops) but the cotton looks odd with the modern base layer top I've got.

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

I did that one last rivet last night. This completes my armour!

[kman[TK]]

Congrats on finishing!

 

I must have missed something somewhere. Why didn't you just use Chicago screws for the holster? Seems like you did a lot of extra work. And I'd be worried about two snaps holding the weight of a relatively heavy blaster.

Edited April 19, 2016 by kman

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

Congrats on finishing!

 

I must have missed something somewhere. Why didn't you just use Chicago screws for the holster? Seems like you did a lot of extra work. And I'd be worried about two snaps holding the weight of a relatively heavy blaster.

It was for faster holster removal vs the screws. Also this is plenty strong, the load is pulling down and to remove the snap you need to lever. The snaps are very high quality and require a decent amount for force to un snap.

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

My soft good came on Friday and they seem to be a decent fit so with any luck I'll have my blaster done this weekend and I'll be able to get a full set of images ready for approval during the week some time.

 

Also today I stopped in at a troop in Watford to meet some future Garrison brethren. Once they found out I was going for approval, well this happened...

 

 

I hope I wasn't too awkward, meeting people for the first time with buckets on was less than ideal when you're not overly good at new people in the first place. I would have liked to hang about and have a proper chat but I also know they weren't there to chat with me, those troopers had a job to do. I also spoke briefly to another person who I assume was there as a handler, who looked a lot like Mark Hamill with his current beard. Again sorry if I was a bit awkward but I didn't want to intrude on other peoples fun, there is a better time for introductions.

 

I also noticed that the armour had a wet look shine to them. This didn't look like it was the gloss from the plastic alone so I assume this was from a glaze of some kind? Should I polish my armour now or wait and see how it goes? It's going to get dinged up over time anyway so I will have to polish at some point regardless.

[troopermaster]

The ANH Hero is a TM and probably 2mm acrylic capped ABS. That has a wet look gloss to it with no buffing necessary.

[kman[TK]]

What are those stickers on their left shoulder caps?

[kman[TK]]

It was for faster holster removal vs the screws. Also this is plenty strong, the load is pulling down and to remove the snap you need to lever. The snaps are very high quality and require a decent amount for force to un snap.

Do you need to remove the holster quickly very often? Just trying to understand.

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

What are those stickers on their left shoulder caps?

Yup. All UKG have a shoulder sticker on the left side. It's the garrison logo.

Do you need to remove the holster quickly very often? Just trying to understand.

Every time I pack it up. Edited April 23, 2016 by themaninthesuitcase