KMan's Anovos TK Adventure Build

[kman[TK]]

There's a thread to request updates here at FISD... I'll see I can link it.

 

Edit: You found it. ☺

Yup. I'm sure the admins will tend to it next time they have a chance. No worries.

[kman[TK]]

Just for giggles.

 

[kman[TK]]

And onto the work post.

 

Not much doing tonight. I did swing by Home Depot and picked up a 4 pack of 1/4" #6 T-nuts ($1.30). Use some pliers to bend the little stabby bits back and forth until they break off. That way you don't stab yourself on stabby bits. And don't hurt yourself a year down the line, forgetting about the stabby bits hiding under there...

 

 

Then I glued it into the helmet with E6000.

 

 

Pro-tip #1: E6000 is squirrely stuff. It likes to wander, and bring anything floating on it with it. You'll want magnets outside the helmet to stop things from wandering. Otherwise you'll swing by 5 minutes later and things will be 1/2" away from where you left them.

 

 

Pro-tip #2: Put screws in the mounts before putting them onto the glue (and leave them in for the duration). That way the glue doesn't shoot up the middle, filling the whole threaded hole with glue. Which would be inconvenient later.

 

* filing things away under "mistakes I've made" *

Edited March 29, 2016 by kman

[welshchris77[TK]]

Just for giggles.

 

Nice Kalani,

Did you use photoshop to create this?

[kman[TK]]

Nice Kalani,

Did you use photoshop to create this?

Nah, just routine patrol shift on the Star Destroyer.

 

...

 

 

(and yes)

[illusionz_09[TK]]

I wish i could see these pics. What program are you using to post the pics?

they are all broken files

[kman[TK]]

I wish i could see these pics. What program are you using to post the pics?

they are all broken files

Odd, they come up fine on every computer I've used. They're direct image links to regular JPG files, nothing fancy.

 

Copy and paste this into your browser and see if it comes up:

 

http://www.kppix.com/piwigo/_data/i/upload/2016/03/28/20160328215225-fc780b56-la.jpg

[Airborne Trooper[501st]]

It's probably your work's firewall. Same as for me. I would post a screenshot but I'm not about to incriminate myself lol. I'm an admin so I can turn it off on my laptop if I want. 

[ScaryGuy[TK]]

Pro-tip #2: Put screws in the mounts before putting them onto the glue (and leave them in for the duration). That way the glue doesn't shoot up the middle, filling the whole threaded hole with glue. Which would be inconvenient later.* filing things away under "mistakes I've made" *

I hope I don't forget pro-tip #2 when I start on my helmet . Good advice!

[kman[TK]]

And now we come to the evening's hijinks.

 

After dinner and a visit to my favorite brewpub, it was time to take care of a few more things. The E6000 has cured, so let's hack apart a visor, shall we?

 

 

Essentially, I placed the lens in place, centered over the eye holes, and used a silver sharpie to mark (VERY conservatively!) the places I could hack away, starting at the ends, and worked my way in, slice by slice, until I was confident enough of placement that I could slice it in two in the center. Gulp! The thin cutting disk of my Dremel made short work of all this. There was one close call when I slipped a bit and the spinning disk bounced off the lens, but fortunately the scratch didn't end up in a visible place (you can see it in the shot just below). Yikes!

 

I continued working it down, and once it was small enough to be sure of the correct center screw mounting placement, I put a dot over the T-nut to mark the drilling point:

 

 

I did end up using different #6 screws than I originally purchased. Home Depot only had 1/2" #6 screws (at the shortest), and the right length is more like 1/4". Fortunately I found some good ones in my random screw collection. (I think they're technically computer case screws, since I found them in a bag with a bunch of other computer-related screws for hard drives and such.)

 

So I screwed in that middle mounting screw for the one lens, and started marking more aggressively the pieces to cut away. I wanted to do this shaping before I drilled the second hole, so the entire lens could still be re-positioned, if needed. Again, silver sharpie gave me my trim lines, and I continued cutting.

 

 

Finally, after all the rough cuts were done, I used the bench sander to smooth up the curves, and only when I was reasonably satisfied did I add the second mounting screw hole. With the first lens fixed in place, I repeated the process for the other lens. Success!

 

(sorry about the focus!)

 

And there we are:

 

 

At some point I may do some more shaping of the two lenses, just to smooth the edges further with a finer sandpaper, and to make the lens shapes more symmetrical (not that you can tell from outside), but this definitely works for now. The lens are much closer to flush than Anovos had them, but they're definitely not sealed against it, so I should still have some airflow.

 

Finally, I decided it was time to put in at least one helmet pad, so that test fittings don't put my bald head on the surface of the dome. I'll wait until the fans are closer to finished before attaching the rest of the pads, but putting the circle pad in the top of the bucket sets the helmet at just the right height, and is a lot nicer to wear now for test fittings. Extremely easy to work with these pads, I'm very glad I got them!

 

Edited March 30, 2016 by kman

[BDWC[TK]]

So your t-nuts were #6?

The smallest I could find without barbs was 1/4". Does the smaller screws hold the lenses well ( big enough head size)?

 

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[kman[TK]]

So your t-nuts were #6?

The smallest I could find without barbs was 1/4". Does the smaller screws hold the lenses well ( big enough head size)?

These had barbs but they were easy to break off by twisting them (with pliers) back and forth until the metal fatigued and broke off. Back and forth twice and they came right off, very easy. In this photo, the left one still has the barbs, and the other three have been cleared off:

 

 

Those lenses aren't going anywhere unless there is an impact so severe the t-nuts tear out of the E6000!

Edited March 30, 2016 by kman

[BDWC[TK]]

The armor-building adventure continues!

 

Or perhaps I should say "mis-adventures" in armor building?

 

 

 

Moving on. Now that the thighs are done and the front "shims" have been ABS glued and sanded a bit, it's time to attach the ammo pack, finally.

 

 

I drilled the two indented holes on the ammo pack. Then I placed it carefully, centering the middle "bump" under the cover stip, and wrapped it around to the sides, with the hole centered in the "ridge" at the base of the thigh armor, then drilled the hole in the place right through the first hole. (1/8" drill bit for these, btw) Stuck in a split rivet, and did the same on the other side. At least this one was easy!

 

 

 

 

Was anything said about your thigh pack when you submitted for approval?

From Tony's build thread it seemed that the pack was supposed to be offset, but I really wanted to install it the way you did...centering the middle pack on the coverstrip

Thanks in advance for any tips!!!

[themaninthesuitcase[Admin]]

Was anything said about your thigh pack when you submitted for approval?

From Tony's build thread it seemed that the pack was supposed to be offset, but I really wanted to install it the way you did...centering the middle pack on the coverstrip

Thanks in advance for any tips!!!

Im not kman but:

 

 

Aligned is fine according to my reference.

Edited April 3, 2016 by themaninthesuitcase

[Sentry71[TK]]

Mine is like the above two pics, and passed basic submission just fine.

[BDWC[TK]]

Thanks so much! And for the ref pic too!

 

 

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[kman[TK]]

Was anything said about your thigh pack when you submitted for approval?

From Tony's build thread it seemed that the pack was supposed to be offset, but I really wanted to install it the way you did...centering the middle pack on the coverstrip

Thanks in advance for any tips!!!

Sorry, just got back from vacation and I wasn't monitoring FISD while I was away. Seems like the others have you covered, though. And no, no problems whatsoever with approval, they way I mounted my thigh pack.

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Was anything said about your thigh pack when you submitted for approval?

From Tony's build thread it seemed that the pack was supposed to be offset, but I really wanted to install it the way you did...centering the middle pack on the coverstrip

Thanks in advance for any tips!!!

 

Centered or offset is perfectly acceptable although offset is closer to canon. 

[kman[TK]]

Aaaand, I'm back.  Vacation finished, unpacking done, fires are out at work, and my wife's birthday is behind me.  Time to get back to the armor!

 

First, a few fixes I needed to take care of.

 

1) My belt was mounted a little too high.  If you look aaaaaaall the way back to my submission photos in post 123 (on page 7), you can see my belt is about 1/2" too high.  It's half covering the bottom button:

 

 

So first order of business is the lower that. While at it, this was the perfect time to center it a wee bit better so that middle button cover is directly under the ribbed part of the button plate, the way it's supposed to be.

 

I considered just moving the belt snaps, but decided I didn't want to. More permanent holes in the belt will weaken it a bit, and they're already nicely centered on the belt. Plus ABS paste will easily patch some small holes in armor (especially when they're hidden behind the belt anyway), and the new holes will be far enough away from the old holes that they shouldn't weaken the ab armor itself in any meaningful way.

 

That decided, first thing needed is to remove the existing snaps. First you need a good working surface. I set up my usual work area, with a piece of 2x4 under the armor, so I'd have something to drill into, and eyed my victim: The first snap to drill out:

 

 

I chose a 1/4" drill bit (larger than the splayed inner post, so it can cut all the material holding the snap in place away, and small enough to fit inside the snap's center comfortably).

 

 

Hold the snap top firmly with pliers, to stop it from spinning, and slowly start drilling.

 

 

I probably took nearly 5 minutes per snap, keeping temperatures nice and low so there was no risk of over heating the plastic and melting or warping anything. Going slowly, but putting firm pressure on the drill, to make sure the bit cuts the metal, and pausing every 5 seconds or so, eventually the rolled metal was cut away and the top of the snap came cleanly off:

 

 

I used a small screwdriver from the back to pop the back off, which was hardly hanging on there at this point. (sorry, no pics) Snap #2 came off the same way.

 

At this point, it was just a matter of placing the snaps in the new position that was better centered, lower, and installing them, the same way I did the first time around. Here are the new snaps installed (you can see the holes from the old snap location):

 

 

And here is the belt snapped into place, now at the perfect height, and centered at least a little better:

 

 

Yes! One mod down.

 

Next up, I'll deal with making a new garter system to hang my thigh armor off, using 3" black elastic. That way they'll reliably hang at the right height, every time. After that, it's time to deal with the shoulder caps, and make some more snap strips to hold the chest down better.

 

At some point, looking at these photos, I want to touch up the paint on the button covers, too!

 

After these few things are dealt with, I'll do a new photoshoot and submit some pics for EIB. Perhaps later this week, if things go well!

Edited April 27, 2016 by kman

[ScaryGuy[TK]]

Welcome back  , nice work on the belt. 

 

Doing the mods feels so much easier then the initial build. Being more experienced I'm not scared anymore on ripping things apart or bring on the abs paste. I wonder how much faster I could do a second build now.

[kman[TK]]

Welcome back  , nice work on the belt. 

 

Doing the mods feels so much easier then the initial build. Being more experienced I'm not scared anymore on ripping things apart or bring on the abs paste. I wonder how much faster I could do a second build now.

That's a train of thought that would make my wife VERY unhappy.

[kman[TK]]

Ok, day 2 of tweaks and upgrades: The thigh garters.

 

I have been trying to find 2" and 1" webbing locally, and so far have failed. JoAnn's had rubbish for 1" last I looked, but I may swing back for another check at some point. I don't recall them having 2" webbing.

 

I know the local Army Surplus shop has it for sure, but their hours and my office hours are unfortunately clashy. I may go by this weekend, if I can, but meanwhile, given how cheap the already assembled belt and buckle are, I'm good with this: I blew a massive $5 on a 2" webbing work belt at Home Depot. Frankly it's probably within a buck or two of what I could make myself:

 

 

Previously, I had purchased 3" elastic. I believe I got it JoAnn's for a couple of dollars at the most. I got it out, and set up my sewing machine. Time for work!

 

With this video as my guide, I prepped a couple of pieces of 3" elastic for the thigh loops:

 

First I made loops that would fit nicely around the belt, including a folded-over bit at the end, to assist with any unraveling.

 

 

Note: I flame-sealed all cut ends throughout this project, although I didn't photograph this.

 

I made sure I could slip the relatively bulky buckle through the loop. It was a nice fit, so I tacked it in place with a pin, and sewed a line straight across, back and forth a couple of times for strength, and made the loop.

 

 

Repeat for the other side. I tried on the thigh armor and pretty much guessed at the length, with an extra inch or so to make sure it was long enough.

 

 

Next up is the gluing. I laid down a nice bead of E6000 on the elastic.

 

 

I glued it in place with magnets. The belt loop I had sewn crested just barely above the peak part of the armor. (try it yourself and adjust to fit if you have cut yours down)

 

 

Repeat for the other leg.

 

 

I won't really know for sure until tomorrow evening whether I nailed the fit exactly or not, but if it needs to be adjusted, E6000 should allow me to peel it off and adjust as needed. I considered putting in snap plates for these to snap into, but decided to try this for ease of adjustment. Next round, I'll convert it all to attach with snaps, once I know for sure where everything should lay.

[kman[TK]]

Micro update: Thigh rigging works great!

 

 

 

Shoulder straps and internal chest strapping on the list for this weekend...

[kman[TK]]

Soo, MASSIVE difference, in both comfort, ease of dressing, and perfect positioning (every time!) with the new thigh rigging.

 

No belt here, so it still looks a little off (wish I had remembered that), but I got partially suited up, and if you compare the submission picture (repeated in post 194, above), with this:

 

 

... you'll see the big difference. VERY happy about this one. And it was simple, too! (as long as you have and can operate a sewing machine to sew a 3" straight line, I guess)

 

Tonight began the next phase: Starting to convert to snaps, and overall tweaking all the mounting. I started to work on the chest, which would have been nice so I can take new pics and knock out EIB... But ultimately I decided against the shortcut. Sides need to be tweaked first, as long as we're doing snaps in the clamshell.

 

First thing I did was tear out all the side connections between the kidney plate and the ab plate. The Anovos Velcro on the right peeled right off, of course:

 

 

With a small sigh, the split rivet connections on the left were cut out, too, going from this:

 

 

To this:

 

 

Step one, slice through the webbing, step two, slice the webbing up to the washer, so you can work out the little remnant webbing piece, and step 3, hammer the split rivet down flat again, now that the webbing is gone. The exterior rivets will now be decorative only, with the interior snaps doing all the actual work.

 

Next comes the snap strips. This took some thought. Double snaps? One row or two? In the end I decided that, based on materials at hand, my best option was to use 1" webbing to mount 4 snaps down each side, and one single piece of 2" webbing to connect them, lengthwise.

 

Measure out the 1" webbing, on both the ab side and the kidney side:

 

 

Decide where the rivets will go (based on where they will lay on each side), and tape the two pieces (ab+kidney) face to face, so the snaps will align exactly. Mark locations with a silver sharpie.

 

 

Next, the old red hot nail trick through both pieces (separate immediately after punching each hole so they don't get welded together!), and we have a line of perfectly even snap holes.

 

 

Here is where the right ab strip one will lay. Note I left the required male snap in place: Hopefully I can use it with the new setup, else I'll tweak things slightly. You'll see.

 

 

The left side is simpler, except for the old split rivets underneath. The top snap will be laying on top of the top side rivet on each side, but I spaced the other snaps to avoid the rivets.

 

Last I went ahead and hammered in all of those snaps to the webbing. Ugh.

 

Here is where the left ab strips will lay:

 

 

Next is the connecting strip, using 2" webbing. I taped the two strips into place, put the 2" webbing over it, and feeling where the snap was underneath, marked the location for the female snaps.

 

 

Done!

 

 

The other side looks nearly identical, of course, except I left off the upper left snap to place once everything is glued in, since that one will hopefully utilize the existing ab-mounted male snap.

 

I wanted to use small clamps that don't put excess pressure on the plastic, to avoid any warping issues with the E6000, so for tonight, I'm only gluing the kidney-side strips. (I have a limited number of these very small clamps) Tomorrow I'll glue the ab-side strips, and might try to get the new chest snaps installed at the same time.

 

[kman[TK]]

A quick return to discussion of the shins, since it has come up elsewhere, and I want to be able to find the discussion later down the road.

 

A comment was made that there is some disagreement among high level 501st armorers, as to the shins. Not so much on assembly as to which piece goes on which leg.

 

I grabbed a quick shot of my shin armor and overlaid some curves to show the lines clearly, and grabbed some anatomical pics off the net.

 

Obviously there's a ton of variation to the human body, but the generalized shape of the lower leg muscles is shown in these anatomical images:

 

 

You can see there are, essentially, some longer muscles that run down the outside of the leg (Peroneus longus), and the much shorter, bunched calf muscles on the back which protrude to inside of the leg, viewed from the front (Gastocnemius).

 

The result is that there is a long, slow curve down the outside of the leg, while inside the leg, there is a much sharper curve that starts higher and comes in farther and sooner than the more gradual curve on the outside. This view shows it pretty clearly, I think:

 

 

Mapping these curves onto properly assembled, laid out shin armor, viewed from the same angle, and you can see the sharper, higher curves to the inside, and the longer, slower curves to the outside:

 

 

It's hard to get just the right angle in a photo to clearly show everything you want in one picture, but IMO, this is fairly illustrative. The curve in the armor is pretty clear, to my eye. I don't see how anyone can look at the anatomy, and then look at the armor, and think it is supposed to be any other way. (read, swap the two legs, so left goes on right and vice versa)

 

It seems clear that the original sculptors of the screen armor must have had this basic human anatomy in mind. I suppose it's possible that the people actually assembling dozens of suits screwed up the assembly, but that's arguably a different discussion.