Clint's FNArmour Analysis

[camprandall]

Hello friends! So as many of you know, FNArmour has been accused of re-casting KB Prop's First Order TK kit and Jim's Phasma kit, at least in part. Peter (FNArmour) has sent me a full kit for my impartial analysis and has not asked for any restrictions on my feedback nor any prior access to my feedback. Since I'm not in a position to do a full build - with three kids under 3 and a flametrooper build already in progress - I'm going to focus on the re-casting element, as well as some review of the armor, and post the results here. Q has already started a great build thread and review of the armor quality and accuracy so I'll let him cover most of that area. His thread is here: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/38080-qs-fn-armor-build

 

This analysis is going to be greatly helped because I've already been in touch with two of my Dune Sea Garrison mates, one of which has KB Prop's FOTK kit and one of which has Jim's. This will allow me to compare, in-hand, all three kits and see what I can find. I will say that I have no personal connection to any of these armor makers as I don't know any of them personally (although I will be receiving my order of KB Prop's flametrooper kit sometime next week), but am willing to help out to resolve a sticky situation. I don't want this thread to be for anything but analysis of armor and feedback on conclusions. I am not an officer with FISD or anything, just a dude who is working on his fifth armored suit and is willing to help out.

 

I am setting up a meeting for this next week sometime and will hopefully be able to assess in an evening if I can find evidence of re-casting and will post shortly thereafter my best opinion on the matter. I'll try to take a lot of pictures to help the community as well.

 

UPDATED 7/19 9:23 PM - FNArmour is confirmed to be mostly a re-cast of KB Props. See post at http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/38117-clints-fnarmour-analysis/#entry509944.

Edited July 20, 2016 by camprandall

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Great to see another review in progress, looking forward to your thoughts and findings Clint

[TK4205]

Thank you, Camp. I know you are not taking this review lightly. We appreciate your effort. You're also very lucky to get hands on experience with all of these kits. I've built 3 fotk kits, but they were all anovos.  Looking foreword to your findings.

[camprandall]

 

Thank you, Camp. I know you are not taking this review lightly. We appreciate your effort. You're also very lucky to get hands on experience with all of these kits. I've built 3 fotk kits, but they were all anovos.  Looking foreword to your findings.

 

 

Thanks Wyatt! Hopefully this will be productive and offer some clarity. I am also excited to get the chance to look at various armor designs. And from what I'm hearing about ANOVOS version 2, that one is going to be quite a bit different than what we've seen as well.

[camprandall]

Ok, so I won't have Jim's or KB's kits until tomorrow night, but I can at least get a lot of photos taken and pics posted now. As a reminder, this has two purposes, both requested by Peter - give my opinion on the armor and also give my opinion on whether it is a recast. The latter is obviously the most important because if there is evidence of re-casting, the nature and significance of a review is a bit different. I'll see how tomorrow night goes and then decide from there.

 

Anyways, here are the details pics of the parts.

[camprandall]

YOKE/CHEST/BACK

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[camprandall]

WAIST

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 19, 2016 by camprandall

[camprandall]

FOREARMS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 19, 2016 by camprandall

[camprandall]

BELT/CODE/BUTT

 

 

 

 

[camprandall]

THIGHS

 

 

 

 

[camprandall]

KNEES/SHINS/SPATS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 19, 2016 by camprandall

[TK4205]

I'm impressed by the apparent quality of ABS. It seems quite shiny and thick in the pictures.  It doesn't look like they're getting an even temp, because of the dragging in several spots.

[camprandall]

I'm impressed by the apparent quality of ABS. It seems quite shiny and thick in the pictures.  It doesn't look like they're getting an even temp, because of the dragging in several spots.

 

I would agree on the quality of ABS. A few imperfections here and there, but good plastic.

[camprandall]

Ok folks, the results are in and they aren't good. There are many parts of this FNArmour kit that are for sure re-casts of KB Prop's kit. No doubt at all. I have on hand a b-grade mostly complete kit that Kevin sent to one of our DSG members prior to any of this and the kit Peter sent me directly last week so there's no confusion at all as to the source. I also don't believe for a moment these were 3D designed and CNC milled because there is not a hint of a 3D print line anywhere on the armor and all kinds of asymmetry and "wobbliness" to the details that are evidence of a sculpt.

 

We didn't find any clear re-casting evidence of Jim's standard FO TK kit, but we don't have Jim's Phasma parts to compare with and those are the source of the accusations there so that's not really conclusive at all.  I'll post a separate thread showing some comparisons of parts between ANOVOS alpha, KB and Jim just for the fun of armor comparison of legitimate sources, but this thread is about FNArmour.

 

I don't know why Peter sent me a kit and asked for a fair assessment. I told him early this morning what the outcome was looking like and haven't heard back. He's either delusional in his deception or has legitimately been taken for a ride by his partners. I think he should have a chance to explain this himself without us drawing too many conclusions yet because a re-caster sending kits to 501st members for unbiased opinions about re-casting is an odd choice. All of my correspondence to him again felt very open and he again asked for no filtering or pre-approval of my feedback. I wonder if he truly thinks it's legitimate armor. Not sure.

 

Here are the pics. They range from perfect fits inside each other, to partial fits, to pieces that look like copies that have been tweaked. In some cases the FN piece fits in the KB and in other cases it's the other way around.

 

BACK

 

Outside KB, Inside FN

 

 

CHEST

 

Outside KB, inside FN

 

 

 

YOKE

 

Outside KB, Inside FN

 

 

HAND PLATES

 

Outside KB, Inside FN

 

 

TORSO

 

This one is a bit tougher, but it looks in person to me like he likely re-casted it with a couple of boxes already attached and then lengthened it. To the naked eye, it looked to me and my buddy like it had that eerie similarity to it. It also doesn't make sense that someone would design this with two of the 7 boxes raised as part of the mold with the other requiring gluing to attach. That creates a very weird final result.

 

KB on top, FN on bottom. 

 

KIDNEY

 

KB outside, FN inside

 

SPAT

 

KB outside, FN inside

 

KNEE PLATES

 

KB outside, FN inside

 

SHIN

 

This one was hard to capture, but the curve of KB's shin fit very neatly inside FN's. If I had trimmed KB's part, it would be more obvious.

 

KB inside, FN outside

 

THIGH

 

KB outside, FN inside

 

BUTT PLATE

 

A little hard to see in a pic, but a perfect fit.

 

KB inside, FN outside

 

FOREARM

 

A little tough to see because of the untrimmed return on KB's, but the change in shape is perfectly in line with FNs.

Edited July 20, 2016 by camprandall

[Chris Stewart]

Wow

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[steamboatphan]

glad I backed out of this one! waiting for my anovos premium kit now

 

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[Dark PWF[Staff]]

Thank you, Clint.  

 

As Wyatt mentioned, I know that you took this analysis very seriously and were prepared to conduct a very in-depth caliper-based comparison of all of the parts.  It is both fortunate, and unfortunate that it wasn't necessary to do so.  Naturally, we all would have enjoyed seeing the process take place being the nerds we collectively are.

 

I also appreciate your fairness in discussion of Peter's interactions with you.  I do believe that at one point in time he did say that he did not actually know the origin of the armor parts, but was sure that they were not recast.  Alas...  We couldn't have a thread with FN Armor in it stay open for more than a few days for awhile there so I don't recall where he said that.  I tend to agree with your thoughts that he probably doesn't know the origins of the parts, and that the photos of the plastic show no indicators of having been pulled against CNC'd forming bucks. The details are far too soft in my opinion as well.

[sylverbard[TK]]

Well, for transparencies sake, you need to compare both to anovos old parts and new. And find out just who ' John snow' was / is.

[camprandall]

Well, for transparencies sake, you need to compare both to anovos old parts and new. And find out just who ' John snow' was / is.

 

I actually did compare several parts to ANOVOS and Jim's kits and it was immediately obvious they were different. The FN and KB parts were clear even just seeing them sitting next to each other. 

 

I didn't take hardly any photos of that, but I did show my buddy the ANOVOS chest inside the KB chest just to show how different sculpts have different angles, connection points, etc. On the flip side, you can also see the bottom edge on this one is very different. There weren't any suspicious parts at all outside of FN's.

 

Edited July 20, 2016 by camprandall

[camprandall]

Thank you, Clint.  

 

As Wyatt mentioned, I know that you took this analysis very seriously and were prepared to conduct a very in-depth caliper-based comparison of all of the parts.  It is both fortunate, and unfortunate that it wasn't necessary to do so.  Naturally, we all would have enjoyed seeing the process take place being the nerds we collectively are.

 

I also appreciate your fairness in discussion of Peter's interactions with you.  I do believe that at one point in time he did say that he did not actually know the origin of the armor parts, but was sure that they were not recast.  Alas...  We couldn't have a thread with FN Armor in it stay open for more than a few days for awhile there so I don't recall where he said that.  I tend to agree with your thoughts that he probably doesn't know the origins of the parts, and that the photos of the plastic show no indicators of having been pulled against CNC'd forming bucks. The details are far too soft in my opinion as well.

 

Thanks Tim. I legitimately didn't want it to be true as Peter was very courteous and I didn't know Kevin at all so the last thing I wanted to do was get in a messy situation. I'm grateful though that it's completely conclusive.

[Holnave (evan_loh)[TK]]

Thank you Clint for taking your time to do this for all of us to see.

[Fedaykin[TK]]

Thanks for your work, it has shed some needed light on this issue.

 

I wasn't aware of it, but Jim has pointed out that a image they use on the fnarmor website is of his v2 armor.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Thank you Clint for your time and how you have addressed this. Also thanks to your garrison mates for supplying their armor for you to compare. <br><br>

At this stage I think it only prudent to put a hold on my FN build.

[Lichtbringer]

Thanks for your work.

[The5thHorseman[501st]]

One thing I've come to really respect is a maker's word when he says someone is recasting his work. When you've created something, that's strange but you can recognize it in a glimpse afterwards. You know all the little kinks and specificities of it. Just like I can recognize a F-11D printed from my 3D files immediatly, I'm not surprised Kevin immediatly identified his sculpts into the FN armor.