FencingCorvetteTrooper's Triple Trooper Build (AP ANH Stunt)!

[illusionz_09[TK]]

Looking good. Remember, sniper plate is on your left shin. I'm guessing it is a reflection, but just clearing it up lol

[FencingCorvetteTrooper[TK]]

4 hours ago, illusionz_09 said:

Looking good. Remember, sniper plate is on your left shin. I'm guessing it is a reflection, but just clearing it up lol

LOL, no worries, we're good! Mark labeled the left and right shin parts so it helped with keeping things straight.  If we had slapped it on the wrong shin though, I doubt we would have been the first to go through that fun little adventure. 

[FencingCorvetteTrooper[TK]]

By the way - after fittings we are definitely going to need to do some small measure of cutaway on the back of the thigh bottoms so that we can walk with a little more freedom of movement. Would that impact our ability to get approved at any level?

[illusionz_09[TK]]

No it does not. Obviously you do not want it to be too drastic. But yes. This is allowed

[FencingCorvetteTrooper[TK]]

OK great.  Agreed, nothing drastic though!  

 

Been a busy week and weekend, but managed to get in a few things. Hoping by the end of the coming week, we have our thighs all wrapped up.

 

Since the first step on the thigh assembly was cutting the cover strips, figured we'd have a little mindless entertainment in the background to get us through the task (cutting covers strips has been the least enjoyable part of the build)...

 

Once the strips were done, it was time to attach them to one side.  Once those cure, then we'll attach the other side, completing the piece, and focus on the ammo pack for the right thigh.

 

In the spirit of keeping things moving, we also went ahead and attached the ab button plates to the abs.

[FencingCorvetteTrooper[TK]]

Oh how I hate and love E6000.  Love the forgiveness aspect and ease of undoing a mistake, but HATE the long cure time!!!

 

Sorry, that's all, just needed to vent...

[Sentry71[TK]]

Completely understand your thoughts on E6000. I think we all have that love/hate relationship with it. 

 

As for cutaway, here's an example from mine, if you are interested. (Please ignore the twist... it happens.)

 

 

[FencingCorvetteTrooper[TK]]

10 hours ago, Sentry71 said:

Completely understand your thoughts on E6000. I think we all have that love/hate relationship with it. 

 

As for cutaway, here's an example from mine, if you are interested. (Please ignore the twist... it happens.)

 

 

Thanks Gary!  That's the nature of the cutaway I was looking at.  We're actually going to try with the thigh first and see how that goes before cutting the shin, but decided to exercise some patience first before taking the scissors to the ABS.  Once we have our torsos done, I want to do a full fit test with everything on to confirm where it all sits before making the cuts.

[FencingCorvetteTrooper[TK]]

Time for a mid-week update as we won't be able to do anything for the next week or so - taking one last long weekend off to Disney before school starts and all Hell breaks loose with new school and extracurricular activity schedules for both the kids and ourselves.  But I think we're at a good place, where even with a slow down, we should be able to get across the finish line ahead of a big troop at the Florida Marlins game at the end of September.  

 

We just need to move on to the torsos at this point, and then wrap it up with the belt and final fitments and adjustments.  My brother is a little behind given his work schedule (needs to do his thighs), but we should be able to catch him up.  His will need the most work given the trimming we'll have to do to some pieces, but I think we'll be OK.

 

So here's the rest of the thigh work that was completed this week.

 

Not sure if it's prevalent with other armors, but found that the lines on the right thigh were a bit wonky if they are trimmed without taking final fitment into account.  As you can see, lining up the top doesn't make for a pretty join all the way down (and vice versa).

 

 

So we overlapped them, clamped the ends and then marked the additional cut we needed to make on the right half of the thigh.  

 

 

Once past that, it was time to start assembling the thighs - lots of clamps, tape and magnets!

 

 

 

The following day, it was time to attach the ammo belt to the right thigh.  After following the measuring instructions in ukswrath's build thread, we drilled the holes on the side and attached the ammo belt using the supplied rivets.

 

 

 

After installation, we decided to add a little glue and position the ammo belt in an upward angled position (either up or down is acceptable at all levels) and then paint the rivets white.

 

 

Finally, it was time to do a quick fitment check - must admit, really happy with the results so far!  Still have the jury out on whether we'll need to cut the backs of the thighs and/or shins as movement was pretty good.  But again, nothing final until we have everything on.

 

So again, really happy with what we've accomplished since starting 5 weeks ago and can't wait to get the rest done!  As always, feedback is always appreciated, especially if anyone sees us going down the wrong path with anything.

 

On a final side note, a little jealous that my son managed to get a TK ID before us - he officially signed up with the Galactic Academy and is now proudly known as CTK-3235!   

[illusionz_09[TK]]

You should be jealous. But u guys are almost there. Looking great so far, make sure you cut the extra part of the cover strip above the thighs. I def agree though to make sure you build and have the final suit up before you make any guys/adjustments to the Amor. But great progress. I better see u suited up at the marlins game!

[FencingCorvetteTrooper[TK]]

Thanks David!  The plan is to have our TK's blessed by the time the armor party on the 24th rolls around.  The way we see it, we'll either be making last minute adjustments at that armor party, or sharing all of our knowledge with anyone that's just getting started!  Actually got a little work accomplished this week (see next post below) and hope to keep the momentum going despite the crazy first week of school that starts tomorrow!

[FencingCorvetteTrooper[TK]]

OK, so we had some great progress on my brother's armor this past week, as well as some minor stuff across all three builds as well.

 

First - we started to strap some of the easy stuff and got the shoulder bells fitted with the elastic to secure it to the biceps.  Still need the piece to connect to the shoulder straps, but we won't do that until we get the torso constructed.  Also tried out the strap to connect the bicep to the forearm, but having some questions as to whether that's a requirement for approval?  Given the fit and sizing, we don't have large gaps or movement issues with our forearms and it actually seems a little more challenging having the forearm and bicep strapped together.  Thoughts???

 

 

After getting the bells strapped, the big focus was on the resizing we needed to do to my brother's thighs.  As you can see below (our thigh on the right, his taped in blue on the left) there's a big difference (about 4-5 inches in diameter to be precise - fencing tends to give you some nice bulky thighs ).

 

So with much fear and anxiety, we proceeded to prepare to hack into the thigh pieces.  We went ahead and first marked the line where the overlap occurred in the back, then proceeded to measure it and divide by 2 to determine how much to take off of each side.  This would help to keep things proportional.  

 

 

We marked the points and drew our cut lines on each side (the original overlap line is on the far left, our cut lines are the other two lines in the picture); then measured we three more times to be sure....

...and the cutting began...

Did I mention how nerve-wracked we were???

But at the end, we were impressed by how it turned out and felt really comfortable about proceeding with the other thigh.  Once done, we followed the same process to assemble my brother's thighs as we did with ours earlier, and they came out awesome!  He was really happy with the fit and the look.

 

With those behind us, we then got a jump start today on the torsos.  The first lesson was in creating all of our snaps and starting to glue those onto the torso pieces.  We ran out of time, but got a good start and at least now know how to proceed with the same pieces on the other two builds (this is my brother's kidney and butt plate).  The goal for the end of next week is to have enough in place to be able to wear the torso pieces and start on the belt as well as fitting the shoulders and thighs relative to the torso (we'll be leaving the side rivets and snaps for last, especially since my brother will be needing his trimmed and reshaped for his slimmer build).

 

 

One nice thing before signing off - we're starting to see the bottom of the boxes and there's a lot of finished pieces ready to go!! 

 

Until next time - long live the Empire!!

 

[FencingCorvetteTrooper[TK]]

Well, this week was all about straps and snaps!  It was nice to finally get a break from trimming ABS, cutting shims and cover strips and gluing limb pieces together.

 

 

We got a little assembly line going and moved pretty quickly with cutting the nylon straps, searing the edges, burning in the holes and then hammering in the snaps.  From there, it was a matter of referencing numerous build threads, pics and diagrams to locate the proper placement.  

 

 

And after a couple of days of curing and more snap builds, we had connected torso armor!  I think we did a good job of the spacing and fit.  From what I had seen in other threads, a gap is expected and allowed between the back and kidney plate just based on how the back plate sits.  If anyone sees anything off or that might get us dinged, however, do let me know!

 

 

We also started some of the snap placements on the front torso (not pictured are the ab pieces that had the snaps drying on the upper abs), but as you can see, we went with a double snap approach on the shoulders (mounted on ABS instead of nylon).  Assuming the shoulder points carry a bit more stress from where they sit, so decided it might be a better idea.  So now we're ready for some final torso fitting, belt making and strapping this weekend as we pull all of the pieces together!

 

Once that's done, we'll go back and do some finishing work like trimming and smoothing out edges, cutting ABS for movement on the backs of the legs (if needed), making sure cover strips are neat and smooth, etc.  And with that, hopefully submitting for approval and TK ids's sometime after Labor Day.  Fingers crossed!

[FencingCorvetteTrooper[TK]]

Well, this past weekend brought more progress - not as much as I had hoped as we didn't even touch the belts - but it was progress nonetheless as we checked our overall fitting and the torsos are ready to wrap up with respects to the final strapping and assembly.  From there it's just the belt assembly and attachment to the torso, thigh straps and shoulder bell straps.

 

When preparing to glue the molded straps to the chest plate, we decided to add a little more surface area for the glue to grab onto and lay flat against the chest.  So we took some left over cover strips and cut out pieces to glue to the back...

 

 

From there, it was just glue and clamp.  We went with lining up the first 3.5 bars against the chest plate (I've seen anywhere from 3-6 in other builds).

 

We also installed the snaps on the butt piece and the rivet on the cod piece; used a black elastic strap to connect the two and help provide a better fit for the lower half of the torso.

 

 

And for those with a sharp eye, you are not seeing things.  I wound up installing the strap with the snap facing the wrong way the first time around. LOL.  That was quickly taken care of though and is now installed correctly...

 

After fitting my brother's armor, we finally got the measurements we needed to trim his torso down to fit his slimmer build.  Mark had pre-drilled the holes for us, but unfortunately they had to go as we removed 3/4" from each side of the ab plate.  For AP armor, that's the recommendation if you need to slim things down a bit as the ab plate generally comes with 3 inches of extra room.  The good thing is that we were able to use the pre-drilled holes to line up the replacement holes, and that cut down on any possibility of error when drilling the new holes.  We carefully measured and drew our cut lines on both sides while marking the placement of the holes....

 

 

 

Then my brother took his steady hand to the ABS!  We did a second quick fit check afterwards and we could see the difference (sorry, forgot to take pics in the excitement).  We quickly marked and drilled the new holes and his torso was ready to finish assembly over the course of this coming week.

 

As I said, a lot of small progress, but progress nonetheless, and we got to have some fun donning all the armor and seeing the results of all our hard work so far.  Below are a few shots.  Of note, none of us had the straps made yet to connect the shoulder bell to the shoulder strap, and our thigh strapping wasn't done either, so we had to keep holding those up a bit and there's a few shots where you can see there's some big gaps as the pieces moved, but we got the needed measurements for getting those parts taken care of.

 

Here is my son (shoulder bell slipped a little, but overall, he is getting a great fit right out of the box with some room for future growth).  

 

My son from behind.  All three of us are experiencing a bit of flaring out of the butt piece, so we'll be using some hot water baths to thin those out a bit and get a better look.

 

Here's my brother.  He forgot his bucket, so used mine, but it sits lower on his head, giving him that slightly crunched look.  He had good fit as well; as noted above, we just needed to bring the front and back torso armor closer together.

 

He'll also need some reshaping on the butt and kidney piece as well to fit his slimmer build.

 

And then there's me.  My shoulder bells definitely didn't want to stay in place, but we'll take care of that soon enough.  It was just great to be all suited up and not completely covered in blue painter's tape!

 

Me from the back.  Getting a great fit as well, just need to shape the butt plate a little.

 

Then of course, we had to have a little fun and practice our battle poses!  Can you guess who's who?

 

Until next update!

 

 

Edited August 27, 2017 by FencingCorvetteTrooper

[illusionz_09[TK]]

lol you all have such different body types lol. Lots of different manipulations needed for each of you, for different reasons.

Overall though, it seems like you guys have made HUGE progress and are almost there.

 

So much plastic!!!!!!

 

[illusionz_09[TK]]

oh and strap from bicep to forearm is not mandatory, but definitely suggested.

If it makes any difference, in the movies they had that connection strap.

[FencingCorvetteTrooper[TK]]

16 hours ago, illusionz_09 said:

oh and strap from bicep to forearm is not mandatory, but definitely suggested.

If it makes any difference, in the movies they had that connection strap.

Ok, thanks!  Looks like my brother will need it, still not sure if my son will (but he doesn't go through the official TK approval process anyways), and my forearm has a snug enough fit that it really doesn't move much, so I may forgo it.  We're getting close!!

[Shanester[TK]]

You guys have a come a long way with these kits.  I think its good that you can all work together, too.  Looking great!

[FencingCorvetteTrooper[TK]]

1 hour ago, Shanester said:

You guys have a come a long way with these kits.  I think its good that you can all work together, too.  Looking great!

Thanks Shane!  In the grand scheme of things, I'm impressed we've come this far in only 8 weeks since we started!

 

[FencingCorvetteTrooper[TK]]

OK, it's getting real now.  Found the last two at my local Home Depot and sale priced!  Now to find a suitable place for them to live INSIDE the house since there's no way the armor could withstand the South Florida heat in our garage.  My wife's going to kill me....

 

[FencingCorvetteTrooper[TK]]

OK, so I decided to go back to the left side and the rivets after running into some frustration earlier in the week with gaps between the ab and kidney after fitting for the straps.  Proud to say that with a little patience and good ol' OCD, I think I nailed it!  

 

First, a couple of shots of my strapping approach (courtesy of Mark at AP and a few others I've seen).

 

 

First one side....

 

Then a fun balancing act to get the other...

 

And after hammering down the split rivets, it looked promising!

 

Of course, it wouldn't be right without a quick test fit (sans undersuit).  Centurion, here we come!

 

So happy the results, had to go spend some time in the armor watching TV and contemplating maybe just sleeping in it! 

 

 

It's a great feeling when you can overcome even the tiniest of frustrations or challenges with the build, especially when we're so close to the end.  Let's see where we end up over the course of the coming days!

[illusionz_09[TK]]

lmfao!!!

armor is coming along. Looking great

Edited September 5, 2017 by illusionz_09
update

[illusionz_09[TK]]

Marlins game is around the corner!!! get it done 

[FencingCorvetteTrooper[TK]]

13 hours ago, illusionz_09 said:

Marlins game is around the corner!!! get it done 

Trying to! Now having to deal with all this hurricane crap; praying it heads in a different direction!  

 

By the way, when we're ready, do we apply at the 501 legion website and at the same time email our photos to the Florida Garrison Leader? Just want to make sure we can avoid any delay. 

[illusionz_09[TK]]

11 hours ago, FencingCorvetteTrooper said:

Trying to! Now having to deal with all this hurricane crap; praying it heads in a different direction!  

 

By the way, when we're ready, do we apply at the 501 legion website and at the same time email our photos to the Florida Garrison Leader? Just want to make sure we can avoid any delay. 

Yea this hurricane looks like no joke. Hopefully you guys are all prepared. All i need is propane, hopefully i can find some today.

 

And yes, when you are ready go ahead and submit the application on the 501st legion website and then just email the pictures to me or text and i will send them to the GML directly. It can help move along the process quicker.