QuartZ's Anovos ANH Stunt Build

[ukswrath[Staff]]

7 hours ago, QuartZ said:

@ukswrath - in your tutorial, you mention using Dritz #10 snaps and 3/4" elastic for the connections from the shoulder bells to the chest/back elastic. I picked up the snaps, and when I laid them on 1" elastic they look proportionally correct to the screen used armor in the RS gallery as well as the photos of your tutorials. If I were to lay them on 3/4' elastic, the snaps would touch the edges of the elastic. Do I have something wrong here? Do I have the wrong snaps? Or is there a typo in your tutorial and you meant 1" elastic. Here's what I have/what I mean:

I appreciate the double check,

-Dana

I used the Anovos supplied which I believe was 3/4", I could be wrong, will have to double check. Thanks for mentioning it.

1" will do just fine though. 

[QuartZ]

1 hour ago, ukswrath said:

I used the Anovos supplied which I believe was 3/4", I could be wrong, will have to double check. Thanks for mentioning it.

1" will do just fine though. 

I should have checked that myself. So I just did. It looks like the Anovos supplied is 1" elastic:

 

That clears up the confusion. Hope it helps clear up any confusion for someone else.

 

-Dana

[ukswrath[Staff]]

8 minutes ago, QuartZ said:

I should have checked that myself. So I just did. It looks like the Anovos supplied is 1" elastic:

That clears up the confusion. Hope it helps clear up any confusion for someone else.

 

-Dana

Thanks, not at home at the moment to take that measurement. I'll make the change on my build thread also .

[QuartZ]

5 hours ago, ukswrath said:

Thanks, not at home at the moment to take that measurement. I'll make the change on my build thread also .

Cool beans.

 

-Dana

[68Brick[TK]]

Beautiful Build Dana. Loving the sanded smooth edges. TK's building right now should look at your thread.

 

I'll chine in on the bicep to forearm conversation, if you make is connection elastics with snaps it allow you to put on your shoulder bells and biceps first, then you can snap on your forearms. This gives you greater range of motion while dressing. As you'll see in the change room, TK's have different ways of getting kitted up. Some do what I just told you, and some put on the entire arm (forearm, bicep, and bell) as an entire sleeve. Some do it other ways with the bells already attached to the shoulder straps. It's a mixed bag. Just saying the connection doesn't have to be a permanent thing, until you figure out how you like to get dressed. I'd say leave the strapping out for now until you can fully kit up. Then decide what works best for you.

[QuartZ]

9 hours ago, 68Brick said:

Beautiful Build Dana. Loving the sanded smooth edges. TK's building right now should look at your thread.

Wow, that's a really kind thing to say. I hope it all comes together at the end. I'm doing my best at each step without trying to do anything too crazy-OCD. The sanding is really pretty quick actually and I'm not using anything other than sand paper. The lean scissors gave me a pretty clean edge to start with!

 

9 hours ago, 68Brick said:

I'll chine in on the bicep to forearm conversation, if you make is connection elastics with snaps it allow you to put on your shoulder bells and biceps first, then you can snap on your forearms. This gives you greater range of motion while dressing. As you'll see in the change room, TK's have different ways of getting kitted up. Some do what I just told you, and some put on the entire arm (forearm, bicep, and bell) as an entire sleeve. Some do it other ways with the bells already attached to the shoulder straps. It's a mixed bag. Just saying the connection doesn't have to be a permanent thing, until you figure out how you like to get dressed. I'd say leave the strapping out for now until you can fully kit up. Then decide what works best for you.

Thanks for that perspective as well. I kind of got the feeling that everyone does something a little different and it makes sense to leave the final attachment of some of these connections until the end. I haven't mounted my bicep hooks yet either as I want the shoulder bells mounted and tight to the chest/back first so that I can remove one variable. Since everything in the arms is a balancing act from there on. I figured that would be a good process. I'll leave the elastic until I get to that point. This is.a good segue to my next post!

 

-Dana

 

[QuartZ]

A few days back I was asking questions about the shoulder bell elastic and snaps that attach to the chest/back elastic. I wanted to assemble these and get some more experience with sewing. I've done a bit of sewing a long time ago for some other costumes/props. However, I haven't sewed elastic. I also wanted to get a sewing machine and this project has a few places where I could use one. So I bought a fairly inexpensive sewing machine - a Brother XM2701. After setting it up and testing an elastic stitch on some spare elastic pieces, I felt ready to try it for real.

 

So here's the raw parts. I chose 1" wide elastic cut to 6" in length along with the Dritz size 10 snaps:

 

I folded over one end of the elastic such that it was slightly bigger than the snap diameter. I think the folded area is a little over 1" long. Then I used the sewing machine to sew the loose edge down to hold it in place. This made it easy to handle when hand-sewing the Dritz snap and also should help prevent some fraying. The exposed edge is going to fray a bit, but it shouldn't get too out of hand with this stitch (I hope).

 

Finally I used the same black thread to attach the snaps. This was more tedious than the sewing machine work which went really quick. Why isn't there a machine for this?  Here's how they looked when I was done:

 

I'm going to hold off on gluing these into the shoulder bells so that I can finish connecting the chest to the back first. I'm about ready to spend some more time on the torso and install those connections. Feels good to get these done and I enjoyed learning some new tools/techniques.

 

-Dana

[Frank75139[501st]]

A few days back I was asking questions about the shoulder bell elastic and snaps that attach to the chest/back elastic. I wanted to assemble these and get some more experience with sewing. I've done a bit of sewing a long time ago for some other costumes/props. However, I haven't sewed elastic. I also wanted to get a sewing machine and this project has a few places where I could use one. So I bought a fairly inexpensive sewing machine - a Brother XM2701. After setting it up and testing an elastic stitch on some spare elastic pieces, I felt ready to try it for real.
 
So here's the raw parts. I chose 1" wide elastic cut to 6" in length along with the Dritz size 10 snaps:

 
I folded over one end of the elastic such that it was slightly bigger than the snap diameter. I think the folded area is a little over 1" long. Then I used the sewing machine to sew the loose edge down to hold it in place. This made it easy to handle when hand-sewing the Dritz snap and also should help prevent some fraying. The exposed edge is going to fray a bit, but it shouldn't get too out of hand with this stitch (I hope).

 
Finally I used the same black thread to attach the snaps. This was more tedious than the sewing machine work which went really quick. Why isn't there a machine for this?  Here's how they looked when I was done:

 
I'm going to hold off on gluing these into the shoulder bells so that I can finish connecting the chest to the back first. I'm about ready to spend some more time on the torso and install those connections. Feels good to get these done and I enjoyed learning some new tools/techniques.
 
-Dana

Don’t glue them, frame those works of art. That’s a nice job.


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[QuartZ]

20 hours ago, Frank1769 said:

Don’t glue them, frame those works of art. That’s a nice job.
 

Thanks. But then I wouldn't be able to finish this thing!

 

-Dana

Edited January 14, 2018 by QuartZ

[Frank75139[501st]]

Thanks. But then I wouldn't be able to finish this thing!
 
-Dana

Make another set and mess them up. Lol


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[QuartZ]

I am working on some 3D printable snap plates too. After several prototypes to work through my design ideas, I came up with these two plates. They are good for Tandy Line 24 snaps, they have a 1mm deep recess that allows the plate to sit flush against the armor once the snaps are set, they feature a little bevel on the post hole for were the snap post slightly flares (this really solved some issues with earlier prototypes), and, by printing them on my print bed this side up, I get some subtle texture on the finished part so I don't need to sand them before gluing! Here's the parts in Fusion:

 

I started with printing the double snap since I plan on using a bunch of these. Here's are some prints. On the left is the gluing side (toward the armor) and on the right is the side that the strapping interfaces with:

 

So then I had to install some snaps to test this version (hoping that it would be the final version). I honestly made 6 or 7 prior designs and kept tweaking until I got to this. After several hammer blows here's how it looks:

 

And the reverse side showing how those recesses allow the snap base to sit below the surface of the ABS snap plate:

 

The printer is running a batch of them now. I'm doing 9 at a time on the print bed. I think I could fit 12, but instead I'm going to do 2 batches of 9 for a total of 18 so I have some extra. Can't wait to glue these into the armor and start on torso strapping!

 

-Dana

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Very nice, be interesting to see how the fair after a bit of trooping, I notice 3D prints don't seem to be as strong as normal plastic.

 

I do prefer double snaps on a lot of areas that get a bit of action, I have had the occasional snap fail over the years, a thigh, cod and shoulder, having that extra snap has saved me

[QuartZ]

14 minutes ago, gmrhodes13 said:

Very nice, be interesting to see how the fair after a bit of trooping, I notice 3D prints don't seem to be as strong as normal plastic.

True. In my tests, I had to bend the plate to about 90 degrees before it would snap. Scrap ABS from the trimming for example will bend all the way over without snapping! However, I can't think of a scenario where the plate should bend to 90 degrees while trooping. If that happens, I think I have other problems .

 

They are however very strong (perhaps stronger than standard plastic) in the direction of pushing/pulling on the snaps. I think that's because of the way printing works where I have layer upon layer of alternating directional "strands' acting almost like a carbon fiber weave. I tried to push snaps out of my earliest designs with tools and couldn't do it. I'm very confident these won't be the point of failure.

 

-Dana

[Steaditrooper[TK]]

I'm loving the 3D printed work on your build. What Brad says about the snap connection for the forearms is a good point. My arms are joined together from the shoulder down and it is tricky to snap the shoulder into place because of the limited range of motion I have. Forearms being separate would make things a whole lot easier when it comes to suiting up.

[QuartZ]

6 hours ago, Sean said:

I'm loving the 3D printed work on your build. What Brad says about the snap connection for the forearms is a good point. My arms are joined together from the shoulder down and it is tricky to snap the shoulder into place because of the limited range of motion I have. Forearms being separate would make things a whole lot easier when it comes to suiting up.

Hehe, it's funny. I think you're on the opposite side of the fence from the discussion we had earlier in my thread about that connection  I appreciate all points of view. The range of motion to the shoulder snap is a great specific example of a concern that I can now take into account as I inch closer to strapping this thing together. I appreciate the insight Sean!

 

-Dana

[QuartZ]

Here's a batch of snap plates that I finished this morning. I made more than this  but I'm still not sure how many more I need to assemble with snaps. It depends on some choices that are fast approaching (places where some people use 2 vs 3 connections like the chest-to-ab and back-to-kidney):

 

I started installing the plates. My process went like this, measure 25mm from the return edge to the center of the snaps (just trying to have a consistent distance that is close to the edge but far enough from the ends of the screws/nuts from the bracket pads to hopefully avoid interference). I marked the locations with a pencil and then sanded the armor where I planned to glue down each snap plate using 100 grit to create some tooth. As with the other armor parts I've glued with E-6000, I did a test fit to ensure I knew what combo of magnets and/or clamps I was gonna use before I applied any glue. I curved some of the snap plates when it was appropriate to help match the armor contours so the armor wouldn't be stressed by the plates.

 

Here's the posterior armor:

 

And a close up of the center snap plate and a gang of magnets

 

Here's the lower 3 locations on the bottom of the kidney:

 

I just noticed in this one you can see the clamps are angry with Mickey Mouse for the Last Jedi  

 

Things are going, gonna try to get some more plates glued up tonight (not sure if I'll find the time). Here's hoping!

 

-Dana

Edited January 15, 2018 by QuartZ

[Harbinger[IPM]]

Very clean. Wish my snaps were that consistent!

[QuartZ]

Thanks, it’s fun designing items that help with my build where the robots can do some of the work. Also, creating a simple feature on the parts that let me recess the snaps just seemed like a no brainer for 3D printed parts. The consistency is great even though it’s unnecessary

 

I’m trying to only do things this way where people won’t see the parts to maintain an authentic hand crafted exterior. Even the bicep hooks I made we t through some hand sanding and polish to make them less perfect/identical and and to remove signs of printing (didn’t take photos of that step)

 

-Dana

[QuartZ]

Hmmm, well last night was a bit of a bummer. If you are a pro builder, please give this post of mine a read and let me know what you think.

 

I went to check out the kidney and posterior parts that I had installed my first snap plates on (I started with the seam that joins the two together). When I took off all of the magnets and clamps I discovered that the center snap plates locations (down the middle of the back) on both parts of armor exhibited some deformation or warping over the locations of the snaps. It's noticeable in certain lighting/reflection conditions. Here's a photo of the kidney to illustrate:

 

Above you can see at the lower edge the reflection domes right where the snaps are located in the plates on the inside of the armor. Now, I tried to angle this into the light to help draw attention to the issue, and because it sits under the belt/thermal detonator, I'm not totally freaked out about it. It sucks, maybe it could be worse? But I'm trying to avoid it happening as I keep gluing these in! The locations to either side have some subtle doming too, but not as bad/noticeable as here on the flat location. The same is true for the 3 locations across the seam on the posterior.

 

Now, I did NOT apply any E6000 directly to the snap metal. In fact, in designing the plates and spreading the glue, the whole point was to avoid the metal contacting the ABS as much as possible and to not get any glue on the snaps! I was very diligent about that.

 

So, after being a bit bummed, I searched and read more about the rumors of E6000 and snaps causing heat/melting/warping. There really is no definitive information about this that I could easily find. But from all of the opinions that I could gather on the subject, I decided to try some modifications to my next set of snap plates in hopes of resolving the issue. So, last night I started by cutting little squares of electrical tape (with the corners cut off) and applying them to my snap plates like this:

 

This precaution seemed unnecessary as I mentioned before that I'm not putting any glue over the snaps...but I wanted to eliminate 1 variable with the tape. Important note: in attaching this next set of snaps, I still did not put any glue over the metal snap areas (now covered by black electrical tape). The next change I went with was to reduce the clamping force used to hold the snap plates while the glue set up. I used my larger magnets and clamps last time and I thought the pressure may have been so great and the ABS so thin in these areas that perhaps they squeezed around the snap areas cause the warped/dome shapes? I don't know, but less pressure was the goal. Here's what take 2 looked like on the back and kidney armor:

 

And a closeup of smaller/less magnets used in conjunction with painters tape and smaller/less powerful clamps:

 

The result was inconclusive. I'm not really sure. It still didn't resolve the issue as I can see subtle humps in the plastic if I look for them in at least the kidney armor in the center location and on one side (left). The back armor actually turned out pretty good and if there's any deformation, it's so slight that I don't notice it. Here's a photo showing what the second method yields in a more flat lighting condition where shadows help emphasize the deformation. Note that this time the upper edge in this photo would be along the seam that attaches to the back plate and the bottom edge on the floor is the first gluing attempt where I first noticed the problem:

 

And here's that first image I posted again because it was actually taken this morning after 12 hours of clamping time so that you can compare in a more reflective lighting condition. Look closely at the top left edge of the armor. The reflection does warp around the location of the snaps in both cases:

 

So, I'm not sure what's going on. My final thought is that perhaps glue across the whole snap plate and over the electrical tape would be better in that the ABS would be uniformly effected by whatever the glue is doing. It's one of the constants in both of my attempts so far. Perhaps the glue heats up, maybe not. Perhaps the glue shrinks or expands a bit and since I don't have any in the snap areas this happens. Perhaps I need to apply pressure differently like putting a scrap abs rectangle on the inside/outside for more uniform pressure?

 

I just want to avoid jacking up the chest at this point as the locations will be too noticeable, I am considering using CA glue at this point, but don't like that I get 1 shot, and it may make the ABS brittle. That also worries me. I think I'll do the ab locations next as they should be hidden under the chest. I'm going to try some of the thought I had above but I'll wait until some others chime in.

 

Any additional help and/or guidance on this issue is much appreciated,

-Dana

[ukswrath[Staff]]

 I suggest removing one of the mounts. Use a butter knife to slide underneath the entire mount and remove. Once removed inspect the metal for any corrosive breakdown. The glue doesn't have to be in direct contact to effect it. As wonderfully designed as your plates are you also created a pocket where glue vapors can collect. If indeed the metal is reacting to the glue then you have to make a decision. First I suggest removing a plate and post a photo for us to see. 

 

While on the topic, NOT all snaps are created equal. Some corrode easy some do not. I personally use military grade for several reasons, corrosive protection being one of them. If you find snaps corroding then you may need to switch manufacturers.  

[QuartZ]

1 minute ago, ukswrath said:

 I suggest removing one of the mounts. Use a butter knife to slide underneath the entire mount and remove. Once remove inspect the metal for any corrosive breakdown. The glue doesn't have to be in direct contact to effect it. As wonderfully designed as your plates are you also created a pocket where glue vapors can collect. If indeed the metal is reacting to the glue then you have to make a decision. I suggest removing a plate and post a photo for us to see. 

 

While on the topic, NOT all snaps are created equal. Some corrode easy some do not. I personally military grade for several reasons, corrosive protection being one of them. If you find snaps corroding then you may need to switch manufacturers.  

Hey, thanks for stopping in to my thread!

 

Really good ideas. I hadn’t thought about vapors as a possibility, but since the snaps have a hole through them I would think that gases would easily escape through the center of the snap toward the inside of the armor... who knows.

 

When I get home tonight I’ll take off one of the kidney plate snap plates (lower center) to see what’s going on in there. That one had no tape.

 

And these are Tandy brand Line 24 snaps. Got a better snap brand/supplier?

 

Thanks,

-Dana

[wook1138[TK]]

Interesting!  I have the same issue, but to a much lesser extent.  I am using the Tandy Line 24 snaps (nickle plated).  However, I am using nylon snap bases - I have noticed yellow discoloration below the plates when removed.  I thought this might be due to the nylon - the dimples I assumed were from me applying pressure to the snaps and nothing to do with heating of the ABS via chemical reaction.  I couldn't see any direct corrosion on the snaps.   I was starting to wonder the if the magnets where playing a part in all this, so I've been trying to just use clamps for the last few bases I've glued.  Haven't really noticed if there were any dimples associated with those bases - I'll have to check tonight.

[Harbinger[IPM]]

Hey Dana, are those PLA snap plates? I used ABS for my snap plates and (knock on wood, I'll check when I get home) I see no deformation on my armor where I installed plates and I too used Tandy snaps, which makes me wonder if it's a reaction to the plastic, not the snaps.

[QuartZ]

14 minutes ago, Harbinger said:

Hey Dana, are those PLA snap plates? I used ABS for my snap plates and (knock on wood, I'll check when I get home) I see no deformation on my armor where I installed plates and I too used Tandy snaps, which makes me wonder if it's a reaction to the plastic, not the snaps.

I am using ABS. I figured it best to match plastics even though they still might be slightly different compositions.

 

26 minutes ago, wook1138 said:

Interesting!  I have the same issue, but to a much lesser extent.  I am using the Tandy Line 24 snaps (nickle plated).  However, I am using nylon snap bases - I have noticed yellow discoloration below the plates when removed.  I thought this might be due to the nylon - the dimples I assumed were from me applying pressure to the snaps and nothing to do with heating of the ABS via chemical reaction.  I couldn't see any direct corrosion on the snaps.   I was starting to wonder the if the magnets where playing a part in all this, so I've been trying to just use clamps for the last few bases I've glued.  Haven't really noticed if there were any dimples associated with those bases - I'll have to check tonight.

Did you post images of yours in your issues thread? I’d love to compare. Mine weren’t all th same amount of deformation. The ones in the photo are the worst.

 

-Dana

[ukswrath[Staff]]

41 minutes ago, QuartZ said:

Hey, thanks for stopping in to my thread!

 

Really good ideas. I hadn’t thought about vapors as a possibility, but since the snaps have a hole through them I would think that gases would easily escape through the center of the snap toward the inside of the armor... who knows.

 

When I get home tonight I’ll take off one of the kidney plate snap plates (lower center) to see what’s going on in there. That one had no tape.

 

And these are Tandy brand Line 24 snaps. Got a better snap brand/supplier?

 

Thanks,

-Dana

I use Fasnap. They're military grade and highly recommended above most especially in the marine industry. That said they're not much more than Tandy and I have yet to have any issues after installing a few hundred. 

21 minutes ago, Harbinger said:

wonder if it's a reaction to the plastic, not the snaps.

Excellent point!