Anzo's TFA FOTK/TLJ Executioner Builds (KB) aka the Terrible Twofer!

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Awesome looking good

[Anzo[TK]]

The stars have aligned such that painting will happen over the next week or so. Time to tell the tale of an awesome dude.

 

As I was debating on whether or not to pro-paint the armor, I'm at lunch eating with some co-workers. One co-worker's husband is a police officer and joins us on occasion. They have lived here longer than I have so I asked them about reputable body shops in our small town. He gives some suggestions and asks what I'm doing. I explain the armor build and a bit of what the 501st is all about, He suggests I name drop him at one place in particular and they would give a discount.

 

As we are wrapping up, he then stops and says, "You know, I have all the guns and gear in my own home shop, I could do that for you for the cost of supplies. It'll be really easy." Turns out he does automobile restorations on the side. 

 

So I'm gave him the paint code that Tony supplied in his thread and we decided to move forward with it. I'm beside myself with gratitude for his generosity. 

 

That exchange was 2 months ago now. I've detailed delays on my end and he's had some stuff come up as well. In any case this isn't a race. I dropped off the armor pieces at his house last night. Before doing that however, I sanded down all of the pieces with a light sanding of 320 grit paper, then another round of 400 grit. So now the waiting game begins until I move on to strapping. 

 

No rush on my end as I'll have my hands full with a new baby for the next few weeks. 

 

 

[Anzo[TK]]

Long over due update:

 

Painting happened! I received these photos from my buddy today.

 

 

They still need to cure for a few days so I will pick up the pieces on Sunday or so. Then onto greeblie gluing and strapping!

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Very nice

[Anzo[TK]]

So much to post and so little time. I've been plugging along with strapping and plan to provide details of all of that soon. In the meantime however I have a troop next weekend that I'm cramming to finish this by so you only get a couple of teaser photos from my test fitting earlier today. Upper half is mostly done and I'm working on the bottom half now. The little Yoke discrepancy has already been corrected. See you folks on the other side!

 

 

[Anzo[TK]]

Strapping and Other Miscellaneous stuff:

 

First things first, I really marathoned the strapping section of my build and did not take a ton of pictures. My apologies for that.

Secondly, I am going to be linking to other build threads for a lot of the steps because they deserve the credit and no point in typing the same info imo. I will add any differences or insights as I go along. With those caveats in mind here we go!

 

Gaffers Tape:

 

Gaffer's Tape goes behind the shin ankle holes, Bicep twin holes, Chest pill holes and mid-chest indent. I purchased 1" Gaffer's tape from Amazon and layered 2 strips over each other to create a backing, then sufficient frontward facing tape like so:

 

 

I then applied it to the respective areas. Lengths varied (the chest hole was larger than the above while the biceps were smaller) but that is the general method.

 

 

Additionally, I also applied a layer of mesh fabric over the pill holes for accuracy. This can be purchased by Ukswratch as part of this package or perhaps you can have him add on a swath for a few dollars extra to another order you are doing with him if you already have Gaffer's tape. This mesh is only for accuracy and not required for any approval level.

Edited May 20, 2018 by Anzo

[Anzo[TK]]

Spats Pt 3:

 

I glued the painted greeblie to the spats and lined up the proper placement of the accompanying snap on the greeblie for proper closure. I used the Devcon glue for the male snap.

 

 

After test fitting the spats around the base of the shin, they slid below the shin a little too easily after walking around so I applied some velcro on the front of the shin to hold them in place better.

 

Edited July 2, 2018 by Anzo

[Anzo[TK]]

Shoulder Bells to Yoke:

 

I followed Ruthar's method for securing the bells to the yoke, with the help of ukswrath's support struts. A very worthy investment to reinforce that piece!

 

I shaped the struts to match the contour of the yoke as best I could and glued them in with devcon glue.

 

 

 

[Anzo[TK]]

Thigh Supports:

 

When I purchased gaskets from Geeky Pink, I also commissioned her to make a vest to which many pieces could be secured. Included in this vest was a waist belt and some extra 2 inch nylon strips to hold up the thighs. 

 

After aligning those extra strips to hang down off the waist belt where I wanted them, I marked with a line where I wanted the top of the thigh pieces to sit. After that I measured and marked holes on the corresponding snap plates. The exact measurements aren't important, you just need to be consistent. For example, if the top line is the top edge of the thigh, then you can place the top of the snap plate at the inside top edge of the thigh. And if you mark the holes at 10 mm and 20 mm (just examples) then do the same on the matching piece.

 

 

 

Front                                                                                                        Back

 

"WHOA WHOA WHOA ANZO!" you say as you look at the whole vest. Why are there 2 sharpie lines on the thigh holders now? Good question you super slueth. This is a good opportunity to highlight the mantra "measure twice, cut once." Or in this case, glue once! After I did the steps I described above, I had this nagging feeling that I should check fitment again just to be sure. Sure enough, when I put the vest on again, I was able to slide the thighs up ever so higher. I can't account for why, I must have marked wrong or something the first time. In any case, the top lines represent the true height at which the thighs should sit. No problem! since I knew the line represented the top thigh edge, I measured the difference between the lines and moved the snap plate down by that much. So in my case it ended up looking like this once glued.

 

 

Edited May 27, 2018 by Anzo

[Anzo[TK]]

Hand Plates:

The Imperial Boots gloves include velcro on the top of the gloves so I just needed to adhere some velcro on the inside of the plates. GG EZ

 

 

Knee Plates:

 

Borrowing from Ruthar and Ukswrath I installed the knee plates in like manner.

 

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Excellent job AJ looking great 

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Great work

[PhilBobTheFish]

So shiny! Looks great!

[Anzo[TK]]

Belt Assembly:

 

I had planned on making the belt myself but thought better of it and ordered @JAFO's belt kit and I am glad I did. Very high quality. 

 

I started by getting a fitment of how much length I would need and marking that distance with painter's tape.

 

 

Once I was content with the length I marked and punched holes on the tape pictured above and installed the supplied chicago screws. Do that at both ends.

 

 

PROTIP: have a plastic bat nearby to ward off meddlesome children during assembly. 

 

At this point you trim the other two layers to match your base nylon layer and punch holes through them as well to feed your screws through until all 3 layers are intact.

 

Once all three layers are assembled, it is time to line up the boxes. The horizontal boxes should straddle the center line of your ab piece (or somewhere in that vicinity). Affix the boxes to the belt in a temporary fashion to get them lined up. 

 

 

Once those are lined up, drill holes into the rear boxes and mark pilot holes into the top ribbed layer of the belt. I used a knife to rough up the belt a little to know where to punch. 

 

I also put the pouches on at this point just to get a feel for how they would line up with everything else. The best way I found to keep them in place is with safety pins.

 

JAFO's kit also comes with these nylon mounting plates and elastic to mount the vertical boxes. Punch some holes in them as well as the belt and have a grand old time feeding elastic through the belt layers. Once that is complete glue the mounting plate to the box and let dry. I used a good amount of CA glue for this part. Once you are content with their placement, tie off and trim the excess elastic.

 

 

Next step is to glue on the tops halves of the horizontal boxes. Paint the rear boxes black if you have white plastic, let dry, and afix the top half. 

 

Next place some velcro on to the back of the piece that covers one of the pouches. The set I purchased from Trooperbay already had fuzzy velcro on the patch so you shouldn't be able to confuse them.

 

 

That should be it. Enjoy your handiwork and marvel at the beautiful (and functional) belt! It goes without saying that final belt assembly should happen only after your pieces have been painted (if you are painting that is, which with KB, you probably are.)

 

 

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Nice work AJ

[TheDon[501st]]

nicely done on the belt. I was wondering how it got assembled

[Anzo[TK]]

Gasket Velcro Installation:

 

Geeky Pink's gaskets include the velcro strips to install on the inside of the various pieces. Where to put them is a different for every person however. my first thought was that you just install the strips at the top and bottom of the pieces and have at it. Boy was I wrong! The biceps sat way too low on my arms that way. Here is where the strips ended up for me. The top strip connects to the chest gaskets and the bottom strip connects to the elbow gaskets.

 

Biceps:

 

As far as I could tell from reference photos and other troopers, you want the bicep seam and the forearm seam to line up as much as possible, taking into account the natural bend of the arms, much like the OT TK's.

 

 

Apply the same methodology to the legs, except that you only need to worry about the knee gaskets. Thighs are connected via the method I already outlined. In my case, the strips did end up going as near the bottom edge of the thighs and top edge of the shins. Be sure to check fitment for yourself though.

 

Shins:

 

 

Edited July 2, 2018 by Anzo

[Anzo[TK]]

Chest Plate Connections:

 

I really wanted to make magnets work for this but I either didn't buy magnets that were strong enough or I have too much flex in my chest piece to make it hold. Since I was in a bit of a time crunch I opted for velcro after the magnets weren't working out. It is simple enough. Apply hook and look to the side connections and up top at the points.

 

[Anzo[TK]]

Butt Plate - Back Connection:

 

Following Ruthar's method, I punched some holes into 3" elastic and installed snaps in order to match them to corresponding snap plates on the back of the ab piece. This is what it originally looked like.

 

 

Then I realized that one of the snap plates was on the magnet connector of the kidney! Whoops! I made the magnet closures long before this so it was too late to change that (note to future builders, make the bottom magnet closure a touch higher than I did to avoid this goof)

 

So I had to modify it a little bit. I moved the snap plate over a bit, cut the elastic connection, glued the overlap and now it looks a big hoopty like so:

 

[Anzo[TK]]

Shin Closure:

 

Using 1 inch low profile white velcro, I cut out strips to match the overlap of the shins and affixed them to the pieces. Super simple. Super effective.

 

[Anzo[TK]]

Decal Application:

 

I ordered a sheet of decals from Trooperbay. They are billed as fitting the Anovos kit only I believe but they did well enough here. KB has only recently started including a decal sheet with his kits. I have one on order and will replace as needed/keep as backups if any of the current ones fall off.

 

[Anzo[TK]]

Ab Box Installation:

 

I used Ukswrath's method with nylon bolts to keep the ab boxes in place. Easy to do and highly recommended.

[Anzo[TK]]

Cod to Ab:

 

I primarily used Ruthar's method that he explains in great detail.

 

[Anzo[TK]]

Submission Photos:

 

 

I'm very happy with how it all turned out. As you can see in the rear photo, the belt still rides up a little bit and I am working on a fix for that. That didn't stop me from getting approved however. I've been on active duty for the First Order since May 14th! A BIG HUGE GINORMOUS thank you to all who helped me along the way! I hope this thread will help future builders in some way. Hit me up in this thread or via PM with any questions.

 

I have added a table of contents to the OP for easier navigation and still have to finish my Executioner pieces. So I'm not done yet! I'll update with progress on those at a later date after I finish them. For now I am enjoying the fruits of my labor and resting for a bit!

[yo_its_nino[TK]]

Looking great. Awesome build. I will definitely use this as reference. Thank you.