Scimitar's ANH Stunt Build - AP

[Scimitar[TK]]

Cod rivet is no longer painted. lol And the rear cover strips are on both thighs now:

 

 

 

I'm planning to reinforce my shoulder straps the same way Cricket did, so I cut some thin plastic scrap into covers. The thin metal strips are in the mail (Amazon all the things!).

 

 

And my super simple snap plate template. It's the same width as my 2" nylon, so it just gives me a guide for the plate length and the template holes match the hole punch size. So things should be pretty consistent on the plates and straps from here on out.

 

 

 

Edited August 29, 2018 by Scimitar

[Scimitar[TK]]

As planned my 16qt pot and shin magnets showed up yesterday. I finally got to start working on the armor and... the power goes out. We were having a thunderstorm but it wasn't anything out of the ordinary for a storm and as the surrounding area has buried power lines, outages are extremely rare. Anyway, I wasn't dealing with that. I grabbed my LED lantern, filled up the new pot, manually lit the stove, and got to work.

 

Giving the parts a hot water bath actually turned out to be a lot easier than I thought and my worries of somehow messing up the parts quickly went away. I did the shoulder straps first and then hit the thigh ammo pack:

 

 

Feeling more acclimated to how the process worked I tackled the shins. Much better. Even velcro wouldn't have a hard time holding these closed now.

 

[Cricket[TK]]

Nice work!  Looks great so far.

 

I was looking at the pic of your right shin, and asked myself, "How did we get the line of that shin off center like that?!".  Then I remembered that it's an AP kit.  Lou was working on his shins a lot at the armor party as well, and I remember that we talked quite a bit about the quirks of those pieces in particular.  When you have the shins and thighs on, the seams will all line up in front as well in the back, and that's what counts.  We were measuring for things when you had the shins on.

 

But despite knowing this, it's kind of freaking me out a little...  please let me know how things are lining up as they're trimmed!!!

[Scimitar[TK]]

23 minutes ago, Cricket said:

But despite knowing this, it's kind of freaking me out a little...  please let me know how things are lining up as they're trimmed!!!

Haha! The picture freaked me out a bit too when I referred back to it and even while I was cutting that particular shin down, but it all still seemed to line up the way it was intended. I'll throw the thighs and shins on tonight and check now that the thighs are glued and the shins are shaped!

[Cricket[TK]]

Whew, that is comforting.  Thank you for letting me know.  Looking forward to hearing how things come together when you get them on.    

[Scimitar[TK]]

The thighs are all together now, all that's left for them is final trimming around the tops as needed, adding the notch to the top of the left thigh, and installing the thigh ammo belt, it's just sitting on the thigh for the picture:

 

 

I spent some time making a bunch of double snap plates:

 

 

I had 40 Tandy snap sets and then some unmarked sets that were listed/sold as Tandy snaps, but I don't think they were. They didn't set the same way and most of them failed. So I just threw those out and used the Tandy snaps until I ran out. More are on the way but 20 plates will get me started.

 

 

And I glued the first 6 plates onto the armor.

 

 

Has anyone ever tried notching the return edges where the straps run across them for added alignment assistance? I think the double snap method will probably prevent most of that kind of issue but I also tend to overthink/overbuild things. 

Edited September 1, 2018 by Scimitar

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Don't really have an issue with them coming out of alignment sideways, most of the time it's an issue of trying to keep the butt plate from pushing out, this can be achieved with tight elastic connecting the pieces or a tighter strap between cod and butt plate. If you still have issues with the butt sticking out you could use a couple of pieces of rectangle ABS, use some heat and mould it over the joins on either side, bit like making a V tab, hopefully you get what I mean. You can then glue one side of the V and the other will be free to allow movement.

 

Bit like this.

 

[Scimitar[TK]]

Yup, that makes complete sense. Thanks! Will definitely note that just in case. 

 

Sidenote, didn't notice until now that the cover strip on the right thigh went crooked somehow. So I just pulled it off, cleaned off the E6000 (good grief that wasn't fun), and reglued it. Definitely time for bed now.

Edited September 1, 2018 by Scimitar

[wook1138[TK]]

Looking great! Those shins really worked out. Nice work! My right thigh did the same thing. I had to glue the bottom half first due to the slight curve of the return edge.


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[Daetrin[Admin]]

7 hours ago, gmrhodes13 said:

Don't really have an issue with them coming out of alignment sideways, most of the time it's an issue of trying to keep the butt plate from pushing out, this can be achieved with tight elastic connecting the pieces or a tighter strap between cod and butt plate. If you still have issues with the butt sticking out you could use a couple of pieces of rectangle ABS, use some heat and mould it over the joins on either side, bit like making a V tab, hopefully you get what I mean. You can then glue one side of the V and the other will be free to allow movement.

 

Bit like this.

 

Wow, that's pretty nifty.  Do you have a pix of this on your kit?  Maybe I'm on the skinny side, but I've also used strategically placed foam to get the look right.  With the tab does it still give you flex when you bend/turn?

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

8 hours ago, Daetrin said:

Wow, that's pretty nifty.  Do you have a pix of this on your kit?  Maybe I'm on the skinny side, but I've also used strategically placed foam to get the look right.  With the tab does it still give you flex when you bend/turn?

I didn't need to use them on my own kit, being skinny and straight up and down, I need something on my sides though so I came up with some bent tabs for those, did a post here . After coming up with the side tabs it then gave me the idea for the butt plate tabs.

 

I've used the butt plate tabs a couple of times on armor I have made for others, so far for 2 RS kits and 1 AM kit and 1 AP kit. Not sure if it was the armor or the wearers but on all the butt plate was being pushed out and no matter what type of elastic or how tight it was it didn't seem to fix it, hence I came up with the tab idea. I just place them on either side right next to the snap plates. Can still move and bend but I wouldn't recommend sitting, that could be a bit too much for the tabs.

 

Once I catch up with one of the wearers I'll take a few photos  

[Scimitar[TK]]

Got the drop boxes and ammo belt rivet covers trimmed up:

 

 

Installed the floating ab snap:

 

 

Marked the ab for the split rivet connection:

 

 

Drilled the holes and added a strip of ABS for reinforcement in the area:

 

 

Aligned everything to the kidney the way I wanted and did the same:

 

 

Got the nylon straps prepped:

 

 

And once I get back home I'll be connecting those two pieces and gluing down some more snap plates. And whatever else I can find to do.

Edited September 2, 2018 by Scimitar

[Scimitar[TK]]

And the ab and kidney are connected.

 

 

Exterior gap seems to be ok.

 

 

Reinforcement snap plates are installed (following the wingnut snap diagram):

 

 

And the right side snap plates are installed:

 

 

Found out tonight I probably won't see any more Tandy snaps until the 10th or 11th due to an Amazon screw up, so I'll use the rest of the snap plates that I have available and then I'll be working on the connecting straps after that. I also need to work on the magnetic shin closures and then deal with the wonderful sniper knee plate.

[CableGuy[TK]]

Excellent work, Eric. Very tidy. :-)

Just a little observation: if you find that the top of the thighs catch or or rub on your armor, you could consider slightly longer cover strips to even out the tops.



Keep up the great work. :-)

Dan

[NoZoupForYou[TK]]

And the ab and kidney are connected.

 

 

Exterior gap seems to be ok.

 

 

Reinforcement snap plates are installed (following the wingnut snap diagram):

 

 

And the right side snap plates are installed:

 

 

Found out tonight I probably won't see any more Tandy snaps until the 10th or 11th due to an Amazon screw up, so I'll use the rest of the snap plates that I have available and then I'll be working on the connecting straps after that. I also need to work on the magnetic shin closures and then deal with the wonderful sniper knee plate.

 

Looking good! My next step will be this!

 

 

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[NoZoupForYou[TK]]

And the ab and kidney are connected.

 

 

Exterior gap seems to be ok.

 

 

Reinforcement snap plates are installed (following the wingnut snap diagram):

 

 

And the right side snap plates are installed:

 

 

Found out tonight I probably won't see any more Tandy snaps until the 10th or 11th due to an Amazon screw up, so I'll use the rest of the snap plates that I have available and then I'll be working on the connecting straps after that. I also need to work on the magnetic shin closures and then deal with the wonderful sniper knee plate.

Please let me know how the shin closures work out! I suffer from fat thighs and shins so this is the one area that concerns me...

 

 

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[Scimitar[TK]]

11 hours ago, CableGuy said:

Excellent work, Eric. Very tidy. :-)

Just a little observation: if you find that the top of the thighs catch or or rub on your armor, you could consider slightly longer cover strips to even out the tops.

Keep up the great work. :-)

Dan

Thanks Dan! The tops are currently ugly trimmed for sure, they'll not stay that way. I didn't want to do take any more material away until I get the torso armor on and see how everything meets up. I also want to notch/trim the outside top of the left thigh to be a little more accurate. Stealing Tony's picture here for reference:

 

 

8 hours ago, Bud Spaklur said:

Looks awesome, Eric. You’re literally right behind me.


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I feel like I'm so much further away! Haha!

 

5 hours ago, NoZoupForYou said:

 

Looking good! My next step will be this!

 

 

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Thanks! Good luck! I found that punching the holes in the straps to fit the diameter of the rivet obviously helps a lot. I actually used a smaller punch head and then when I used my soldering iron to seal the nylon the rivets just fit inside the holes. Also helps to space your holes in the straps inside of 20mm apart, mine ended up being 19mm apart. Keeps the gap in the armor nice and tight.

 

5 hours ago, NoZoupForYou said:

Please let me know how the shin closures work out! I suffer from fat thighs and shins so this is the one area that concerns me...

 

 

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The magnetic closures are amazing. I got to check out Cricket's setup at the armor party and they're super strong but still not hard to open. It immediately convinced me to do them now instead of velcro as I had planned. I'm going to try to work on them some today actually.

[Scimitar[TK]]

Matt (Bud Spaklur) wisely pointed out that having double snap connections on the right side of the ab/kidney might be a pain to get to when putting everything on. So I'm thinking of removing those and using the single snap at the top (and maybe one at the bottom) and installing the tab/slot connection as I had originally planned. Thoughts?

Edited September 2, 2018 by Scimitar

[TheSwede[TK]]

18 minutes ago, Scimitar said:

Matt (Bud Spaklur) wisely pointed out that having double snap connections on the right side of the ab/kidney might be a pain to get to when putting everything on. So I'm thinking of removing those and using the single snap at the top (and maybe one at the bottom) and installing the tab/slot connection as I had originally planned. Thoughts?

Yeah those look really hard to snap in unless you have alot of space in there, so I would go with just the top one as the belt holds the rest, I know some feel that the belt should be non supportive but I never got that, you have the belt so might as well use it is my take on that matter If the side shifts up and down then a tab `n slot works wonders Didn`t need it for any of my TKs but installed one on the TD to be on the safe side as I figured the side pouches and Field Pack could knock things out of allignement and everything is super-secure now

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

3 hours ago, Scimitar said:

Matt (Bud Spaklur) wisely pointed out that having double snap connections on the right side of the ab/kidney might be a pain to get to when putting everything on. So I'm thinking of removing those and using the single snap at the top (and maybe one at the bottom) and installing the tab/slot connection as I had originally planned. Thoughts?

I’ll have to disagree I don’t find them an issue at all. Just remember using a single snap can be the difference from not trooping due to one failing. I know I’ve lost the odd snap over the years and without a spare I would have been benched 

[Scimitar[TK]]

I appreciate the input guys, so thanks! Like Q mentions, I knew I wanted some backup over just having a single snap, so I added a second single snap setup at the bottom (which is at the top in the picture below). The tab & slot system will go in the middle of course.

 

 

Threw some paint on the rivet heads:

 

 

Double snap plates added for the chest/back straps:

 

 

 

And I borrowed an idea from Cricket and reinforced my shoulder straps. Basically I filled all of the ridges with scrap plastic and then glued in a metal strap (K&S 0.028" x 1" W x 12" L (cut to length)). Once that's dried and the excess glue removed I'll be gluing on a very thin plastic cover on each strap.

 

 

 

[Pretzel]

Great job on the reinforcement. That is exactly what I did to my shoulder bridges. 

[Scimitar[TK]]

Got the lower torso all strapped up today. A little heat gun treatment reduced the slight flaring of the lower/outer edges of the posterior piece, it now contours to my sides much better. I do have a bit of overlap at the bottom rivet on the riveted side, but only when I strap the cod and posterior together. I'll need to figure that one out...

 

Also got notification that my next order of snaps shipped today, should be here Wednesday, so that's good! Hopefully they're actually Tandy snaps this time.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2018 by Scimitar

[BDWC[TK]]

Awesome work there Eric! I only reinforced my shoulder bridges with a doubler plate of ABS the same width after they started cracking. I never thought of adding a metal strip, that's outstanding!

I am looking forward to following your work on the right side kidney alignment tab, as I am looking on adding that as well.

Again, great job, and I only wish I had done as much research as you have into upgrading for long term strength and reliability. This kit is going to serve you well for a long time.

[Scimitar[TK]]

Thanks Jim! I would not have thought of adding the metal strip myself either, I would have done exactly what you did had I run into any issues later.

Thanks again! That's what I'm hoping for!