hollowbodies' first build : ANH Stunt TK (AP)

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

A massive improvement, great work

[hollowbodies[501st]]

Quick question about the armor strapping (I'm slowly starting to look at strapping while I do other stuff) : I've seen some places where people put the nylon/elastic on some small pieces of ABS before they glue them to the inside of the armor (I'm talking about the nylon/elastic pieces that have snaps into them). Other people are glueing the nylon/elastic pieces directy to the ABS inside of the armor. What's the use of adding an additional piece of ABS in between and is it recommended or not recommended for any specific reason? What works best really?

 

By the way, I plan on doing the "double snap" system. Thanks!

[wook1138[TK]]

For snap bases I used nylon bases and a few abs bases.

Nylon


Abs


I haven’t seen both used together. Anyway, I prefer the nylon bases. They fit to curved Armor better. I used too much pressure with the abs bases and got some deformation on the outside of the Armor. You can see it above the seam, there is an abs snap base on the other side of the armour.




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[wook1138[TK]]

Also. I would try a double snap system next time. Much more rigid connections to keep things where they are supposed to be.


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[wook1138[TK]]

And... in some instances, I found gluing the elastic or nylon directly to the armour better than using snaps. For example, the arms. But it is all personal preference.


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[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

I've used nylon and ABS plastic, I find the nylon conforms to the armor a little better and if you make the hole with a soldering iron they very rarely fail.

 

Double snaps can save you when one fails, I've had a couple go over the years, one on my thigh, without a spare there I would not have trooped.

 

I like using snaps on all of my elastic, I find elastic will stretch over time and it's easy to swap them out.

[hollowbodies[501st]]

Thanks guys for the good advice!  

 

I also started to look at the thighs this weekend. First of all, my thigh pieces were not marked to indicate which ones were for the right thigh and which ones were for the left thigh. I tried to put the together and I guess it goes like this (is that correct?) : 

 

(The pieces on the right in the picture are for the right thigh, and the left ones are for the left thigh. Pieces that are in the middle are the inner thigh pieces, and the other are the outer pieces...)

 

 

I think and feel like I might have to remove a lot from the back to get a really slim and adjusted fit. I feel like the more fit it is, the better it looks - is that how it should be? 

 

Here is an example of how an adjusted one looked when I tried it on (on my right leg here) :

 

 

And here is how it looks without any adjustment - if I put it the size they are (on my left leg here) : 

 

 

So to get a more adjusted fit, here is what I'd need to remove, approximately (does that seem right?) :

 

[wook1138[TK]]

I tried to size them so that I could fit two fingers snugly between the armour and my leg. The tops were more like one finger. But yes, I removed a fair amount from the thigh pieces. And I had taper the cuts to account for my boney little knees.  

[hollowbodies[501st]]

46 minutes ago, wook1138 said:

I tried to size them so that I could fit two fingers snugly between the armour and my leg. The tops were more like one finger. But yes, I removed a fair amount from the thigh pieces. And I had taper the cuts to account for my boney little knees.  

 

Alright, but why two fingers? Isn't that a lot of free space? 

[wook1138[TK]]

I read it someplace that two fingers was a guide for fitting armour. I think that was geared towards the torso pieces. So I aimed for 1 to 2 fingers for the leg parts (depending on size of part - bigger parts get more room). The idea is to have some breathing room in the armour. I like to error on the side of being too big. You can always trim later or add foam padding... adding abs is a lot harder to do.   But At the end of the day, I comes down to how it feels for the wearer - and the size of your fingers   

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Nine isn't tight and I'd have a little more than two fingers in some place, because of skinny arms and legs I did have to add some foam to stop pieces moving around too much, even trimming to the minimums  

[hollowbodies[501st]]

So overall it's better to have more room and add some padding on the inside than having the pieces more adjusted/fitting more tight ?

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[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

1 minute ago, hollowbodies said:

So overall it's better to have more room and add some padding on the inside than having the pieces more adjusted/fitting more tight ?

Some of us have no choice as we are just too thin, some like pieces to fit snugly but you don't have room to put on any weight  

 

I also have padding on the inside of my ab/back, most wouldn't need too.

 

A finger or two of room is fine, especially if you have trimmed to the minimum size cover strips and trim lines.

[Neb Sgird[TK]]

I trimmed my upper thighs to be pretty tight around my actual leg, and left the lower thighs looser, padding it with foam to keep it from wobbling on my leg. I think they turned out great.

 

One note on the thighs that hasn't already been mentioned. In the picture you posted asking if this is how much you should take off, be sure to take an equal amount off each piece of the thigh. in other words, measure how much overlap you have, half it, and trim the back of each piece accordingly.

 

Also, when in doubt, round down. If you're feeling a little iffy about how much you're taking off, take a little less off than what you measured, test fit, and cut a second time if need be.

[hollowbodies[501st]]

Thanks, I'll keep all that in mind while doing it. Also, on the pictures I posted above where I wear the thighs, do they seem to be accurate in terms of which parts I put together for the left versus the right one? I'll post more/better pictures later when I'll do some more fit tests, too. Thanks!

[wook1138[TK]]

19 minutes ago, hollowbodies said:

Thanks, I'll keep all that in mind while doing it. Also, on the pictures I posted above where I wear the thighs, do they seem to be accurate in terms of which parts I put together for the left versus the right one? I'll post more/better pictures later when I'll do some more fit tests, too. Thanks!

Looks good! For the pic with your left leg (right leg?  top picture) - it is hard to tell, but the thigh should be rotated out a little for proper placement.  Could just be the picture too.

Edited February 20, 2018 by wook1138

[Neb Sgird[TK]]

 

1 hour ago, hollowbodies said:

 on the pictures I posted above where I wear the thighs, do they seem to be accurate in terms of which parts I put together for the left versus the right one? I'll post more/better pictures later when I'll do some more fit tests, too. Thanks!

Yep, seems to be. Here's a view of my thighs. The lower swoop is to make room for the cod piece, the outside should be higher. AP makes it easy to match up which one goes with which. I highly recommend labeling them on the inside with dry erase marker (if not sharpie) to avoid confusion in the future.

 

[lucnak[TK]]

One other thing to mention about keeping some room in the thighs other than air flow (which is almost always a good thing) is that I used some foam in the thighs and shin to push my left shin forward and my left thigh back to prevent my sniper knee from locking into my thigh. If you're tall enough, that won't be an issue. same sort of thing with the right thigh ammo pack and the right shin...you will want to avoid stuff rubbing together.

[68Brick[TK]]

Yes, taper your thighs (to avoid the bell look). Just make sure you leave enough room to slip your foot through!

[hollowbodies[501st]]

I havent posted in a few days - sorry, I've been busy this week, but I still worked a bit on my armor. I tried some more fitting tests for the thighs while keeping in mind to leave some free space. Here is how it looks with an inside gap that fits about two of my fingers (sorry for the lots of tape; I tried to hold them up as much as I could haha) :

 

 

How does it look? Does it seems right at the top and at the bottom (around the knees) ?

 

To get to this, I'd still have to remove quite some from the back, but I'll go one step at a time to make sure I don't remove too much - which is why I'm asking you again to make sure.

 

Other than that this week, I also painted my TD tube and started gluing the control panel on it, and I trimmed all my bicpes and forearms parts after finishing gluing them (I still need to remove some glue at some palces). I'll post some pics of that later.

 

I also tried to bend my biceps hooks by putting them in boiling water, but it wasn't a real success... How long do you need to hold them in boiling water before they can be bent easily? I haven't reach that state yet - they could not be bent enough easily to get to the point I want them for my hooks. Perhaps I could try with a hair dryer as well (I don't have a heat gun).

Edited February 23, 2018 by hollowbodies

[wook1138[TK]]

Hey David.

The thighs look really good to me.  Try pulling them up a little - if they still fit then you should be good (just in case you realize they need to come up once you have your cod/posterior pieces on).  But with two fingers space, you should be good.  For your knees - is your right knee (right in the picture) a little larger around your knee than the left?  Or is that just the angle of the picture?  Still looks good, I just ask because I found the thighs to fit quite differently from right to left.

 

Bicep hooks.  I had a tough time getting these to bend as well.  After many attempts with one piece and a hot water bath, I finally got it to bend.  I had to hold it in the water for about a minute, take it out and bend a little, cool with cold water, and repeat about 6 or 7 times.   I broke the abs on two other attempts (I lost patience and was pushing too hard).  For my last try, I got a slight bend started with the hot water, but ended up just holding the piece over the open flame of my stove.  I have a feeling that these pieces are a little thicker than what others use with different kits.  I bought a heat gun from Amazon for about $22 CND.  I love it!  It scares the hell out of me every time I use it, but it does work.

 

Keep up the great work!  Things are coming along nicely!

Edited February 23, 2018 by wook1138

[lucnak[TK]]

Thighs look alright from the one photo, but hard to tell. Just be sure that they are comfortable. As Greg mentioned, try to keep them as high as you can get them.

 

Regarding the clips, I used a heat gun. Have you asked anyone in the FI if they might have one you can borrow? They might be able to give you a hand and even maybe some help in person!

[Neb Sgird[TK]]

About the thighs, they are looking pretty good, but if you can manage it, try sizing them with the cod piece also taped to your body. That way, you can make sure the tops of the thighs aren't knocking against the cod. You basically want a minimal gap at the top of your legs while still not allowing the pieces to touch. They look a little low in the picture you posted, so sizing them with the cod will likely help you figure out how high they'll sit on your legs as well.

 

I let my hooks sit in boiling water for 2-3 minutes (I waited for the ABS to start looking a little (keyword little) floppy) before pulling them out and bending them against a ruler to get 90 degree angles.

 

EDIT: Just thought of something else. Does Mark provide set strips for the hooks with the trimmed kit? I got the untrimmed kit and cut them out of the extra ABS he provides for making cover strips, etc.

Edited February 23, 2018 by Neb Sgird

[hollowbodies[501st]]

Thanks all, I'll take that into consideration! I can bring them higher at this size, but I didn't manage to make them stay there while taking the picture (even though I tried to tape them), so here they appear a little bit lower than what I want them to be.

 

With the trimmed kit, Mark provides some stips of extra ABS so that yoi can cut your cover strips from them. I just took some extra parts left from one piece that I used to make my biceps cover strips to cut my hooks. However, those first (unsuccessful) tests I did to try to bend the ABS using boiling water were done using some smaller scraps that I would not have used anyways.

 

One more question about bending stuff : what do you use to make the small bend/angles at the end of the TD clips (the end that's not attached to the tube, obviously) ? I now have to do this, but I'm wondering what technique to use to get a nice, gentle and straight bend...

 

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[Neb Sgird[TK]]

Good to know about the trimmed kit, I wasn't sure what you were working with on that front.

 

The bend in the clips isn't required for approval, it just helps keep the clips from scratching your armor. That said, I didn't buy the clips from Mark, but from Joseph here on FISD and they came pre-bent. If anyone in your garrison (hopefully you're already acquainted with some of them and have helped spotting, its almost as fun as being in armor) has access to a simple vice, they will be pretty easy to bend once clamped in.