Sha Sha's (Slow) KB FOTK Build for Short Troopers

[shashachu[TK]]

Let's talk adhesive and filler. 

 

From what I gathered, the place that it's most crucial to use something like Devcon or CA glue is the yoke, as E6000 allows too much flex, and your filler will crack. Otherwise, E6000 is probably ok? I'm thin enough that I actually think I'll be able to get away with not splitting the back of the kidney and just assembling the ab/kidney as one closed piece, so I'm not concerned about flex there.

 

What are your favorite glues and fillers? I'm primarily concerned with durability because I don't want to refill and repaint every year, but also ease of use (eg ease of sanding).

 

For glue I've heard people use:
ABS cement
CA glue
Devcon
E6000

 

For filler:
Devcon
JB Weld
Bondo
ABS paste
Apoxie Sculpt (I also have Milliput; I think it's similar?)
DFL-1 Spot Putty
Evercoat metal glaze

 

Halp!

[heartstopper85[TK]]

I've used e6k everywhere on my kb pilot and haven't have issues. glued the yoke to the back tight and filled the gap with bondo. I've only trooped in it once so far so I'm probably not best source of info

 

Bondo imo is great if you mix it well (without getting air in it) and the surface is well prepped

 

[TheDon[501st]]

I would avoid bondo. 

 

what you want to use is a flexible filler like Evercoat PolyFlex

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

I used JB weld on most areas which would not need flexing, on those that do I used E6000, I also used bondo (auto filler) without issue, you just have to know how to use it correctly and in what areas.

 

Make sure you rough up the surfaces with course sandpaper before applying glue or bondo, it will help both stick and not peel off.

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Any updates Sha  SHa?

[crema[TK]]

Ooooh I was definitely looking for a short FOTK thread and you were the one! I accidentally got a kit(someone gave me an amazing offer) and had to get some help resizing without major makeover. I am thinking about 3D-printing the forearms because 1. Outer parts are missing from my kit, 2. It looks ridiculously big on me and resizing is basically impossible. I hope you are going well with your build!!

[shashachu[TK]]

On 7/2/2018 at 6:18 AM, ukswrath said:

Any updates Sha  SHa?

Hey, thanks for checking in, Tony! They are old, but I do have some updates. Thanks for the kick-in-the-pants. I'll work on that now. :)

[shashachu[TK]]

Catching up on updates, I have finished rough trimming the armor.

 

Lower Limb Trimming

 

Checking the CRL, I noticed that the shins come together in a curve, not a straight line. While it's not explicitly mentioned in the text of the CRL, I figured I'd do my best to match the photos. I haven't trimmed them yet, but I did tape up where I want to trim them:

 

 

 

For the thigh pieces, I have to say that I'm not super happy with the very rough trimming they did in the shop. It's clear they were rushing things. Nothing unrepairable, but it's certainly not making my life any easier. I don't know how much return edge is customary, but they tend to rough trim extremely closely, so I don't have much of a choice:

 

 

 

They even cut into the armor itself:

 

 

Nonetheless, I did manage to rough trim everything, and taping it up, the lower limbs are (like the rest of the armor) quite massive:

 

 

It'll be a bit of a decision how much to size them down. With my OTTK I sized everything down in circumference quite dramatically, but with the size of the FOTK torso, I think that may leave me a bit chicken-legged:

 

 

Finishing the rough trim

With the limbs finished, I moved on to the rest of the pieces of the armor (minus the ab boxes):

 

 

And laying everything out:

 

 

 

[shashachu[TK]]

Accessories

Over the weeks, most of my major accessories have arrived:

 

Belt from Belts of the First Order:

 

Boots from Imperial Boots:

 

 

And custom gaskets, neck seal, harness, and shorts from Geeky Pink:

 

 

The extra neck seal is an OTTK neck seal that Teresa threw in when I very off-handedly mentioned that the neck seal she made me for my OTTK (which I troop in and love) is just a tad snug. Thank you, Teresa!!!

 

I also ordered shoe lifts from Amazon because the smallest boots that IB makes are men's US 8 (I wear a men's 6 on a good day) so they are super roomy. With the boots, lifts, and helmet, I think I should come in at a TOWERING 5' 6"!! 

[shashachu[TK]]

Starting Assembly

It's been a busy few months at work, but I was feeling depressed at the lack of progress on my armor, so I decided to sneak in a few hours work last month.

 

Like my OTTK, I decided to start on the biceps. As mentioned before, they are simply massive on me, so I broke out my trusty heat gun and reshaped the right bicep to bring the circumference way down. 

 

Here's a comparison photo of the original left bicep, and the heat-reshaped right bicep:

 

 

And a test fit with the gaskets:

 

 

Finally, just to say that I glued *something*, I glued the shoulder bell extensions and an inside cover strip on the resized bicep. I also trimmed down the bicep overlap so that the unglued edges below meet in a butt joint, which I'll eventually fill. 

 

 

Aaaaand that's all I've got so far. We are actually moving next week, so I don't think I'll be able to get much work done for a while. At this point, I'll be thrilled to finish this kit in 2018.

[shashachu[TK]]

14 hours ago, crema said:

Ooooh I was definitely looking for a short FOTK thread and you were the one! I accidentally got a kit(someone gave me an amazing offer) and had to get some help resizing without major makeover. I am thinking about 3D-printing the forearms because 1. Outer parts are missing from my kit, 2. It looks ridiculously big on me and resizing is basically impossible. I hope you are going well with your build!!

Thank you! Yes, there's not much to be done about the forearms, unfortunately. But I'd definitely encourage you to do a rough fitting (with tape) and see if the forearms don't look okay once everything is on. It's just a BIG kit. My biggest worry is not being able to take my own helmet off and on due to the length of the forearms, but I figure I'll cross that bridge once I get there. I will likely to the 'Finn mod' and cut out a notch on the forearms, but maybe only after I'm approved.

Edited July 15, 2018 by shashachu

[crema[TK]]

Yes! An update! 

How do you think about trimming the neck line of the chest piece and pushing it up a bit? That’s what I did for my OTTK and that made my torso look smaller. I would wanna try bending the yoke a bit inwards for my kit but idk if that would help a lot. 

[TheDon[501st]]

With KB's thighs I had to sculpt the top to look more correct as well since the CRL photos and the Anovos thighs aren't exactly flat across the top. 

[lucnak[TK]]

Go Sha Sha! One step at a time! You'll get there!

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Looking good so far Sha Sha

[Anzo[TK]]

Looking good. Keep it up!

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Any updates Sha Sha?

[shashachu[TK]]

On 8/8/2018 at 12:15 PM, ukswrath said:

Any updates Sha Sha?

Unfortunately not, but thanks for checking in  We moved a couple of weeks ago so my kit is still in a pile of boxes in the garage. My goal is to finish assembling the kit in 2018, if not get approved. Slowly slowly...

[ukswrath[Staff]]

6 hours ago, shashachu said:

Unfortunately not, but thanks for checking in  We moved a couple of weeks ago so my kit is still in a pile of boxes in the garage. My goal is to finish assembling the kit in 2018, if not get approved. Slowly slowly...

We'll be here when you're ready

[shashachu[TK]]

Snuck in a wee bit of work last night.

 

Closed up the right bicep:

 

 

Thanks to @Cricket's suggestion, I got a roll of gaffer's tape, which is super sticky and much better for holding together pieces.

 

I also glued one side rail of the right forearm:

 

 

For those of you who have completed the 4-part KB forearms, I have a couple questions:

 

1) For the side rail that doesn't include the indents for the greeblies (so not the one in the picture above), is it glued to the outer forearm piece with an overlap or are you supposed to trim the outer piece and attach them with a butt-and-cover technique? I looked at both @Ruthar and @Anzo's build threads and it's not 100% clear to me. I wanted to confirm before I trimmed the outer piece.

 

2) How much return edge (if any) do you leave on the inner forearm piece? Should I trim it completely off so that it's basically just a flat piece? If I do leave a bit of return edge (I have a few mm right now) it's not really clear to me how to glue it on, as it would just be sitting on the mounting rails of the side pieces, which gives little surface area for gluing. On the Anovos kits it seems to be totally flat, but looking at some KB build threads, it seems like some folks leave a bit.

Edited September 26, 2018 by shashachu

[Shanester[TK]]

You've really become quite the builder Sha Sha!

[shashachu[TK]]

So after looking at more build threads and also checking out some of the KB build groups on Facebook, I realized I had the totally wrong idea about the forearm assembly.

 

When I trimmed the side rails, I'd left some return edge on the bottoms so that they stuck up a lot. If you look at my forearm from the previous post, you'll see I butted it right up against the ridge on the outside of the forearm, making a sort of seam. But after looking at the CRL image, I realized the forearm past the ridge should be flat and seamless:

 

 

Fortunately, I'd glued it with E-6000 so I just ripped it apart. I had intended to attach the side rails to the outer forearm via overlapping, but the only way to make everything seamless is to use a butt joint with an inner cover strip. So I trimmed off the return edge of the side rails that would face the outer forearm, and did some significant trimming of the outer forearm piece:

 

 

Another change I made was to cut off essentially all the return edge on the flat inner forearm:

 

In this rough tape-up, you can see that now none of the pieces overlap:

 

 

 

 

Then I went ahead and glued the side rails on using an inner cover strip:

 

 

 

I'm feeling much more confident about the forearms now.

 

As that was drying, I also started work on trimming and heat shaping the left bicep, and glued one half:

 

 

That's it for now! I think I finally have the upper limbs figured out.

 

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Good work, most would have buckled and gone week at the knees, sometimes you have to bite down and just go for it. Keep it up, your getting there 

[shashachu[TK]]

8 minutes ago, gmrhodes13 said:

Good work, most would have buckled and gone week at the knees, sometimes you have to bite down and just go for it. Keep it up, your getting there 

Thanks! Certainly my experience with my ANH kit has given me a lot of confidence working with armor in general, but also knowing that the TFA is going to have to be filled, sanded, and painted removes a lot of fear of not making everything perfect.

[Pretzel]

Well done Sha Sha!