TheSwede`s FOTK build [KB]

[TheSwede[TK]]

12 minutes ago, Ensi said:

 

With a little bit of velcro on butt and cod the belt will sit right if the abdomen is properly fitted to you. Besides you'll get a little bit more freedom inside the suit without those edges  Although I see now that your codpiece looks a bit short so maybe it was designed to be used with the edge. If you put it up against the ab piece where the edge would be and then compare it to up against the ab piece (right beneath boxes) how does it look?

I did that and fit seems fine, the ab plate when holding the cod (snug to you-know-what) sits just over the hip and I can see what you mean about better mobility.....and, heard back from KB and he said the edge is not required and the edge is now smalller than before  due to making the ab plate longer and he said the same as you about the belt and mobility - thanks

[TheSwede[TK]]

Protective gear is important

 

Shoulder bell and tab support - trimmed/untrimmed

 

Thighs

 

The back pieces were just a big cylinder cut in half and I could not see any indications on what was up or right/left so eventually (after testing every way) just figured they weren`t specific

 

The back piece sticks up quite high so that had to go before first test fit

 

Looked at various ref pic and tried to emulate the shape best as I could

 

Here`s the sanded and cleaned up pieces taped together, ready for final fitment.

[wook1138[TK]]

Great progress and a nicely detailed build, Daniel! 

 

[TheSwede[TK]]

10 hours ago, wook1138 said:

nicely detailed build

That reminds me I never showed the butt plate, I cut it to look like the Anovos one but apparantly was a little sloppy and made the center tab a bit small, it should be about the same as the outer ones as it helps adding snaps to either side of the kidney plate which will be cut along the seam, I can make it work but ..oh well..

 

And as the ab plate now is molded to fit taller people it dosen`t line up to the kidney plate, my guees to why that`s not altered too would be that the kidney is easier to shim hight-wise.

Anyways...was gonna leave it but decided to cut it, it`s enough plastic with this torso Construction as it is and forgot to take a pic when done but just used some tape to make a straight-ish line and the cut..apparently didn`t learn any lessons to be more careful after the butt-debacle aslo removed that top lip from the kidney portion.

 

Neat storage. except for forearms, one bicep and one shoulder bell (they`re not trimed yet) everything is in there, sort of like a Stormtrooper-bowl

 

[shashachu[TK]]

Great progress so far! Looks like you have the new redesigned yoke?

[trond1138]

i see u got  lukky whit new armor from kb_props. mine was very bad 2017   and got 4parts missing and more mail where are the parts and so. never again kb_props from me

[TheSwede[TK]]

13 hours ago, shashachu said:

Great progress so far! Looks like you have the new redesigned yoke?

Thanks and yeah I got all the lastest upgrades

[TheSwede[TK]]

37 minutes ago, trond1138 said:

i see u got  lukky whit new armor from kb_props. mine was very bad 2017   and got 4parts missing and more mail where are the parts and so. never again kb_props from me

Sorry to hear that, did you ever get to finish?

[trond1138]

working on it now it's hell . 

[TheSwede[TK]]

1 hour ago, trond1138 said:

working on it now it's hell . 

Have a build thread for it?

Edited July 15, 2018 by TheSwede

[TheSwede[TK]]

Worked on the TD and as it`s made of resin it`s not much glueing involved, however the left side is solid and makes the hole thing very unbalanced so decided to drill it out as much as possible - yeey for work perks

 

The resin very quickly became hot so I went slower and the fumes and resin debris got me thinking - so I made a safety rig

 

After initial drilling it still felt heavier than I would like so found a larger drill bit and went at it again, better but not perfect. Had planned on drilling a ledge into the tube and ad a plastic disc but had no drill that worket so did this:

 

Traced the thickness of the plastic to the tube (probably not necessary but did it anyways)

 

Used another perk to cut it. go slow or the blade will bow out.

 

Trace the disc, cut, glue

 

Sand and done.

 

Did some sanding of the whole piece and glued it to the back piece, it has a curvature to match the screen used ones, did some tests and by using strong magnets I think it will pull the kidney to meet up with the TD, might sound a bit weird but i will elaborate on this when it comes to attach it (ooh cliffhanger)

Edited July 15, 2018 by TheSwede

[lucnak[TK]]

Great documentation! Loving this thread.

[TheSwede[TK]]

Thanks Luc

[wook1138[TK]]

Ditto what Luc said.   I'm intensely jealous of your work space.  Talk about a work perk! 

[TheSwede[TK]]

Thanks and yeah it’s super-awesome  just arrived for another session as it happens

[trond1138]

dam that is beautiful 

[TheDon[501st]]

Coming along nicely I wish I had your chest plate. Mine isn’t as sharp as your pull and maybe the resin TD.  

 

[TheSwede[TK]]

On ‎7‎/‎19‎/‎2018 at 3:11 AM, TheDon said:

I wish I had your chest plate. Mine isn’t as sharp as your pull and maybe the resin TD.

Well it`s mine and you can`t have it! 

Kidding aside the TD was a pretty easy build and pretty accurate so I can recommend getting that

[TheSwede[TK]]

Yesterday was a BBB-day containing a Sandtrooper field pack and today was a mediumBB-day containing this:

 

The FOTK back pack

 

Wasen`t sure how many parts is should be so took a look at FB of BSP (backstage props) and all pieces were there, they also have a guide to build it but we`ll get to that...decided to glue the yoke and back together and spend alot of time lining them up or rather tried lining them up, it could be a falty technician (me) but coulden`t get a good fit

This was all good though

Got a nice flowing neckline, right chest piece is under the yoke to show how it lines up and also drew lines to see were to put snaps connecting them, other ways of doing this is to use magnets or velcro. I was initally going with magnets but as I will have my phone in the chest I decided not to, not too sure about the magnetic field doing any harm but better safe than sorry.

 

This is were it gets troublesome, don`t look like it perhaps but it took some serious brute force closing that gap

 

Decided it was time to glue anyways and had a think of what to use -  plastic weld or epoxy and went with epoxy for no other reason than it`s the same brand as the filler I was going to use. I said "was going to use" because I simply had the thought to use ABS paste, don`t recall anyone else using it as a filler for FOTK so I guess we`ll see if that was a good idea 

So...I glued it and it came out not to bad, the gap I can live with as it will be filled and hardly noticed

 

This however...those indentions are far lower than any I`ve seen so far and frankly don`t look good (or that`s just OCD kicking in) but if I were to lift the center portion up it caused the flaps/wings of the yoke to rotate inwards making the hole torso fall out of allignement and the outer secions were no were near in touching...pretty hard to glue when there`s nothing there Not saying there`s something wrong with the armor though, it`s most likely to do with me missing something...but i can live with that

 

So I put on the first layer of paste and sat it aside to start with the back pack

 

 

So the pack,,,the build guide had 6 pics but not really showing or explaining were to cut so I decided to start on the easy stuff and that was the inlays of the side pieces

They have the shape of a wedge so don`t be tempted to cut from the inside

After initial cutting it`s easy to see how to sand it down

And you should end up with something like this

Repeat for the other side and test fit (only showing one side, this is the right)

Sand the edges and glue

 

Does you OCD kick in when you see this?

 

Not to worry, it`s hidden by this piece and yes it should have this golf ball like texture on it

 

It goes right up to the edge like so

 

And that`s all I have for now….yeez that was a long post so read it with care as it might be some misshaps along the way

Edited July 21, 2018 by TheSwede

[TheSwede[TK]]

Forgot to include this pic..it seems like I already had a back pack at work, the first aid kit

[TheSwede[TK]]

This is the build guide from BSP:s FB page, a mix of trimmed/untrimmed parts so looked around a bit and found a pic showing most parts trimmed and basicly it looked like all you remove is the lip around each piece. So that`s what I started doing but first here`s the guide. Looks easy enough

 

I will show the parts as untrimmed/trimmed 

 

After I had all the parts trimmed I started testing how they should go together and altough the guide says to start with the front pieces I ended ut starting with the back, to me that was the only piece that were set in how it should be so I taped it with the side pieces and one can see how the top part sticks out, looked really odd but after consulting the CRL all was good.

 

Next up was the front parts and after some testing  I removed a section from the top part, you can see were I removed in this pic but will show more clear below.

They go together like this

Taped them up as per CRL, lining those small tabs that goes across the top plate in line with the top part of the back piece.

I coulden`t get it to fit properly with just overlapping so it became clear that more cutting is needed, atleast I had to, so I removed a section from the top piece, to the right of the pencil mark, a bit hard to see with all that tape but that did the trick.                                                    

 

Bottom piece: this shape made me think it would overlapp the back piece

No that didn`t seem right....

 Perhaps the back should overlap the bottom, sure looks like it and then you would have a gap at the bottom as well as the top, some sort of filtration system perhaps….checking CRL to confirm.

Nope no gap, which means the bottom overlaps the back as originally thought.

More cutting was needed so marked the overlap

traced the mark to section to get removed, X marks the spot only remove the lower lip.

Still didn`t fit well….found the reason, the bottom piece has a lip so neded to remove a section from the back piece as well.

Marked were the overlap ends

Measured the lip, 6mm, also showing the section removed

Drew a line 5mm in from the overlap to ensure I remove enough

Then cut

Checking I didn`t mess up - nope all good, tape can`t hold it together completely

 

Ready to be glued  but that`s for another day. The top cover is going to be functional with some sort of a hinge so that won`t be glued though, have to come up with a way to do that, has some ideas but some more thinking is needed.

 

When compairing to the CRL the cover is closer to the bottom but the CRL cover is bigger overall so not much I can do but possibly lower it to even it out a bit.

Edited July 22, 2018 by TheSwede

[sandtrooper[501st]]

Daniel, your step-by-step assembly of the backpack is a godsend!  I've had BSP's kit for quite a while and couldn't get the pieces to fit together correctly.  BSP's instructions didn't help really at all.  Thank you for posting this!

[TheSwede[TK]]

1 hour ago, sandtrooper said:

Daniel, your step-by-step assembly of the backpack is a godsend!  I've had BSP's kit for quite a while and couldn't get the pieces to fit together correctly.  BSP's instructions didn't help really at all.  Thank you for posting this!

Glad you found it helpful although I can`t say for sure I did it "correctly" but it seem to fit nice enough though 

It`s possible that the bottom and back could fit even better butting up with a inner strip but it`s not really seen so I´ll leave it as it is...I think...

[TheSwede[TK]]

After thinking about it and looking at the CRL I have decided to cut the back plate making it butting up to the bottom piece and glue it with an inner strip, the pack in the CRL has no visible line at the bottom and mine has so as I´m going to fill that I might as well get that bottom seam seamless as well.

[TheSwede[TK]]

Not entirely related to armor building but my wife just gave me my own cleaning bucket so I made it ready to go we’ve had workers replacing all the Windows in our apartment so it’s about to be put to good use