RS Propmasters ESB TK slow and steady build in Portland, OR

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Wow awesome build 

[Sly11[Admin]]

Nice work trooper

 

[Infern0[TK]]

Happy Friday and thanks all!! Your kind words are keeping me super motivated

After finishing gluing the reinforcement pieces for the brackets

I drilled holes for and installed ab/kidney and cod strapping.

 

Holding all of the bits in place to hammer the split rivets definitely wasn’t the easiest task!
 

Ended up cutting the elastic for the ab/kidney a bit short too as shown... we’ll see how long it holds up for! Might redo at least the middle one if I have any elastic left over at the end!
 

I also gave the rivet heads a quick sand prior to installing them to help the paint stick... not sure if that was clever or unnecessary, but I accidentally sanded all of the rivets including the non-painted one for the cod so maybe not that clever after all!

 

Next, the rest of the torso strapping! I used the super glue method for these, and it went pretty well over all. Using Zap CA plus kicker it dried in no time and it was pretty exciting to see everything come together!

Once that was done, got out the e6000 again and finished off the day by adding the right side torso strap and gluing the shoulder straps into place.

 

Pretty happy with this progress so far! I’m a little concerned that I did some of the strapping a bit too tight in - it seems to be pretty stiff in some places, but I’ll revisit that later on if need be.

 

P.S. I keep checking out @Ruffalo’s submission pics as more reference since they are gorgeous! Hope mine comes out half as stunning as yours is sir!

[Ruffalo[TK]]

Awesome build thus far! It looks very clean and thought out. If you have any elastic left at the end ( and a few extra split rivets ) I'd personally redo the abdomen - kidney strapping. It's short! Might very well be more of an aesthetic decision than one concerning structural integrity ( especially after you're in kit and with your belt on ) but that's just me.

 

You're doing a great job. Keep it up!

[Infern0[TK]]

2 hours ago, Ruffalo said:

Awesome build thus far! It looks very clean and thought out. If you have any elastic left at the end ( and a few extra split rivets ) I'd personally redo the abdomen - kidney strapping. It's short! Might very well be more of an aesthetic decision than one concerning structural integrity ( especially after you're in kit and with your belt on ) but that's just me.

 

You're doing a great job. Keep it up!

Thank you! Yeah I think don’t think the integrity will be effected too much, but I will redo them at least for asthetic’s sake once the rest of my build is finished since it’s bugging me.

[justjoseph63[Staff]]

Nice work, Garrett!  I'd be interested in seeing the outside view of your ab/kidney connection (left side) if you get the chance.

[Infern0[TK]]

7 hours ago, justjoseph63 said:

Nice work, Garrett!  I'd be interested in seeing the outside view of your ab/kidney connection (left side) if you get the chance.

Thank you! The outside looks pretty good to me, but your opinion may well differI’ll try to get some pictures later today.

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Fantastic work Garrett 

[justjoseph63[Staff]]

My concern was that it looks like the rivet holes are on the bend and may not be far away enough from the edge of the ab plate.  It may just be the angle of the photo, though.

 

         

[Infern0[TK]]

2 hours ago, justjoseph63 said:

My concern was that it looks like the rivet holes are on the bend and may not be far away enough from the edge of the ab plate.  It may just be the angle of the photo, though.

 

         

Fair enough, I appreciate the attention to detail since I’d like to go for centurion straight away!

 

The rivets are ~10mm from their respective edges as shown below (if you can’t read the display on the calipers they’re set to 10.01mm).

 

Ab plate:

Kidney plate:

W/O calipers:

[justjoseph63[Staff]]

Gotcha. and thanks for the pics!  It was that shadow that was throwing me...   Looks GREAT, and glad to see you sanded down the rivet heads (smart move) to help the paint adhere better.

[Infern0[TK]]

@justjoseph63 ah, phew! thanks, and glad it gets your approval

 

@ukswrath thank you so much! Your build guide continues to be incredibly helpful.

[Infern0[TK]]

While waiting for glue to dry on strapping on arms/biceps/shoulder bells, I did a test run moving around with the torso, and have a couple of concerns to address at some point.
 

1. The armor feels a little too large for my waist... Or I’m just not used to it. If I do the belt up so it’s snug, the ab and kidney end up overlapping as below though.

 

Should I trim the abdominal plate to fit better and redo the strapping or does it look ok (and approvable) as is?

 

2. I think I did the chest-abdominal strapping too tight - in its current position the front of the armor feels too long for my torso, and ends up choking me if I bend forward even a tiny bit. If I try to pull it down the ab plate ends up too low for me to walk properly...

 

Aside from those concerns, pretty happy with it so far. Looking forward to getting the arms done so I can see the upper half all together!

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

1 hour ago, 1nfern0 said:

Should I trim the abdominal plate to fit better and redo the strapping or does it look ok (and approvable) as is?

I had a case like your some time ago, what I did was to trim the cod and butt  , in the photos you can see that I took my armor and used it as template and the other 2 photos is the result. 

 

hope this can give you and idea of what to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Infern0[TK]]

@TKSpartan thanks for the pointers. I’ll definitely have to do some level of this trimming at some point.

 

Tried on the torso plus arms with most of the strapping in place. It was pretty cool to get all of this on. Don’t yet have any strapping in to keep the arms from falling down though. I had to squeeze my arms in to keep them for falling down all of the way!

 

Not sure if I should make the biceps smaller or just get some elastic in there shoulder > bicep to keep them up.

 

Also, I think the shoulder bells can come in a tiny bit more...
 

[justjoseph63[Staff]]

Terrific job so far, Garrett, and brilliant work on removing those return edges... DANG I'm proud of ya'!  

I realize that you are still in the fitting stage, and wise move to post up photos of your progress, but I have a few suggestions below if I may.  Heaven knows that the movie suits were not perfect, but when doing approvals we are in search of the "ideal" TK armor to make you look your best and show off all that hard work!

 

The trimming you did looks to be spot on, and at this point I would leave it as is.  The issues below are simply strapping concerns that are easy to remedy at this stage to give you a little more symmetry. Keeping that in mind, here are a few pointers:

 

1.  Yep, that right shoulder bell could be brought up a tad.  Note the orange line second from the top.  Raising the bell would make them more even.

2.  The left bicep needs to be twisted in to get rid of the gap.

3.  The left bicep is sitting lower than the right one.

4.  I know you haven't attached the ABS belt yet, but once you do, the canvas belt looks to be in the perfect position to where the top of the ABS belt covers the bottom(s) of the ab-button panels.  Nice work!!

5.  The wrist opening height is a little different that the left.  Not a biggie, but remember "symmetry".

 

 

You have a lot going for this build, sir, and I can tell that your heart really is in it.  Keep those photos and questions coming!

[Infern0[TK]]

31 minutes ago, justjoseph63 said:

Terrific job so far, Garrett, and brilliant work on removing those return edges... DANG I'm proud of ya'!  

I realize that you are still in the fitting stage, and wise move to post up photos of your progress, but I have a few suggestions below if I may.  Heaven knows that the movie suits were not perfect, but when doing approvals we are in search of the "ideal" TK armor to make you look your best and show off all that hard work!

 

The trimming you did looks to be spot on, and at this point I would leave it as is.  The issues below are simply strapping concerns that are easy to remedy at this stage to give you a little more symmetry. Keeping that in mind, here are a few pointers:

 

1.  Yep, that right shoulder bell could be brought up a tad.  Note the orange line second from the top.  Raising the bell would make them more even.

2.  The left bicep needs to be twisted in to get rid of the gap.

3.  The left bicep is sitting lower than the right one.

4.  I know you haven't attached the ABS belt yet, but once you do, the canvas belt looks to be in the perfect position to where the top of the ABS belt covers the bottom(s) of the ab-button panels.  Nice work!!

5.  The wrist opening height is a little different that the left.  Not a biggie, but remember "symmetry".

 

 

You have a lot going for this build, sir, and I can tell that your heart really is in it.  Keep those photos and questions coming!

Thank you sir!!! This is very encouraging to hear, and I’m totally on board to get it looking as symmetrical as possible!

Re: the biceps, the lower shoulder bell strapping wouldn’t hold them up, so I was struggling to keep them in place for the photo, hence the unevenness and twisting (I’m guessing probably because of how far down I had to pull the arms/biceps to align with my arm length).

[justjoseph63[Staff]]

Since you haven't added any strapping yet they will tend to twist.  To prevent this and keep everything lined up, what I would suggest is that when you do get the correct placement, use 2 inch wide elastic or nylon instead of the 1 inch along with 2 snaps on each side of the connection instead of one.

I know adding 2 on each side of your connections takes longer, but you can be assured that nothing will ever come undone during a troop.  It's worth the extra time, believe me.

 

  

[Infern0[TK]]

On 4/23/2020 at 3:38 PM, justjoseph63 said:

Since you haven't added any strapping yet they will tend to twist.  To prevent this and keep everything lined up, what I would suggest is that when you do get the correct placement, use 2 inch wide elastic or nylon instead of the 1 inch along with 2 snaps on each side of the connection instead of one.

I know adding 2 on each side of your connections takes longer, but you can be assured that nothing will ever come undone during a troop.  It's worth the extra time, believe me.

 

  

Cool, good to know! I was planning on eventually using magnets for the shoulder attachments as I’ve seen a few TKs do. Would you say the two snap is preferable for durability?

[justjoseph63[Staff]]

Assuming you mean the rare earth (neodymium) type, I have personally never seen them used that way.  Keep in mind that those are crazy strong, and depending on the particular strength/size can (will) jump up to 8 inches or more to re-connect with each other.  They can also shatter/break if this happens (trust me).   Plus, when you store your armor in your bin it could turn into a pain in the posterior plate as they would tend to stick together.  I would be really interested to see any examples of this method, though! 

If you mean regular magnets, I don't thing they would have the strength.

 

Using snaps is a tried and trusted method.  Many troopers go with a single snap on either side of their connections and most have no issues, but I went with the "double snap" method.  This way, you know that none of your connections will never ever come loose.  Yeah, it costs a bit more in the beginning, but I like the peace of mind.

[Infern0[TK]]

On 4/26/2020 at 2:38 AM, justjoseph63 said:

Assuming you mean the rare earth (neodymium) type, I have personally never seen them used that way.  Keep in mind that those are crazy strong, and depending on the particular strength/size can (will) jump up to 8 inches or more to re-connect with each other.  They can also shatter/break if this happens (trust me).   Plus, when you store your armor in your bin it could turn into a pain in the posterior plate as they would tend to stick together.  I would be really interested to see any examples of this method, though! 

If you mean regular magnets, I don't thing they would have the strength.

 

Using snaps is a tried and trusted method.  Many troopers go with a single snap on either side of their connections and most have no issues, but I went with the "double snap" method.  This way, you know that none of your connections will never ever come loose.  Yeah, it costs a bit more in the beginning, but I like the peace of mind.

Good to know!! I think I’ll just stick with e6000 and single snaps as per the screen used for now, and then revisit once I’m approved and happy with the armor’s fit and look.
 

As far as the magnets, one of our Cloud City Members here, Dave Mahoney, has a brilliant setup with neodymium magnets for his shoulder bells -> bridges that I’ll be looking to emulate down the road. He can kit up himself without assistance and it’s pretty durable!

 

 

[Infern0[TK]]

Wasn’t quite happy with the fit of the shoulder bells, so decided to do a hot water bath and try to widen them a tiny bit more. Left went pretty well, but I ended up warping the back of the right bell a little bit!

 

This was annoying, but after getting some good tips from troopers on the FISD Facebook page, especially from @Rat, I managed to smooth the warping out a little bit. 

 

It’s not perfect, but neither is any other part of the armor so I’m happy enough with the result!

 

Been debating glove options for a while and I finally decided to go with the rubber glove/elastic strap combo for the hand guards, since it’s allowable in the CRL and I think it looks nicer. Got my chemical gloves from Amazon last week. 

 

and with those + some other fit adjustments popped the armor back on to see if the arms were looking better proportionally.

Not happy with the gap at the wrists, but that’s partly because the hand plates kept slipping down. I’m thinking either Velcro or magnets to keep them in place on the back of the gloves...

[Rat[TK]]

Looks better Garrett and glad I could help. Shoot me a message through FB if you have any questions.

[Chemi[Staff]]

On 5/12/2020 at 5:40 PM, 1nfern0 said:

...the hand plates kept slipping down. I’m thinking either Velcro or magnets to keep them in place on the back of the gloves...

 

 

Very good job Garrett...I'm enjoying your build...

Edited May 23, 2020 by Chemi

[Infern0[TK]]

6 hours ago, Chemi said:

And what about flexible hand guards? You will need them for centurion...

 

Very good job Garrett...I'm enjoying your build...

Thank you kindly! It’s been a fun learning experience, but I’m pretty eager to have it done so I can troop with it (even if it’s just walking around the neighborhood!).

 

Re: hand guards: No flexible for ESB