Simes' ANH TK Build

[simorph]

Excellent!  Thanks! I was unsure of how far to go with those - that's a real help and it's easier to cut back and make them smaller than try to stick extra bits on!

Onto the right bicep now!

[simorph]

Working on bicep #2, but thinking about shoulders.  I've trimmed what I can see of the excess but with my shoulders there wasn't that much of a defined edge in the vac form to follow. Right now, neither of them has a true straight, flat vertical edge (I used a piece of cover strip and found that the edges don't follow a straight line, but I've resisted carving into them.)

 

Are there any tips for trimming them to look 'correct', or, is this a case that in this world of asymmetry and quirkiness that it's more a matter of them looking right when on the costume rather than them actually having proper geometrically correct straight profiles?

 

Thanks!

 

(left shoulder on left of image, right on right)

 

 

[simorph]

Had a fun couple of hours finally assembling the belt and hooking up the holster.

Will glue on the rivet caps once I've double-checked it works with the torso and thermal det.

[CableGuy[TK]]

Shoulders are probably best to trim up once you have your arms and torso ready to wear. Then you can size them up. You want to keep the gap between the chest and shoulder bells to a minimum. Here’s what you’re aiming for.



:-)

[CableGuy[TK]]

Had a fun couple of hours finally assembling the belt and hooking up the holster.

Will glue on the rivet caps once I've double-checked it works with the torso and thermal det.

Looks great. Lovely drop box alignment. :-)

[TheSwede[TK]]

23 hours ago, simorph said:

Are there any tips for trimming them to look 'correct', or, is this a case that in this world of asymmetry and quirkiness that it's more a matter of them looking right when on the costume rather than them actually having proper geometrically correct straight profiles?

The original bells were trimed with a curve to follow the armor and closing the gaps as Dan mentioned, looking at the pic of Han he provided you can see it and I´ll include additional pic of screen used bells so one can say for certain that straight cuts is a no-go but perhaps a bit less wavy

[simorph]

That's great, thanks!

Two biceps, two shoulders and one forearm glued...getting closer to a full above-the-waist test!

 

 

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Nice work, looking forward to the test fit

[simorph]

Well, after much running out of clamps, waiting for elastics and glues to dry, here's the test fit of everything apart from the legs and shoulder bridges.

 

Learnings from this - perhaps get a tiny bit of heat on the belt to add a little curve and stop it springing away while putting it on (or troop in mid-July sunshine), add a little dot of hot glue to the drop box elastics so they don't wander away from the proper ends of the belt, and  maybe add a bit of glue/velcro to the hidden parts of the holster straps to give them a little more security in future.

 

Shoulders - I was determined to minimise those gaps, so the elastic there is as short as I can make it, and I've trimmed a little off the ends of the backplate's shoulder tabs to bring them a little more in line with the chest - but since I work out, my traps are stopping that bit from coming too far down and the shoulder bells won't fit/overlap much closer as I'm a little broad (damn that gym subscription!)

 

Anything super-funky I've missed here, guys?

 

Thanks again!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[simorph]

Well, this E6000 glue means that you can't be impatient with this build (or at least you need a DIY store's worth of clamps), so spent the past week steadily glueing together the leg portions.

 

Thighs are there - just need to get the belt loops hooked up to a belt and paint the rivets.

 

I followed Dan's thread when it came to positioning the ammo pack.  I found in practice that with the ABS being so very springy, it was easiest to do one side to the middle first, then when the E6000 had cured do the other side.

 

 

 

Shins are ready for fitting - I intend to follow Cricket's Magnetic Shin Closures since this appeals to me more than velcro and bra hooks:

 

 

And in other news, I decided add a little hidden Velcro behind the drop box elastic and on the hidden top parts of the holster straps - just to add a little more security and to save me chasing the drop boxes up and down the belt every time I put on my kit.  I've put the Velcro as far across as the elastic/belt rivets allow so that should hopefully keep the drop boxes as close to the edges of the belt as possible (although the elastic's thickness versus the position of the belt rivet means that the boxes will always be a few millimetres out)

 

Another little upgrade I'm going to do is to put some wooden blocks into the drop boxes before I seal them up - so that extra little weight should help them keep their line too and stop them flapping about while trooping.

 

Finally, my gloves with flexible hand guards arrived from RS Propmasters the other day - a couple of weeks after ordering - great fit, no messing.  I had pondered sculpting and casting my own but then worked out that it would be no cheaper to do that, so I decided to splurge in this aspect!

 

 

So, hoping that this week I can finish fitting the thighs and start work on getting those thighs finally hooked up to a belt and the shins underway...

 

[justjoseph63[Staff]]

Looking GREAT, Simon!  The connections (highlighted in blue below) are absolutely spot-on.... NICE JOB!  I would recommend raising your ABS belt, though (trust me).  The top should cover the bottom of the ab button plate.

 

     

 

In a few of your photos the drop boxes are in the proper position, but as seen below there needs to be a minimal (or no) gap between the tops and the bottom of the ABS belt, and the outer edge needs to align with the outside edge of the ABS belt.

 

         

 

Keep up the fantastic work, Simon.  At this rate you'll have no problems reaching Basic approval, then it's on to Expert Infantry and then Centurion!

 

 

[simorph]

Totally gotcha on the ab belt - that's an artefact of trying to get everything right in one shot, communicating with my wife everything I can't see and remember from the CRLs!

 

Is the trick with the drop boxes to cut out a piece of the elastic to allow the belt rivet to intersect it?  ...since the elastic is too thick to actually allow the box to go over that far because the rivet stops it?

 

 

[CableGuy[TK]]

Nice progress, Simon. :-)

Regarding the drop boxes, do you have a picture from the rear, showing the drop box elastics?

[simorph]

Cheers!

 

He we go...

 

Front...

 

 

Back - as you can see, the elastic is as far to the right as possible since the rivet that holds the canvas belt and ABS 'ammo pack' section together  is stopping the elastic from going any further.

 

All I can think is perhaps snipping a little section out of the right side of the front of the elastic loop to allow the rivet to sit further into the elastic.

 

[Commander Gree[501st]]

Cheers!
 
He we go...
 
Front...
 

 
Back - as you can see, the elastic is as far to the right as possible since the rivet that holds the canvas belt and ABS 'ammo pack' section together  is stopping the elastic from going any further.
 
All I can think is perhaps snipping a little section out of the right side of the front of the elastic loop to allow the rivet to sit further into the elastic.
 

Yep I had to cut a half moon in my elastic. It's the only way

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[simorph]

Cool - a half-moon, plus the Velcro (that's in that pic, but you can't see) will surely guarantee I don't have wobbly boxes!

 

Thanks guys!

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Late to the party but looking great, nice progress 

[simorph]

So, here's the velcro behind my holster and a shot of where the drop box elastic was...

 

 

After the feedback yesterday, I decided rather than to put myself at the mercy of half a width of a piece of elastic hanging straight and holding up while trooping, I'd reengineer the whole thing by swapping the white elastic with white webbing.

 

I didn't want to take apart the whole of my belt so, did the following...

 

Cut a piece of webbing to match the elastic and put a hole in it that matched the position of the belt rivet, then cut a slightly upward slot to that hole...

 

 

I removed the elastic, switched in the webbing and then slid it as absolutely far to the left as I could, making sure the belt rivet to the ABS piece slotted into the hole I'd made...

 

 

I then pulled the slot shut and super-glued a small strip of webbing over the top to close the gap and stop the webbing from fraying/pulling open...

 

 

Then, on the back inside, I installed some velcro to stop the back of the loop from sliding about...

 

 

Finally, a test - hold it up flat against the wall and see how it hangs....

 

 

I still intend to drop in some wooden blocks to give gravity a little help and to stop things flapping around, which will be even better now with webbing since unlike elastic, it won't stretch away from the belt.

 

The only other way to guarantee the alignment after this I think would be to put a few dots of E6000 on the webbing just above the drop box so that the webbing can't move away from the ABS plate....

 

And if we have more problems after that, I think I'll have to develop Force powers to hold them in place!

 

 

In other news - I'm prepping my shoulder bridges - I found a good thread https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/40831-ajs-of-am-20-build/page/8/?tab=comments#comment-642739 about reinforcing them with a second strip of ABS, so I've heat-formed a couple of strips to match the bridges with a plan to do just that. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[justjoseph63[Staff]]

I actually glued the elastic that holds the drop boxes directly onto my Stunt and Hero belts, no loops.  If the tops of the boxes are snug (barely touching) the bottom of the ABS belt, they shouldn't flop around too much.  The way you have it shown (below) would make any Centurion proud!

 

[simorph]

Thanks Joseph!  In other news, my webbing belt to hold up my thighs and my E11 finishing kit from Tino arrived today - getting there!

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

I would suggest using elastic for the drop boxes, when moving about they can get wedged and having elastic allows them to be pushed out of the way  

[simorph]

Gotcha.  I had wondered about that issue.

 

I'm going to run with webbing for the moment since that'll help get me to reliable drop box positioning for the time-being, and I'll be smart about how I glue up the boxes so that I can, if necessary switch out again if they do prove problematic during troops.

 

Thanks!

[simorph]

Category is: SHINS!

 

(Yep - I know about the ab belt - I need to figure a solution for it - it naturally wants to slump here, so I'm going to have to figure a solution of some kind to make it want to naturally  sit a little higher.  I think the snaps in the armour aren't helping/aren't quite in the right spot, plus the spring in the straight ABS is trying to pull it straight - but, yep, I'll figure something out...)

 

Aside from that - any massive howlers you can spot?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So...I'm thinking that the shins seem to be working from most angles except for the front...

 

It feels like the shins are resting a little high on the front of the boot which is driving the front of the shin into the underside of my kneecap...

 

 

What do you reckon? Scoop about 1cm out of the front like this to drop the shin a little and allow it to fit around the front of the boot better?

 

 

Thanks, everyone!

 

 

 

 

[TK-42775[TK]]

Elastic in the shins to pull them down on the boots, should fix that

 

[CableGuy[TK]]

Hi Simon,

 

Looking REALLY nice!! Not far to go now. :-)

 

Regarding the belt, personally I found that a little Velcro added help to position the belt;

 

 

For the shins, I’d probably look to bring them down an inch of so to sit a little further over the boots. Either Velcro or poppers can be used internally to attach the boots tabs to the shins (see my thread for one method of this).

 

Example of shin position;

 

 

Example of poppers and Velcro methods on boot straps;

*Not screen used - these are my personal boots.

 

 

Other than that, I’d perhaps suggest dropping your biceps and forearms by around an inch to reduce the gap from the forearm to the hand guards on your gloves.

 

 

Keep up the great work. :-)