ukswrath[Staff] Posted September 26, 2019 Report Posted September 26, 2019 12 minutes ago, Bullseye said: Definitely will do Tony. Thanks. I'll probably use the fabric glue once I've got the shoulder bridges on and I wrap the thin elastic around the back of the bridge. Was in the back of my head, so I appreciate the reminder. Said it before and I'll say it again, your AM build has been extremely helpful! Glad it helped, Troopers Helping Troopers 3 Quote
Bullseye[TK] Posted September 30, 2019 Author Report Posted September 30, 2019 Lots of progress to report. Should bridges, kidney shimming, shimming the thighs, arm fitting, and MORE! Shoulder Bridges: Having previously managed to get the bridges into a nice shape It was time to attach them to the Chest plate. Having read the various threads on the difficulty of attaching the bridges to the chest pate due to the lack of a solid surface underneath the bridge, I cut a series of small slivers of ABS from scrap to fill in the gaps. After fitting them to the proper space, I glued the scraps to the underside the bridges to give them more surface area. Measuring 55mm from the top of the chest/shoulder ridge, as in Tony's AM build, I smeared the E6000 all over the bottom of the bridge and put them in place. Next, I grabbed the clamps and locked them in place. In the background you can see the back plate. To make sure I had the bridges in the proper position, I held up the back and chest plate together and made adjustments to the positioning of the shoulder bridges while the glue was wet. Once satisfied, I put this off to the side to work on my next project. Fitting the Kidney Shim and making return edge for it: As you may recall, I needed a pretty significant Kidney Shim in order to get the armor to fit. 5" on both sides. Even after that, I needed to add an additional shim to the bottom of the shim in order to properly meet requirements. The biggest issue with the shim was that the shim plates splayed outward badly.... \___/ ... I needed to reign them in to get the proper shape (___) . Again, due to the size of the shim, and ... cough cough... me...., I couldn't fit it in my pot for a bath bend, so that left me with no choice but to grab the heat gun and try to bend it with direct heat. Having gained some confidence using the heat gun with the back of the thighs and the bicep hooks, I used direct heat from the high setting of the heat gun to bend the shims back toward the front of my body. I'll try to post a final photo of the result, but they turned out great. Three rules for the heat gun: 1) wear heat resistant gloves 2) ONLY heat the inside of the ABS (the non-shiny part) 3) Check it CONSTANTLY for pliability. With the armor bent properly, I set to making a return edge for the top of the shim. To do this, I used a foot long 2x4 remnant to shield the rest of the armor from the heat and to give an edge to bend the ABS. As you can see, it worked well at the start, so I kept it going. I'll need to heat up the inside one more time to bend the top back toward the ab plate again, but over all I'm very happy with the result. THE ARMS FIT! Feeling confident, I test fit the right arm. I'm excited. I may do a long bicep hook, but I may not. I'll see how it wears. Shimming the back of the thighs: With the kidney cooling off and the the check plate drying, I turned my attention to the last MAJOR issue with my build, the thighs. I haven't been able to post a photo of it before because it's impossible to hold the thigh in place and get a good enough photo of the back of my thigh, but I'm looking at a 5" gap at the top of the thighs and an inch or so at the bottom. The other problem was that I'm running out of spare ABS to make shims. The kidney shims ate a lot of the spare ABS. So to make due, I had to get creative. Measuring the additional space I'd need with my wife's reluctant help, I added an additional 1/2 inch and made a triangle style sheet with the appropriate dimensions. The only real issue with this set up was that I'm getting the same "side" for each cut. Instead of ][ I'm getting [[ . But, even with that, I'll get a straight mesh point in the middle that I can work with. So in order to make it fit, I needed to clean up the back of the thighs and get as straight an edge as possible to work with. Clamps, a ruler, and a knife combined to give me that. Score and snap. With the extra off, I grad some 100 grit sand paper to get the edge nice and smooth. I cleared up both sides of each thigh, and then used the preset lines and a clamped down ruler to score and snap my shims: The biggest issue I faced was that I wasn't working with enough ABS to get a FULL length shim on either thigh. Taking that into consideration, I tried to get the shim from the top to the raised bottom edge. I'll heat treat glue and shim a "raised bump" underneath the shim for continuity and filler once I'm happy with the fit. As this was a straight edge and going to be ABS pasted over, I used CA glue to set the shim. Painter's tape helped set the location. Nothing's perfect, and the edge will never sit exactly perfectly. So in order to get the shim to set, I used clamps to keep it in place. Once the CA set and the shim wasn't moving, I liberally applied the ABS paste over the seam to help set and harden the shim. On the right thigh shim, I needed to use clamps to keep it in place longer than the right. Once these set a little further, and the fitting is done, I'm going to go along the back side of the shims with CA glue one more time to bond the plastic a little better. No sense in not making this as strong as possible. Right Left I'm waiting for the ABS to harden a little more before going to work on these further. As you can see, there's a little gap at the bottom to fill, but the shim seems to fit the need. Another thing I did was make sure the straight edges were there so that I can add another middle piece IF NECESSARY upon final fitting. The 20mm cover strip would easily hide those sins if I need to use them. Another thing you can see is the thigh fang I need to heat up, bend and cut. I set the lines of the shims so that the back of the thigh's raised edges don't cause any problems. Everything lines up. AB Plate Lastly, I measured and marked the ab plate for the split rivets. I looked at Tony's AM thread for the dimensions on the Ab plate split rivet holes. Mine came out different than his. I had them at 20, 80, 140mm. So If you're looking at this for thread for help, measure and get the spots right based on the size and make of your individual armor. I only marked the ab and didn't drill yet. I'm going to match up the Ab and the kidney for sizing before the holes go in. Hopefully that'll be done this week. More to come. 1 Quote
Bullseye[TK] Posted October 2, 2019 Author Report Posted October 2, 2019 Need an opinion. Trim the bottom so that it meets up with the codpiece, correct? Quote
TheSwede[TK] Posted October 2, 2019 Report Posted October 2, 2019 1 hour ago, TKSpartan said: Hi, Yes. No, that is incorrect! Below is the correct way. 2 Quote
Bullseye[TK] Posted October 2, 2019 Author Report Posted October 2, 2019 Ha! Iiiiiits baaaaaack....... thanks guys. Had a brain fart last night. Straight line across. Thanks. 1 Quote
Bullseye[TK] Posted October 2, 2019 Author Report Posted October 2, 2019 A little more progress. Withe the shim bent and the ab plate and kidney lining up well, I decided it was time to measure and drill in the holes on the right and left of the ab plate. Having previously measured the holes on the left at 20, 80, and 140mm I got out the 5/32 drill bit and put in the holes. The holes are 10mm from the edge. Next I’d already marked the 20x20mm spot on the right so I drilled in the 5/32 hole and hand cranked countersink to it with a 3/8ths bit. Satisfied, I popped in the side snap. ABS shim sanding: Next I started to sand down the shim. As you’re aware for this thread, I initially used an incorrect diagram to cut my kidney shims and had to add a bottom shim to the lateral shim for sizing purposes. yay.... The result is a lot more sanding is required to make this look right. Due to the sheer amount of sanding required, I used my Dremel and the egg sanding head to start whittling through the excessive ABS paste I ladled on the kidney shims. You can see the start of it at the top of this photo. In subsequently used 120 grit, 400 and 800 grit to get the shims to this point still got a ways to got to got to get the excess ABS paste off. Should I say at a the fine grit count and slowly whittle this down or use a lower grit to power through this? Even at 400grit this is taking forever. My second biggest question is how am I going to get the “shine” back!? How did people buff the sanding out after the shim set? Any thoughts appreciated. Thanks!! Quote
Bullseye[TK] Posted October 3, 2019 Author Report Posted October 3, 2019 Kidney to Ab Progress.... Looking through the build threads one this I noticed was that the kidney to ab plate attachments are generally reinforced by additional ABS plates where the holes are drilled. As I've mentioned before, spare and unspoiled ABS is in short supply for me right now. So I needed to reclaim some of the older ABS shreds and trimmings for purposes of the support shim. Another issue is the size of the rivets; I didn't want to use straight 2mm ABS for fear that the girth of the plate plus the shim plus the washer would be too much to get a solid connection. So here's what I did: 1) I scavenged my trimmings for a long, continuous piece of ABS. 2) When I'd found a few, I intentionally I.D.'d the pieces that were "stretched" or has already been stretched out as part of the vacuum forming process that diminished the girth of the ABS below the 2mm line. The more warped, the better. 3) I measured the space for the support backing and marked the length on the ABS piece. 4) I grabbed 2 remnant pieces of a 1x4 pine board and put one of them on my work bench with the wide side down face up. The other I put to the side. 5) I placed the ABS remnant on the 1x4. 6) I grabbed my heat gun and cranked it to 11, allowing it to heat up all the way before using it. 7) With the heat gun on high, I effectively broiled the curved strip of residual ABS from the back of the shin that I harvested. 8) Once the strip showed signs of bowing from the heat, I immediately slammed the second 1x4 onto the strip and turned off the heat gun. I applied pressure to the twin blocks evenly for roughly 30-45 seconds to allow the temperature to cool and the ABS to re-harden in its wood vice. The result was a perfectly flat, solid, and usable ABS piece I can effectively use for anything. With a usable backing strip, now it was time to line up the Ab and the Kidney for the straps. This was not easy. As I'm using two curved surfaces, my 18 inch ruler didn't quite fit the bill to measure a 20mm distance between kidney drill points. To get around this, I grabbed a flat, small, spare piece of ABS and marked 20mm on it and used it as a jig to mark the intersection of the kidney rivets. I triple checked the lines for evenness and distance. If they look off, its the camera angle. Drilling in the holes, I them marked the backing by placing it under the newly drilled hole and circling the hole with a pencil. I goofed the first drill on the backing but got the rest, making sure to properly mark the directions after this photo. I E6000'd the piece, stuck it on the underside of the plate, and them popped in the rivets to keep it in place. Once the rivets were in, I painters taped the backing down (clamps were sliding on this section, so tape made more sense). I'm pretty happy with this. Additionally, but no photos to show, I cut three 60mm strips for the kidney/ab plate meet up. A pair of quick questions: a) Should I use Washers to link the kidney and ab together or Snaps? I've seen both, but it looks to me like snaps are more practical for storage. (e.g., put a male snap plate over the split rivet and then split the rivet into the male snap - allowing a removable snap for the kidney and ab). This may be irrelevant too, I haven't put the male snap over the rivet to see of the snap plate is wider than the 10mm I have to spare. b) on the RIGHT SIDE, should I have just the single snap at the top, or do 1 or 2 additional internal snaps on the right for support? Thanks all! Quote
kman[TK] Posted October 4, 2019 Report Posted October 4, 2019 On 10/2/2019 at 7:44 AM, TheSwede said: No, that is incorrect! Below is the correct way. Hey there! I cleaned up this graphic a little bit, as the edits were a little rough, and I added a "Revised 2019" text to it, so it's a bit more obvious to all which one is being looked at. Anyone is welcome to use it. 3 Quote
kman[TK] Posted October 4, 2019 Report Posted October 4, 2019 On 10/3/2019 at 11:53 AM, Bullseye said: I'm pretty happy with this. Additionally, but no photos to show, I cut three 60mm strips for the kidney/ab plate meet up. A pair of quick questions: a) Should I use Washers to link the kidney and ab together or Snaps? I've seen both, but it looks to me like snaps are more practical for storage. (e.g., put a male snap plate over the split rivet and then split the rivet into the male snap - allowing a removable snap for the kidney and ab). This may be irrelevant too, I haven't put the male snap over the rivet to see of the snap plate is wider than the 10mm I have to spare. b) on the RIGHT SIDE, should I have just the single snap at the top, or do 1 or 2 additional internal snaps on the right for support? Thanks all! I like snaps to connect them, for the very reason you mention. If you have non-detachable attachments on both sides, you'll never be able to separate the parts. I positioned the snaps on regular snap plates between the rivets. The rivets can be just for show... they don't have to be functional in any way. You can even use Velcro there, if you wanted. (I doubt you want to, considering the effort you're putting in, but just to illustrate the point) I used 2" webbing going straight up the seam, with multiple snaps on each side. This forces the halves to stay aligned, and doesn't allow much, if any, vertical play, so it can't get uneven. I used the same concept on both sides (left and right). A single strap (or even 3) going from one side to the other was inadequate to keep things aligned nicely, on my burger-loving body. 1 Quote
Bullseye[TK] Posted October 7, 2019 Author Report Posted October 7, 2019 Progress over the weekend. i initially tried to do the washers on the split rivets but they wouldn’t fit. The extra support slat I put on made it too thick to get the rivets to actually split and hold. So I tried snaps, and they fit. 20mm strips of nylon and the snap caps set, I put the clam shell together. Now it was time to close the shell. I decided just to add one more snap on the right side in order to make sure the shell stayed secure. I used blue tape to help secure the snap while the glue set. I’ll have to trim the right side bottom a tad, but IT FITS!!!!!! Behold the exterior. Next I went to work on the thighs. That sounds bad. I used CA glue to meld the thigh shims together. I didn’t want to deal with waiting for the E6000 to set. But it worked, even tho I did manage to superglue myself to my thigh. The armor thigh. This was not an American Pie 2 scenario. As as you can see above there is some work to be done in order to take care of the slat gap. I was debating ABS paste, but then I grabbed the heat gun and a spare piece of ABS. After I flattened it out I traced the gap and did some trimming. I’ll upload the result tomorrow once it sets. I’ve also set the front thigh cover strips and trimmed the fangs from the thighs. Original: now: Finally, I painted the buttons. They’ll go on this week after I clean them up. Updates to follow!! 2 Quote
TKSpartan[Staff] Posted October 7, 2019 Report Posted October 7, 2019 9 hours ago, Bullseye said: Progress over the weekend. i initially tried to do the washers on the split rivets but they wouldn’t fit. The extra support slat I put on made it too thick to get the rivets to actually split and hold. So I tried snaps, and they fit. 20mm strips of nylon and the snap caps set, I put the clam shell together. Now it was time to close the shell. I decided just to add one more snap on the right side in order to make sure the shell stayed secure. I used blue tape to help secure the snap while the glue set. I’ll have to trim the right side bottom a tad, but IT FITS!!!!!! Behold the exterior. Next I went to work on the thighs. That sounds bad. I used CA glue to meld the thigh shims together. I didn’t want to deal with waiting for the E6000 to set. But it worked, even tho I did manage to superglue myself to my thigh. The armor thigh. This was not an American Pie 2 scenario. As as you can see above there is some work to be done in order to take care of the slat gap. I was debating ABS paste, but then I grabbed the heat gun and a spare piece of ABS. After I flattened it out I traced the gap and did some trimming. I’ll upload the result tomorrow once it sets. I’ve also set the front thigh cover strips and trimmed the fangs from the thighs. Original: now: Finally, I painted the buttons. They’ll go on this week after I clean them up. Updates to follow!! looking good, great work!! 1 Quote
Bullseye[TK] Posted October 15, 2019 Author Report Posted October 15, 2019 Thigh shim update. Before: My shims were a little short toward the bottom, so I needed to add some ABS, filler material, and heat mold the bases so they lined up. Turned out pretty well, actually: With the bottoms lining up, it was time to start cleaning up the shims. As as you can there is a fair amount of ABS paste to sand down. I tried to use the Dremel but didn’t feel it was progressing as safely or as well as I wanted. Taking some advice from AJ and the group of FISD Facebook page I tried to figure out a sanding block that was the correct size for the job. Basically something 1/4” or so. Then it hit me: My flat 1 1/2” magnets were 1/4” on their sides. Bingo. Above is the 800 grit. I am presently grinding down the excess ABS with 400 grit and 800. Now: I sanded down the right even more last night and I’ll post a photo of the thighs once they’re ready for the 1500 grit sanding and novus polishing. Cover strips are on both the back (above) and front. I’ll trim the cover strip top once the thighs are complete so at to have an “easy” last thing to do for the thighs other than the thigh ammo belt. Lastly, got in my canvas belt. Going to get that lined up in the next few days, assembled, and attached. The finish line is in sight!! 1 Quote
Bullseye[TK] Posted October 25, 2019 Author Report Posted October 25, 2019 Progress: the ab plate Buttons painted and glued. Snaps in place. If you look closely, you can see that the buttons aren’t exactly aligned. They ended up being about 15mm off (up/down). To over come this I used 2” painters tape across the front to mark where I wanted the belt to go. Marking with a pencil where the top of the belt was on the tape, I then took another longer strip that covered both snaps. Using the pencil to mark the location of the snaps (the full circle) I then used the pencil to punch a hole in the center of the tape where it rested on the snap. From there I was able to measure the distances exactly in order to get a good fit on the belt. You can see the displacement between the snaps. The rivets went in no problem after I drilled out the holes. I also used my soldering iron to make space. It smells terrible and you should always wear a mask when doing it, but it made a difference. Also, with the pop rivets, use a washer for extra grip. Next, the boxes. I measured 10 mm for the inner and 12mm for the outer. I based the measurements off of Tony’s AM build and the bill grams, and went in between. To make it easy, I measured the 10 mm for the inner the hard way, with a ruler all the way around. After that, I cut the box out. (All four remnants above) using the cut box, I put my pencil on the 10mm finished inner box and simply spun the other inner box around it. Nice and easy. Then, I used the remnant pieces to give me the added 2mm by placing them directly on top of the 10mm box, plopping my pencil on those, and dragging the two outer boxes around the pencil. Again, very easy and quick. A quick sanding and voila! I used pop rivets to secure the webbing to the back after cutting out the 10” 1/4 length pieces for each. Here it is right before I popped them in I’ll go back and use e6000 later to secure everything once I’m 100% on placement. had to cut a half moon out of the webbing on the straps for the underside in between the belt and plastic. Next I burnt and drilled out the holes for the holster and used Chicago screws to put them in place. So close to done! 1 Quote
justjoseph63[Staff] Posted October 26, 2019 Report Posted October 26, 2019 I can see that you are one DEDICATED future Trooper, Dave... outstanding work so far, sir. Outstanding work indeed! Since it looks like you are aiming for Centurion (), make sure that the top of the ABS belt falls within the range below: (Preferably the higher line). Reference images Not sure if you have figured out a way to polish out the dull marks from the ABS paste/sanded areas, but I have used the Novus system with great success. It comes with 3 stages of scratch remover. Available online for about 12 bucks for the 2 oz. size (set of all 3). Keep it up, and keep those questions and photos coming! 1 Quote
Bullseye[TK] Posted October 26, 2019 Author Report Posted October 26, 2019 8 hours ago, justjoseph63 said: I can see that you are one DEDICATED future Trooper, Dave... outstanding work so far, sir. Outstanding work indeed! Since it looks like you are aiming for Centurion (), make sure that the top of the ABS belt falls within the range below: (Preferably the higher line). Reference images Not sure if you have figured out a way to polish out the dull marks from the ABS paste/sanded areas, but I have used the Novus system with great success. It comes with 3 stages of scratch remover. Available online for about 12 bucks for the 2 oz. size (set of all 3). Keep it up, and keep those questions and photos coming! Thanks Joseph. I have the belt just on that bottom line and can adjust upward as necessary! Quote
Bullseye[TK] Posted October 27, 2019 Author Report Posted October 27, 2019 Test fitting. I put the arms on reversed. I initially was freaked out about the chest/bell gap and then realized the problem after looking at this photo. I‘m not that bright some times. sigh.... My points for modification: 1) the belt. Need to put the center Chicago screw on the belt. Didn’t put it on earlier because I only had 4 rivets and wanted to connect the belt boxes too. So I need to secure the center of the belt. Overall very happy with it. Going to Velcro the boxes too, so no more painters tape. (the holster is on, my giant monkey arms block the view of it). 2) the shims need to be heated up a bit and bent in a tad more. You can see them bowing outward a tad. I may build a slot and tab system to keep the kidney plate stable for the right side. 3) You can see the kidney gap On the sides. The shim ab to kidney snaps were not sitting right. Need to make sure they’re better secured. 4) need to raise the biceps into the bells an inch or so. Going to pull off the nylon and re secure it tonight. 5) (not pictured) There was a pretty good amount of extra space in the thighs. I‘ll need to bring in the thighs an inch each at the top. I’ll do that by measuring an inch from the center line of the back and cut using a ruler on pre-measured lines. Half inch on each side of the line tapering to zero at the bottom. It sucks, but needs to be done. 6) (not pictured) build my garter for the thighs. 7) (not pictured) gotta sand the interior of the shin return edges. Armor bite. But I did get the velcro on! all thoughts welcome! Quote
Bullseye[TK] Posted October 28, 2019 Author Report Posted October 28, 2019 (edited) second update from today. I got to work on the thighs. They were over an inch larger than necessary at the top and bottom on both the left and right. For anyone following this for purposes of their own build, do not measure your thighs in jeans. To get to the proper result, I measured 25mm at the top and tapered to 20 mm at the bottom, following the mesh point of the back of the thighs all the way down. I did this so as to keep it relatively fit and tight in the groin so as not to get run, and to allow movement around the knee. Using a ruler, I traced a cut line from the top of thigh to the bottom, maintaining the gaps above based on the center line for the cover strip. Then I clamped the ruler down and did an initial cut with my box cutter. I repeated this on both sides of the back of each thigh, and eventually got the grove deep enough to bend at the top and to make space for a pull-cut. With the gap made, I pulled the knife through the opened gap till the cut was deep enough to snap. I reused my internal cover strip to help me reset the mesh point between the sides of each thighs. Using tape, magnets, and clamps, I got the line I wanted. Now I’ll wait 24 hours for it to set and then rest the external cover strip. right Left As for the bells and biceps, I pulled the nylon/elastic from the inside of the bells and marked another 22mm up from where they were before. Putting down another glob of E6000 on the new spots, I glued down the elastic again. I hope this will solve the dropping bicep issue. If not I’ll put in my bicep hooks. right left I need to pick up another Chicago screw for the center of the waist ammo belt. Hopefully get that done tomorrow. Edited October 28, 2019 by Bullseye Quote
Bullseye[TK] Posted October 29, 2019 Author Report Posted October 29, 2019 (edited) Monday night update Sniper knee Edited October 29, 2019 by Bullseye Quote
Bullseye[TK] Posted November 1, 2019 Author Report Posted November 1, 2019 Test fit!!!! Crappy lighting, but hey, it’s on!!! Observations: 1) My giraffe legs are an issue. Need help figuring out how best to minimize the knee gap. It’s comical right now. 2) kidney shims need to be bent in. They still stick out too much. 3) I have my imperial boots. This was just for initial shoots. 4) thermal detonator is being painted. comments? Quote
justjoseph63[Staff] Posted November 1, 2019 Report Posted November 1, 2019 Looking sharp, Dave! Amazing work on this armor, sir, and you are SO close to living the white armor dream! Great to see that you have the top of your ABS belt positioned right, but (and don't hate me) I noticed that your brow is riding quite high and I think I know why. If you look at the eye position in the second photo, the front is facing down and sits low in comparison to the ridge on the cap. It seems that you positioned the bottom of the face plate a little too far in, giving the side profiles a horseshoe shape and causing the eyes to look downward. (It does give it a cool menacing look, though)! Not to add to your workload, but I would seriously consider bringing the jaw (tube) out a bit and/or raising the top of the face plate, as this may affect approval. It should be pretty straightforward for a quick afternoon project, as there is no glue involved... just the re-positioning of hardware. Note how the eye tops in the reference images below closely line up with the ridge on the sides of the cap and how the angle juts out in the front. Looks like you are headed for Centurion, sir, and judging by your mad build skills so far this should be a piece of cake! Like the Home Depot motto: "You can do it, we can help". 2 Quote
Bullseye[TK] Posted November 1, 2019 Author Report Posted November 1, 2019 (edited) 15 hours ago, justjoseph63 said: Looking sharp, Dave! Amazing work on this armor, sir, and you are SO close to living the white armor dream! Great to see that you have the top of your ABS belt positioned right, but (and don't hate me) I noticed that your brow is riding quite high and I think I know why. If you look at the eye position in the second photo, the front is facing down and sits low in comparison to the ridge on the cap. It seems that you positioned the bottom of the face plate a little too far in, giving the side profiles a horseshoe shape and causing the eyes to look downward. (It does give it a cool menacing look, though)! Not to add to your workload, but I would seriously consider bringing the jaw (tube) out a bit and/or raising the top of the face plate, as this may affect approval. It should be pretty straightforward for a quick afternoon project, as there is no glue involved... just the re-positioning of hardware. Note how the eye tops in the reference images below closely line up with the ridge on the sides of the cap and how the angle juts out in the front. Looks like you are headed for Centurion, sir, and judging by your mad build skills so far this should be a piece of cake! Like the Home Depot motto: "You can do it, we can help". Thanks for the props Joseph. I appreciate it. As to my bucket..... well.... I kinda majorly screwed that up two years ago. I over cut the face plate based on watching a build video from the manufacturer. I didn't realize he'd already pre-cut the face plate for me. So I double trimmed it. My initial build thread is a disaster.... I eventually managed to bring the lid together, but by a hair..... I cringe every time I look at that. The black trim is holding on by its figurative fingernails to keep the brow as low as possible. Bottom line, I took off the 1/2 inch I now need. I'll go through my trimmings and might still have those pieces, but I doubt it. If I do, I can reinforce it on the backside, CA glue for serious adhesion, and ABS paste the front. But I'm betting I don't. Edit: Nope nope nope. Long gone. No luck on the “maybe I still have them” front. I've got plenty of spare ABS, so conceivably I can heat mold a jaw tube for it. That's tall order, but its doable with a clay mold from the insides of the jowls, and then superheat some ABS with a heat gun and slam it immediately onto the mold. At least initially that's my thought. I'm open to suggestions. I’m gonna need them. Edited November 2, 2019 by Bullseye Update post Quote
troopermaster Posted November 2, 2019 Report Posted November 2, 2019 13 hours ago, Bullseye said: Looking at your helmet at this stage, I would have been tempted to build it as is and glue a strip of ABS inside the tubes to close the gaps. Then position the ears strategically to hide the joint. 1 Quote
justjoseph63[Staff] Posted November 2, 2019 Report Posted November 2, 2019 Excellent advice from Paul, and definitely worth a try. It looks likes this is a kit from DA props, so worse case scenario you may want to contact Andy there and see about getting a replacement face plate. It would definitely save you a ton of work! Quote
Bullseye[TK] Posted March 31, 2020 Author Report Posted March 31, 2020 First, hope everyone is safe and healthy. Second, after Halloween my work and family life went into hyperspace and this is first time I’ve had to get back to working on the repairs to my bucket. as you can see from the above photos, my bucket is a little shovel faced. I’ll post a detailed wrap up of my work to get the bucket to the photos below but want to see it the photos below match the angles I need for EIB clearance. Quote
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