chiefbonan's TK ANH Stunt Build (Centurion)

[chiefbonan]

To Do List

 

Gloves:

Attach laytex hand guards

 

Belt:

Attach beltboxes

Attach holster
Make thermal detonator

Claves:
Reglue the left leg 
Make attachments to join calves to the boots 
Re-pad the calves

 

Painting: 
Need to paint various rivets white

Then I need to do a full fitting and adjust everything ad make it all nice and snug. Go through and do minor trimming. Then I'm ready for pre-approvals!

 

Grievences:

 

The last time I put on the full armour some of the snaps kept coming loose. Mainly the ones connecting the chest to the ab plate. I will need to fix this, but they are mostly single snaps, I might just double them up! 

 

But keep on the look out, I ordered my blaster kit, and soon we will be starting Father of Bonan's Build Thread in the coming weeks!
 

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

8 minutes ago, chiefbonan said:

The last time I put on the full armour some of the snaps kept coming loose. Mainly the ones connecting the chest to the ab plate. I will need to fix this, but they are mostly single snaps, I might just double them up! 

 

But keep on the look out, I ordered my blaster kit, and soon we will be starting Father of Bonan's Build Thread in the coming weeks!

 

Hi Thomas, first let me say You and your dad had made a great work on your armor and glad to read we're going to see your father's Building thread soon. 

 

About the snaps coming loose It's not common to have this issue just at the beginning, I would expect it to happen after several Troopings. In my experience, when this had happened to me i have noticed that the problem was caused by the Snap pressing tool, I mean sometimes there is no as much pressure to the snap to get firm and then it's  easy it fail.

You may try using another type of press tool or apply a little more pressure.

 

 

 

Doubling the snap is a great idea you can try.

Cheers.

 

You may try using another type of press tool or apply a little more pressure.

 

Doubling the snap is a great idea you can try.

 

Cheers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[chiefbonan]

Thanks! @TKSpartan

Is it okay to use white webbing for the strapping for the belt boxes?

Edited June 11, 2020 by chiefbonan

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

1 hour ago, chiefbonan said:

Is it okay to use white webbing for the strapping for the belt boxes?

 

As you probably have read in the crl :

 

The drop boxes dangle from the sides of the front plastic belt (ammo belt) via white straps and are aligned under the plastic tabs of the ammo belt.

 

There's no specific material for the drop boxes connection to the Belt. I have seen both , Elastic and webbing. More accuracy? Elastic . looking for more firm connection? webbing.

 

 

for higher levels you must consider the following.

 

 Drop boxes are vertically aligned with the end of the ammo belt with minimal gap between belt and box

 

in my opinion webbing  give more firmness to the alignment , in exchange the elastic stretches over time and may cause the gap to increase

 

 

Cheers  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[chiefbonan]

21 minutes ago, TKSpartan said:

 

As you probably have read in the crl :

 

The drop boxes dangle from the sides of the front plastic belt (ammo belt) via white straps and are aligned under the plastic tabs of the ammo belt.

 

There's no specific material for the drop boxes connection to the Belt. I have seen both , Elastic and webbing. More accuracy? Elastic . looking for more firm connection? webbing.

 

 

for higher levels you must consider the following.

 

 Drop boxes are vertically aligned with the end of the ammo belt with minimal gap between belt and box

 

in my opinion webbing  give more firmness to the alignment , in exchange the elastic stretches over time and may cause the gap to increase

 

 

Cheers  

 

 

 

 

 

 

awesome thank you! we will use webbing!

[chiefbonan]

So when suiting into my armour I come to the ab plate area, I'm assuming most of you snap it shut on your right side. In my experience so far it has been a hassle to get my fingers in there (especially when also wearing the chest plate) to get the snaps to attach. I have two, one upper and one lower seen here:

 

For the CRL it states 

Ideally there no gap between the abdomen and kidney armor. Abdominal and Kidney Plate align horizontally at top. 

 

So my question is do some of you use Velcro instead? 

Is Velcro good to use? I've heard it can get worn down over time.

Are there some alternatives?

I was ideally thinking along the lines of making a 3-4 inch high tab that sticks out about and inch to velcro on the inside of the armour if you get what I mean, but i'd like to hear from the experts first! 

 

Kind of so can slip it on a bit easier. These snaps do unsnap sometimes, but that is a rareity. I've yet to do much of a endurance test in my armour to see the flexabilty and movement I can achieve in it, which will come soon as I'm close to finishing!

P.S It seems with all of my limbs like the arms and legs, the snaps and joints are perfect, when it comes to my torso I experience some unsnapping. I'm pretty sure I didn't get the best quality snaps! I heard someone say something about leatherworking snaps being heaps stronger

 

Thank you, 
Tom

[TheSwede[TK]]

I only use the upper, per movie suits, as you really don’t need one below, the belt holds that in

 

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

3 hours ago, chiefbonan said:

So my question is do some of you use Velcro instead? 

Is Velcro good to use? I've heard it can get worn down over time.

Are there some alternatives?

 You may want to check the last part of the following thread ,go to page 6 final

 

 cheers

[chiefbonan]

Thank you guys for those answers, we will have to see what we can do!

Update:

Fixed my left leg!


Started my belt boxes!

[TheSwede[TK]]

How wide are those straps? They should be 1”. 

[chiefbonan]

1 minute ago, TheSwede said:

How wide are those straps? They should be 1”. 

Oh didn’t know that!

[TheSwede[TK]]

Perhaps you can cut them down some, unless they frey too bad. It doesn’t need to be exact too the mm. 

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

1 hour ago, chiefbonan said:

Oh didn’t know that!

Hi,  Thomas.

 

A Daniel pointed, for more accuracy , the straps should be around 1". For level 3 approval It would may or not  be an issue. but consider you and your dad are looking for the more accuracy level "Centurion " and for a personal reward, I would suggest to tray the fix or replace the strap.

 

You can trim a little the strap and seal the edge with an soldering tool.

 

 

cheers

 

[TheSwede[TK]]

Sorry to make this a discussion but, I’m a GML and if I noticed straps this wide I would not approve it. L3 should never approve it either as it’s supposed to be about higher screen accuracy, unless something has changed from when I was D.O then it’s my bad. For basic I would however not. Your GML might feel different and let it slide so I suggest you touch base with him/her just in case
 

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

32 minutes ago, TheSwede said:

Sorry to make this a discussion but, I’m a GML and if I noticed straps this wide I would not approve it. L3 should never approve it either as it’s supposed to be about higher screen accuracy, unless something has changed from when I was D.O then it’s my bad. For basic I would however not. Your GML might feel different and let is slide so I suggest you touch base with him/her just in case
 

No discussion at all , we are here to help Thomas and every trooper to achieve the best they can do. 

 

Thank you @TheSwede,  

 

 

 

 

[chiefbonan]

Sire thing! Whatever I can do to make it past and make Lord Vader happy! I might try and cut them down to see how they look, if not easy to replace them, thank you!

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

8 minutes ago, chiefbonan said:

Sire thing! Whatever I can do to make it past and make Lord Vader happy! I might try and cut them down to see how they look, if not easy to replace them, thank you!

We are sure you  got this Thomas  !! 

[chiefbonan]

So we've done some testing on the snaps, tried to hammer them more like @TKSpartan suggested, no luck! They are pretty weak snaps, at least 40% of them on the armour, it's real luck of the draw with them. Does anyone have any suggestions for some better snaps?

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

Hi, Thomas, I'm sorry that you had this problem with the snaps. Even though, it's preferable to have the issue while building than trooping isn't it? 

 

reading the following section, the recommended snaps are Tandy. 

You could try to find them and hope you can solve this temporary issue. 

 

 

 

Cheers 

 

 

[chiefbonan]

@TKSpartan thank you for the info!

We found another set of snaps which are around the same size but a different brand that we bought ages ago, we are going to experiment with them by:

-Trying to use the 'new' snaps

And/or

 

-Try and mix them, i.e using the male snap from Set 1 and a female from Set 2, since they are the same size, perhaps they can fit better

Also to add Mr.TKSpartan, I was looking around on Tandy and there are a number of different snaps, are these ones good?

https://www.tandyleather.com.au/collections/fasteners/products/stainless-steel-line-snaps-10-pack?variant=32642898624647

 

Edited June 14, 2020 by chiefbonan

[chiefbonan]

I know it is very newbieish to be going back to the snaps so early, but that's what I get for getting cheaper snaps! Luckily its just the torso snaps that are the problem

[chiefbonan]

Fixed! @TheSwede Thanks for the fix! The straps are 1 inch across

[justjoseph63[Staff]]

Looks MUCH better, Thomas!  As Mario mentioned, when attaching them to the canvas belt be sure that the outside edges align with the edges of the ABS belt as seen below.  Misalignment of these is one of the most common issues we see when approving for Centurion.

Drop boxes are vertically aligned with the end of the ammo belt with minimal gap between belt and box

 

[tarok[TK]]

Hey Tom

Many of the snaps our haberdashery shops (Spotlight, Lincraft etc) aren’t great for the holding strength we need for armour.

I ended up ordering Prymm sport strength snaps off Amazon. (I’m currently swapping out velcro for snaps) These things are super strong

[chiefbonan]

15 minutes ago, tarok said:

Hey Tom

Many of the snaps our haberdashery shops (Spotlight, Lincraft etc) aren’t great for the holding strength we need for armour.

I ended up ordering Prymm sport strength snaps off Amazon. (I’m currently swapping out velcro for snaps) These things are super strong

awesome! great to know you know the strength, are the these ones?

https://www.amazon.com/PRYM-fasteners-Camping-silver-coloured-Multipac/dp/B00405SLUC

 

Because I've looking through Tandy Leather, and I was wondering if any like these would suffice:

 

https://www.tandyleather.com.au/collections/fasteners/products/stainless-steel-line-snaps-10-pack?variant=32642898624647

 

Edited June 14, 2020 by chiefbonan