Daryl’s Denuo Novo FOTK build

[daryldoak[TK]]

Hello. My name is Daryl, and I’ve been a Cloud City Garrison member for about 6.5 years.

 

I’ve built several armored costumes (ANH stunt, ESB Snowtrooper, Dengar, AT-AT driver), but this my first experience with the FOTK.  

Here's my parts list, so far

 

armor: Denuo Novo (ordered Anovos 1/9/2018)
helmet: Denuo Novo standard (ordered Anovos 1/9/2018)

boots: Imperial boots http://www.imperialboots.com/product/trooper7-boots-gloves/

gloves: Imperial boots http://www.imperialboots.com/product/trooper7-boots-gloves/

metal holster: R2Dan on FISD 

shoulder brackets: Ukswrath on FISD

 

fabric mesh/gaffers tape: Ukswrath on FISD

I plan to use the Denuo Novo instructions a little bit, but I’ll also be following other pinned builds here on FISD.

 

 

Supplies:

Lexan scissors
Painters tape
Clamps
Magnets
E6000
80 grit sandpaper 
220 grit sandpaper 
400 grit sandpaper 
1000 grit sandpaper 
2000 grit sandpaper 
Behr Paint+Primer Gloss White
Behr Paint+Primer Satin Black
Acetone
Headlight polish 

Novus scratch remover 2 & 3
 

Edited April 17 by daryldoak

[daryldoak[TK]]

Gloves and boots arrived back in February 2018:

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

[daryldoak[TK]]

These arrived March 2019:

 

Ukwrath’s FOTK Shoulder brackets, fabric mesh, gaffer's tape:

R2Dan's accurate First Order metal holster:

Edited August 17, 2022 by daryldoak

[daryldoak[TK]]

Armor finally arrived 8/13/2022:

[daryldoak[TK]]

It’s been 4 years since I’ve cut any plastic, and I’m terrified of cutting a kit I’m not very familiar with.  I thought about just leaving it in the box for awhile until someone else creates a build post for me to follow, but then the Denuo Novo instructions were released today, so I figured why not just jump in.

 

 

So here goes, its arm day!  Rough cutout.

Biceps inner before:

Bicep inner after:

Bicep outer before:

Bicep outer after:

Forearm outer before:

Forearm outer after:

Forearm inner before:

Forearm inner after:

 

I plan to rough cut all pieces to outside the guide lines, then sand to the proper size.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Looking forward to seeing the progress

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Awesome!, You can do it Daryl

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

Congrats for your BBB day Daryl.   Remember measure twice, cut and glue just once.  

 

 

 

[daryldoak[TK]]

More trimming.  My cutting confidence is back, so I was on a roll.

Hand plates before:

Hand plates after:

Test assembled arms:

Onto the legs.

Calves before (partially cut before picture)

Calves after:

Shins before:

Shins after:

Thigh backs before:

Thigh backs after:

Thigh fronts before:

Thigh fronts after:

Knee plates before:

Knee plates after:

Spats before:

Spats after:

Test assembled legs:

 

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

coming along fast and nicely, keep it up. 

[yodaclaus]

I just got my kit yesterday - I ordered mine in 2017, i think...

 

Is this going to be approvable? It doesnt have the yoke design, and it seems the whole upper torso design is much different than the ANOVOS 1.0 - looking at the DN assembly instructions, it looks like the back has a seam with the front torso. Thoughts? Do we have to do mods to this?

[wzajets[TK]]

Excited to see this. My FOTK arrived two days ago after 6 plus years. 

[daryldoak[TK]]

2 hours ago, yodaclaus said:

I just got my kit yesterday - I ordered mine in 2017, i think...

 

Is this going to be approvable? It doesnt have the yoke design, and it seems the whole upper torso design is much different than the ANOVOS 1.0 - looking at the DN assembly instructions, it looks like the back has a seam with the front torso. Thoughts? Do we have to do mods to this?

Yes, this kit will be approvable, but will required many modifications, especially removing seams and fixing the yoke design problem.  Good luck on your build.

[daryldoak[TK]]

More cutting…

Spine plate before:

Spine plate after:

Cod and butt before:

Cod and butt after:

Torso front/back before:

Torso front/back after.  I split the back in order to make the sides seamless.  And I haven’t cut out the middle tabs in case I need to widen or shrink the torso:

Torso pre assembled:

Inner chest before:

Inner chest after:

Chest before:

Chest after:

Back before:

Back after:

Shoulders and pouch cover before:

Shoulders were really thick so it was a soft pull with really no guide lines on the lower edges (both at the center of the picture), I ended up using the one with the barely visible guideline as a pattern for the lower edge where there was no visible line.  But I cut these pretty far off of the guide lines to be safe.

Shoulders and pouch cover after:

And rough cut is done.  My hand hurts.

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by daryldoak

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

4 hours ago, yodaclaus said:

I just got my kit yesterday - I ordered mine in 2017, i think...

 

Is this going to be approvable? It doesnt have the yoke design, and it seems the whole upper torso design is much different than the ANOVOS 1.0 - looking at the DN assembly instructions, it looks like the back has a seam with the front torso. Thoughts? Do we have to do mods to this?

Have a look at this post , yes the design is a little different in places, originally this was supposed to be TFA armor but now more matches the TLJ, some adjustments will be required. Also check with your GML as some are a little stricter than others. 

 

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Motoring along Daryl, nice work

[yodaclaus]

36 minutes ago, gmrhodes13 said:

Have a look at this post , yes the design is a little different in places, originally this was supposed to be TFA armor but no more matches the TLJ, some adjustments will be required. Also check with your GML as some are a little stricter than others. 

 

For sure - I feel like 5 min after I made this comment, I saw a thread noting that connecting the shoulders may be necessary for some approvals. 

[daryldoak[TK]]

2 hours ago, gmrhodes13 said:

Motoring along Daryl, nice work

Thanks!  I think my progress will slow from here as I move to the sanding, filling assembly stages.

[daryldoak[TK]]

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

6 hours ago, daryldoak said:

Make sure you keep some of these trimmings, they are great for support pieces in case of any cracks and also great for ABS paste.

 

I found using the ABS paste firstly on join seams was a lot stronger than using a bondo or fiberglass filler as some areas will bend with use. 

[daryldoak[TK]]

So next I got started on some fine-trimming/sanding, and the place I decided to start was with the biceps.  
 

I started here because they are pieces that I became worried about while trimming.  Both ends of the larger, wrap-around bicep piece are extremely thin, and one of those ends becomes an important front-facing seam.  

 

There was a lot of mold curve-back on the ends, so you are required to trim that off so the pieces fit together properly (sorry, no picture). Trimming off the curve-back limits the options you have for how this seam fits together, and also makes the clip slot smaller, which is a problem since you have to leave enough space for the clip to fit in the slot.  Be careful here!

 

Also, when you trim off the curve-back the pieces loses length (top to bottom), which leave the smaller bicep piece a bit shorter than the bigger bicep piece, so I had to trim the larger piece a bit to make the lengths the same (no picture).  Then I trimmed the rest of the bicep pieces closer to the guide lines (where they existed), and used my best judgement where there weren’t guide lines. 

 

Then I peeled off the protective plastic and rough sanded with some 80 grit sandpaper.

 

I kept a bit of return edge on the top and bottom of the biceps.

 

Top:

Bottom:

Here is the front facing seam.  It’s really hard to tell in the picture but I think it turned out pretty good.

TL;DR

I trimmed and sanded the biceps.
 

Edited August 20, 2022 by daryldoak

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

Looking Nice, keep it up. 

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Looking good, I also left a lot of the return edge, even though gaskets will take up some of this room I do have skinny arms.

[daryldoak[TK]]

Anyone else’s kit have this on the right outer bicep?

It will be covered by the overlap, but just curious.

Edited August 20, 2022 by daryldoak

[daryldoak[TK]]

Didn’t make much progress this weekend.  
 

Worked on the shoulder bells, which had barely any (one, none at all) guidelines on the lower edge.

 

So I got one properly trimmed and sanded, then used it to trim the one without the guide lines.