Chopper

Unfortunately, not a lot of options there -- CA glue doesn't come off easy. Its primary solvent is acetone, but I wouldn't put that stuff anywhere near your RS tank. You can prob pry the tank topper up with a chisel blade, but it'll likely crack and leave a mess. Yes the RS armor is more "cream" colored. I haven't been able to find a good color match outside of custom mixing. If you want to try the antique white on a plastic spoon, please let us know how it compares. You might want to email Andrea at RS and see if you can just buy a second tank and topper. Otherwise you could ask SC for a rough cut tank and, once you get the paint matched better, trim and paint it to fit the RS back piece.

Either will work as long as you can't see the zipper or snaps under the outer costume parts. My current coveralls are RedKap, but it's really heavy material and not very breathable. It's also short in the torso, which isn't always super comfortable. I've got a pair of Kolossus coveralls that I need to start working on for my replacement set. The material is much nicer.

Looks good!

Hi Pat. I don't really see much that might cause any major blips for basic clearance in your photos. Maybe pull the front of your belt up a little bit more. If it has a tendency to droop, which is common, you can put some velcro on your cod and belt to help hold it in place while you're trooping. Just a suggestion, and this is really only in the CRL for Level 2, so it's your call, but your rank stripes look fairly thick. If you're going to use the thick ones with the trapezoid shape in the middle of the tank striping, then you might want to go with the 4 bar version, as opposed to 6. The double thick stripes were only used with the 4 rank stripe/trapezoid scout that catches Leia on Endor. Again, this is a Level 2 thing, so it has no bearing on your basic clearance. Up to you!

Yes, velcro on the inside of the belt (the two triangle patches). Velcro on the cod front (the white horizontal band on the cod).

Don't sweat it too much -- your ear hole cuts look ok, Chris.

Vest goes over coveralls. Cod attaches to bottom of vest. Cod strap attaches to back of vest. Bund goes over vest and top of cod. Belt attaches to front of cod to keep it from drooping. You can also add some velcro on upper flak vest chest to keep chest armor from slipping backwards, but not everyone needs it. See also some general tips in the link below. Use whatever you think might work for you: http://forum.501stpathfinders.com/index.php?/topic/18894-some-tips-for-keeping-your-scout-costume-together-while-trooping/

1: R/L shoulder bells are not specific. 2: It's hard to say without an overall shot, but the leg portions of your suit look good to me. If you don't have the soft goods pinned up in the photo, then I don't think you need any tailoring right now. 2a: Bring your shoulders in closer, so that they're about 1/2" to 3/4" from the shoulder bridges 2b: Boot and knee positions look good. 2c: You should get more clearance between the bicep and shoulder armor when you bring you shoulders in. Don't trim the biceps or forearm armor. You may need to trim the bottoms of your shoulder armor, if there's still clearance issues, but we're not there yet -- adjust the bell positions first.

Knee rivet placement looks fine. For the tank rivet placement I would go with number "3".

Good idea for the cod stiffener.

No, not for basic clearance The overall shape looks good. I wouldn't trim more than that. If you have a photo of how it lines up in the back right now, that would be helpful for additional feedback. The the drawn cut line looks good. I'd use an emory board to smooth out the edge along the bottom of the snout and jawline. The proper ear cut out shapes tend look like kidney beans. I'd say that the cut out marks you made on the helmet wearer's right side are pretty good. The left side ones are too narrow. You can use these photos for additional guidance:

Excellent write up, Andy, and very helpful!

Those boots look great dude. Pro quality.

You can always just cut off the large disc portion of the 3M bolt and glue that onto the side of the visor.

There is no specific defined length for the tubing in the CRL -- it should be generally proportional to your body. If you look at the rear CRL photo, the length of the tubing should be just a bit inside where the webbing meets the belt.

I haven't used that specific website, but Cucblack is KriptonTop on Etsy. https://www.etsy.com/shop/KriptonTop?ref=search_shop_redirect Many scouts have used him for their soft goods and he does an excellent job. The only caveat is that he ships from S. America, so I would encourage you to pay for FedEx shipping.

It'd depend on the velocity of the plastic airsoft pellets -- I know it can vary. As far as I know, no scout maker's armor is ballistic rated. After all, it's a costume that's meant to look cool, not actual body armor. Will it stop an airsoft pellet? Probably? Will the armor get damaged, if not immediately, then over time? Probably. And then there's the lens. Most of us hot glue the lens into the helmet. Again, I personally wouldn't trust a lens that was hot glued to hold up to getting hit by an airsoft pellet.

@woobiee built his over Gio's base boot and his turned out pretty nice:

I did use snaps where they connect on the back webbing, just because sometimes they get tangled and it's an easy fix. Others, like Mickey I believe, sewed their straps to the webbing and that's fine too.

Hey Ron @RZill, FYI there's an easier way to mount the front drop box webbing -- just make a fold in it, like below. You can stitch it down to keep the fold flat.

1. Not sure how much overlap there was on the screen suits and I haven't seen any photos of that detail. There is no set standard, aside from the det should hide it. You can't see the webbing overlap in the photo below, so it can't have been a lot. For the sake of practicality, I'd say approx 2" min overlap would work, but that's not a "rule". 2. Similarly, we don't have any photos of the inside shoulder strapping. We only actually determined that they used zip ties to hold them on relatively recently, thanks to the HD blu-ray releases. Most folks tend to do some variation of the Strider method, as you mentioned. If you want to go with a diff method for attaching the zip ties, that's fine, as long as the end result looks right. My original build used a piece of webbing that wrapped around the bridge with velcro and the zip tie looped through. Personal methods may vary. 3. I used a single strap + velcro to mount the back webbing inside the armor. See below.

Yes, consider the extra width that the flak vest will add to everything. I would hold off on any heat shaping until you have all of your soft goods in order. I don't think you need to bring the back up much. Maybe a little, but they don't need to be absolutely perfectly even. Look at the screenshot below for reference:

There are some reviews of the full Crowprops boots here: http://forum.501stpathfinders.com/index.php?/topic/21923-crow-props-scout-boots-and-gloves-my-take/ and here: http://forum.501stpathfinders.com/index.php?/topic/21900-crow-props-biker-boots-and-gloves-are-in/ I'd consider Gio's underboot only offering to be quite good, but the original poster had indicated that he didn't want to build his own.

It's all good dude. Questions are what we're here for.

What you've got right now is just fine. No need to do more. The ends of the belt are slightly rounded as per the screen shot below: