greenyone

If you have a hobby store near you that deals a lot in modeling (cars, planes, railroad etc.) They usually sell small pieces of styrene (hips) and styrene solvent. Products from "Plastruct" come to mind. Many in the scale modeling circles make a slurry out of scrap pieces of the plastic to use in filling seams and such. It just involves cutting tiny little pieces of the plastic and putting them into a glass container (with an air tight lid) combined with the solvent. After a few hours the plastic and solvent become something like the consistency of yogurt. You can either carefully spread it or pour it into the helmet seams, wait for it to dry and then sand it smooth. It won't crack or flake out of there like putty because it is a fused plastic weld instead of a topical filler.

Sorry. I was under the assumption that the CRL was to be updated with new wording. So my assumption is that it's going to change to something that is difficult to obtain.

I obsessed about this for awhile too. My research for polished cotton came up with the description: Polished cotton aka "chintz" fabric is usually either 100% cotton or a cotton/poly blend. It has a glaze finish on it to give it a sheen/polished look. The sheen comes from the finishing process of the fabric. It's commonly used for home decor (decorative pillows and such) where the semi-shiny look is desirable. The problem with that product (from what I've read) is that it loses it's sheen when washed or if it's used for the purpose of clothing, upholstery or decorative quilting (due to rubbing or repeated flexing of the fabric). When the fibers get wet or start to wear it will lose the sheen from the finishing process and simply appear as a generic white cotton. I understand the CRL for level 2 says "polished", but if this is the only type of fabric that meets that criteria then it's not going to look "polished" for any extended period of time when used in the manner we intend to use it for. Kinda seems silly to go the distance for Lancer approval, take a few photos of it looking nice and then after wearing it/throwing it in a troop box a few times it no longer meets that criteria by any other means other than "it was originally polished for approval". Just my 2 cents.

I used this for the bund, cod and pouches. https://www.joann.com/drill-fabric-40-white/15782204.html If you choose to do so, the pouches can be made from duck cloth (off white/dirty canvas look). I mentioned this on another area of the forum, but if you are stateside and have a Harbor Freight near you, they sell canvas painting drop cloths real cheap that look exactly like the duck cloth I've seen at the fabric store....albeit a bit cheaper. https://www.harborfreight.com/4-ft-x-12-ft-canvas-dropcloth-38108.html

Variations in shades is a reality with any paint regardless of brand. This includes all types of paints whether it be oil based enamels/lacquer/urethane/latex etc.. Temperature and humidity play a big role here too. I've painted cars with the same can of urethane base under different ambient air conditions with different shade results. It's the nature of the beast.

Not sure they make a phone small enough to fit in there nowadays. My old 1st gen MotoX was tiny and would have slid in their nicely. My new 4th gen one is a bit too tall. I can close the flap over it, but you can tell there is something in there. Cell phones started out as huge bricks then got super tiny and now they are gigantic again.

Yes....This was by far the easiest soft part to make. I just recently made one, so this is fresh in my memory. Please note...,I am a very very novice sewer and had no issues. Cheesewhoopy has that really great tutorial on the boots and said he was going to do a tutorial on his bund too....but I don't think he ever got around to it so I just dove in and figured it out. Again very simple. Measure the height you need it to be. I believe the CRL says just under the chest armor and down to the belt. I made mine long enough to go under the chest armor with a little going under/tucked behind the belt. (my gml said this was ok but you should check with yours as he/she may interpret the wording differently) Once you have your desired height measurement multiply that number by 2 and add a 1/2 inch (a little extra to make the seam/stitch easier to sew). As far and the length goes, just make sure you have more than enough fabric to wrap it around your mid-section. You can trim it to size once you have the rest of it sewn up. Transfer your measurements to the fabric and sew it together length-wise like a big open ended tube sock. Then cut out some batting at roughly the same width/height as the sock. Turn the sock inside out so that stitch running the full length of the sock/tube is now hidden on the inside. Slide in the batting and measure and mark for the 1" ribs in the center of the bund. I used one of those blue fabric markers to draw the ribs/lines. It's like some sort of magic erasing pen. Just a little water and the ink disappears when you are done with the sewing. Once you get that far, wrap it around your mid-section and have a buddy mark where the velcro should be attached in the back. Again leave a little extra fabric to fold inside the tube and sew together leaving no cut edge on the outside of the bund. As far as the pouches go. That's really up to you. I put some vecro on my pouch attachment flaps and then the corresponding velcro on the front of the bund. I've seen some sew the pouches directly to the bund and even a guy who has his pouches velcro'd to the inside of the chest armor. Whatever works best for you I guess.

Just an FYI for you DIY pouch makers. You can get a duck cloth drop cloth at Harbor Freight for about $17 that is probably enough material to make dozens of pouches. https://www.harborfreight.com/9-ft-x-12-ft-canvas-dropcloth-38109.html

While waiting for the final piece of the puzzle to arrive (flak-vest) I revisted my pouch boxes. The styrene plastic inserts I had previously made work great but they are a bit uncomfortable with the weight and stiffness hanging from the torso. I had some of this .5" upholstery padding laying around so I starting cutting and gluing together open top foam boxes with contact adhesive. It literally feels like a weight has been lifted off my chest.

Following! Did you find a pair of pants with no back pockets? Every avenue I've gone down with this idea seems to come to a dead end. Even the pants with the barely visible slit pockets seem to extend past the butt flap on the sides.

Not sure if you are doing your own soft parts/sewing, but Pandatrooper's WIP came in handy for the anti-cameltoe cod for me. He added a piece of thin plastic between layers of the lower cod padding to help it keep it's shape. Mine is not approved yet, but I followed suit and did the same thing with a piece of scrap HIPS plastic. I'm sure you could achieve the same thing with something else laying around the house. Like maybe a piece of bucket plastic or something.

I just started to customize mine. Hubcaps.

Thanks. Just looking for a vest though. I was toying with the idea of making a bund from a stretchy white cotton twill. I wonder if using the same fabric in black would add some stretch to the vest. Maybe even just the front or back portion being made of stretchy stuff would suffice.

I see on his Etsy page that delivery to the US with FedEx is estimated at 2 weeks. I assume that's wishful thinking coming from Bolivia.

I see folks here have had good things to say about Chef's products. Know anything about Kriptontop's stuff?

As I'm wrapping up this build using the conventional methods my thoughts are starting to turn towards future wearability improvements. First on my list is the bund. I have a relatively broad barrel chest (wider than my belly) and the bund being basically a 9" tall symmetrical tube that meets in the back caused me to have to make a pinch/tuck behind the pouches. For the most part this solved my fitment issue and the tuck/pinch is hidden behind the pouches. The only issue here is that now the bund sits lower in the back. I guess I could re-make this and go through the painstaking task of trying to figure out perfect geometry with my torso and waist....but idea. I'm a motorcyclist and I've always hated the fact that most properly sized jeans/pants don't have any give to them. This is especially annoying when throwing a leg over the seat to get on/off the bike. A few years back I tried a pair of Duluth Fire-Hose Stretch work pants and fell in love with them for motorcycling. Sturdy cotton pants infused with some spandex for stretch. I started looking at fabrics that have this same makeup 97% Cotton / 3% spandex. Now I'm thinking cummerbund. I wonder if using this kind of fabric would have enough stretch to make the bottom fit properly and just have the top stretch enough to make it around my rib-cage/chest area without having to worry about complicated patterns and/or making tucks/pinches to achieve a proper fit. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FD63RT5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It's possible the inspiration came from some sort of sporting good related shoulder pads. They (prop makers, costume builders) may have had an initial purpose for those lips that was eventually scrapped later on. I know (from personal experience) back in the 70's, 80's & 90's a lot of ice hockey gear that had plastic caps over the shoulders, elbows, knees etc.. had lips on them with tiny holes drilled along the perimeter that were used to pass a stitch through to a softer foam or fabric protective garment underneath. Maybe even motocross pads...who knows if they were purpose built for the costume or repurposed from something else. Kinda fun to think/debate about it though.

It's also possible that the shoulder bell was a re-purposed component from something completely unrelated.

The only one that seems to be currently making them on the vendor section is Steph. Her version is basically of t-shirt material construction. I may go that route but I'd prefer something a little more substantial.

Anyone have a good recommendation on a vest maker? This one may be beyond my abilities. This thing is like another Denise Huxtable masterpiece.

Flak vest fail. I made the arms too short. Tried letting one sleeve out a bit bit still too short and not enough material to bring it out any more. Lessons learned I guess. Round-2.

I'm about the same height as you. I made mine a little bit taller at 9.5 inches. I have a full 2 inches tucked under the chest/back armor and maybe 1 to 1.5 inches behind the belt. Like I said previously. It would seem from some of the photos I see on here that this is not all that uncommon. I cleared it with my GML. I just wonder if I eventually take the extra steps to try and get lancer approval down the road if this should be a cause for concern.

I'm confused on the "just under the chest armor down to the belt" wording in the CRL. I see so many 501st and Lancer approved scout build photos on here that have the bund tucked behind both the armor and belt. I asked my GML about this. He said it looks fine either way, just as long as it's not poking out from underneath the belt. What say you veteran scouts?

I think this boils down to how you want it to fit. So engineer it for what works best for you. I made my bund in such a way that 2" of it tucks underneath my chest/back armor. So I put 2" velcro for the pouches on the front of the bund with corresponding velcro on the pouch attachment flaps. The opposite side of my bund has 2" velcro as well with corresponding velcro on the undersuit. This keeps it from slipping down from underneath the armor without the need for any other kind of suspension system.

I ran into that too early on. You need to use a site like photobucket, imgr or flickr to host your images, then you just plop the provided link here on the forum and it will display in the thread.