greenyone

I ran into the same issue. Putting the tactical helmet padding up top had me looking at the snout instead of out of the eye lens. I used a welding helmet liner instead. My helmet is pretty much resting on the top of my head with this setup, but I can see and it's secure on my head. I CA glued vecro (hooks) to the top strap and to the forehead portion of the welding strap/liner with corresponding velcro (loops) adhered to the inside of the helmet. No fans installed yet.

If you can sew, I'd suggest using a pair of pants that fit as a pattern to fabricate a pair of custom pants from scratch with a higher waste. If I can ever wrap my head around operating this sewing machine without bleeding and creating giant balls of tangled thread I may attempt that myself. Seeing how you are in a chair, maybe just finding black pants that fit would be sufficient enough for general approval. As for a shirt that mimics the concealed zip front that most of the coveralls/flight-suits have, I came across this: https://www.firsttactical.com/products/mens-tactix-series-long-sleeve-bdu-shirt I would guess the lapels can be easily flipped with a flap added to create the choker style mandarin collar that most sew on to the commonly used RedKap suits.

I've been exploring this idea from day 1 of my build. Ultimately gave up. I decided to find pants with removable pockets...which led me to cargo style pants with external pockets that can easily be seem ripped away. But after trying the pants on with the armor in mind I came to the conclusion that the plastic faux utility belt portion of the armor kit actually rides above the waist line of the cargo pants. Which means you'll have a waist line visible if wearing the belt and cummerbund in their recommended locations on your body. I think the lady TB's probably have an easier time with the 2 piece suit. Finding womens pants in black with no pockets and high waistlines doesn't seem to be a problem.

Assuming by 'suit' you are referring to the hard armor pieces. My guess would be that all of the vendors on here who make and sell armor started off the way you are suggesting...which is sculpt armor molds (from clay, foam, plaster, resin, 3D prints, etc.) using dimensions gathered by referencing movie stills, other replica props or even information gathered from actual screen used costumes. Then turning those sculptures/molds into re-usable templates (bucks) for reproduction using commercially available plastic sheets and the thermo-vac molding process.

Sorry, I don't have a .pdf file. There is a topic/thread in the soft parts area of the forum with the dimensions shown in photo, but I don't see a downloadable .pdf file for the pattern. I just used the photo as a reference to recreate the pattern in a CAD/CAM program for use in cutting them out on a desktop CNC router. Forum user DK5IDE created the pattern. Maybe you can ask him if he has that image in .pdf format.

For the scout trooper belts? Probably not. I think most use a traditional belt made of cotton webbing. That stuff usually comes in a roll of pre-made widths that you just cut to length. If you are referring to the cummerbund and cod piece.. then yes. I don't see why not.

Putting this here for posterity. I really love the old pants fabric I used for the pouches. It's not super heavy like full on canvas or duck cloth, but heavier than most white fabrics that I came across at the fabric store. I had luck finding this stuff at a Joann store. It's pretty much a spot on match to the old pants fabric. Nice thickness, just the right amount of sheen without being shiny and it's not opaque/transparent like most white fabrics. https://www.joann.com/drill-fabric-40-white/15782204.html

Really pleased with how my pouches turned out. Making these rigid plastic pattern tracing templates made it so easy for a novice sewing machine operator. I'll probably use the same method on the bund lines and cod instead of trusting my ability to use a ruler with any kind of consistency.

I'd say you can probably salvage the boxes by taking and inch out of the top, but you'll probably have to re-make the flap. You mentioned velcro for the chest/bund....I'd like to see photos on how you did that,

I think I've exhausted everything I can make/sew without having an armor kit on hand. I really need to see where the parts will end up on my body before sewing riding patches, making a bund/cod etc.. With that in mind and after much debating on which vendor kit to buy I decided on entrusting the job to Jeff at Studio Creations. I'm really pleased with my MC bucket and was leaning toward using Cal's armor kit too.... but some other scouts in my garrison talked me into the SC kit....for no other reason than the SC stuff seems to be available at any time without having to wait for a kit run.....and the ease of getting replacement parts when/if something is damaged beyond repair. Looking forward to getting this kit in hand and wrapping this project up.

My friends and I have a endurance racing car and we use a product called a cool-shirt while doing our 2 hour driving stints. It has veins in the shirt that are hooked up to a 12v pump that sits in a cooler full of ice and water. It's phenomenal!!! They do make more portable but very expensive costume version for film/fx use but you'd have to have a liquid filled pouch hidden somewhere to feed the shirt. Maybe in the back hump? Anyway...It would be a fun project to retro-fit something like that into a costume.....but ice-gel packs are probably the most simple solution.

I just recently made my pouches from an old pair of US Navy white cotton uniform pants. This was intended to be a practice run using what I had on hand but they turned out so nice that I went in search of a similar fabric to make the bund/cod. The pants a fairly heavy cotton but not as thick as a full on canvas. I must have flipped through 50 bolts of fabric at a local JoAnn store trying to find something similar. Most whites are fairly thin/transparent and true canvas is just so thick and heavy. Like others have said, canvas is probably fine for the pouches, but maybe a bit heavy for the bund itself. The only one I came across at the fabric store that was somewhere in the middle was something called "BRND DRILL 40 White Sku 400157822041". https://www.joann.com/drill-fabric-40-white/15782204.html

Find some freezable gel packs that fit within the voids of your chest and back armor for those oppressively hot troops.

Pouches fitted with CNC cut .125" styrene boxes .

I made a pouch today......barely bled at all and only broke one needle!!!

I've been slacking on this build as of late. Anyway turning attention to other items I can make without having my armor kit in hand to size things up I'm going to attempt to make some 5x6 bund pouches. Again digging into my old stash of US Navy uniforms I came across a couple pairs of heavy cotton white bell bottom uniform pants. Not enough material for the bund itself, but certainly enough to make up the pouches. I have a small desktop CNC machine on hand so I decided I'd make some pattern tracing templates from some 1/16 inch ABS plastic sheet instead of trying to transfer a paper template to fabric. My sewing skills are still in adolescent stage, so hopefully having an accurate pattern making tool helps me along.

I transferred DK5IDE's template into CAD and cut out plastic stencils on a CNC table. Makes for an easy way to mark up fabric for cutting and sewing. I'm hoping this gives a better cut and sew guide than I'm able to perform by pinning paper or using a ruler and a fabric pencil. If my sewing skills would catch up to my cad-cam skills I'd be good at this costume building thing.

It took me all day, but I think I got this coverall fitted. In hindsight I should have bought a smaller size. I basically took 2 inches out of this thing from the legs all the way up to the arm cuffs.

My sewing skills summed up = Gordon Gartrell shirt

Whipped up a proper display stand on my little CNC table to proudly display my finished bucket.

The roto-cast MC bucket does not lend itself well to internal padding. I think there are two reasons here. 1st being the irregular surface area on the inside of the dome from the resin roto-casting. Some areas have a build up of resin creating high spots (very large peaks in places). Without grinding them down (and risking damaging the dome) it's very difficult to find areas where the stick on velcro will sit flat for good adhesion. I tried and didn't have much luck. It's very difficult to get any kind of mechanical grinding tool in there to smooth things out. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I decided to try other things. 2nd is the height of the crown/dome itself. Other helmet photos I've stared at seem to indicate that the dome should be a bit taller (creating more space for the crown of a human head). Anyway, I was able to attach a welding liner to the helmet by attaching velcro to both the helmet and liner in enough places to make things work. There is no padding at the very top of the helmet with my setup. When test fitting I found that if I put a pad at the top of the helmet (or left air space above the liner) my eyes are not centered very well in the lens....meaning I was trying to look past the bottom of the lens with the ABS face-plate obstructing my view. Removing the pad and basically letting the bucket rest on the top of my head is the only way my eyes were centered in the lens. Understandably everybody has different head shapes, but I have a relatively small noggin. So this particular helmet may be a cause for concern for those with large heads. I don't have experience with any other TB helmets to make a comparison, but I'd guess an all ABS Thermo-Vac-Formed version being much thinner would give a bit more leeway in fitting padding/liners.

Oh. Here is a link to the knurled nuts I used. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RN1MZ98/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Looks like yours is an MC helmet? I just put one together and you're right. Nothing about costume helmets is strait/symmetrical/parallel. Unlike a big name sports or motorcycle helmet these are more of a 'close enough' approach. Which I'm sure is similar to the actual screen used helmets. So there will be some unavoidable stress on the visor when tilting it up. Personally I only plan on opening mine the minimum amount to get my head in there which hopefully will make it last a long time without stressing/cracking. I took a grinder to the square portion of my MC supplied elevator bolts and kept the visor holes round. They sit nice and flush without having to much around with making the holes square. And like 762s suggested, I put some spacers between the visor and bucket to space out the parts. I just used some hardware store bougth black nylon washers I had in a spares bin from another project. And I replaced the wing nuts with these knurled nuts that should be a bit less painful if they are to contact the side of your head.

Dry enough. Assembled with decals. Just need to install some padding or a welding helmet head strap thingy to keep in securely on my noggin.

All painted up. Now to wait a day or two for it to all cure/harden up before assembly and decals. Still need to put some thought into padding.