Worst

TB-42987 reporting for duty. Got my clearance yesterday. Thank you all for your support!

Ok, everything is "finished" (I hope). I have preliminary suit up pictures and plan to do a full shoot for submission next week with better lighting. My wife didn't notice that the tank was askew/off-center but you get the general idea. ETA: I have a strap in the boot with the holster, but I think I might add some additional velcro there to keep it from sliding down.

Thermal detonator complete. Used rivets and the "sink downpipe" method of attaching the caps. I tried super glue but ultimately restored to hot glue. Seems to have held pretty well:

Big day for fitment. I finally have most of the pieces to be able to do a full suit up. I also am almost done with the TD (just need to put the clips on) Here are some "almost there" shots to see what I need to do yet. This is what I am aware of and will be correcting for final: Shoulder bells still don't have the 1/4" elastic strap so they flop forward in the photos. Straps are still missing the elastic, easy fix Velcro to keep the bund/pouches from sliding down Velcro on the knee armor to keep it from sliding down as well Pull the cod up a bit Remove clip in favor of velcro on the elastic of the cod I'm also likely going to affix the hard hat liner with industrial sticky velcro since the gaffers tape doesn't hold more than a troop's worth of time Any additional feedback is welcome

Phew, what rough a couple of months. I was pushing really hard to hit that May 3rd date Hospital troop and burned myself out a little bit. Took a hiatus and life threw a couple of curve balls. Thanks @Aradun for the gentle nudge to get back at it. Took some time today to take stock of what was left to do and get moving on a few things. I'm going to try to wrap up the TD today and I finally got around to putting the pin-striping on the tank. I'm targeting JFO scout at some point so I went for the 4 rank bars + trap.

Thanks @Chopper, Took it a little bit further but I'm happy with where it is at. It should be good enough for approval. I plan to add some velcro on the inside of the armor to help keep it from sliding horizontally and maintain pressure on the elastic (though I suspect my back will do that naturally). That should help maintain position and general flopping. See the one I did on the inside bottom of the tank:

More progress, I'm getting comfortable, which is probably dangerous but I've gotten into a good place with the tank and belt. There is definitely some refinement especially in how the tank sits against the armor but again, I'm feeling pretty good about my first pass:

Pro Tip for anyone trying to put holes in their polyester strapping/elastic: If you don't care about the tip, soldering irons make great holes and seal the edges.

Got to step away for a bit today and knock out a couple more things. Last week I was able to add the Cod (though I still need to finish it as it's currently just tucked under the bund) The base is EVA craft foam from Michael's and the top is about 6 layers of medium weight batting. Today I worked on the tank. I think I'm really close and am just going to go for it, as I feel like I need the elastic to start working out how it will sit on the back armor. I also shaped the belt and attached the webbing straps. Should mostly be finishes at this point. My Friday is pretty wide open so I'm hoping I can knock everything except maybe the holster out.

I should have mentioned. Those are unfinished. I was hoping to measure the bells once they were in a good spot. Thank you though for the positive feedback!! I'm super excited

Finished up the bells and a few of the arm pieces, so I figured I'd do another suit up to see how everything was fitting before continuing. I've finished up the other arm armor and should be moving on to the belt, tank and holster soon. I think I'm going to do a small detour to finish up the rest of my soft goods. I'm hoping I can knock them out by EOW. That should put me in a position where I can hopefully wrap up before I leave on a trip in April.

No feedback needed, just proof that despite finding out that 15mm furniture screw hole covers are the perfect size white circles, these are in fact painted. This is acrylic model paint from Testors. I took a toothpick along the red line to clean it up a bit. On the white dot I used a liberal amount of paint and let surface tension do the rest.

Thanks Don! I'll see if I can track one of those down. In the mean time, I started finishing the chest armor. I tried to be a little conservative on the edges knowing that I can take them in further once it's assembled. It seems like this process is easier once everything is in place and I can see what looks off. I definitely don't want to take any more off the front straps, those seemed to short by design and I took them as far I felt comfortable (enough to get rid of where the plastic kicked back up.) So far, fit seems pretty good.

These photos are fantastic. I'm hoping to tackle this next so I'll keep this in mind. Thank you!

A day late but here is the mockup for the tank. Before I go cutting, and since it feels like I could really do damage, here is my plan. This is rough, I just wanted to make sure everything looked like it was in the appropriate place. i'll probably under-cut these and use the dremel/sander to refine.

Everything is assembled on the bucket. As with most projects, I see all the flaws. But I think standing back 5 feet and putting my feelings aside I'm am extremely happy with how it turned out. The end is nigh. I plan on mocking up cuts for my tank today and posting a picture. I have a rough idea of how I want to approach it.

Snout and lens aren't permanently affixed. I ordered the welding shield everyone seems to use as my lens is a bit on the green side. The decals, minus the black lines, are also in place.

Uhg what a trip, I had so much trouble painting the black background today. First run, the tape wasn't down well enough AND the ink came off the newspaper I used on the white of my faceplate. I thoroughly messed up the finish doing that. So I messed with it all day trying to make it work. Ultimately I sanded a repainted. This time I made a sheet of painters tape on some wax paper and cut out the pattern. It still didn't turn out as clean as I wanted it but I think I have to call it good enough.

Did a tape up of where I think the black background should go on the snout. Feedback welcome:

The video is so insanely helpful. Hopefully I can (once approved) assist in any future education efforts. I'm hoping I can compile this thread down into a site or PDF when I'm done. One of our garrison mates did that with his TK and it's just fantastic reference material.

Had an epiphany after watching @BikerScout007's armor video (Mickey I know the joke at the end was probably a tongue in cheek reference to the fact that the soft goods are too much for a video, but we need to make soft goods videos happen [emoji23]). Anyways, I digress. I may skip doing the acrylic since I was a bit worried about the surface finish and instead use the snout decal provided in my decals. There is more than enough material there to fit the chest dent (I don't know its scientific name). If that doesn't work out I can fall back to painting

Ok, you win @Retrofire. I moved the strap up ever so slightly in the back and tightened it a bit (they are not stretched taut). I think it turned out great! I hope you guys do too. I also got some acrylic paint for the indent in the chest armor. I'm leaning toward the "Slate Grey" over the "Dark gray" since that is pretty close to the same color as the snout/bolts

Thanks @Aradun. If you think it's passable as it stands I'll move forward. I just don't want to get to submission and then have to redo it. Though it's likely the same amount of work, either way. Let me get the second one on and aligned (this is the important part) and we'll see how it looks. If the rain lets up this week at all I'll try to finish the bucket, otherwise I'll get moving on armor.

I might change my opinion on that and redo it after I finish the second leg. But that's how it goes right? [emoji6]

Yeah. I was actually worried it wasn't loose enough. It has a little play but is flat against the leg in most positions. That does help for round 2, I was going to try to let that one out ever so slightly but I won't do that