Worst

I have a 7 Cat Studios helmet and a CFO armor kit. The helmet should be ready for final paint and the armor needs work at this point.

Dave Kreyling was my advisor through academy for my TI reserve. @haringjr and @Aradun have been super helpful though as I've taken on the Scout. Don and I have put a lot of time in together on my helmet.

Hey Bill, Don mentioned your thread and I wanted to pop in to say keep up the good work! I'm a fellow Carida member, and a fellow Bill! I've been dragging on my build and this has been super inspiring. Looking forward to trooping with you in the future.

Made a bit more progress on the boots today. Not much but every little bit helps. I'm going to try to start identifying days to tackle some of the bigger projects as soon as things slow down at work.

I'm back! The cold really started to take the steam out of my projects. Couldn't paint, and it was a bit too cold to be in the garage finishing the armor. Plus I lost access to my friends sewing machine. We're back at it, and a new sewing machine has been acquired. I'm still going to order paint in the hope that I can find somewhere warm enough to finish the helmet. I am ordering RAL 9010 from Crosslink as that was recommended as what RS props uses. Today I got started working on the boots again and should be able to glue them up this week

Thanks! Glad it is helpful. I also watched the RS props YouTube playlist probably 30 times. They used CA glue and did more with the ABS paste. I used 2 part epoxy and should have used more at the start. I ended up having to go back and reglue with CA several times throughout the process. I'd definitely advise finding someone in your garrison to help guide as that's been invaluable.

It's been a minute and I'm continuing to make progress. I moved over to white sandable primer and am getting close to ready for final paint I think:

I have a cheapy from Amazon that my wife got me for my birthday one year. Here was my experience and I'll state, your mileage may vary (though it sounds like your experience has been the same). I'll also preface that I'm still very much learning. Using the sewing machine was a nice simple introduction to how to operate a sewing machine. It has one stitch type and the thread that came with it was garbage. I could not for the life of me understand how to get the tension dialed in. But got it to work ok for some test pieces. I quickly found someone who was willing to lend me their much more expensive (comparatively) machine. The difference was night and day. What took me an hour on the cheap machine took me minutes on the more expensive one. I still have no idea what I'm doing with the tensioner but it is wayyyy more forgiving. My takeaway follows a similar experience I had skateboarding. If you buy the cheapest equipment, you won't just be learning a new skill, you'll also be learning around the shortcomings of the equipment. In the case of skateboarding a cheap board isn't just more difficult, it's more dangerous. But, at the same time, there's a point where no matter how much you spend. You still need to learn the skill. Ultimately it's your call. It sounds like hand sewing might be worth it for just a few items. For me I'll probably buy a much nicer machine if my friend doesn't want to continue to lend me theirs. Im also planning on doing most of my soft parts so the investment is a no brainer

It kinda feels like cheating 🤣

Took another trip up to see @haringjr. We (well mostly he 😅) made great progress on the bucket. Everything is fitted nicely, the ears are cut and the indexing is cut to have the visor snap into an upright position. We glazed, bondo-ed and sanded it as well as put on the first coat of filler primer. Ignore the small blob of CA glue. We needed to fill a few holes we didn't notice once we got the paint on. Many thanks again to Don for his help. I'm so excited about how this is turning out.

Thanks @Chopper. I know I'm probably overthinking it so this gives me some more confidence to proceed

@Fox In my thread @Aradun mentioned that a lot of people have this issue. I'm not sure if there are any tweaks you could make but it definitely seems common. I'm still on the fence so I'd be interested to see what you decide to do.

This is going to be a large post so I'm going to make these images small in the post. Hopefully it isn't too overwhelming. But I could use another input from the community. I started "finishing" my armor pieces but I think I'm being a little on the cautious side. So am I leaving too much of a return edge? Do these look ok to move forward? I mostly don't want to get caught up in minute details that aren't super visible since they will be mostly pushed against the fabric of the flight suit. Forearm: Knee:

It's been a slow week but I made a bit more progress fusing and cleaning up the visor. Additionally I received my Endor Finders gloves (thanks @iceknyght ). I like the fit so I went right ahead and removed the zipper from one and am getting started on the other

2 Updates! The Helmet is locked in place and ready for finishing. I'm very happy with how clean the lines came out and once the bolts were added it evened out some of the gap I had between the visor and the main bucket. Update #2 I started rough trimming my armor. Everything should be within 1/8" of the trim lines. There are some that I'm a little unsure about but from what I'm gathering: get it close and it wont be noticeable if it's ever so slightly under/over the trim line. I'm moving in little increments now but will probably post up for the trickier pieces like the chest/back plates and the tank. A Request: If anyone knows of a forum post where people discuss how to rivet the speedglas(or equivalent) head band into the helmet, I'm having a heck of a time finding one

Took the dive and commited to setting things in place. I'm pretty happy with the outcome. I know they don't go together perfectly but I feel like the lines are consistent and clean. Next up, epoxying the visor in place with additional supports, then bondo, sand and paint.

Small Update. After gluing, breaking, gluing, breaking, adjusting, gluing, ad nauseum, I think I'm in a good spot with the visor. Now to set it all in place.

Finally got a chance to meet up with @haringjr and put some time into the helmet. We didn't get as far as we'd have liked but we're getting closer. One major thing we did was sure up the center seam with more epoxy. I'm glad to have had Don's eyes on it since I'm very certain the paint would have cracked immediately once applied. The TL;DR is that there was quite a bit of an air gap between the plastic and the underlying support piece. This was leading to cracking along the seam and it was a bit squishy. Not so much any more after we drilled out all the plastic and re-epoxied We also got most of the pieces shaped for assembly of the visor/face. We've been fighting with the assembly and fitting to the helmet ever since. I plan to continue that process tomorrow and hope to make good progress because I feel like we are very close.

Helmet Build - Part 1 Fusing the halves The scariest part of the build was putting down the first permanent peice. Here I experimented using magnets to help align the main support. I used a 2 part epoxy to affix most of the parts inside the bucket, with a few being CA glue gel. I got smart and went to Harbor Freight and bought a bag of clamps I had to redo the front brim of the bucket a couple times because I hadn't gotten enough epoxy in to make a good connection. But in the end I think it came out with a nice curve. Once everything was glued up and set overnight, I started working on my ABS welding. My first pass was really rough and left a lot of pits. But it sanded up decent Finally one more pass with a slightly thinner ABS slurry and a loooooooot of sanding While I'm still not totally satisfied with the back, I know theres lots of sanding and shaping still to come. And I'd like to get it out into the sunlight for better inspection.

@haringjrI'm definitely following the Lancer thread but from what I could tell, that one doesn't show off the trimming process. Something that the one I posted does very well.

It's here! Let the trimming begin! I'm also aware that I got a couple extras, which im very much appreciative of. A side note I found this CfO/Strider thread that seems to be exactly what I need https://forum.501stpathfinders.com/topic/19607-sibbel29%E2%80%99s-stridercfo-armor-built-topic/ Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

My order came up for my CfO armor kit. Once received in the next few days, I plan to follow @Strider's Lancer thread to build. Here's photos I hope he doesn't mind me sharing to the thread of the pulls before shipping. Thanks again Mark!

@haringjr I think he just means: same thread, new posts within this thread. Rather than me going back and updating the same post over and over. Which doesn't trigger notifications. I'm happy to organize it however. I was just trying to make it easier to come back to later and have a single post for each portion of the build Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

Thanks Dennis, I'll do that. I was trying to keep it consolidated to so that the like posts could get grouped together and I could have a single post to refer back to, but I can just link to each update too.

Updated the bucket post, I started to prep for the initial glue up of the helmet body. I've also started cutting my support strips, making a little bit of ABS slurry and gathered all of my materials.