[woobiee] 1st and New build! (Lancer probably)

[woobiee]

Happy September! I can't believe Halloween is just around the corner -- I gotta hustle with my build!

So here is some progress. I have to say the chest/back armor has been the most difficult part of this entire project thus far!

I trimmed the shoulder bridges a bit because of my smaller frame. I also had to remold them to fit my shoulder's contours better. I initially tried using the hair dryer method because of the weathering already applied but it barely did anything. So I resorted to the hot water method but carefully only poured hot water on the inner surface to preserve the paint work.

The chest armor is still sitting a little back heavy and my remedy is to secure the chest to my body with some velcro, preventing it from rotating towards the back. I can see it rotate forward by about half an inch.

Should I put velcro on the top center of my bund to interface with the chest armor at the bottom front lip? Or is there another location that'd be better to secure the chest armor to my torso? I feel like having velcro on the back my be difficult for me to dress/undress.

As for the shoulder bells, they are currently just wedged in there to get placement right. One question I have is if they look a little too large for me? Should I trim just the lower part of it or trim all the way around?

I know my vest sleeves are too long/wide and I will adjust them once the shoulder bells are fitted.

On a separate note, I made my pouches sit a bit tidier by remaking the inner boxes out of white EVA foam.

Cheers!

[Chopper]

Hi Andy -- I wouldn't put the velcro on the bund to keep your chest armor from sliding. Try putting it on your flak vest instead. You can add some velcro around the lower-ish portions of the front shoulder straps and add some velcro around the same place on your vest.

Your bells don't look crazy large, maybe a little bit. You're certainly ok for basic clearance right now.

Reference your bells vs the photos below. If you want to make an adjustment, I'd try and match the current line around the bottom and trim no-more than 1/2".

[woobiee]

10 hours ago, Chopper said:

Hi Andy -- I wouldn't put the velcro on the bund to keep your chest armor from sliding. Try putting it on your flak vest instead. You can add some velcro around the lower-ish portions of the front shoulder straps and add some velcro around the same place on your vest.

Your bells don't look crazy large, maybe a little bit. You're certainly ok for basic clearance right now.

Reference your bells vs the photos below. If you want to make an adjustment, I'd try and match the current line around the bottom and trim no-more than 1/2".

Good deal Chopper. I'll try the velcro near the front shoulders and on the vest. And for the bells, I'll start out removing 1/4" from the bottom first before going all in.

[woobiee]

Took some off of the shoulder bells. I think 1/4" did the trick!

Electrical tape worked well here!

Trimmed on the right [my left shoulder]. Original on the left [my right shoulder]

[Chopper]

You're steadily getting to the finish line. Keep it up, Andy.

[woobiee]

I spent time this weekend on a few things!

First, I finished trimming the other shoulder bell. The photo has my chest armor rotating back again and will address with velcro in the near future.

Next I made some shoulder bridge covers with velcro, replacing the originals that were super glued.




Finally, after months of sewing, I built up courage to resolve my on-going issue of having difficulty bending and sitting. I made a back panel out of spandex around my waist area. It's not the prettiest thing but it does the job and is hidden by the bund/belt/TD. This helped tremendously in the bending/sitting department!

The next bulk of work will be properly mounting the shoulder bells to the chest armor, alter the flak vest sleeves, and solving the chest armor sliding/rotation issue.

[Chopper]

Great job, Andy.

[woobiee]

I forgot to ask in the post....is there a special technique to remove the TD endcaps for modification? I remember @AradunFF removing it but damaged one of them, and I don't recall him explaining how he removed it.

[Chopper]

Before you go and remove the end caps on the detonator, can you show us a close up photo of what they look like?

[woobiee]

38 minutes ago, Chopper said:

Before you go and remove the end caps on the detonator, can you show us a close up photo of what they look like?

Sure thing!

If I had to guess, it isn't concave enough but if it is, that'd be less work for me!

[Chopper]

Yeah, it could stand to get a little bit more of an indent, but not much. I'd try using a hairdryer and a hard rubber ball to try and get a bit more indent, before attempting to rip them off. I know they're glued on pretty well, so the risk of damage is something to be concerned about.

See images below for screen used det caps.

[woobiee]

Thanks Chopper. Originally I thought of the same method as you mentioned...doing the modifications on the TD itself. But correct me if I'm wrong but the endcaps are sitting on top of the tube...meaning if I try pressing a ball in the middle, it won't really do much because the tube is impeding the endcap from concaving? I figured I will have to do the opposite: heat it up and then lift the outer circumference away from the center, creating the concave center?

[Chopper]

If that's the way it's rigged up, then yes, that would be true. You could try heating it a bit with the hair dryer and try to see if that'll ease the glue up a bit. I suspect that they used superglue though, so heat isn't going to effect the bond much.

[MikerScout]

I had to tweak my chest armor near my shoulder.  I was able to put it in boiling water long enough to soften the ABS for the bend and the E6000 on the strap didn't let go.  Just a thought

[Aradun]

Hey Andy, I can tell you that the RS TD tube is filled with what appears to be foam insulation, so the cap is mounted to a fairly flat surface. No amount of heat and pressure from a tennis ball will get the center of the cap to go in while it’s mounted to the TD.

I was able to remove one cap, but the second cap cracked. It was glued on pretty solid. I’m fairly certain they used some CA glue. The residue on my TD once the cap was removed was pretty hard. You could try using a hair dryer on a high setting to see if you can get the glue to soften up a bit, but it may take some time. Then gently try to twist and pry the cap off.

I DID NOT try this myself, but if they don’t seem to budge, you MIGHT be able to heat the cap with a hairdryer, place the tennis ball on a table, center the cap over the ball and firmly push the edge of the cap down toward the table to make it a little concave. You’ll definitely need to keep your pressure even so that the cap doesn’t end up looking warped where one side of the cap is pushed down more than the other.

Before you try this let [Mention]Chopper[/Mention] weigh in on whether this method has any merit.

[Chopper]

The best advice I can give you is to try and see if a little bit of heat will loosen the caps. Be gentle. If they don't loosen, just leave them as is.

[woobiee]

Thanks guys. I probably won't touch the caps until near the end of the build anyway. But I'm compelled to do it eventually because of level 2 approvals.

[woobiee]

Hello all! Back with some progress!

From top to bottom:

• As the photo would indicate, I'm working on the snout piece for the Ukswrath audio system. Been waiting for the ABS sheet to come in to fashion a backplate. The internal wiring has been done already and documentation photos will soon follow!
• My balaclava came in -- one thing off my list!
• Chest piece is still giving me some issues with how it's sitting. Going to keep tweaking it until it's better
• Still figuring out proper placement of the shoulder bells. It seem sometimes they look fine, and other times like here they still look too big.
• Got my flak vest sleeves shortened by 0.5" and the sleeve circumference lowered by a good 2" Do they still look a little too flared out?
• Added velcro to mount the bicep armor in place
• Shortened the elastic on the forearm armor by 0.5"
• Added velcro to mount the knee armor in place
• Added leg stirrups to keep the legs neat and tidy

Question on the gauntlets: do these look too flared out to pass level 2?

[Chopper]

Hi Andy,

As far as the photos you've posted, I think your chest plate and shoulder bells look really good.

For your vest sleeves, I don't think they're particularly flared, but you might want to bring the inside hem edge up a bit if you can. See photo. Otherwise, don't worry about it.

Leave the gloves be for now.

[woobiee]

With my flak vest sleeves being worked on and the ABS sheet finally arrived, I spent time today finishing up the helmet.

As mentioned I decided to try out Ukswrath's snout as it seems to be the best solution in keeping everything in one neat package inside the helmet.

First was adding velcro to the battery pack and finding a decent location within the helmet to mount to. With how bulbus the rear of the helmet is, I had to mount it a bit higher than I would have liked. The only inconvenience here is that I have to reach a bit higher to get to the on/off/volume switch.

Next was to route and mount the wiring inside. I was in luck and had a bunch of these velcro cable ties laying around. These were just perfect for the job! 

And this is how it was before mounting the snout

I found that using the elastic on the helmet around the cheek area to secure the microphone worked quite well.

Here is the original snout from RS compared to Ukswrath's snout and a backplate I made using the original as a template. Overall, Ukswrath's snout is just a touch larger. The bypass hole for the wiring is 1/4"

New snout painted and routed through the face cover. I used grey primer spray paint for the base with a touch of black spray for some weathering.

Snout wired up.

Wiring routed and mounted using more velcro cable ties.

Ukswrath now provides a piece of foam to insulate the speaker in order to prevent audio feedback. It worked quite well and for the most part I can crank the volume all the way up. More testing is required though.

One more thing check off of the list!

[Chopper]

Looks great Andy!

[Aradun]

I’ll second that! Great job bud!

[woobiee]

Today I'm going to tackle the weathering the boots and attaching the holster. I've looked over everything I could here with holster placement but still have a question!

I suspect the holster was not designed for my smaller frame. If the holster is aligned squared onto the side of the boot (I'm presuming it should be?), the back of the holster bleeds into the boot opening (which I presume is a no no). Would it be okay if I scooted the holster forward a bit in order to clear the back boot opening? By doing this, it won't be squarely aligned to the boot. Or do I have to start trimming to get it small enough?

 

[Chopper]

Andy, the way you have the holster positioned in your photos is a-ok. No need to do any trimming or further re-orientation.

[woobiee]

Andy, the way you have the holster positioned in your photos is a-ok. No need to do any trimming or further re-orientation.

Hmm. So as of now, the rivets will be going through the velcro opening on the back is okay?


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