Daryl's Anovos ANH Stunt TK Build

[daryldoak]

I took the tape off of the left thigh and I noticed a gap under the cover strip that I'm really not happy about.  I can push the cover strip down so it's not made a good seal.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

It might not be a huge deal, but I think with the pressure that will be needed to close the back of the thigh, and the fact that I know it's something I'll never be happy about, I'm going to pull it apart tonight, clean it up, and re-glue it.

Really glad I used E6000.

[daryldoak]

Didn't have time to accomplish much today.

After all my magnets were free from the right thigh I re-glued the left thigh.  I'm crossing my fingers that it turns out better this time.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Then I decided to drill the holes for my brackets.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Next, I drilled the holes for the left side rivets.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Finally, I drilled and installed the ab right side male snap.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

[maxsteele]

Hey Daryl!  Looks like your build is going along great!  I love that you took the paint off the frown and re-painted it.   And you'll love the TKittell belt.  Keep at it and keep us posted!

[daryldoak]

Hey Daryl!  Looks like your build is going along great!  I love that you took the paint off the frown and re-painted it.   And you'll love the TKittell belt.  Keep at it and keep us posted!

Thanks Ron!

[daryldoak]

Left thigh front turned out much better the second time.

So, onto another leg piece.  This time gluing the left shin front.  Used all my magnet to ensure a good seal. 

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Next I decided to make my bicep hooks.  I followed the tutorial on FISD.  I measure and cut some scrap ABS, make the measurements, then used my heat gun and a metal ruler to make the bends.

After I made the first one I realized it would only work on the left bicep (with the thumbprint), so for the second one I didn't make the lower two bends. 

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Last I decided to drill the cod rivet hole.

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[daryldoak]

Didn't do much tonight, but I made a little progress.

I removed the bottom return edge on the sniper knee.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

I painted all the bracket screws and some rivets.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Then I glued the front of my right shin.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Waiting 24 hours for each seam is tough, but I only have enough magnets to do one long section at a time.

[daryldoak]

Day 17

I got impatient with Anovos so I went out and bought an undersuit at Big-5 today.  I felt I really couldn't progress any further on the legs without it.

So with the undersuit I was able to fit and trim my thighs.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

And glue them both.  Since the back seam is much shorter than the front I had enough magnets.  I also trimmed the large sharp points off the tops, which made the back more angled for comfort.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Next, I made three straps for the left ab-kidney connection.  I made them 3" for now.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Then I glued the 2" wide shoulder elastic onto the back.

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And glued in the bicep hooks.

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And finally, I painted my ab buttons.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Tomorrow I plan to fit and trim the shins.

[daryldoak]

Today's update.

Attached the holster to the belt, using measurements from FISD.  Had to enlarge the lower holes in the holster a bit.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Glued the elastic straps on the shoulder bells.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Added the snaps to the posterior.

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Added gluing supports to the shoulder straps.

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Final fitting and trimming for the shins.  Glued on the rear cover strips.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

[daryldoak]

I had big plans to accomplish several tasks, but ended up not making much progress.

The other day I trimmed 3/8" off of my TD tube and hot water fit the end caps.  Today I put the end caps and the control panel on my TD.  Total length is now 7 1/4".

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Then I attached all my mrnostripes brackets and elastic.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

The I worked on my left side rivets and straps.  This was very frustrating getting the straps the correct length.  I tried 25mm between the holes, that was too long.  Then I tried 20mm, that was too short.  Each time I had to remove the split rivet since I was dumb and hammered it down between tries.   Finally after further trial and error I got them to work.

Then I decided to try and see how my torso fits.  I found this to be almost impossible by myself.  I think I need to shorten the shoulders on the chest, probably remove the return edges from the chest and back shoulders and the neck, and I might need to make the chest/ab bracket elastic longer in order to lower the chest.  I'm going to need an expert to provide advice and size the torso properly.

Then while trying on the right shin I noticed that the rear cover strip wasn't vertical enough.  I realized my trimming took too much off of the left half so when the halves came together it wasn't exactly vertical.  So I removed the cover strip and re-glued it, this time I couldn't glue it on 50%-50%, I had to angle it a bit in order to make it look good when the calf is closed. Hopefully I'll still be able to properly close the calf with the velcro.  Sorry this is hard to describe and I didn't get a picture. 

As I was removing all the excess glue from my leg pieces I started to notice some red/orange staining.  I really didn't come thru well in this picture.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

I have it in a few places and around the inside return edges on the legs.  I have no idea where this could have come from.  I'm wondering if my clamps, which have red plastic pads, reacted with the e6000.

All in all, today was a bit discouraging and frustrating.

[daryldoak]

After last night's right calf panic I came back today to see how the reglued, angled cover strip turned out.  I was pleasently surprised.  It looks pretty good. 

I finished off both calves by shaping with the heat gun and adding the velcro.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

I still have the piece I cut off of the left side of the right shin, so if I want to shim it back in later I can.

I added the cod rivet and elastic.  I will size it and add the snap later.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Finally for tonight I made the right-side snap elastic and glued it in.

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Getting close, getting excited.

[daryldoak]

Today's minor update.

Glued on the sniper knee.  I had been putting this off because I was really worried about getting it positioned right.  But I looked at a few reference photos and builds and went for it.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Then I glued in my thigh garter snap plates.

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I put on the torso again tonight and here are my observations:

1. Chest rides really high.  Do I remove the neck return edge? Somehow adjust my brackets and elastic to lower the chest?

neck:
Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

2. The sides of the posterior stick out really far.  Gonna need some shaping.

3. Back rides a little too low.  Getting a lot of bite on the shoulders from the return edges on the back plate and chest plate.  Do I remove these return edges?

chest:
Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr
back:
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I'd love to see some photos of people's shoulders.  Been searching the Centurion threads and the costume reference library but I can't find a good shoulder photo.

[Lidocaine]

Hey man -

Here's how I have the bridges on my setup, and I haven't had any problems with armor bites there. That being said, different body types may have different issues... I've got my TK armor on a mannequin right now, but hopefully you get a better look at the top of the chest and back pieces.

Backplate - There's no return edge at all, then it tapers into the standard return edge.


Chestplate - Slight angle on the return, but it goes into the return edge pretty quickly.


Neck - I've got about 1/8" return on mine. It looks like you could get away with taking some return edge off and that'd help with comfort a little?

[daryldoak]

Luke, thanks so much for those pictures.  Exactly what I needed to be able to trim my shoulders.

So today Anovos shin-gate was all the talk on the FISD builds and the FB group (I posted a description in another thread).  Here are my mismatched shins, that I fought with to get to close properly:

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

I did send Anovos support an email requesting replacements.  We'll see how that goes.

I decided that in order to properly support my split rivets I needed to reinforce the kidney.  So I glued in some scrap on both sides, near the ab connection.  After it's dry I'll redrill the holes for the rivets.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

I figured out today that I'm not going to be able to use the inner brackets to connect my chest and ab.  They cause the chest to ride up way too high for my torso size.  I thought if I mounted the ab brackets on top of the return edge (instead of below) that it might lower the chest, but it just made it hang wierd.  So I decided I'm going to leave my brackets in the chest (for the visual consistency with the back of my armor) but I'm actually going to use straps and snaps to connect the chest and ab.  This will allow me to lower the chest, which will also correct the issue I was having with the shoulders being too close together.  So far I've only taped the pieces together and glued in the snap plates:

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

I'm really nervous about attaching the ammo knee.  I've see two opinions about how it should be mounted:

1. centered under the cover strip
2. centered around the thigh so the tabs are even on both sides.

I see more evidence to #1 looking at reference photos and centurion submissions.  I'm also concerned about the uneven sides on the ammo knee.  Left side is 55mm, right side is 72mm. 

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

I'm wondering if Anovos did this in order to fit the thigh in a particular way.  But since I trimmed the front of my thighs for the 20mm cover strip it now won't fit as they intended.  I've been waiting to see how ukswrath handles this, but his build updates have really slowed down the last week.

[TK Guevara]

Dude, I think it's awesome that you are so dedicated to your build and able to get all this stuff done... I'm starting to get a bit discouraged as I'm completely new at this and didn't realize it would be such a commitment... I haven't even started cutting the pieces yet... Let me know if you would ever be willing to meet up, I'm more of a "show me" type of learner.. the photos are great though
 

[daryldoak]

Completed lots of little things over the last few days.

Bought some adjustable straps to use on my chest to ab connection.  Got them assembled and installed on my previously glued snaps.   These work really great to fine-tune the chest position.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Installed the snap and attached the white shoulder elastic to the chest.  Was really worried about the shoulder elastic and the fitting, but it worked out well.

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Attached the butt snap to the previously installed cod elastic.

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Attached the knee ammo pack.  My first try I put it on way to tight and it wasn't a nice curve.  So I widened the holes a bit to give slack.

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Sewed on the shoulder snaps.  Man these were tedious.  And my sewing skills suck.  My wife offered but she was busy tonight and I was impatient.

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Untitled by daryl doak, on Flickr

Glued on the shoulder bridges.  Another task I was worried about, but I figured with E6000 it's easy to correct if I don't like the positioning.

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Glued on the ab buttons.

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Attached the clips to the TD.  I used phillips screws for now, but I bought some pan-head slotted from home depot online, waiting for them to arrive at the store.

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Final two tasks tomorrow: Glue rubber hand guards on my gloves and glue in the bicep to forearm strap.

Submission photos probably tomorrow night.