I especially will be referring to this post as it's the best reference I've seen for fitting the armor. Hopefully my bicep kits fit fine, but if not, it's a good thing I'm using E6000 in case I have to tear my finished one apart or remove strips for a proper fitting on the other one.
I'm already eyeing replacement latex hand guards for future Centurion (Level 3) Hero certification, as well as replacement eyes for the bucket (to replace the inside visor piece which may perhaps improve my ability to wear the bucket with glasses if I so desire).
...
... and as soon as I got home I knew I'd have to un-glue my biceps and forearm pieces. Based on ukswrath's measurement instructions, my forearms were off... WAY off. Like as big as a Mega Man Arm Cannon on my right forearm (even after cutting to the 2nd cut line on Piece 19 IIRC).
Fortunately, E6000 made this incredibly easy, as it's basically beefy rubber cement. I simply grabbed the excess on my strips and lifted CAREFULLY. All the strips came right off without damage. Yeah, I lost time in gluing, but I'd rather get it done right than have huge pieces of armor that jiggle around everywhere.
NOW it was time for the steps I'd missed - taping, measuring, and cutting.
As ukswrath points out in his thread, the front raised edges are the important parts, and you want to leave 15mm overall, split as evenly as possible between the two edges on either side of the forearm piece. (In this case, the left pieces are almost spot-on in this regard, but there's a LOT of material you can remove in this area on the right pieces to get that 15mm size, especially Piece 19 IIRC.) Therefore, most of the excess came off the back of the pieces. And there was quite a bit for me, because "I'm not the world's most physical guy."
Measuring with a tailor tape measure the circumference of the biggest part of my forearm and my wrist, and then measuring the circumference on the same places on the taped-together pieces, I was able to see that I needed to take more off the wrist side than the elbow side. I marked measurements on the armor and used a flexible straight edge to connect the measurements together (which is perfect since the strips themselves are flexible straight edges).
I kept the front edges taped up after I trimmed those to a 15mm tolerance or close...
... and kept adjusting the back edges of the armor for the fit.
After cutting the front parts so that I'd have enough raised edge for the strips, I used a combination of measuring, marking, and overlap & taping to test the fit before doing any cutting. When it came time to cut, I generally cut less than the mark, because it's obviously easier to cut in increments than to try to add material back on with oversized strips. If more needed to come out, then I marked and made another cut.
The result was forearm pieces that fit better but still allowed the arming suit when it comes in. You can see some armor pinch on the top of my forearm; most if not all of that return edge will probably come out once I glue the pieces together (especially since it's catching my elbow when I bend my arm), but I want to see what the final fit will be before I remove too much material. No need on making more potential mistakes - especially ones that can't be so easily undone as E6000.
All in all, I actually didn't lose too much time since I really needed to do this step anyhow. I have to remind myself that putting this together is, as one FB poster put it, "a marathon, not a race."
Sanded the glue points, added E6000, and clamped the strips back on. Tomorrow I'll adjust the bicep pieces in a similar manner as I start to glue the forearm halves together, and start cutting out leg pieces :)
Edit: for reference, kman on whitearmor posted a reference shot of film-used arm armor :)
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