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Monday, March 28, 2016

Testing the Torso and Truncating my Trunk

I finished strapping up the torso by adding the chest and back plates. I don't have any pictures of the straps, but it's basically straight out of the ANOVOS instructions for these sections - four of the longer H&L straps, two per piece, to connect the chest to the ab plate and the back to the kidney plate. Then, connected at the top with the T-shaped shoulder straps. The final look, once donned, is impressive :)


One thing I noticed is that the ab and kidney plate likes to separate near the bottom, due to the slight gut I have. I guess I'll need to work out and wear a girdle in the mean time. It's the only place on my body that's overly fatty.


Additionally, the modified ANOVOS belt seems to be working well enough. The only thing left to do with it is to remove or cover up the upper two Chicago screws to qualify for Stunt Basic or EIB certification for the 501st. I plan to do this with small circular pieces of iron-on canvas patch, after I try adding some washers to the screws to reduce the chances of the holster tearing through the belt.

After the fitting, I finished trimming and gluing the painted ab buttons in place.


There were some places on the armor that had obvious rub, like the back plate into my shoulders and the posterior plate into my inner legs. So I sanded these down with the Dremel sanding drum to eliminate and taper inner edges.



I also noticed, as I did on my friend's armor during the armor party, that the posterior plate likes to stick out. To combat this, I added to two tabs on the inside of the piece, on the edge returns, so that the plate would hook behind the kidney plate when strapped into place.


I'd honestly be about done at this point, but after fitting the thighs some more, it occurred to me that, although I have the thighs properly trimmed for length, I don't have them trimmed for shape. However, more importantly, they don't come up as far as I need them to (when I'm standing). They're too tight, especially near the top where almost no material was trimmed (save the front edge returns). Therefore, I'll have to accept the fact that I need to shim them. I've already started this process, but will make another blog post dedicated entirely to the process. Until then...

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