EIB & Centurion: Left Side Split Rivets and Strapping

As I get closer to my goals of trying to get EIB and Centurion certification, I'm starting to go through the parts of the armor that need improving towards that goal, and also for a better fit.

One of those areas was the left side closure.

• Using the original ANOVOS system, one rivets three H&L straps to one side of the closure and uses H&L tape on the other side to secure it, giving a wearable, removable closure.
• When I did my closure, I modified the straps by cutting off the H&L pads on the straps, and then riveted them on both sides of the armor, making them non-removable but truer to the armor used on screen.

However, even during construction things were not up to snuff. As was pointed out to me back then, my rivet placement wasn't exactly correct. The problem originated from starting with the kidney plate, where I even spaced the rivets along the kidney plate. This causes a problem with the ab plate, which has a ridge that separates the cod piece from the ab plate proper. My placement resulted in the lower of the ab plate rivets being on this seam. For accuracy, this rivet should be above the seam, with the center rivet spaced evenly between the upper and lower rivet.

A picture from the original post that illustrates the issue.

In addition, after more than a few troops, it occurred to me that the canvas used with the ANOVOS kit has no give or stretch, meaning that if there's a bigger gap between the two plates, it's not going to be as easy to compensate for than with elastic. Further, the straps were held in place with the split rivets. If I had to replace them again in the future due to wear and tear, I'd have to redo all the split rivets again as well.

Resolved to correct the rivet placement and redo teh straps with less gap, the first step was to order some new split rivets, which I did through a member on whitearmor. Once those arrived, it was just a matter of removing the old split rivets and the attached strapping.

 I used a set of needle-nose pliers to un-set the rivets and pull them out without damaging the armor. Once that was done, I had three clean holes on either plate that I needed to seal up with ABS paste. I did this by taping up the front of the plate and filling in from the back.

I wish this would have worked better, but I ended up having to do some front fill as well, and then the typical sanding with 150 - 350 - 600 wet - 1500 wet until the fills were smooth as the surrounding plastic.

I could probably do this in my sleep now,

I've done it so many times...

Finish with Novus 3, 2, and 1 to make everything shiny again. No I have a pristine surface to make new-accurate holes for my rivets.

 I used the following measurements which I followed from USKWrath's post on the matter:

Ab plate:

• Top rivet: 20mm from top, 10mm from plate edge
• Bottom rivet, 10mm from cod plate edge, 10mm from plate edge
• Center rivet: halfway between top and bottom rivets (~63mm either way), 10mm from plate edge

I then put corresponding markings in the kidney plate for the spacing, 10mm from the plate edge. The markings are shown here:

Measure twice, cut once, they say. After satisfied with the measurements, it was time to cut drill the new holes and fasten the rivets. After scuffing the heads with some 150 grit sandpaper to prepare them for future painting, I put them in place using a snap head set, mallet, small chisel, and flat punch tool. For those who aren't familiar, there are six rivets total - three in the ab plate and three in the kidney plate.

You'll note that the rivets were fastened without the strapping in place. This was done on purpose. Taking a page to the common way people fasten garter loops to the inside of thigh assemblies, I decided to fasten the new strapping directly to the inside of the ab and kidney plates using nothing but E6000. This way, the straps would be easy to replace in the future. I used some spare 2" black elastic strapping left over from when I redid my thigh garters. I started by gluing them to the kidney plate, waiting a day, and then gluing them to the ab plate.

As you can see, the results are pretty tight. the bond is strong, and the straps are tight yet stretchy, allowing for a better fit and some give if I end up bending in an unusual manner.

I would have actually placed the bottom strap lower, but I have to leave room for the strapping that secures the kidney plate to the butt plate, as that uses a H&L tape system. Plus, the belt helps keep the pieces together around this area.

After all was said and done, I carefully painted the new rivet heads with Testor white enamel paint.

I also had an issue with the cod strap coming off its split rivet, so I redid this rivet as well, using some scrap ABS to make a large washer so that the hole in the elastic strap wouldn't slip off the small washer included with the rivet set.

And then I had to re-redo it since I reinstalled the strap upside-down.

But you get the picture.

Another recent mod I did was thigh fit. Remember how I lost a bit of weight to fit into my armor better? Most of that weight came off of my stomach, but some also came off my thighs. The problem was that, with the thighs already shimmed, the pieces are actually a little bigger than my thighs now <facepalm>. So what I did was add some foam padding to the inside rear of my thighs to keep the fronts f my thighs against the front of my legs. This resolved an issue wherein the drop-down boxes on my belt kept getting caught on the upper front edges of my thigh pieces, leading to issues walking (thankfully the drop-downs and thighs didn't suffer damage). I haven't decided it it's worth the risk of removing the thigh shims to make the thighs better, but so far I'm leaning to leaving them in, so long as they don't affect the armor's overall look too badly.

Next up on the list is adding a hearing assist system to the bucket to help with, well, hearing, but especially when I run the new blower fans. I plan to run both fans and hearing assist from a new USB battery bank instead of having to worry about AA batteries. Stay tuned...