The Road to #SWCC 2019 - What Have a Got Myself Into?

My trip into making stormtrooper armor and ultimately joining the 501st Legion began at Celebration 2015 in Anaheim, California. It was after Celebration where my friend and coworker told me about the Anovos deal which got me and many others in on the ground level for a song.

My first encounter with the 501st Legion.

My son's too for that matter.

It was fitting, then, that Celebration in 2019 came to my home state of Illinois. I could go home, visit the family, and go back to where it all began, so to speak. It ended up also becoming a late graduation gift for my nephew, who will be coming with me.

It also (also) ended up being a logistical obstacle course and a huge money sink. There were expenses for the SWCC passes, tickets for the multi-club Celebration Bash (at the Museum of Science and Industry, a favorite of mine), parking during the con (pre-paid parking is cheaper), airport parking, rental car, luggage fees, food expenses during the con, etc. etc.

Thankfully, I can stay with family instead of paying almost a grand in USD for a hotel, AND I had enough frequent flyer miles to get there and back, so two major expenses were avoided.

But there's also a ton of preparation, like activating passes, signing up for the various Celebration lotteries for panels and exclusives, printing out receipts for pre-paid items, and especially packing.

So I had to start planning how I was going to approach this from a frugal and practical angle.

To start, I wasn't going to take my huge 50 gallon tote to Chicago, mostly because I'd have to have someone to transport it for me, or pay up to $100 each way in over-sized baggage fees. Plus, I'd ave to rent a larger car for perhaps twice as much per day compared to a small sedan. Instead, I purchase a 25 gallon Husky tote that should qualify for regular checked bag fees instead, and will fit all my TK armor minus the bucket, which will travel with me in the cabin. it was $60 for the tote, but it will save me much more than that, so it was a net gain. I put some stencils and stickers on it too.

Arts and crafts paying off

Edit 4 April 2019: Any sized Husky bin is considered oversized luggage by any air carrier, so I'll be making alternate plans to use a garrison mate's hard suitcase for transporting my armor. More on that in future blog updates.

Before I start polishing and packing the armor in foam wrap, though, I did some work on a fan film shoot in Big Bear (I was hoping to include it in this blog post, but it won't be released until closer to Celebration). The conditions were cold, snowy, and icy, and traction was a premium, especially in TK boots with no tread. Near the end of the day, the icy snow turned to slush and I went down, putting a small crack near the edge return of my kidney plate. Earlier, I crammed my right knee ammo packs into a rock outcropping and cracked them big time. And throughout, I kept having issues with my chest plate working with my new PA chest bag (in the previous blog post) and my shins popping open, due in part to the thicker undersuit I used for the shoot due to the temperature.

Needless to say, it was time to go over the armor and make some repairs and adjustments before the big meeting at Celebration.

I covered the chest piece in my last blog post, and also how I adjusted the comm bag for a higher fit underneath. A test fit of my torso armor with the chest bag underneath confirmed it was finally in a good place. The Velcro straps that kept the chest piece on the ab plate was getting old, so I flipped the straps in the meantime since the other side wasn't nearly as worn. It should suffice until after Celebration where I can concentrate on making snap plates, saving a little money until then.

The knee boxes were more difficult, and required many days of work with ABS paste, especially after the most affected box partially melted when I added ABS paste reinforcement underneath. So I had to add even more paste to the top, shape, sand, fill, etc. until the shape was right, or at least close enough.

Slightly misshapen and mis-colored now, sadly.
Maybe I'll do more work on it after Celebration.

The shins were easier, but also scarier since I had never done the bra hook thing before. I got some advice from SCG's own master armorer TK-70701 and, of course, UKSWrath's guides here and here. First I got some scrap elastic that I used for the shoulders, cut it in half lengthwise, and made 6 strips, three for each shin. I used  the sewing machine to create the loop on one end, and then sewed on the bra hooks by hand (the most tedious part).

I made three equidistant holes between the lower, mid and upper shin and installed the bra hooks just short of the end of the armor plate, so they' need to be stretched just so so keep tension on the other half of the shin closure.

The other big trick is to ensure that the hooks are as parallel as possible to the holes to keep the two halves of the closure lined up; otherwise, it might go canted and not line up at top and bottom.

I did one shin at a time, to ensure the placement was sound before starting the other shin, and also due to a lack of magnets to do both shins at once. Test fit on the right shin was a success, so I did the left shin the next night.

I also decided to still keep the Velcro, for now, since it's a giant PITA to remove (a lot of scraping adhesive and orange oil cleaner, and that's a lot of work with so much left to do before Celebration). But this way, if the Velcro pops, the bra hooks will ensure the shins stay closed enough that I don't have to fiddle with them constantly. The shins are a bit tight and I honestly should have trimmed them 1/2" less during initial construction, but the new bra hooks are the next best thing to new shins, for sure.

There's still a lot to be done. After the closures are glues, I still have to clean an polish the armor before backing, get my other costume packed, and get everything else packed too. But more on that in the next blog post...

Industrial Velcro and Rebuilding the Belt

This is a long blog post that covers a couple of troops and related modifications and repairs as a result of wear and experience.

To start , I participated in a great, giant troop with the OC Squad (and other Southern California Garrison members) at the OC Zoo in the Irvine Railroad Park. There were about 50 members there between the 501st and Rebel Legion, as well as a few anchor characters like Rey, Vader, and Kylo. It was a lot of fun!

(With celebrity (pig) Kevin Bacon!)

It was a great troop, but it was a bit warm. I'm glad I had some spare white duct tape in case of emergency, because the ANOVOS H&L tape on my shins just couldn't take the heat. After the fact, I had a mess to clean up between the crap H&L tape and the adhesive from the duct tape.

To clean up, I used orange oil, Simple Green, and finally rubbing alcohol to prep the contact areas for some new industrial strength Velcro that I purchased at Home Depot.

After the clean-up, I cut the Velcro to the proper length and width, I carefully placed it onto the shin closures.

I've trooped in it once since then at San Diego Comic Con; we went even though we couldn't get passes for the con itself, because there's a ton to do in the Gaslamp district outside of the con - plus there was a 501st photo shoot Saturday morning for the Imperial Sands Garrison in which I wanted to participate, so it was the perfect excuse to troop! The shins held up very nicely, even when I had to run to the photo shoot at the con when I almost ran late trying to find it.

The serious photo

The fun photo

The really fun photos

My pauldron with a vinyl sticker I had made for the event. I ended up needing to use extra tape as the heat the previous day caused the edges of the vinyl to curl.

Trooping the con made me realize that I needed to replace the H&L contacts in my thighs and shoulder bells with industrial Velcro as well, as they were starting to separate from the armor. I removed the old H&L tape, cleaned the armor like I had for the shins, and then put in the new industrial Velcro.

The snaps for my thigh garters were slightly bothersome too; if they end up not working after this Velcro replacement, I may try to adjust the snap tension using some pliers, or modify it to be more in-line with a "traditional" belt garter system.

The other casualty was the floppy ANOVOS belt. one of the lower Chicago screws tore through the belt. I'd planned on eventually replacing it with a Rob Kittell belt from www.imperialissue.com, and it seemed like now was the time, especially with the annual squad photo shoot coming up this week and an opportunity to get pictures for my trading cards.

I had previously planned to shim my ab armor to fit around my girth, but after measuring my belly some weeks earlier to plan for this project, I was disappointing with my physical fitness. My wife had started a daily workout and nutrition regimen a couple of weeks earlier, so it was then I decided to join her for workouts in the mornings and to start watching my portion, especially carbs. Within a month I had lost more than a couple of inches form my belly, making shimming he abs completely unnecessary. This was also good because I wanted to get my ab sizing straightened out before ordering  the new belt, to ensure I had a belt the correct length.

I ordered his standard 40" belt online and it arrived within a few days - great turn around for flat postage. The belt was as advertised, at 40" with an extra 10" of overlap for the Velcro closure in the back for a total of 50". It has two canvas layers sandwiching a plastic center that gives it a lot more rigidity than the canvas-only ANOVOS belt. This also makes setting up the belt for ANH Stunt easier as the holster is only supposed to be fastened to the belt with two rivets/ Chicago screws instead of the four used by ANOVOS, which would be more inline with the ANH Hero trooper instead.

The first step was to lay the new belt out and mark where all the new holes would go for the snaps (to fasten the belt to the ab plate) and the rivets (to fasten the plastic ammo belt to the new canvas belt). I covered the inside of the belt with blue painters tape so I could mark up the tape - it would be easy to punch through with leather punches and remove before fastening snaps and rivets.

I started with the center at exactly the 25" mark , 1.5" from either the top or bottom as the belt is 50" long and 3" wide total. This would mark the rivet for the center of the ammo belt. From here, snaps were marked metrically at 17cm from center; the end rivets for the ammo belt were 20cm from center. I'd worry about the two holes for the holster closer to final assembly.

Next it was time to cross the Rubicon and remove the elements from the old ANOVOS belt. Knowing that the rivets fastening the ammo belt to the canvas were terrible to remove, I decided to at least get the ammo belt off the canvas by simply cutting it off the belt, being careful to avoid the elastic of the drop-down ammo boxes. I also had to do this for one Chicago Screw for the holster as it was incredibly torqued and refused to unscrew until I had removed it through cutting and was able to holder the other end with pliers.

Yeah, there was no going back now.

So now was the "fun" part - removing the old rivets from the plastic ammo belt and removing the cover caps from the front. I've read horror stories from the ANOVOS builders FB group and also seen UKSWrath's write-up on his belt. I'd also heard that some people weren't cursed with a crazy amount of pink epoxy and were able to remove the rivets and caps with relative ease.

Unfortunately, dear reader, I wasn't one of those people.

From the onset, I could tell that the caps were glued on with a large amount of pink epoxy (the smell of it reminds me of the stuff used in dentistry to create molds or fasten crowns to teeth). The first thing to do was to remove the rivet on the back of the belt using a Dremel. I used a cutting disk to care a cross into the rivet head so it could be easily remove with pliers and then ground down more.

You can already start to see some deformation in the ABS in the shot above right. Lamentably, in a situation like this, it's not about removing it without damage, but mitigating the amount of damage required to finish the job, to make repair easier.

I hit this epoxy with everything I had, from a butter knife like UKSWrath used, to a heated putty knife, to a cutting disk (this was far too risky and may have caused even more damage), to a sharp knife (I abandoned this for risk of personal safety) and a hobby knife (the blade wasn't long enough and the textured grip was causing too many scratches). I did the best I could, but in the end I had to pry up the last bit of the cap and rip out part of the ammo belt to get them off.

The center cap is always the hardest for anyone given the lack of space to attack the cap from the side. In the end the ammo belt backing was deforming so much that I cut relief cuts into it from the back to mitigate damage. Obviously this left a big chunk missing that would need to be repaired with scrap ABS and perhaps even paste to ensure the cap covered up any other blemishes.

Out of all of this, at least eh caps were removed without breaking, as those are more difficult to repair. I just had to take the Dremel grinding tip to them and clean the epoxy out from inside the caps to ensure they had enough room for whatever mounting hardware I decided to use.

It was a dusty job. Remember to wear a mask folks!

With the caps cleaned out, it was time to start repairing the ammo belt. So I dug into my ABS trimmings and found some pieces to CA glue on to the backside of the ammo belt. I clamped them into place for about 10 minutes to allow the CA glue to cure (I don't currently have any Zip Kicker).

After the glue cured, I went in from the front and filled in the craters with some spare ABS paste from my thigh piece rebuild. That was it for the night, so I decided to let the paste fully cure before resuming work the next evening.

The next evening, I spent an hour sanding down the ABS paste smooth and then polishing, with the help of 100-150-350-600-1500 grit paper (the latter two wet) and Novus 3 and 2. Still some light scratching, but otherwise not bad. The perfectionist in me could spend another hour removing all the light scratches, but I needed to finish tonight to give the E6000 time to cure before Saturday.

I had punched the belt holes (using leather hole punches) and put the snaps on the belt the previous night: I simply used the General Tools Brass Snaps and Fastener I used for the snaps on the ab plate, but the female counterparts on the inside of the belt, again with each snap 17cm from center on each side (34cm total). The new belt fits exactly like the ANOVOS belt, but it's obviously more rigid.

For the ammo belt, I fastened the center using a standard leather rivet with a washer on the back of the snap, to give it more support. I fastened the rivet backwards, with the rivet head on the inside of the belt, as this way was far easier to tap in given the shape of the ammo belt. The bonus is that the rivet head is far less likely to scratch my armor than the rivet back.

For the ends of the ammo belt, I used tow of the four Chicago screws from the hostler, since it was only going to need two of them for the Stunt mounting. I chose Chicago screws for one reason: as a stretch goal, I might alter the costume to support trooping as a Heavy Weapons Trooper (HWT), which don't have drop-down ammo packs on their belts. Using Chicago screws will allow me to unfasten the ends of the ammo belt to easily slip off the drop-downs if that ever happens.

When finished, the assembly was as good as new, on the new belt.

Now it was time for the holster. The first thing to do was remove the two extra holes at the top of the holsters. I measured 2.5" from the top of the holster and cut off the remaining leather, leaving only two mounting holes for the Stunt mounting. I also measured center-to-center on the bottom rivets to get the spacing correct for the belt holes - the measure is 5".

For the belt holes, UKSWrath used different measurements for his holster holes, but I opted to use the ANOVOS belt measurements and fasten the holster slightly higher using a 3/4" measure from the bottom of the belt; this also gives the rivets more purchase on the plastic stock inside the Kittell belt (this should NOT affect being able to apply for Centurion status). Because I had almost exactly 7" between the edge of the ammo belt and the edge of the Velcro, I decided to split the difference and give 1" from either side, which still put me very close to the ammo belt but not too close to the Velcro.

I marked the holes directly on the belt using a pen and very small marks, put the holes into the belt, and mounted the holster. You can't argue with the results - A very clean, strong mounting with all the pieces secure and fit for ANH Stunt CRL.

Edit: when using Chicago screws for the holster, try to use blue thread locker, which you can get form most hardware or auto parts stores. This will keep the screws from becoming loose and falling out, since it's hard to torque them down without deforming the flat threads (which also might cause them to scratch your armor).

Lastly was replacing the rivet caps on the ammo belt, this time using some proper E6000  in case of future maintenance. Before I did that, I CA glued the caps of the Chicago screws onto either end of the ammo belt, to keep them from floating off if I ever need to unscrew them for possible future HWT conversion.

After the CA glue cured, I carefully placed E6000 on the back of the caps and glued them back into place, about 1.25" from either edge to get them as centered as possible, with perhaps 1/4" at most away from the edge of the ammo belt for the caps on the ends.

So I should now be set for this Saturday, and one step closer towards going for EIB and later Centurion certification. For the latter, I still need latex hand guards for the rubber gloves, but I'll source these later as to spread around my purchases. I've already ordered more split rivets to correct the rivet spacing on the left side of the ab armor. Both will be covered sometime in the future on this blog. Until then...

Personal Touches: Forearms and Shins

I'm out of town for a week, but I did some work over the weekend on the armor, despite the armor party I was to attend being postponed a week due to inclement weather.

First, I decided to add the H&L tape to the back shin closures, since the shins are (thankfully) pretty much done. I had to wait until the kids went to bed, but the night was still young...

I love this clock.

The easiest way to measure the tape was to use the rear cover strip as a guide. Not only did I measure strip length, but also width.

Turns out that you only need half the width of the strip, so I was basically able to cut one length of tape for both the hook and loop sides, and then cut those lengths in half lengthwise down the center. Before that, though, I used the hook side to measure an equal length of loop side tape.

When finished, I had four lengths of half-width tape for use on both shins.

Attaching the tape was relatively easy, ensuring that the surfaces were clean first using spray cleaner and a paper towel. I started from the top and placed the tape with one hand while keeping it straight with the other.

The H&L system works pretty well for a basic closure. I may replace it with the bra hook system later, but for now it will do for getting me started :)

After the tape was in place, I used the Dremel sanding drum to fix the curves at the slightly offset bottom pieces of the shins. when the cover strip also needed adjustment, I pulled the end up ever so slightly to insert a putty knife, so that I could bevel the edges using the putty knife to guard the rest of the shin.

In prep for fitting, I also adjusted the neck of the chest piece to round the corners to keep the armor from poking me, and to keep it from digging into my neck.

In addition, after a discussion with UKSWrath about the forearm length interfering with my mobility, I decided to trim the end off my forearms a fraction of an inch. To do this, I used tape to mimic the contour of the existing forearm edge, then used the Dremel cutting disk to remove the edge. I had trepidation at first, but after noting the results, decided it was the right decision.

On Saturday night, I was trying on my TK Boots with my shin armor. TK Boots recommends the you line the bottom and edge of the shins with felt or soft material to reduce the amount of scuffing. I thought this was a capital idea, and gathered some spare white felt to line the inside of my shin pieces.

After taping in the felt and trying it out, I was decided. I removed the felt and tape, scuffed the inside of the shin pieces, applied E6000, placed the felt, and applied clamps & magnets. I left a little overage at the bottom of the shins so that I could later wrap a very slight amount over the edge to glue in place, then trim off the overhang.

I actually brought something for me to work on in regards to the armor while I'm on my business trip (after hours, of course), so I may have another update this week, before the armor party on Sunday. Until then...