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[DocJancsi]

Using the WOF Large templates as a starting point, I created a set of templates for my main armor plates. Being a bit more "full" around the middle, (more than I'd like) I realized that I had to do a bit of a "slash and spread" to the templates to get them to remain proportional around my abdomen. To do this I placed the templates on my cutting table with appropriate spacing and extended a line from the notch in each chest plate down to a point 1.25" out from the lower corner of the ab plate.

Unfortunately I do not have pictures of this part of the process, but I will describe it as best I can. Laying the vest out on my cutting table I took a pencil and marked the center line of the front of the vest. I then dry fitted the collar plate template and squared a line off from the center line to each armhole where the point of the collar plate intersected the center line. This gave me a square level and plumb foundation to to build on.

Next  I stuffed my flak vest/gambeson/arming coat with a pillow to fill it out. It is close fitting enough that it serves as its own torso form. I then placed the templates onto the vest to try out the spacing. Once I got it right I did my best to put it on without changing anything. I did end up having to slightly change the  bottom angle of the collar plate, to get the chest plate camber correct and ensure the cutouts for the diamond were parallel to evenly spaced 1/4"-3/8" from the center line.  These adjustments as well as the slash and spread I discussed above made in necessary to  change the angle on the ab plate point as well.

Once I was certain I had a good fit with the templates, I traced the templates onto a piece of 24" x 24" Sintra using a 0,5mm mechanical pencil. Once I had the plates traced out, I erased any stray lines that might confuse me when cutting out the plates. Once I had a good clean set of plates traced out I used a reciprocating  saw  (sawzall) to roughly cut the shapes out of the Sintra, and by rough I mean I stayed well away from any of the lines I drew to lay out the plates! I would not recommend cutting out plates with a sawzall!

With all of the rough cut pieces in hand it was off to my band saw to do the fine cutting. If you have access to one, I highly recommend using it to cut out your plates! I used a 1/8" x 15 TPI blade to do the fine cutting. I cut the plates straight and then a second time at a 45 degree angle  to aid in putting  a nice taper on the edges once I get to the final sanding. Once the plates were cut out I sanded all of the edges smooth. Then put some water to boil in a 24" skillet.

The boiling water perfectly heated the plastic allowing me to shape the plates. One disadvantage of using boiling water is that the plates tend to shrink a bit they also shrink disproportionately along the long and short axis of the original piece. This can mean small angle changes to the plates causing fit issues after shaping. 

After the  were properly shaped I put the vest back on and did a dry fitting to check fit and placement again. As expected there was a small adjustment to the camber of the chest plates, which required trimming the collar plate once again. 

To attach the plates to the vest, I picked up some 5/16" grommets and 1/4" Chicago screws from Tandy Leather. The posts are attached to the plates by supergluing the post into a small divot drilled into the plate then sandwiching them between the 6mm plate and a small piece of 3mm Sintra.


Cutting, shaping, fiddling and much Sintra shenanigans  later, I ended up with this:





Here you can see the bevel on the collar piece.


And the chest piece


This is what my vest looked like before the next step, To see more about how I made the vest check out This Thread


Here is a shot of the inside of the vest. Placing the grommets required a great deal of measuring, marking, checking, double checking and an equal measure of faith and foolish bravado.
 


The posts are then put through the grommet and screwed to the vest:



The posts ended up being a bit long, but I found a few 1/4" plumbing washers in my toolbox which worked great to take up the space. Once I screwed down the plate, the washer had the added effect of locking the screw in place.







Here is a shot of me wearing the plates screwed to the vest.


My next step will be to really give the edges smooth taper to the edge and give them a gentle roll at the edge to smooth them out.

[Kris Jasra]

Good fit. Looking forward to your next update.

[Kol Varek]

Nice work, plates look good. Good quality overall. Looking forward to seeing future progress.

[DocJancsi]

Hey all,
I have been swamped with work but have had time to get a few things done on my kit.  I really appreciate all of the positive feedback so far. Initially I had cut my plates out of 6mm sintra and put a 45 degree chamfer on the edges. The idea was to give the plates a sense of thickness or fullness. I was kind of thinking of the angular nature of the composite armor on most modern Main Battle Tanks like the Abrams, Challenger, Leopard or Merkava.

Turns out, in small scale those angles just make the armor look unfinished. I really appreciate the feedback I received from the folks at Tra'cor clan. Based on the input of the Ruus'Alore, Mi'ix and Sabine, I went at my plates with a rasp file and transformed the chamfererd plates into rounded plates. Once the plates had a rough rounded edge I followed up with a typical sanding sequence (60, 150, 220, 400, 800, 1000)

The photo really does not do this change justice. The plates went from looking rough and unfinished to looking like proper armor plates. The rounded edges maintain the sense of weight and substance I was going for and even took it up a notch or two. 





Initially I left my iron heart alone, I was worried that getting too aggressive with rounding the edges might disrupt the delicate spacing of the plates at the focal point of the armor. But when I looked at this I realized that my Iron Heart looked too sharp and simply did not match the rest of the build. Unlike the other pieces of  my armor, the chest diamond is constructed of 2 layers of 3mm Sintra. To preserve the outline, I rounded the edge of the first layer keeping the bottom layer with a sharp vertical edge. After adding my shoulder bells and a test fit for a back plate, (more to follow on that) Here are the results:


So as is the usual case, I realized that I really needed another set of skilled hands to help me shape my backplate. So I want to put in a HUGE shout out to Arkham who took the time to come to my home and help me get it shaped right. After a brief interruption for dinner with my family, he helped me to come up with this:




The backplate is not attached and you will note that it is slightly off center, and needs to be trimmed appropriately to match the collar plate. It looks like I might need to apply further shaping to the shoulder bells so they lie more flush at the shoulder seams. Hopefully I can do this without messing up my spacing too much.


I am currently working on getting the final trimming done and slowly painting the pieces.

[Kol Varek]

Hey vod, quite a few photo links are dead, however I can see the first photo of your newest update. I'm noticing the top of your left shoulder is hovering a bit, I'd suggest moving it down a little.

[DocJancsi]

Photo links should be working now. I was in the middle of editing them earlier.

Yes, I saw that. The "hovering" effect is looks like more of a shaping issue for the plate than position to my eye. When the vest is off my body the plate falls in about the same spot on both sides. The right side is simply dished better to fit my shoulder. Weather the root cause is anatomical differences between my shoulders, plate shape, or some combination I will definitely address it going forward. 

[Kol Varek]

Last three images of your latest post still aren't working, however your earlier post is fixed.

[DocJancsi]

Ok, they should be working now. I checked after I signed out of my photo hosting site and cleared the browser cache.

[Kol Varek]

Ah, yes. All good now. I'm very interested in how he was able to shape the backplate as he was. Very well done.