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[Vindar Falco]

I think it's looking real awesome  8)

[Niabi]

Looking nice vod

[Thaxos]

Looks good from what I can see, bit hard to tell if the fit is right when you're taking your own photo.

[Tracyn Ordo]

Looks good. I think it could do with being tightened up a bit though.

[Jaa'det Otxoa]

Thanks Vode!

And I am planning on taking in the sides on the flak vest a bit (will need to taper the sides in at the waist a bit) 

AAAANNNND... An update!

Let's start with the knees...
I decided to base my knees off of my custom shoulder bells, I took the original pattern and stretched the "wings" width and height wise a bit and added cuts to allow the bottom edge to be contoured a bit...

And here is a shot of the knee before and after shaping:
*please excuse the blurry shots... I forgot to clean the lens on my phone! *


Here is how I did the "folds" using 2 1x3's as a vise:


And shots for sizing:


Well, after looking at the knees for a few days I thought they looked a bit tall, so I compared them to WOF's Boba knees and found out mine are about an inch taller!

So I measured down an inch on the center section and made a template to recontoured the sides and traced these marks out on both knees...
Here is the before and after:


And for sizing:


Still need to reinforce all the seams from behind and Bondo the gaps, but I like the sizing and the shape!

I also got the base for my gaunts completed!

These are based on the SWG gaunts with some slight modifications to match the styling of my kit...
Since I will be eventually going for Spec Ops: Sniper in the Brigades I wanted to make sure that my Beskar'gam is kept as sleek as possible including the gaunts, so this is what I came up with:
Parts prior to shaping:

The bottom of the clamshell was made from the bell end of the drain pipe so that the line from the bell remains as a design element, then the edges that will mate with the top of the clamshell were pressed flat to about an inch down so that the piano hinge will lay flat and the fastener side mates better as well.

So a quick tutorial on "folding" PVC...
- Basically once you have your pipe flattened and the pattern cut out mark where you want the fold line to be.
- Now I made a vise by using 2 pieces of 1x3 with a couple of screws to hold them together:

- When you are aligning the stock on the edge don't place the bend mark exactly in line with the edge of the vise instead offset it in relation to the thickness of your stock (3mm stock, offset by 1.5 - 2mm):

- Once your mark is aligned with the edge of the vise heat the PVC until it is completely pliable (USE GLOVES!!! ) then flip it up on it's edge on a smooth flat surface (I used a piece of scrap coated fiberboard) and press down evenly:

(Keep in mind this is for a 90^o bend, if you need a different angle cut the vise edges an the appropriate angle to be bent to.)
- And here is the shape of the bend when completed:


...And the shaped components:


And the test fit:




So what do ya think???  

[Thaxos]

I'm digging it, really like the gauntlet design. Knees look good as well.

Keep up the hard work!

[Jaa'det Otxoa]

Another update! 

Soft parts!

So here's the current status of my soft parts:
- Pants fitted
- Shirt modded with double sleeves
- 1 Boba thigh pocket added to pants

And some pics (minus neckseal... It's done I just forgot to put it on )


And the soft parts "To Do" list:
- De-color and Dye "Flightsuit" dark gray
- Re-fit flak vest
- Get suede/leather gaiters and "armor plate them"
- Mod Grab-it pack with PVC armor plates
- Find/Make belt and pouches

I'm looking at these for the belt pouches and planning on dyeing them to match the dark brown that my shoes are...


And something like these for the gaiters


So what do you think?

If anybody has any suggestions on where I can find the gaiters or pouches any cheaper, or are trying to get rid of some, it would be appreciated (although I think the prices are pretty low )

[Thaxos]

Looks like it's coming together real nicely.

[seugtai]

- De-color and Dye "Flightsuit" dark gray

THANK GOODNESS. I was raising my eyebrow at that one yellow pocket.

[Jaa'det Otxoa]

Looks like it's coming together real nicely.

Thanks vod!

THANK GOODNESS. I was raising my eyebrow at that one yellow pocket.

What?  Aww, c'mon, what's wrong with a patchwork Mando??

Yeah, I'm gonna use some Rit Color remover prior to dyeing it with the black so that the color will be more even when it's done

[Byrek Avery]

This is coming out great, Jon. I was going to tell you to re fit that vest, but I then saw it was on your list.

Your sleeves might be a bit long, but that's on you.

Think you'll be ready for RICC? 

[Jaa'det Otxoa]

This is coming out great, Jon. I was going to tell you to re fit that vest, but I then saw it was on your list.

Your sleeves might be a bit long, but that's on you.

Think you'll be ready for RICC? 

Thanks Vod,
The sleeves are long on purpose, they will tuck inside the gloves to keep them from coming out under the gaunts
As far a RICC goes, I'm hoping to be done by then, and would love to come out as an OM! ...Just gotta have the funds

[Jaa'det Otxoa]

Ok, quick update...

I was able to retailor my flak vest, so o was originally going to take in the sides by completely resewing them ...then figured that a second row of velcro would help the sides hold better!

So that's exactly what I did!


And the fit...
Front Before and After:

Side Before and After:


So how's the fit now?

[Vindar Falco]

I think it looks much better  8)

[Niabi]

Looks Nice  Vod

[Tracyn Ordo]

Looking great man! Only thing I've got to say is hurry up and finish it already

[Jaa'det Otxoa]

Thanks vode!

So I decided to try my hand a dyeing last night... 

Soooo... I was using RIT liquid dye with the bucket method:
(wasn't going to use one of our good stock pots to do this... my wife would kill me!! )


And here are the results...

Yeah... um... apparently the fabrics were 2 different poly-cotton blends
The sleeves (made from another pair of scrub pants I know were a 50/50 blend (and apparently so was the fabric the thigh pocket was made out of), but apparently the pants and the body of the shirt was a 60/40 blend so it came out darker

So the next step is to dye the poly part of the fabrics, I found that alot of people have mixed results with the iDye, but apparently the Dylon brand is supposed to do real good on blends, so I'll be picking a couple packs up this weekend to see if I can get this sucker evenly colored!

If anybody has any suggestions on how to even out the poly coloring I'm open to suggestions!

[Jaa'det Otxoa]

Updates!!

...Well, update...

Got the backplate mostly shaped...

So this is what I started with:
(Prior to final trimming )


So now I have to join the 2 halves together, so I made 3 2" wide joining plates, marked them with a centerline and marked their positioning on the backplates so that I could pre-drill the holes for the rivets (yeah, glue might hold but I want to make sure this sucker doesn't budge so that when I put the body filler on it I don't get any cracks)
Once the plates are matched outer face together and the rivet holes drilled I roughed up the joining faces with 60 grit sandpaper, glued the plates in place (PVC cement) and clamped them:


After they dried (about 10 minutes) I flipped the piece over and repeated the procedure, to make alignment easier prior to laying the halves together I aligned the halves while flat and taped the seam on the outer face so that when it gets flipped open to glue the seam is as tight as possible.
(You can see the pre-drilled holes here just prior to gluing the other side of the plate down:


Once that half dried (another 10 minutes) I drilled the holes all the way through the joining plates for the rivets and riveted the plates together:


Now I had a full backplate and was ready to form it, like my other plates I used various size/diameter metal ducts, silencers, water filter housings, pretty much anything that would give me the desired shape to form the PVC to, along with some hand shaping to clean up the edges and the "folding" technique I've used on other parts I came up with this:


And a test fit:


So there are a few little issue that I need to address before mounting the "Scout pack" first of all...
1. The "wings" on the lower corners have to be flattened out a little more (It feels like I wearing a Recaro racing seat on my back with the tight fit)
2. The shoulders don't align with the collar:

To fix this I think I will be modifying the shoulders of the backplate (chopping & re-shaping slightly ) and using leather or PVC plates to join the collar to the backplate...

So whatcha think Vode??

[Thaxos]

Solid chunk of progress, hope you get the dyes to perform for you well.

Think you've already made a point on anything I would recommend tweaking, looking forward to seeing additional progress.

[Tracyn Ordo]

Dying is always tricky, and most costumers will have a story about how it produced some weird or wacky result. That backplate looks really good though

[Swift]

The back plate has definitely been the most difficult piece for me, but yours is coming along quite well vod!

[Jaa'det Otxoa]

Solid chunk of progress, hope you get the dyes to perform for you well.

Think you've already made a point on anything I would recommend tweaking, looking forward to seeing additional progress.

The back plate has definitely been the most difficult piece for me, but yours is coming along quite well vod!

Dying is always tricky, and most costumers will have a story about how it produced some weird or wacky result. That backplate looks really good though

Thanks Vode! 

Yeah, and as far as the dyeing I'm gonna try my hand using iDye, I just need to find an old enamel pot to sacrifice!

[Jaa'det Otxoa]

Another update...

Tweaking the backplate...

So here's a pretty good illustration of how off the collarplate was from the shoulders of the backplate:


I got the alignment by placing the backplate on and marking the inside corners roughly with a pencil then actually measuring it to average the left and right sides:


Then I traced the shoulder piece to some card stock as a template to determine where the chopped piece would meet the side once aligned to meet up with the edge of the collarpiece:


And while I was originally just going to cut the chopped piece down I accidentally got the pieces I chopped off of the shoulders mixed up and guess what?
When I put them on the opposite shoulder they lined up perfectly!


So after using the same technique I used to join the backplate halves I re-attached the shoulders and cemented and riveted them in place:


And the test fit:


So how ya like me now??

[Tact Kor]

That's looking like a nice tight fit.

[Niabi]

Looking cool Vod