[Paul]

I have started this post to talk about and help people who are about to under go the TK build from a kit.

Firstly there are several types of kits out there, some good some OK, some crap. Some come with the helmet( as a Kit ) most do not, the helmet is sold seperatly. What do you need other than the kit. Generaly you need to aquire a helmet, an undersuite, a TK holster and E-11, or use the TC-14 or is that CT-14 anyway, some socks, trooper boots, neck seal, gloves. All these other items can be sourced from various places at reasonable prices, also some can be sort after via the net.

If you have any questions in regards to what we will call the accessories then please post and Ill direct you to the right place or someone may have a better sugestion or product.

Now lets get to the TK armour:

I have found over the years that build general is driven by person size, personal preferance and friends sugestions ( weather they be good or bad ) What I will put below is how I would go about it, I will also list several different ways to do it so you have a choice, you may go in an entirly different direction.

Things to keep in mind when putting it together, the more you permanantly glue togther the harder it is to pack down, if all the bits come apart then it will take up less space and be easier to pack away.

Also most kits come in a shiny white ABS or HIP or similar, some evile ones come in FB( fibre Glass ) most do not need painting, but if you wish to paint it then thats up to you.

From here I will start from the top of the kit and work down with different posts for each.

[Paul]

SHOULDER BELLS - UPPER ARM - FORARM - HAND


The shoulder bells are fairly straight fwd, attach them to the webbing that runs from frint to back for the chest and back plate and then you must desied are you going to glue them in or sew them in permanantely, or use snaps at both the should er point and the bell point. ( my sugestion , glue the webbing into the bell and use snaps to the shoulder point ) this makes it easily removable. Also on the bell at the lower area put some elastic( glue in ) so that it holda well on your upper are.

The upper arm armour. This is one of the clam shells.
You can trim to size of your upper arm and velcrow both sides to bring it together ( not recogmembered) you can glue the front and velcrow the back( lot of people do this ) you can glue both sides. I have glued both sides, my upper armour holds in possition due to my hugh muscles and is quite fine. I would these day tend to glue if your happy with that, trim it a little bigger than needed, then run webbing( glued to upper arm armour, and snaps to under lower part of shoulder bell ) this will give you room to move and grow and also keep it up where it should be.

Lowerarm, another clam shell. Again I glued these both sodes, if you can I would recogment this, you need to be able to slide your arms in and out of the armour. if you cannot do this then glue the front or upper section and velcrow the back section.

Hand Plates, these are easy, I generaly glue two elastic strips to the plate, on at the very back, and one about half way down. This puts elastic around your wrist and then around your 4 fingers holding the plate very secure, I do not recogment velcrowing it to your glove or sewwing it to the glove.


NOTE: the use of snaps and webbing has far out wayed the use of velcrow over the years.

[Paul]

UPPER LEG AND CALF SECTIONS

Note: Velcro was invented by rebles to cause Imperial Armour explode at the worst possible time.


Ok now the upper legg armour. There are several things to think of here, one construction of the armour and how are you going to hold it in place. Firstly again you can velcrow front and back, or you can glue the front and velcrow the back( giving you easy access to the armour for putting on and off) or you can glue front and use snaps into the back of the armour to secure it.
Personaly I like the glue and snaps.

Now once you have built these sections you now need to keep them in place, I have seen basically two methods, you use webbing and glue a strip that is then snapped to the cod peice to hold them up, its good untilll under pressure the snap lets go.

My prefered method and how I do it, get yourself a cheap black belt, put this on after the undersuite, and the you have a peice of webbing glued to the armour and then you sew a loop into the top section ( after measuring the distance ) that loops threw the belt, those upper leg bits are not going anywhere.

The LOWER leg secions again velcrow front and back, or glue front and velcrow back, or again use snaps.

[Paul]

DROP BOXES

I have seen these hanging from some very strange places, especialy from those who think they are so called wearing cannon armour, as usual there a joke, would be's if they could be's. Anyway drop baxes are general hung by webbing, you can either glue both ends ( being the drop box and then the cod section ) some [people hang them from under the belt. The location is up to you the method I would recogmend is glue on both sections, but some people use snaps when attaching to main armour.

[Paul]

THE BELT

Most of yuou have seen the options here, firstly you need to decide if you want the belt permantly attached, also do you want to continue the belt around in ABS or go the more movie accurate verrsion and do half of it in canvas. Personaly I think the canvas looks crap, sorry but it looks like they ran out of plastic and just needed to grab what they could to finish the costume. Why would you do the whole costume in lets say ABS and then put a crapy strip of canvas around the back.

Anyway that is only a personal preferance if you like it then go in that direction.

Remember that the belt can serve several purposes if done properly, it can hold all your armour together and stop you exploding, it also can carry pouches and of course your holster and E-11.

So if you want to go plastic all round I sugest you rivert the front section to the cod peice, with two abs sections also included in the rivert, these would go back and then I would snap these togethere. This lockes you front and back lower armour together. you would then make up a plate to attach the detinator to and snap this to the ABS at your back.

The other verrsion is to go plastic at the front and then canvas from the sides and back, it is then generaly velcrowed together and then the detination is attached useing metal U clamps or similar. A nother verssion of this is to make the full belt detached from the armour and just bolt it up when getting dressed.

I find attaching the belt tends to stabalise the armour, but many dont. Also with some E-11s they can be heavy, hanging off a canvas belt can be a pain, especialy if you velcrow it at the back. Lots to think about.

[Paul]

BUTT AND COD ARMOUR

As with the other bits of the suite there are several ways to takle this, the main thing to think about is how to keep it up. I recogmend you make a webbing harness, like a H harness. this will have webbing going front to back over each shoulder( you can either glue or snap attach, what I would now do is run webbing from the front to the back over your shoulders, this can be glued or snaped to keep in place. You should also run a bit of webbing between your legs, glue the fron and velcrow or snap the join at the back, this will keep your armour sitting straight. depending on your armour you may also need to paint in the buttons. Make sure you trim this section for comfort.

[Paul]

CHEST & BACK ARMOUR

Almost to the end. With the chest and back plate you really need to decide if you want it contected all the time or have it come apart for packing. Also I think it is important that the stress on the shoulder armour straps that go from front to rear should be under as minimal stress as possible. How I did this was to run webbing from front to rear on the left and right, I glued both sides but you can gule and snap if you want the armour comming apart. But basically the webbing takes up the weight of the armour and you can just then velcrow them on and that will be quite enough. Some people have glued them in, two problems, they crack easy and also your armour is now permanantly attached, harder to pack.

With this section and the lower body armour I also ran webbing straps about 1/2 way down each section on both sides front to back, glueing the fron and useing snaps for the back.

[Paul]

IN GENERAL

The above is there to give you something to think about, my ideas and the way I did mine are not the only way to go about it. I originaly did it the way the kit said to do it, that was everything velcrow, I am still regretting doing that up to this day. All I would say is if you use Velcrow get the industrial strength, velcrow will let go, especialy when wet and hot, and if the actual velcrow join dose not let go the glue will, generaly by sliding off its point and the worst moment. You need to be comfortable, trust your armour and keep repairs to a minimum. make this if they go wrong simple to fix in the field, always carry a trooping kit. If your going to get snaps, again get good ones and always get a good amount of them, you will always get to use the others. With the webbing bunnys sells good 2 inch webbing ( can also get in smaller width ) grab a few meters of it, webbing is always usefull. Glues can be plumbing glue, get the clear, or you can use weldon, if your going weldon let me know I get it for R2 and can suply all you need. I would personaly go the plummers glue, you can really soak it into the webbing.

The main thing with doing armour is think ahead, know what you want to end up with before you start. I ll look at building the helmet kit later.