Here it is! Much final fitting still needed, but for now, it was a LOT of fun to wear…
After walking around for over an hour, some of the things I feel I need to address are:
My Vest needs to be brought in, just a bit
I need to finish adding Velcro to the Knee and Arm Armor to help keep it in place
I feel like I need a large blaster to carry (most of my other costumes have included something like a Blaster or Light Saber, and it felt “awkward” not having something to carry)
And, lastly, I need to “dirty everything up” because it’s just too clean for the Star Wars universe.
The bridge between the Chest & Back Armor is supposed to be covered with 1/2 to one inch wide cotton webbing…
I cut two short pieces, and sealed the ends with super glue…
I then used Shoe Goo to adhere them to the shoulder bridge area, taping them in place to dry…
The Shoulder Bells are supposed to be attached so that it appears they are held on by zip ties…
The first step is to feed zip ties through the holders…
These zip tie mounts will be used for the rest of the process…
Each Shoulder also gets a strip of 1/2 elastic to help keep the bell from flopping around…
Each strip is sewn into a loop…
And then zip tied to one of the mounts…
The excess zip tie is cut off…
And, the mounts are adhered to the center of each Shoulder Bell, a few inches up from the bottom edge…
Now, back to the main attachment area. The zip ties need to be cut off, leaving maybe four inches, or so…
Then, two more of the mounts need to have loop Velcro added to the adhesive side…
Here, both mounts have the loop Velcro added…
Those mounts are then slid onto the zip ties, with the loop Velcro facing UP…
Then, another zip tie is added to the end of the cut off zip ties, but only pressed on until they “click” into place. These will now act “stops” to keep the mounts from sliding off the end…
The excess zip tie is removed…
Leaving only the “stop”. The mount should freely slide on the piece of zip tie that remains…
Two short pieces of hook Velcro are then cut and mounted on the inside of the top of the shoulder strap area. This is where you attach the Shoulder Bell mounts…
The Chest & Back Armor are attached together with 1 1/2 cotton webbing…
I added some Velcro so the webbing can be looped around the front (Chest) piece, and then will connect to the Back through the slot in that piece…
I’ll be adding some loop Velcro to the Back to help with adjustments…
The hook Velcro added to the side straps…
Here, the side strap has been looped through the slot in the Chest Armor…
And here, the side strap has been pulled through the slot in the Back Armor…
Full shot of the Back Armor with the Velcro and straps disconnected…
Here, the straps are connected, and attached to the Velcro…
The last major thing I need to do is get the Chest & Back Armor fitted correctly. I first marked the location where the metal brackets end with painters tape…
Then tried to figure how much strap I need to leave in place and made a pencil line..
Here’s my mark. Let’s hope it’s right…
Here goes nothing…
One side has been cut…
Then, I marked the other side…
And cut it off…
I’ll be using these small metal plates to join the Chest & Back pieces…
The rear part of the Belt is supposed to get two inch wide nylon webbing that appears to be attached with one silver rivet on each side.
I cut two equal strips of nylon webbing…
Then did some quick calculations and came up with a final length needed, and an approximate location for the Velcro closure.
The Velcro was sewn to the nylon webbing.
And I now have my almost finished pieces of nylon webbing.
The two pieces were cut down to the final size, and then ends cauterized with an open flame…
After a few more quick measurements, I made a mark where the hole needs to be for the rivet on each side…
The rivets that need to be used are 1/8 inch.
Because I don’t think a single rivet will hold everything together, I’ll be adding the rivets, but they won’t actually be holding anything.
I used a piece of wood and a hammer to gently tap the metal wire out of the rivet.
I will just need the rivet part, itself…
I used my wood burning tool to melt a small hole in the nylon webbing…
Here, holes have been melted in the correct place.
An empty rivet is then fed through the holes.
And I marked the correct depth.
I then used tin snips to split the barrel portion of the rivet.
The result.
Here, both rivets have had their barrels split and then straightened back out.
A split rivet was then fed back through the holes.
And the split part of the rivet was gently separated and pressed flat. Be VERY careful when doing this because the aluminum is very soft and can easily break.
To reinforce the area, I’ll be applying KwikWeld.
I saturated the nylon webbing and covered the split rivet area.
I cut off a tiny piece of the metal wire that was in the rivet.
And super glued it into the empty hole in the rivet.
The excess nylon webbing was then glued down to the Belt, using a few more batches of KwikWeld.
The same process was repeated for the other strip of nylon webbing. The Belt assembly is quite strong now…
Next, I’ll be adding the 1 1/2 inch cotton webbing that connects the Drop Boxes to the Belt…
I want these to be adjustable, so I’ll be adding loop Velcro…
And the hook Velcro will go on the inside of the Drop Box…
The front piece is folded as such, and the loop part of the Velcro is added to the ends…
After the correct angle was determined, I pressed it and sewed it…
The other piece of loop Velcro sewn in place…
The completed front strap…
The two pieces of 1 1/2 cotton strap for the back connections…
Each strap will get loop Velcro to connect to the Drop Box, as well…
I’ll also need to add some loop Velcro to the back of the main Belt strap…
I’m adding some hook Velcro to the front strap to secure it to the plastic part of the Belt…
Here, the loop Velcro has been added it to the plastic part of the Belt…
And, the front strap is now secure…
While I’m working on this, I need to add some loop Velcro to the Belt front that will connect to the Codpiece. This should help keep the Belt in position…
After a light wet sanding with 500 grit sand paper, I’m gonna say the Chest piece is now ready for paint…
To keep the breast decal from getting any overspray, I’ll be using this masking fluid…
I used a toothpick to apply it over the decal…
One coat of masking fluid…
For good measure, I applied a second coat, just to make sure no areas were left uncovered…
Then, the Chest strap extensions got a coat of white paint. After the first coat was dry, I did a really light wet sanding with 1000 grit sand paper on both the Chest & Back pieces. And, they then both got another coat of white, which was blended into the existing paint…
After the paint was dry, I removed the masking fluid…
