Creating The Armor Pt. 3

So I spent the 4th of July weekend working on my armor with a friend. We got quite a bit done and managed NOT to set anything on fire this time. However I have learned that working with PVC and trying to get it attached to a shirt is one of the most impossible tasks in the universe. *insert epic amounts of cursing and throwing things* We did manage to get the back, the rest of the arms, the hands and a cheat piece for the shoulders done. I ended up painting the right side and after much fracking around got the chest piece to stick to the front of the shirt.

This is the painted arm set for the right side. The middle piece is the new addition that we worked on. It will cover from the shoulder down to the wrist.

This is the back piece. The holsters for the rifles still needs to be made and attached to the back. Ideally there will be a circular light in between the two rifles. Hmmm, Now it’s getting even more complicated. Damn you Bioware armor designers!

These are the two shoulder cheat pieces. We found that the PVC sheets were not big enough to be able to cut out the full design of the back plate to wrap up over the shoulders to the chest so we had to improvise. They will sit over the meeting point of the front and back plates to create the illusion of continuity. Close enough for me.

Finally got the hands all done. When I first did it they looked like “scrabble tiles” so I had to remove them from the gloves and shave down the edges. Then i had to reattach them. First of all attaching them the first time around was annoying enough but twice? I had to use two different types of glue and epoxy to get it all to stay. Then I managed to burn the hell out of my fingers in the process when the hot glue became stuck in the gun. After getting hot enough it decided to “unstick” all over my fingers. *sigh* This, as a general note, is never a good thing to have happen. But at least now it’s done.

The worst part of this whole process was, and is, trying to figure out how to attach the armor to the clothes. Because everything is so fitted I have to be able to take the pieces on and off to get in and out of it. Hey, I know, lets try sticky Velcro. I should have just poured more hot glue on my fingers and called it a day. It sticks to the plastic but not to the shirt. So how do you know where to place it on the shirt to be able to sew it on if it doesn’t stay on the shirt blah blah blah. Well kind of figured out how to do that with paint marking on certain parts to mark the shirt when placing it. But then the sewing comes in. Oh for fracks sake. Trying to sew through the sticky Velcro is a nightmare. I suppose I could take the next 15 years and try to hand sew it or just use a machine. Not as easy as you would think. Needle gets stuck, screws up stitch. Again with the blah blah blah. All I have to say is I wish that I wasn’t so concerned about the cosmetics of straps and buckles to attach t his thing to me. So I’m going to continue to make it difficult on myself and try to get through this whole sewing thing. I don’t have much time so back to work!

I almost forgot…I was able to put the two silver pices along the neck line of the chest plate using car trimmer and a snap button.