nanotek

Dat DLT tho... man that looks schweet

Yes and without repeating exactly what the CRL states. Both forearms have cover strips on the front and the rear. The left forearm front cover strip ends so as to allow for the two wrist bands.

Un-bugger I managed to snaggle one out of him

Bugger. Looks like I'll be making my own then

Is that the ISD pauldron? It looks really good. I got the one from Veeds and am not that happy with it. Has crooked stitching and the edging is wrong

Yeah. Strapping will be another challenge. I was planning on following some of the regular TK strapping for some areas. I plan on being reasonably active and am hoping that all of the reinforcing I am doing will be enough to cope. Thanks for the encouragement. I am sure I will get through it all. Your outfit looks great! I hope I can get mine to the same standard as everyone else's.

Yeah thanks mate. I've been following your build and it's reassuring to know that I'm not the only one dealing with these issues. I managed to get up and running yesterday and get a few things done. Looking forward to when I can start ticking off some pieces!

So after a visit to Tom to show him the ArmoryShop version of his 3D files, a couple of things came to light. One major one was that these prints are from an earlier version of the STL files meaning that some of the more practical modifications he made to the armour for trooping are not included. So here are the beginnings of the modifications to the ab and back plates. Basically the ab and back plate need to be extended by at least an inch to enable more movement of the upper body with out the armour catching on the lower parts. I have never done any work like this before so it's just my interpretation of experimentation and my brand of common sense Note: I have not given dimensions here because the armour is scaled to my body so it will be different for others. I bought some 4mm ABS and began by measuring out the bits allowing for a 2" extension. It maybe too much to start with but it's easier to remove it than keep adding. I used the score and snap method to cut the ABS and basically gave each part a rough sanding before gluing using Zap-a-gap medium CA glue. Here is the back plate which holds the thermal detonator: The ab plate was more difficult to cut as there are curves and angles to deal with. It required a fair amount of effort to get right, including the use of a hair dryer and a large pot to get the curve into the ABS: I will be reinforcing this with fibreglass and will fill the front with more resin. Once this is complete I can do a fitting to see if any needs to be trimmed back.

A couple of things I forgot to mention, there has been some hiccups with some of the 3D printed parts. Some pieces are quite thin and the print lines are much like wood grain meaning that they can break very easily. I have had a couple of breaks happen in what I would say are expected places. As you can see circles in blue and marked in red, this section was the first to go on the thighs. This will be an easy fix, I just need to get the ribbed section completed so I can glue into place. Once the ribbed sections are in I can reinforce with fibreglass. The next break was not so expected, but happened out of clumsiness. Here is the chest plate: I plan on gluing the crack with CA glue and reinforcing the back with fibreglass. I intend to do both sides of the chest plate to ensure that any future clumsiness is mooted. ''Tis but a scratch!" The next two images are merely to show how much effort is required on this kit. 3D printed parts have their advantages and disadvantages. Advantages in this instance is that this armour was designed by Tom Campbell and is in my opinion the most screen accurate model we have available, I would suggest that even Anovos won't beat him on this. Disadvantages include: print lines are hard to fill and create weak points by their very nature. And if the print is rushed or printed on weird angles; creates other artefacts as can be seen in the next couple of pictures You can clearly tell on this forearm that after a light block sanding that there is quite a serious amount of work to get the parts to a smooth finish. Not all parts are the same, some are easier than others, some are worse. The sanding is killing me and at times I feel like no progress is being made (even though any progress is progress) and find that at the moment it's only willpower that is keeping things moving. Anyway I will provide more updates as I go. I have a lot of reinforcing to to do and also some modifications to make thanks to advice from Tom. Perseverance is a great skill to have on a build like this

Looking very nice!

Love your work! I especially like the makeshift paint tent.

Looking good Nick. Does the poncho need adjusting as well, looks like there is a bit extra

This is looking fantastic Nick

Great work! Yes the under suit needs to fit like a wetsuit, otherwise bunching occurs. I am doing the same for my pants at the moment. Loving the progress on your build and thanks for the response regarding colour matching.

Great to see you over here Dylan. There are quite a few people who went with the Jimi kit here and will most certainly help you out if you get stuck. Your DT is looking great. Keep it up!

Progress update: After coating the outside of the armour with resin I decided do an initial sanding and to do an inner coating of resin. Shoulder bell inner has a lot of print lines and strands. All of this needs to be smoothed out to reduce catching on the undersuit. Shoulder bell outer after first resin coating. As you can see there is quite a heavy "wood grain" pattern that will need to be filled and smoothed out. Back plate inner has quite a few catchy bits. I will also be looking at storing a battery back here in the future Back plate outer requires a lot, and I mean A LOT of work. I will need to reinforce the neck/shoulder line as well as fill and sand. As you can see even after an initial resin coat there are a lot of print lines that need to be smoothed out. I will be sanding this back and then applying a second coat of resin. Cod inner has since been sanded and coated in resin. Cod outer after first coat of resin and sanded back. Will be coating this again and sanding before assessing what to do next as it's not that bad in terms of heavy print lines. E-11D blaster updates: Weathering has started on the barrel by feathering gloss aluminium paint. I will give another coat tonight. I bought some red and yellow acrylic to shape and add. So I cut out the yellow buttons according to the template provided by Tom and then my brain said " instead of using a decal for the red box around the yellow buttons, let's do it in acrylic!" So it took 2 attempts. I cut out the shape using a Dremel and tried to use boiling water to soften the acrylic. No matter how much I boiled it didn't soften enough to shape to the barrel and actually just broke with too much force. So my second attempt I found a small chilli sauce bottle that roughy matched the diameter of the barrel, removed all labels. Then... I placed the bottle on its side in the microwave and balanced the acrylic piece on top. Microwave on high for about 1-2 minutes and whilst wearing leather gloves carefully shape it to the extremely hot bottle. Worked a treat! Once I had my red square shaped I then cut the relevant section out of the barrel with the idea that I would be able to take that piece and insert it into my red square. After some further cutting with the Dremel and some sanding, it fit in nicely. I will need to fill the area around the acrylic as there are some gaps before setting it all in place. I think it looks pretty good and if I decide to put in some lights it will look pretty rad. I also cut and Dremeled out another section of the blast at the rear to put in a piece of red acrylic, which looks pretty cool. I am thinking I might cut a line right through for further lighting in the future. I also cut out a piece of red acrylic for the Hengstler counter and glued it in place. You can see when held up to the light it will look cool should I decide to light it up. There's a ton more I did as far as applying resin and sanding goes, but you get the idea

Hi Mara Which kit are you using? Each kit is assembled differently.

Ok. That's good to know that it's not just me! Yeah spray putty is awesome. It's funny how some of the parts are printed very nicely and others seem a bit rushed. I'm still happy with the overall kit and was quite prepared for all the work. Just the back piece seemed a bit odd

Nick! This is looking sick mate. You're doing a fantastic job with the unfinished armour. I am currently doing the same is the back plate kinda messed up at the top near the shoulders? Mine requires a lot of work to get it smooth

Yeah I'll have a crack at it try to get a discussion going on.

Thanks for that! As for the conversation I directed them to Special Ops. So hopefully they are here now and pouring over the many many pages of research! Agree on the L2 requirements. I have been thinking about this for a while, will be happy to contribute.

There has been some discussion about the DT CRL again on Facebook about it not being clear about the alternate colouring. This thread has it detailed but the published one has "The recesses and asymmetric panels may be metallic black" It might be worth mentioning it as one statement? "Armour is gloss black with recesses and alternating panels in metallic black" Maybe we need to map out the actual panels so that it's clear and consistent? I also noticed that the leather pouch on the belt doesn't specify that there is no visible stitching. Should say something like: "There is a leather or leather-style pouch (approximate dimensions 120mm x 60mm x 25mm) with no visible stitching and a single press stud located between front pouch and the belt box on the wearer's left."

Longish update: So I unpacked everything and started to feel daunted by the huge amount of work ahead of me. Was also feeling a little bit apprehensive about where to start or how. But these feels were short lived, just got stuck in and everything is ok So here is the undersuit. It's not bad, there's a few mods I will make for trooping and also I will be making the pants legs tighter as they are a tad on the baggy side. The top and poncho are perfect. Mods will include 1. adding thumb holes to the sleeves 2. Adding stirrups to the pant legs 3. Will use either a zip or Velcro and snaps to attach the pants to the top I will be attempting to make this suit myself in future as I have some great ideas on how to make it. This was just to help speed up this already complex and time consuming build Now onto the armour... There's well over 100 bits and pieces to coat in resin and sand. I have not put them all here. Lots of little bits: Shoulder bell (I have three to do) Forearms, biceps, abdomen (2 pieces) etc Chest and a thigh: Back: Shin, thigh and some other bits: I'll end that here and move on to the first lot of work, I've done a bit more than I have photographed but resin coated most of the larger parts to start with I plan on resin coating both inside and outside of the armour. I will be buying some rubber material I saw at Bunnings to line the interior so that there is A: less wear and tear on the undersuit B: the armour should grip the undersuit without the need for too much strapping. (Maybe...) Hopefully we have some more days like today so I can continue working. It was a nice day today!

Not entirely yet. I am going to rewatch Tom's video for some ideas, but also look at some of the TK builds for using snaps. I have also seen some creative ideas around using magnets for the rubber shoulder straps. While I am preparing each piece of armour I will gather reference materials and plan my attack from there.

I would hazard a guess and say; at least until the game drops so that all details can be confirmed. The game is still in development with the final release date in November.