Ord Mantell
BFB Hero
The Clothears suit finally arrived so I can proceed faster with this build.
First thing was to get the armor mounted. Which means taking a shotgun to the vest to get some holes in it. Make sure to get the special shot that spreads out in the correct symmetrical pattern.
Or the harder method is with the extra armor set with the holes pre-drilled... whichever makes you happy.
I might be done with this set now, so will have to figure out how we can pass it around if anyone wants to try it.
PP2 plates are spaced kinda wonky. Not like the hero suit.
I wanted to make sure the ab plate actually sits at the very bottom of the vest in order to replicate a unique feature of the PP2 vest.
Then mark the holes
So, very fast, let's take a look at that unique feature of the PP2 flak vest...
The PP2 vest suffers from a little sag of the backing cloth. Now, unfortunately this led to a sad period in the history of our hobby where ppl misinterpreted what this was. People were seeing this as a hem stitch near the bottom of the vest, and so for a long time, people were making vests with a hem stitch along the entire front of the vest about 1/4" from the bottom. It was a very regrettable period. I tried to raise the alarm flag at the time but a fad is a fad. Sometimes its just unstoppable. Luckily its all in the past now and we can all laugh at the whole woeful affair.
I need to have this feature on my vest so thinking about how this happened, seemed to me two obvious possibilities. 1) the backside cloth was cut too long and simply hangs out. Or 2) when the grommet holes were punched in, the frontside and backside were just slightly out of alignment, with the backing just slightly further down and once the grommets went in, this misalignment became baked in.
Of course, I don't know how it happened, but the second scenario seemed more plausible to me. So in proceeding with the grommet holes, I decided to take a chance on it and try misaligning the front and back side a bit.
normal alignment vs futzed:
The pp2 vest is the one vest I know for sure had brass grommets. They are put on with the backside facing front. I'm using C.S. Osborne rolled rim #1 (13/32" hole) grommets again with a 7/16" or 11mm hole punch, the same as on my ESB build.
okay. Now let's take a chance on ruining this wonderful new vest.
point of no return.
Let's remember to keep in mind this is just a hobby. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just have fun. If you find yourself getting stressed about things like this its time to take a step back.
Okay, I did lose some sleep over this, but after a long session with the therapist I'm feeling better.
There's a good chance I'm wrong about the cause of that backside drooping down, but doing it this way seems to result in a decent reproduction. After doing this, I'm leaning more towards the backside being cut too long or some other possibility.
Also note, I pointed out to clothears it would be nice if they did a bad dye job on the vest to replicate the blue splotches all over the real one. They couldn't offer that, but they did come up with a brilliant solution to simulate it. I think it worked. Notice the blue splotches. Subtle and well done.
Still need to fine tune the placement of the armor. Not quite right yet.
First thing was to get the armor mounted. Which means taking a shotgun to the vest to get some holes in it. Make sure to get the special shot that spreads out in the correct symmetrical pattern.
Or the harder method is with the extra armor set with the holes pre-drilled... whichever makes you happy.
I might be done with this set now, so will have to figure out how we can pass it around if anyone wants to try it.
PP2 plates are spaced kinda wonky. Not like the hero suit.
I wanted to make sure the ab plate actually sits at the very bottom of the vest in order to replicate a unique feature of the PP2 vest.
Then mark the holes
So, very fast, let's take a look at that unique feature of the PP2 flak vest...
The PP2 vest suffers from a little sag of the backing cloth. Now, unfortunately this led to a sad period in the history of our hobby where ppl misinterpreted what this was. People were seeing this as a hem stitch near the bottom of the vest, and so for a long time, people were making vests with a hem stitch along the entire front of the vest about 1/4" from the bottom. It was a very regrettable period. I tried to raise the alarm flag at the time but a fad is a fad. Sometimes its just unstoppable. Luckily its all in the past now and we can all laugh at the whole woeful affair.
I need to have this feature on my vest so thinking about how this happened, seemed to me two obvious possibilities. 1) the backside cloth was cut too long and simply hangs out. Or 2) when the grommet holes were punched in, the frontside and backside were just slightly out of alignment, with the backing just slightly further down and once the grommets went in, this misalignment became baked in.
Of course, I don't know how it happened, but the second scenario seemed more plausible to me. So in proceeding with the grommet holes, I decided to take a chance on it and try misaligning the front and back side a bit.
normal alignment vs futzed:
The pp2 vest is the one vest I know for sure had brass grommets. They are put on with the backside facing front. I'm using C.S. Osborne rolled rim #1 (13/32" hole) grommets again with a 7/16" or 11mm hole punch, the same as on my ESB build.
okay. Now let's take a chance on ruining this wonderful new vest.
point of no return.
Let's remember to keep in mind this is just a hobby. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just have fun. If you find yourself getting stressed about things like this its time to take a step back.
Okay, I did lose some sleep over this, but after a long session with the therapist I'm feeling better.
There's a good chance I'm wrong about the cause of that backside drooping down, but doing it this way seems to result in a decent reproduction. After doing this, I'm leaning more towards the backside being cut too long or some other possibility.
Also note, I pointed out to clothears it would be nice if they did a bad dye job on the vest to replicate the blue splotches all over the real one. They couldn't offer that, but they did come up with a brilliant solution to simulate it. I think it worked. Notice the blue splotches. Subtle and well done.
Still need to fine tune the placement of the armor. Not quite right yet.
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