Ok, for those not following the other threads, or the Sci-Fi Weekend Escapade on my website, I met Terry English while in the UK recently, and he commented that my shoulders didn't sit right on my armor. So, he sat down and re-designed the way they were connected for me.

All future sets of armor will be connected this way, and it will relieve all the stress that goes on the shoulders and causes them to break. So, from now on, the shoulders on my armor should not break, and will also lay correctly on the chest, making the armor look a lot better.

I had mentioned that I was going to be upgrading armor for people, or possibly putting together a "upgrade kit" that could be sold so you could upgrade your armor on your own.

The bad news is, neither of these things will be happenning.




After upgrading the first set of armor, I realized that it was so easy to do, that there was no need for most people to even need my help with it. Instead, I made a tutorial page that you can follow to upgrade your own armor all by yourselves.

Check it out:

http://www.spatcave.com/shoulder.htm

And if you have any other advice after trying it, or need any other help, let me know! And be sure to let me know if you do upgrade your armor using the instructions, and how it works out!

_________________
-Spat

Thank`s very much Spat.

It looks easy enough,though worse case I`ll need a new set of armour...HAHAHA

Fingers crossed when I try

Jason

_________________
What ya gonna do when I TECKNO HUG Youuuuu!!



Pvt.
STEAD,J "TECKNO VIKING"
A06/TQ1.0.22140E1

Skype: ulthur1

OUtstanding Spat..

_________________
STEVENSON F.
A11/TQ0.0.82148E1

"You are not your Drop Count."

thanks spat, ill be trying this i think

Nice one Spat. The armour does look better. I'm sure erveryone will be giving this a go.

Cheers

Darren

Cheers, Spat!

_________________
MSgt, UKCM 42nd Reg., 1st Batt. : Hadrian's Wall. UKCM

Wasteland Workshop
Props, cosplay pieces, upcycled ornamentation, and miscellanea;
For the discerning survivor of the apocalypse.
Steve Fletcher : Maker, Scavenger, and Junksmith.
linktr.ee/wastelandworkshop

Spat, could we have an overall picture/diagram showing the new strapping layout.

SAS

_________________
Alan T. Alien
1st Lt Smith, SA "Sidewinder"
A13/TQ1.4.19720EX CMA
Founder of UKCM 13th Regt. 1st Batt. Freebooters
Founder of Special Armaments Section (Heavy Weapons)
"People don't understand. people like me"

Does look better!

Nice Terry upgrade!!

will this already be done to the newer armor when orderd or will we still have to mod it like this any info

_________________
hows it hangin death


Wayne "GrimWraith" Martin
Location: Bristol, UK
Unit: 13th Regt. 1st Batt. "Freebooters"
Service Number: Pending

Thanks for that Spat....i had already attached the other strap to the armour, i did that before NSC... now to re-do the shoulders got loads of rivets...just need to make sure i have enough webbing...

All sets from now on will already be strapped, better than this, because it will be done during the building phase, instead of afterwards.

Basically, we're adding another strap over the left shouder, then adding small loops under the shoulders to connect to the straps between the chest and back. These loops hold the shoulders up and prevent them from sliding out to the sides.

Then we add the elastic from the shoulders to the bottom of the back. This lets the shoulders move freely, flex, and bend without breaking.

_________________
-Spat

There you go Glenn is the UKCM adjuster of armour now :p LOL

Just need to buy some of the stuff then I`ll have a crack (Bad pun I know) at doing mine

Jason

_________________
What ya gonna do when I TECKNO HUG Youuuuu!!



Pvt.
STEAD,J "TECKNO VIKING"
A06/TQ1.0.22140E1

Skype: ulthur1

I was going to ask if you have a glue gun, to save me buying one just to do this upgrade.

Sill need to get the webbing and elastic though.

_________________
Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."

PVB, yeap got a glue gun , rivets, tools...... funny thing is i was buying Velcro today and spotted loads of elastic.....oh if i had read this thread early this morning i would be attaching elastic now...... i have a roll of 1 " webbing ...about 1 metre i think....

Thanks Spat; I'll be doing that to mine before painting (finally)!

_________________
Paul "Dust" Massey
A05/TQ1.0.22148E1


Phoenix Rising | My Blog | Facebook | MySpace

XBox Live: "the DustRoom" | Wii: 7062 7508 0398 7441

I doubt I'd get one in our Woolies; it seems to only stock cheap toys and other kiddie tat now.

Think I'll look in the local DIY places and see what price they do.

@Glenn; Don't think I'll be doing the upgrade for a while, so may call on you in a month or so, to maybe work on them together.

_________________
Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."

pvb i got a glue gun from wilkinsons for a fiver

Okay, ta.

_________________
Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."

Will do.

_________________
Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."

Back brackets are now on my armour...... will do the shoulder parts by this time next week i hope! need to get some elastic, but that will be next saturday....

eeeek started upgrading my armour tonight. gotta say cutting and sawing etc into my highly prized sparmour was quite scary, did have a bit of a sweat on my brow i can tell ya! seems to be going well so far, pics soon.

oh and spat, thanks so much for the excellent step by step, easy to follow guide. such a great help

Started doing mine tonight.

While I was drilling out the rivets I kept thinking "Don't drill through your hand! Don't drill through your hand!"

Got the strap on the shoulder of the chest and back done, then tried it on to see how tight the strap had to be, which was like this:



Due to my funny shape, you can see how tight I have to have that side, so I might trim the top end of the back section, to allow the strap/buckle a bit more room to move.

_________________
Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."

looking great so far steve. nice and neat. keep us posted mate

Yeah, in case I didn't mention it before, drilling through your hand is bad.

Very bad.

Try and avoid that at all costs!

And looking good so far!

_________________
-Spat

I had trouble putting the armour on by myself, so asked my sister to assist me tomorrow, to help with the 'final' fitting.

Tonight I decided to try it on my own, but leaving the shoulders undone, so I could make sure the back and chest fitted together correctly now that there's a buckle on each shoulder.

Once I'd taken the armour off, I kept the straps at the same length and put it together:


(please excuse the use of sheepie slippers for filling/ballast to hold the armour in shape )

as you can see both shoulder areas of the back and chest sections are very close together.

This causes a problem with the main shoulder parts when in the correct position:



when the front section is clipped to the grenade straps, there's still a lot of bending stress at the top.

The elastic at the back just means that the whole shoulder section can pivot forwards, which just causes more stress where the loop on the shoulder attaches to the back/chest strap:



I'm going to have to adjust the placement of the strap slots on the back and/or move the rivets holding the elastic onto the shoulder further up the shoulder part, so that the whole shoulder section sits further back and lower to the top of the back/chest sections.

_________________
Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."