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Ribbed Shoulder Straps


hhuggins
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You may want to create a poll to avoid a huge number of replies. Personally I did not. No one except die hard sandy's seems to notice, and as long as I'm wearing FX I'm not sure it's worth the trouble.

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I contemplated this issue as well. If shoulder straps were to be omitted then what would be the best way of connecting them.

It would probably be a black strap running underneath, but what would be the best way to attach it?

On my clean FX kit I glued the front part of the straps and used white industrial Velcro in the back. I'd like to use this configuration on my new kit because of the adjustability it affords.

The perfectionist in me wants to go pure canon but in order for my body to be canon (i.e. match the physiques of the extras in the film) I'd have to lose about fiteen pounds. IMHO canonical details should only really be stressed when creating display pieces.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The thing is, even if you used the ribbed straps, you shouldn't connect the chest and abckplate using them. In the movie there is a strap under the chest and back that attaches them together. The ribbed piece was more for looks than any sort of real holding mechanism.

Personally I like the lack of the ribbed pieces. You can't see the on under the pauldron anyway and with everything going on with backpack straps and shoulder pouches, it would just get in the way and eventually get messed up. Just one less thing to worry about and canon to boot!

I contemplated this issue as well. If shoulder straps were to be omitted then what would be the best way of connecting them.

It would probably be a black strap running underneath, but what would be the best way to attach it?

On my clean FX kit I glued the front part of the straps and used white industrial Velcro in the back. I'd like to use this configuration on my new kit because of the adjustability it affords.

The perfectionist in me wants to go pure canon but in order for my body to be canon (i.e. match the physiques of the extras in the film) I'd have to lose about fiteen pounds. IMHO canonical details should only really be stressed when creating display pieces.

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Here's how I did mine- nylon webbing pop riveted to the front and back, ribbed shoulder straps glued in. The shoulder straps carry no weight at all. I could have made smooth shoulder straps out of my scrap, but I didn't. I also forgot to put the snap in the nylon for the shoulder bell and bicep straps, so... heh

Posted Image

Posted Image

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Jus tone more thing to note... It isn't that the sandtroopers have flat straps over their shoulders. There are no platic straps at all. What we see on them is just the chest plate butting up to the backplate. If you are using FX armor, it may not be made in a way that this can be done... I am not sure.

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Most FX kits I have seen don't have much of a protrusion at the strap areas, my old one straight from GF didn't, so unless someone added some height to the mold in subsequent recasts, they probably don't have anything like the ANH armors. I'm doing my new TE "strapless" as part of an effort to do a screen-accurate as possible suit.

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I plan on going strapless as well (it sounds so risqué) and am working out the logistics of how to do it.

I'm thinking about sewing some webbing or cloth straps into 2 "T-shaped" pieces, each with a snap at the end.

The crossbar of the "T" would connect the chest plate to the back plate and the long post of the "T" would run down and connect the shoulder and bicep pieces together.

This is what I've come up with so far. If there's any better solutions I'm all ears.

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yeah, on my second TE, I'm doing strapless. My one question though is_maybe Braks can answer this_how are the shoulder bells attached?! Now, I could just use the industrial snaps but you would see the snaps to some extent, and the shoulder bell that's behind the ammo pouch is waaaay out there... almost falling off. I'm thinking attach the right one like you would a FX kit to the strap connecting the chest and back, while the left shoulder bell is attached to the back-pack shoulder strap.

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Hey Mike,

I'm pretty sure that the shoulder bells were connected to each other and the strap went behind your neck.If you use webbing rather than elastic the bells will stay where they should be.Use elastic for the straps around the biceps though.I use this method and it works a treat!

-Paul.

Thanks Paul, that's interesting. As Seth asked, does it attach to anything? Wouldn't that cut into the back of your neck and/or become uncomfortable?

On both my FX and first TE, I attached the shoulder bells to the plastic shoulder strap using two industrial snaps on elastic. It's sold, yet flexible.

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Yes it is just one strap going from one bell to the other AFAIK.You could have the strap connecting at the back with either velcro or snaps,but it doesn't attach to any other part of the armour and sits 'comfortably' across the top of your back/shoulders.

Attaching the bells this way means they are free from your suit and won't stress your plastic shoulder straps/bridges.I'll get a pic up soon of my set-up,but it is basically one strap connecting the two bells with the biceps connected to the bells and forearms connected to the biceps.The complete arm sections are totally free from the main armour.

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OK, so let me get this straight... there is NO strap at all, or is it just a flat piece non-ribbed strap instead of the ribbed strap? It looks like to me, that there is a flat, non-ribbed strap going over the shoulder in the reference picture. When all else fails....

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i don´t know any picture showing this exactly, but afaik there needs to be a strap underneath the white plastik part.

but there were NO parts over these parts...

look:

Posted Image

or like here:

Posted Image

there is no other way the chest plate and the back plate will hold its position...

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Well, unless they were using some skinny heroin addicts with chests the size of 10yr. old boys in the movie for the stormtrooper actors, I don't see how the "protrusions" from the front & back plates could meet up as the above pictures seem to indicate (thanks RoCKo!) BTW, help an IGNANT brother out and tell me what the **** "afaik" means?

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Not Quite, just skinny 70's English guys.... Rumor has it that none of them were over 140-145lbs. in some pictures you can see through the gap between their chest and armor, not so with most of us (I am 5-10", 225lbs). Given the difference in health, nutrition and just the general size differences in the population now, even if I dieted for a year, I probably couldn't fit into an original suit.... Example:

estmated original size

5'-10"

chest 38 regular

forearms - 10-11 inches

biceps - 12-13 inches

waist - 26-28 inches

thighs - 21 inches

calves - 13 inches

Me

5'-10"

chest 49 regular

forearms 14-1/2 inches

biceps - 15-3/4 inches

waist - 38-39 inches

thighs - 28 inches

calves - 17-1/2 inches

...............I could stand to lose 30-40 lbs at most, but there is no way I could reduce my muscle mass to wear the same armor....

...then again, maybe you are on to something with the whole heroin thing.. (LOL)

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...............I could stand to lose 30-40 lbs at most, but there is no way I could reduce my muscle mass to wear the same armor....

...then again, maybe you are on to something with the whole heroin thing.. (LOL)

Naw, forget smack... METH is where it's at now!! You get emaciated AND you loose your teeth in no time! Just think of all the money you'll save not having to go to the dentist!

Crimeny Mel, Big E mentioned you worked out, but you're built like an African low-land gorilla aren't ya?

Ok, back on topic!!

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