Snaps on armour

[Jango Fett Jr]

With my new vest being made and my new set of armour, I need to know the best method of attaching snaps to my metal armour. It should be easy enough to attach them to the vest, but I can't see how to do this.

And if this is not the best method, what have the rest of you used to attach metal armour to your vest?

 

[asok]

I am in the same boat. I am going to try some glue that said it would work with metal.

 

[secol FETT]

i used velcro but i want to use magnets to attach the armor

 

[jrnymanprotector]

There's a thread in the Jango forum about this.

Long-story short is that you'll want to use the snaps that have a total of four pieces (two for each side of the snap). Just put one through your vest normally. And put the other, armor side snap, through a 1'sq tab of abs, sintra, or other plastic. The snap will be attached to the tab, then use any regular adhesive to attach the plastic tab to the plastic armor

Personally though, I use magnets for my chest plates,

Phil

 

[Jango Fett Jr]

Thank you Phil, but my problem is that I have metal armour. I just can't see how to attach it to metal. I will have platic armour soon, but till then I wanna get this working.

 

[mlcallanta]

This is a good topic.
I'm actually on the same boat too with my newly completed FG chest armors - still need to find a way how to adhere those to the vest.

Phil's suggestion on the snaps looks promising, however dunno about the magnets. Where do you get these magnets & how do you attech 'em?

Mardon

 

[bobagoat]

i used epoxy putty to attach the snaps to my armor plates. it holds really well.

 

[jrnymanprotector]

I used a two-part epoxy available at wal-mart to attach my magnets directly to the sintra armor. Worked wonderfully. I imagine that it would hold metal to metal, but can't be certain.

I used magnets available at home depot, they usually come six to a pack or so, each is relatively thin and roughly an inch in diameter. Simply glue them anywhere you like on your chest plates. I used three on each of the three main plates (used velcro for the center piece). Once the magnets are affixed to the main plates, just put them on your vest (as you wear it) put magnets on the inside of your vest to hold the plates on and slide them into the desired position. Once everything is well just slip the vest off while the plates are still affixed. You now can see where the inner magnets will need to be placed in order to hold the plates in the proper position. I took patches of an old t-shirt, slightly larger than the magnets, and hot-glued them over the magnets on the inside of the vest. Now they will stay put when the plates are taken off and cannot fall off while in costume etc.

Worked great and it's cool to be able to pop your chest plate off without revealing any mounts behind it on the vest

Phil

 

[mlcallanta]

Cool Phil!
Thanks for the suggestion!

Mardon

 

[Jango Fett Jr]

Hmm...Actually I think I may go with magnets. Seeing as my armor is metal, I would only need magnets on the vest most likely.

 

[jrnymanprotector]

Depending on which metal your armor is, yeah, you could probably just put them on the vest.

Aluminum isn't magnetic, right? Am I imagining that? I can't remember...

Phil

 

[Jaster Mereel]

Umm, interesting - I may need this in the future..

 

[Jango Fett Jr]

Well I will try the magnets method, see how that holds. If not, I tested some industrial strength velcro with super sticky back, and it stick to the armour metal really well. I think I might just go with that.

 

[mattrinck]

JMP, do you have to limit your movement because of the magnetic attatchment at all. Just wondering how much force they take before coming off. Last thing I would want to happen is to be walking around and off pops a chest piece.



Matt

 

[Megalomaniac Mando]

JMP's system is a fantastic idea, and I remember when he first reported on trying this. I always thought it was the coolest.

Aluminum, however, is not magnetic, so a metallic whatzit will still have to be attached to the inside of the armor plate itself. Perhaps a large washer would be enough, but only testing will provide answers (also, make sure the washer itself is magnetic ).

Depending on how heavy the armor is, and what gauge aluminum it was made from, there are a number of choices for adhesives. All those mentioned should work perfectly. For my armor attachments, I used bolts passing through the armor entirely, and through grommets in the vest, then screwed the nut from the inside. As the backplate has a hook over the shoulders, and the collar receives little stress, I used industrial strength velcro on these. GOOP was the product I used to attach the velcro to my aluminum armor. Roughing up the inside of the aluminum armor with a rotary tool provided a great surface for my GOOP to stick to. The GOOP has held under some pretty tough circumstances, including several hard falls during a fan film, and shows no sign of failing yet.

 

[jrnymanprotector]

I used three magnetic connections on each of the three main chest plates. So, six magnets in total for each plate. They held VERY strong. I trooped for about two and half days at comic-con and attended the IMAX premiere in costume. The plates NEVER fell off, never once. A few times a particular movement may have 'popped' one of the connections, but the others were untouched so the plate stayed, and the best part is that generally after 'popping' loose, the chest plate would fall back to my chest and re-connect lol.

The connections are very strong. The only time I remember coming anywhere near close to one popping off entirely was on the tour bus shuttle to and from the Con. Cramped seats, lots of bending. But still I didn't lose any. And I sat through IMAX entirely without a problem.

I'm very confident in the magnetic system. I have bought the magnets I will use for my new version and plan shortly to post a tutorial

Phil

 

[mlcallanta]

I'll be waiting for your Tutorial, Phil

We pulled our first FG chest armors today & the back portion has a recessed area compared to the edges - I could try either the snaps or the magnetic system & hopefully even with a little slack, no gaps will be seen from the sides.

Another idea would be to add a FG flat sheet at the back with square or round pockets to house these magnets. Could possibly work either way.

Mardon

 

[Han Hunter]

Sounds good mardon. Any pics?

Si

 

[mlcallanta]

I'll send you pics thru e-mail Si....hopefully, you can help me upload

Mardon

 

[mattrinck]

Thanks very much for the info. Looks like I'm going to buying some magnets.


Matt