Snap plates, glue plates, screw anchors or whatever you want to call them, these plates are a common way to attach buttons, screws and fasteners without punching a hole in your costume.
The method is simple: Make a square from a similar type of material as the costume piece. Punch a hole in the square. Insert the attachment. Glue the square to the costume.
(I don’t really know why they are called “snap plates”, but I gather it has something to to with how you make them using a score-and-snap method. Or maybe because they are perfect for snap buttons? Or maybe it is just a snappy name?)
Fett’s armor is attach to the vest with screws and fasteners through grommets. I need 23 screws and 21+21 squares.
I am using two plates per screw. One plate is glued to the costume with a hole for the screw head. This plate is to offset the screw head height (which conveniently is 1,5 mm – the same as the plate thickness). And the other plate has a hole for the screw shank and is glued on top to keep the screw from popping out.
Two of the screws is attached to the center diamond chest piece, and this piece is so tiny that there are no benefits with snap plates here. So that’s why I only needed 42 plates. I realised this after having made the plates, so you’ll see me make 46 plates in the video:
Tools and materials used:
- Plastic M5 screws
- Sheets of white ABS plastics, 1,5 mm thick
- Hobby knife
- Metal ruler
- Pencil
- Clamps and magnets
- Vise
- Power drill
- Step drill bit, 6-20 mm
- Drill bit, 5 mm
- Glue, E6000
Not explained in the video is the left chest plate. This plate has two slots cut into it. On the back of these slots I’ve attached a red translucent acrylic and a digital red display, flashing in movie accurate patterns. It is SO COOL! Right now the wire isn’t connected to the battery, but that’ll come later.