The armor...I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! Everything except parts of the upper torso, forearms, gloves, and shoes are now done. I ran out of the brass and none of the shops here carry it, so I'll need to wait till later this week for Amazon to deliver it to finish everything.
Magnets worked really well, but I'll need to grab more for the rest of the shin and some for later on when the helmet gets done. I'm considering putting one on the neck piece to get it in the correct spot before it grabs onto the velcro. There's a small spot under my right arm that currently uses Velcro that will probably get replaced by a magnet as well.
For the sword, I've watched a few tutorials and decided to go the PVC pipe route. Luckily, it looks like Ninjatos normally have a flat handle anyways, so I can just heat the whole thing up and flatten it without worrying about trying to make a rounded handle with a flat blade. After cleaning the ends up, it should be about a 19-20" blade and an overall length of 26-27".
I've also got the resin and bondo ready to tackle the helmet, but I'm running into a bit of a problem. For whatever reason, the lower jaw portion is not holding shape well, which is causing the sides of the face to be a bit wide. I can push on it to get it to the correct proportion, but I'm not sure how to hold it in place while the I put the resin on and let it harden. Has anyone else run into this problem? Any suggestions on handling it?