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Yeah, I see that. It's pretty neat, eh? Thanks. This is the first post that I can understand regarding this topic in terms of its utility. I'm convinced, the feature stays

I recently purchased a Hyperfirm B-grade E11 when slavefive posted a sale thread saying they had 4 available. Let me start by saying up front that I am very pleased with the product I received. It's what I expected. And I think that's important to understand so here's a bit about why I feel that way: I had heard really good things about these rubber blasters and I was looking for something as a backup/trooping blaster since I've read some nightmare stories about precious, accurate, resin blasters being harmed while out in "the field". In researching the various HFx options available, I decided that I wanted to put the least amount of money down for one of these as possible so that I wouldn't be disappointed in case the B-Grade was really rough. Choosing this option also helped me feel OK with attempting to fix whatever was undesirable to me given the lower price point. I knew going in that there would be seams, holes, etc. and that the weathering probably would not be what I wanted. Anyway, what I'm hoping comes across here is that I had a fair idea of what I was getting and what might be involved even though pictures and details are hard to find when it comes to these B-Grades. My hope with this thread is to shed some light on what you might receive if you order one too and so that others have more information when considering a purchase. When I received my blaster I was very excited. For a rubber blaster it feels really nice. I'm sure others have written volumes on the subject, but the weight feels great. It's lightweight but solid feeling which makes it a joy to hold/carry. There is very little flex in the blaster so it actually feels hard like plastic. The details overall are sharper than I expected. There are plenty of issues scattered about that could use some tweaking (and I'm going to attempt a few of the major ones). I planned to tweak the paint as well and slavefive was helpful in letting me know which brands/colors of paint were used to make the blaster and that CA glue is used to assemble certain areas. That's good because it means I can paint match what's already there. There is a very authentic feel to the piece even though aspects may not be accurate. All in all, I think it's a great starting point. Here's are some shots showing my blaster: I took some additional photos that I'll post and write about soon. They show some areas up close so you can really see the details as well as some of the issues present in these castings. Check back here! Hope this helps someone out there, -Dana

Germain, yep, that's exactly what my son did with the box! Taking a break from making cover strips, I decided that the next easiest thing for this short TK to build would be some shins. Actually, any arm or leg part will do at this point. I don't intend on fitting them to me right now, just assembling them. Make sense? I grabbed all four shin pieces and gave them a good once-over. The WTF shins are different from the RS Props shins, so I had to figure out what part went with what part. In the pic below, you can see how the left half is longer than the right half. In the next pic, you can see how the halves are roughly the same length. They fit together end-to-end nicely, and the other halves do the same. Now that the correct halves have been identified, let's cut! The fronts of all limb pieces should be assembled first because their size is constant no matter what size you are. For the shins, I'll be using a 20mm cover strip to cover the butt joint. I don't want the cover strip to completely cover the side ridges, though. I decided to measure 12mm from the narrowest part of the raised center ridge of the shin. This should leave 2mm on each side of the cover strip at the narrowest part of the front ridge of the shin. Then I clamped a ruler to the shin and made sure that the ruler was straight. I scored a bunch of times along the ruler with an exacto knife to make my straight cut. Then snap! I did this with both halves. Here you can see how straight my cuts turned out. Much better than my very first pair of shins! Since I like to add my inner cover strips first, I taped the butt joint together from the outside. This not only keeps the seam straight and tight together, but it also keeps the e6000 from making a mess on the outside. You can see how well it all fits together in there. Liberal application of e6000 to the inner cover strip (made from scrap ABS) and let it sit out for a few minutes before application. It makes the glue a little more tacky and less prone to oozing around in there. Add lots of magnets to both sides and let it cure. With my last build, I fit each part to my body as I assembled each piece. Not this time. This round, I'll be assembling inner cover strips on the fixed front seams on all the limb parts before diving into the fitting part of the build. The WTF armor is smaller than my RS armor, so it'll be interesting to see how much (or how little!) needs to be removed and reshaped. Oh, and I've already decided that I will be installing magnets on these shins as closures as well. The magnet method I used in my other TK works perfectly, and I've not had any issues whatsoever while trooping with them coming apart or anything. They're more work to install, but, man... totally worth it.

The background change didn't work because there was only one background to choose from. That might change in the future though

Here is where you edit your signature. And quit wining. Had we continued using the old forum version, it would only be a matter of time before we got hacked for real. It was literally impossible for us to continue using it. Your image is broken because Photobucket changed their policies on 3rd party linking. Not our fault. Account Settings -> Signature https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/settings/signature/

Change sometimes is necessary, I'm not fond of the new layout but like other forums I'll get used to it. I'm sure new skins or updates will be available in the future. Rome was not built in a day

edit: this guide does not work. See later post. So I did a little digging and figured out how to add photos from google photos. I right click on the photo you want to share click on "copy image address" when you paste the image address add "?.jpg? (yes include the actual question mark) That's it. A tiny bit more work, but don't have to deal with photobucket. Hope this helps and pass the word around.

Wow! That`s impressive...most impressive

8. Strapping.. Part one: Zel's tutorial on making snap plates! Woooow.. its been a while FISD, and I miss you! It's been three busy tk days here! I've actually "finished" my tk for basic approval last night so I can troop in the Canada Day parade this Sunday. Heres a sneak peek: (YAY for basic approval! and YAY for first 501st costume! here to many more!!) Alright where were we.... Lets talk about strapping today! I have decided to go with snaps as my strapping method, and this is for a few reasons: Easy to make and assemble, and does not take too much time a lot of adjustment potential, if a strap is too long/short, simply make a new one and snap it on! no gluing required! Comfortable and relatively tidy interior Reliable, out of the few local TKs around my area, non of us has had any snaps fail on us (knocks on wood) The first step to strapping is to make some snap plates! these are nylon webbing squares with a male snap in the middle, and these will permanently glued to the armour with e6000. These will be what the straps with female snaps attaches to. For my kit, as I have a few extra pieces of armour (cod and I decided to use snaps for all my arm attachments too); I went very generous with strapping, I used around 40 snap plates. Many tks get away with around 20-30, its all about how you want to personally strap your armour. *Note: All of the techniques and methods below belongs to CoasterTK (Jay) in the Outer Rim Garrison, I am just writing a tutorial and showing how I assembled my kit* Supplies: For Creating snap plates, you will need. 1.5" While Nylon Webbing cut into 1.5" x 1.5" squares. Some tks and Anovos mounted male snaps on small abs pieces,but nylon would attach so much nicer to your armour as it bends and molds to fit the shape of the armour. Personally I preferred white nylon as it blends in with the white armour and looks better with the straps removed, however, theres nothing to stop you from using whatever colour you want as no one sees the inside of your armour! Male snaps, both top and bottom Male snap assemble kit, usually comes with purchasing the snaps themselves, or can be bought seperately Torch! (the fun part) A fire proof clamp holding a nail... ^torch+clamped nail. IMPORTANT Safety Note: please do not do this in a non-ventilated environment, make sure there isn't any thing flammable in the proximity, wear PPE and common sense!! Please please please be careful <3 Step 1: Draw and X on the square nylon from corner to corner and mark the middle of the square Step 2: Fire up the torch, then carefully use the fire to seal the frying ends of the nylon squares. it only takes a split second n the fire to seal the edges! Step 3: Holding the Clamp, heat up the nail on the fire, then carefully poke the nail through the center of the white nylon. This will create the hole where the male snap fits through, and seal the hole from fraying in one step! Step 4: Turn off the torch, then insert the backing of the male snap through the hole made by the nail. Step 5: Put on the top of the male snap and hammer everything together on a concrete surface. Step 6: Voila! Now repeat 20-40x as you need! Making more than less at once is always better, plus I'm sure fellow tk builders if your area would love some too! I made around 80 snap plates in around an hour. After the snap plates are finished, I glued them on to my armour using e6000 and held in place with clamps and/or magnets. I left the snap plates to cure for 24 hours. Here's where I placed by snap plates: Here are also the promised photos which shows the torso armour post heat molding and sizing(trimming). 2x on shoulder bells to connect to shoulder bridge straps 2x on the middle of the shoulder bells to connect to bicep 2x on biceps to connect to shoulder bell 2x on forearms to connect to bicep. ^The snaps on the arms are all optional, as many troopers simply glue the strapping on to the armour, I did this so I can easier adjust and switch out pieces for future plans. (I plan on owning many shoulder bells in the future which I can swap in and out, each painted to represent a charity/ cause to support. Ex. rainbow shoulder bell for pride, puzzle shoulder bell for autism etc.) 2x on top of thighs to attach to garter belt. 4x on top of chest and back armour to attach to the shoulder bridge elastic strapping 4x on top of abs and bottom of chest to attach to them to each other (2 straps) 8x on the abs and top of cod to attach them to each other (4 straps) 1x on the bottom of the cod to attach to the butt. 5x on the right side of abs and kidney to make them join together (3 straps) (I used the han snap as a pair for the top snap plate on the kidney) 8x on the kidney and butt to attach them together (4 straps) 6x on the kidney to attach to the back plate (3 straps) I then named the pairs of snap plates. this will come in really really useful later on. I don't know why but I lost the images took at this stage of my kidney and back plate, but the images of everything strapped together makes it quite obvious (see strapping part 3) To be continued..

All those previous lessons should make this a snap.

HAPPY BBB!!!! I'm sooooo happy for you!!! Can't wait!!! (short trooper to short trooper FTW)

Yeah, like the Like button. People click it, but it's otherwise not used for anything. I'd like to turn it back off (I was the one who turned it off). For instance, we don't in any way surface the like information or sort or use that data. Other than giving people something to click on, for a forum like ours it's pretty useless, compared to say a purely social forum.

Greetings Stormtroopers! Our incredible webmaster Eric Brager (Darth Aloha) has completed the long, long overdue update of our forum to the latest version. One of the cool new features is being able to drag and drop photos directly in to posts. The boards are now modern and on par with our sister detachments of MEPD & SpecOps (and even IOC). Over the next several weeks we'll be doing some small UI tweaks here and there, however if you do see anything out of line, do create a post in the tech center and we'll start taking a look. Note, some pages like the EIB/Centurion list will need to be re-created, but should be easier now. So there are a few things that we know we need to do. Thanks for your patience, now let's get the party started!

Again very nice job Eric! It will take some getting used to but my garrison forum is very similar to this one.

HOLY SMOKES! This may take a little getting used to. . . . . . OK I'm up to speed LOVE IT!!!!! Excellent job Eric

My shins don't move around too much at all, especially when wearing the boots. I'm going to re-submit new photos tonight and will post an update on the feedback. Hopefully I get approved!! I appreciate all the help and feedback!

My front piece will start coming with vintage bolts very soon]

F-11D Heavy finished.. And next in progress is SE-44C

Slowly going to finish And HERE is LED test (youtube video on ''HERE'')

With some glossy white parts..

First F-11D heavy is almost whole printed

I have both the Icomm and the RomFX. Price wise , the Icomm is much cheaper and has a great sound. RomFX, more expensive, but, you can customize your settings. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ok, here's some close up photos highlighting some of the strengths and weaknesses of my B-Grade. I'll call out what I like and don't like about each image to help draw attention to why I took each photo. Below, I don't really like the filled in front sight, but I know they probably do it to make it easier to mold and stronger than a hollow part. The molded in screws in the muzzle are the wrong knurling type (straight not cross) but that doesn't bother me for a "stunt" blaster. Also the front of the stock has a pretty chunky looking seam that I'm not sure is present or as rough on their higher grades: Others have mentioned how short the magazine is, this photo shows how sharp some of the edges are. Look at the Hengstler! Even though there are some small bubbles here/there overall the cast counter is pretty sharp: The end cap is pretty good despite a few little holes. Obviously it's missing a D-Ring. The slot that the charging handle slides in is filled in and the spring is not present, again this makes total sense from a solid casting standpoint: I like that the T-Tracks are bent nicely into the Sterling receiver holes. I think I read that earlier versions of their blaster had them terminating before bending. So cool! You can see some little "warts" in the crease of some of the T-tracks. This is the worst side and the other side of the blaster does not have this issue: The detail on the grips is fantastic, really pretty sharp. However there are also a few damaged/scuffed areas where the checkered pattern is gouged/missing. Not a big deal. I imagine their master pattern part exhibited these real signs of wear and tear. Makes it look more real/used. The trigger looks pretty clean and the way they connected it to the trigger guard is pretty minimal and really most people will never notice it while you carry the blaster around: This shot of the top near the magazine well shows a nasty seam with some offset problems (see the screw that mounts the rail). But, look at the Sterling mag well detail! That's nice. There's some goobers near the magazine release button. Looks like there is a tear in the mold in this location. And as expected, there's some more small holes around this area: I like that the muzzle is a separate cast piece that has been glued in, but this one was glued in crooked when viewed from directly overhead. Luckily, it's also loose on mine and I think it will tear free easily so that I can re-glue it in straight. slavefive was good enough to tell me that they use CA glue to assemble these, so I'll do the same when I fix this spot. Again, you can see the seam on the top of the center T-Track here as well: Below is another angle of the scope rail and the front of the scope itself. There's another goober present in the front bezel of the scope: And the last image that I took shows the butt of the grip (and some of the underside of the trigger guard/folding stock area. You can see a bit of a gnarly seam on the grip bottom and an ugly screw/offset. Of note if you didn't know is that they filled in the cavity between the side arms of the stock and the grip frame area. It's actually pretty well executed and definitely provides structural integrity: As I mentioned before, I am absolutely happy with my purchase. I also can't wait to try to fix most of these issues. The purpose of this thread is not for me to complain or point of flaws to be a troll. I really just want to contribute some more to this community as I had trouble finding enough info on the B-Grade when I rolled the dice. Especially images that canvas the whole blaster and show what you should expect if you "pull the trigger". I want to say thanks again to slavefive and HFx for this great option! -Dana

Ok so the switchbox was crafted using a generic project box that I trimmed down on the beltsander to be 15mm deep and then I mounted the basic switches at the bottom into three holes I cut out. There are four holes at the top where the wire tubes lead out of, two of the tubes are for the fans, one going left and one right. The other two go up top along each side to switch the other systems. Here's a close up of the actual junction to get a better idea of what it looks like: You'll notice the project box itself is mounted onto a backplate which I crafted from a 28ga steel sheet (and painted black), and has two mounting holes for the hovi tip ends to screw into which was the key to the whole setup. Having the hovis screw into that steel plate meant I had a nice secure flat surface to then mount the box onto making everything very solid. This is the project box I used (the AS size): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002BBQNM These are the switches I went with: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001JT7D0G

LOL! Ok, let's break this down. You're looking at a very ugly before photo that shows all the raw electronics exposed and versus a final finished form after everything is cleanly loomed and mounted. First and foremost, yes, the whole helmet is lined with vertical 1/4" strips of neoprene versus just painting it all black or rubberizing it or whatnot. It gives it a more comfortable thermal finish in my perspective. So at the bottom you see a custom switch box controlling the three powered subsystems: (1) 1.5V powered condenser mic; (2) 7.5V powered icomm/aker amplifier speakers; (3) 12.0V fan system, as well as mounting the external speakers that are housed within the hovi tips mounted onto it. I stuck the fans at the base of the helmet with velcro, I can reposition them as necessary but they currently blow air in from the outside bottom directed inwards towards my nose for the mostpart which I find very helpful. At the top, over my head, I put nearly everything else. You see the three physical power sources (1.5V, 7.5V, and 12.0V... all as rechargeable banks). Up top I mounted the iComm unit with the Aker amp and the 7.5V rail battery bank, the microphone and it's 1.5V rail battery bank, and the 12V fan rail battery bank. Sure, it's a heck of a lot of electronics but putting it all into the helmet is a neat thing and the final finish makes it all look seamless and hidden, you wouldn't know that all of this is embedded in the helmet without this discussion. That is where I find the before/after photo quite interesting. Would you have any idea of what all was embedded in this bucket without that before photo? Probably not, and it gives you a good idea of what all is actually hidden inside it.

I use Aker amp, iComm and a little MP3 player with sound loop found on 501st forums here:<br> <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.501st.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=28538&hilit=Loop'>http://www.501st.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=28538&hilit=Loop</a><br> Good luck!

I have ukswrath setup and I love it! I would recommend it.