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Thanks Very much!! Im super proud and excited. Next troop i will hold my head high! Yeah hah

Looking good fellow 242er. /24269

I like the idea of making it not required for L1, but required for L2/L3.

Weathering : "Teaser" Pics Just two "in progress" samples.... Mark

Hi all, After posting on other threads, I’ve had a few PMs regarding what I used to line the interior of my RWA TK lid. So, here we go... [emoji4] I take no credit for the idea - I saw a fellow UK Garrison member (CTID here on FISD) using this method and really liked the results. So, the main lining is Black A4 Size Eva Self Adhesive Foam Sheets. They can be easily cut to size, easy to adhere and give a really nice finish. Another thing I really like about this method is that you can use existing or additions strips of this foam to conceal internal wiring. From the outside, especially lower angles (child view), there is no internal white on show. The fan system is self built. The 5v blower fans are powered by a cylindrical Anker powerbank which fits nicely in the “cheek/tube”. Individual switches allow for flexibility. Any questions, do let me know. Best wishes, Dan

Some great work there Mark, we wont be too much longer.

Yes everyone please follow the link provided to request 501st access. You will not gain 501st access by requesting it in this thread. Also you must be an approved TK to order a racing shirt. There is a handful of amazing merchandise available right now in the Merch area so you don’t want to miss out.

Many congrats, Trooper. :-) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

To clarify, you trimmed too much off the thigh at the ridge in the first photo so you need to put that back? If this is the case, your cover strip will cover most of that. You would just need to fill the bottom cut and the potential gap you may have between the halves. Won't need a lot of paste.

It’s all good Dan! This just shows your in line with my build goal, to have my E-11’s SMG components as real as possible [emoji6] Keeping my LED button installed, I proceeded to file away the edges. The button doesn’t sit recessed relative to the cap nor is it attached to the bottom mechanism, as it is for real, so based on how I have it, that’s about it. To answer your question before Dan, yes, I did create a 1mm thick aluminum magazine cap before but was perplexed in how to add text to it, so opted how you see it now, with my cap composed of aluminum / styrene / green stuff combo - I guess I could have turfed the middle styrene layer, in hindsight so to achieve a thickness more closely to 1mm Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Congrats and welcome to Expert Infantry trooper!

Nice work, Jesse. Now, I’m sure you saw this question coming, but, will you be rounding off the mag cap button? ;-) (Sorry! With the amazing work you’re putting into this, I had to ask)

Great job congratulations!!!!! Mark (AP)

She definitely has one in a deleted scene

Update : Paint Ok, I can't believe I've burned a week and a half (evenings) just testing paint. Enough. I have a game plan....if anyone follows this for their build, this is what I'm doing.... (I'll update this image if/as things evolve) Counter, Power Cylinders = 1, 2 Handle Grip = 1, 4, 5 Handle (non-grip) = 1, 2, 9 Stock, End Cap, Trigger Guard = 1, 3, 2 Scope = 1, 2 with weathering of 6, 7 Receiver Tube = 1, 2 Bolt Area = 1, 9 with weathering of 8, 7 The T-Tracks = 1, 2 but may follow with something more matte. Everything here seems to play well together. The base layers are all lacquer and the Testors/Humbrols are enamel so any layering should be fine. I opted against the Testors Matte Black spray I was testing because it was REALLY matte. I changed my mind and liked the way the Tamiya Matte Black still had a bit of shine to to. I think it makes things look a little more like metal. How much more? I'll post a couple of "teaser" pics in a sec.... Mark

Thanks for the kind words, Chris! And especially a big thanks for all the alignment help I've got my fingers crossed

When you come to glue the inner parts of the forearms to the outer parts, I suggest starting with the back joints first. Depending on how you have trimmed them, the joints can sometimes come to a slight V shape which makes getting a good bond hard, so start with the back first and once dry you can move onto the front joint that has a nice, flat joining surface.

Hey Dominic thank you for your patience and applying for EIB. CRL and EIB Application Requirements: All the required submission photos have been posted. Very nice job on your build and always great to see an ESB. Thank you for making all the requested or suggested corrections. Your armor meets all EIB requirements, Sly and I would like to welcome you to Expert Infantry Other-Armor Fit/Assembly: In this section we review observations made by your fellow troopers and ourselves. Some observations may lead to suggestions to improve the overall look of your armor and accuracy. If any suggestion affects any application, it will be listed separately in the above or below sections. We only have one minor fix suggested to get you looking the best you can and that's the waist belt position, it's sitting a bit low. The top of the ammo belt should sit at or just below the lowest Ab buttons as seen in the reference photo we've provided Reference image Centurion Suggestions: In this section we prepare you for your Centurion application if you choose to apply. If there were any areas of concern they would be discussed here. At this time we see nothing holding you back from a nice smooth Centurion application if you choose to apply. That's it, congrats again and hope to see you at L3.

You are doing a great job. Keep it up trooper!

Congrats and welcome to the Centurion ranks trooper!

Congrats on Centurion!

Jordan, Jenny started another thread in the appropriate section here: See her progress there!

Hey Daniel I did cut my thighs but not in length. I had to resize my thighs so they were not rattling about on my legs. You can see from this image that I cut down the back and removed excess material before glueing in a strip of ABS then filling and sanding the outside before paint. Untitled by brian.mcdavid, on Flickr Hope this helps

Tips for newbies building an AP kit for the first time. Please excuse this massive post, but I tried to summarize some points about my build below. I wrote this summary up awhile ago but just got around to posting it now. This was my first build, and although I did some research before starting, I discovered a lot of other things while actually building – some of these things are just because I am new to this, and some of these things are particular to the AP kit. Most of these points are explained in detail somewhere in my build, but it is getting hard to find anything. And I’m sure for every point I mentioned below, there are two that I forgot. Again, this is the AP trimmed kit. Helmet: · The brow sat a little low and a touch crooked, so I had to raise the brow. I raised (trimmed) it about 4 or 5 mm (at the center of the front, the sides are kept in the same spot) – I could have gone a few more mm. · The ears needed some trimming and sanding to fit. The right ear was especially bad. A space between the right ear and helmet is screen accurate, but I wanted to reduce it as much as possible. After some trimming and sanding, I realized that the ear just wasn’t placed right. The bottom needed to be pushed inwards a little – but the all the holes were pre-drilled. So I expanded the holes (in the helmet parts) down a little with a soldering iron. This worked well – but when I finally put the helmet together with the brow in place, the fit wasn’t as good again. I haven’t gone back to fix this again – but it should be an easy fix – even having a third hand while I tighten the screws would help. · I hand painted everything. I tried to use the stencils from Trooperbay. They worked for the most part, but I only used the stencils for the tube stripes and the stripes in the tears and traps. I found it easy to just take a pencil and trace in the areas for the traps and tears along the return edge. Just make sure the area you marked out is big enough for the Trooperbay stencils. I mixed up the tube stripes – I put the right on the left side and vice versa. It was an easy fix – I just had to remove the front 3 stripes and redo with the proper stencil – trooperbay provides 2 of every stencil for these “oops” moments. · Cleaning up the paint. I used humbrol paint and found that it scraped off pretty easy with a toothpick. I did wipe it down with some mineral spirits first – that seemed to have weakened it a bit. It can leave a very, very faint stain, but for the most part it comes off really clean. This worked great for cleaning up edges and making things look pretty. · I installed s-trim (Centurion requirement). It was a bit of a challenge. You have to start and really work to open the rubber grove as you feed it onto the edge ABS. You have to keep pressure applied and just go a few mm at a time. I went around the whole helmet and trimmed some extra off – but left about 1 inch. I just worked the s-trim until I could get the extra one inch to fit. I’m told this helps hold the s-trim in place. I didn’t use any glue. By the way, I put it on this way (not my pic – borrowed it from Sean who is now Centurion): · Hovi-mics will not sit even. Let the OCD go. Paint the edges white · When locating the tube stripes, they should be a pencil’s width from the return edge. The left side edge is straight and this works well there. The right side is not straight and makes placing your stencil or decal a little trickier. Arms: · This was actually the first thing I worked on. Good place to start. I trimmed all my coverstrips to about 16-17mm. Mark has the trimmed kit trimmed for 20mm coverstrips on the arms, so I had to take off a little off each butt edge. The actual edge of the return edge can be hard to see in some places due to a lack of definition. I found that using the back side of the piece worked better – the lines are more defined. I just kept in mind that the front would have about an extra mm or so of width. · I used 1 inch black elastic (glued) to the shoulder bell to shoulder strap, shoulder bell around bicep (hook), and I used ¾” elastic for the forearm to bicep. I had used ¾” for most things (as per a number of threads) but switched up to 1” because it is screen accurate and works better for various reasons. The 1” shoulder bell to should strap elastic is not shown in pic below. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180121/b543ab19033983ac78404c1423d0949a.jpg · I originally used snaps with 1.5” elastic for the forearm to bicep attachment (as per the billhags diagram). I found this didn’t work for me. So I switched to the ¾” elastic glued directly behind the front coverstrip. Worked really well. Keeps the bicep and forearm lined up nicely. Thighs: · The right thigh gave me a lot of grief. The butt return edge was trimmed to 10mm per side, for a 20mm coverstrip. However, that 10mm got a little tight in places (less than 10mm). So I put a inner coverstrip on first to get the spacing right. Then, the whole seam is slightly curved. The best solution was to glue the lower half of the coverstrip fist. Wait to dry, then glue the upper half. I did this for both the inner and outer coverstrips. · I haven’t actually done it yet (as of time of writing this) but I will trim a bit of return edge away from behind the knee. · I ended up tapering my thighs a lot – and it didn’t seem to create any issues with gluing. · I found hot bathing the ammo pack made it really easy to install. I used the same split rivets used for the ab to kidney connection (as provided by AP). I didn’t worry about lining up the front “bump” with the coverstrip. I just made the ends look even where it is connected to the thigh – I drilled the holes 6mm from the upper return edge – that was the only real measurement I made. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180119/c06f287020555551e41e70006d013136.jpg Shins: · The sniper knee will not fit very well. Mine ended up crooked – as do a lot of AP kits. I tried to raise the outer piece of the shin a bit to help, but it didn’t help enough. The sniper knee plate will not fit on the shin perfectly – at least not with my skill sets. This is a good as mine got: https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180203/159996fa67b1dc5bc212cac6c1ce63d9.jpg · I had to add a little bit of Velcro to the boot and inside of the shins to keep the shins from rotating on me. · I put inner and outer coverstrips on the front of the shins. I’m glad I did because these things take a lot of abuse. The rear coverstrip is 25mm – I used Velcro and it is working very well. Once I finished my shins, I taped them up to correct for the gaps (they won’t line up in the back). I exaggerated the correction (if I had a gap, I would tape it overlapping by an inch or so) and then took the heat gun to the shins – on low – and kept the heat gun moving. I heated up the shins so they were slightly uncomfortable to touch and then let cool. I did this a few times. It helped with getting the rear seam to line up better. Torso: · Aside from cleaning up some edges, there isn’t much I had to do for prepping these pieces. I did trim the return edge to about 5 mm. I wasn’t planning on using the canon brackets, so I wasn’t worried about using them (return edges) for anything and I heard that reducing them will help with comfort. The torso fit a little large on me so the comfort thing wasn’t an issue; however, by reducing the return edge I think I made it easier for the pieces to overlap each other. I don’t think I would trim them so much next time. · I had to hot bath the butt piece and tighten the strapping to reduce “butt flare”. The butt piece does tend to do this and it obvious on screen as well. · During the build, I lost some weight and the kidney / ab section ended up being somewhat oversized for me. This caused all sorts of issues when I tightened my belt. The pieces would overlap each other. I had to reinforce the left ab/kidney connection (the three split rivets) with glued in pieces of thick nylon webbing. I then created a tab and slot for the right side. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180203/671d5f8f33df3cf5589cd98eebd31285.jpg · Shoulder bridges – the ribbed abs parts that go from your chest to your back – these need to have the spaces on the bottom back filled with scrap pieces of abs and glue so they will stick better. I recommend hot bathing these so the very front part will conform to the shape of the chest and shape the back so it stays close to the back (they are free floating in the back and only held down with a little piece of ¼” white elastic. Also, the large bump at the back of the ABS shoulder bridges can be removed - I removed the large bump and one small bump as per instructions from Mark at AP. · Painting the ab buttons – I used a 7/16 circle template from an old drafting kit. I traced the circle on the button with pencil. Then hand painted – the pencil line can actually act like a dam and keep the paint in place – to a point. · Remember to trim the button plates enough. A lot of people seem to miss this from what I’ve seen in application pics. I hope mine are trimmed enough now that I think of it. Belt/holster: · Drop boxes – they are a little deep – I needed to shave off about 5mm. I aimed for a depth of 15mm. The references I found mentions anywhere from 15 to 10mm depth. · Elastics connecting drop boxes - use 1” elastic. Some threads mention ¾ inch elastic. One inch is screen accurate and will allow you to trim a little off if you need to get around a snap that might be in the way · My snaps on my ab piece ended up in the wrong spot somehow – they were shifted over to the left by a cm or two. The location of the left snap conflicted with a rivet that connects the canvas belt to the abs belt (ammo pack). I had to move the one snap on both the ab piece (male end) and the canvas belt (female end). · Removing snaps are not a big deal. If you use a drill, take your time because the snap can heat up. I drilled from the back of the male side – worked well for me. The female snap was easy, I just reached in with needle nose pliers and squished the post and the snap popped apart. · I ordered a holster from AP as well. I switched out the black straps that connect to the belt with tan coloured straps. I used ¾” 8oz leather strips. It was heavier leather than what was originally there but seemed to work just fine. AP uses Chicago screws for this so things are really easy to switch out. You do need tan holster straps for any level of approval (at least for now) – this is just a screen accuracy thing. TD: · The end caps as provided in the trimmed kit needed to be trimmed down a few mm (5mm was removed in my case). I couldn’t get these all the way on (I’m not sure if they are supposed to go all the way on). The control panel had to be trimmed down about 10mm in my case. · I had to trim the TD tube as well. I think I took off about ¾” or so. Can’t remember for sure, but I ended up with 7-3/8” total length. I believe ideal is around 7-1/4” · I also trimmed the metal just above the upper screw hole to be more screen accurate. Also had to replace the screws with slotted pan head machine screws - #6-32. The ones I found were brass, but they get painted black regardless. Strapping: · This is where you will probably have to improvise the most. · I used a single snap system with nylon base plates (and some elastic in key places for mobility). · Nylon base plates seem to work really well – they conform to the shape of the curved armor and E6000 holds them very well. · Use good quality nylon. I ordered some stuff off of Amazon – I used it until I ran out and then bought some stuff from a local fabric store. The stuff from the local place was almost twice as thick. Way better for adding rigidity to connections if needed (i.e. the spilt rivet connections on the left ab/kidney). · Setting snaps can suck. If you are not very handy and lack patience, you might want to think about getting a snap setting press. Roughly $75 on Amazon. I’ve never used one, but it has to be better than using the $15 snap setter you get at Tandy. · Choosing snaps: based on recommendations from other threads I used the nickel plated, Line 24 snaps from Tandy. Durability-wise they seem fine – but I’ve hardly used them. However, I had an issue of the armour deforming and discolouring in some locations. The worst case was where I used an ABS snap base, lots of E6000, and clamps to hold in place. This is an issue that has many builders puzzled. So, please note that the following may have contributed to the issue (none of this is proven): o E6000 may react with metal and, at the very least, create heat. o E6000 may create even more heat under greater pressure (strong clamps). o The Tandy nickel-plated snaps appear to be possibly prone to reaction with E6000. · So tips when gluing in snap bases (nylon or ABS): o Do not get E6000 on metal part of snap if possible o Do not use excessive amounts of E6000 o Apply very light pressure to hold the base in place while glue dries. You don’t need to keep the pressure applied for very long – E6000 will stiffen up pretty quick, it just takes 24 hours before it is strong enough to take any stress. o Use good quality snaps that are rated for outdoor use or professional use (marine grade – I think some people use Fasnap snaps) · Example of the reaction. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180117/679949ebef7613a86177d7a96ef3deec.jpg · When setting snaps – make sure they are set all the way (the post is driven down until the whole snap feels secure). · Locating the snap bases – there are a bunch of build threads that have very precise measurements for placing the snap bases. Don’t feel you have to follow any of this. Keep in mind that the closer the snap bases are to the edge – or one another – the shorter the strap and therefore the more stable that connection is going to be. So if you need more movement – you can move the snap bases away a little. I moved most of my snap bases after a few attempts at wearing the armour as it moved around too much. I originally used elastic in a few spots but replaced them for nylon. This is all dependent on how the armour fits you and what you like. I kept all my elastic connections so that I may use them during trooping for more comfort – time will tell. · For more support along some connections, I may upgrade to the two-snap connections. Single snaps can rotate and move around a bit. The double snap will not allow the play and keep things lined up. A two snap elastic system (2 or 3 inch elastic) I think would work really well. I think this would be very similar to the elastic and bracket systems used in the original costumes but you could remove the straps and you don’t have to worry about the brackets (they have to be screwed in and you need enough return edge to install them – and you will probably have to reinforce said return edge with strips of ABS). Soft Parts: · I got the flexible hand guards from AP. To attach them to the gloves (Gorilla Grip nitrile gloves) you are going to need Loctite Plastic bonding system. It contains a surface primer and superglue. Works great. · Undersuit – get compression shirt and pants – everything else just doesn’t seem to get tight enough. · Get thin cotton liners for your gloves – they get really sweaty and sticky. Fitting/dressing: · In case I didn’t mention it already – I really underestimated this part of the process. · I re-did a lot of my straps once I got the armour on. Take your time fitting pieces with the strapping. · Get someone to help – more than likely, you will not be able to get dressed by yourself. · If you are getting dressed for pictures – have a handler (someone who knows what the armor should look like fitted) there to help – that person will be making sure you look good for the pics – not you (for the most part). · If using nylon straps, pre-loosen the material by bending and twisting the nylon before measuring and cutting to length. It will loosen with use – my left ab to kidney connection really loosened up after a few fittings. · I did use a little foam attached with Velcro in a few places to keep pieces more stable (biceps for example). I would rather keep things a touch loose – incase I gain a little weight. · I put Velcro on the front of the boots and inside the shins to keep them from rotating. General building stuff: · Lexan scissors work like a charm for trimming most things. I got a set that included a straight pair and curved pair of scissors as well as a tool for boring out holes (I bought this on sale: Duratrax Body Scissors and Reamer Set, 3 piece). This worked very well for countersinking the edges of drilled holes for snap installation. If you don’t get the set, at least buy the curved scissors. Score and snap works best for the cover strips. · You get a generous amount of cover strip material. If you don’t make many mistakes you should have plenty to do all cover strips – inside and out. · Note that there is a good and bad side to the cover strips. One side is shiny and white, and the other side is less shiny and less white. Can be hard to see under non-ideal lighting conditions. · The cover strips are rough cut – so you will need to make sure the edge is square before trimming. Also, to make the most of each piece, you could square the piece on both sides – measure the width, and figure out what combination of strip widths you can cut. If the width is 55mm, then you might want to cut two 20mm strips (for legs) and one 15 mm strip for arms (or whatever widths you have decided on). My laziness overrode my OCD on this and I didn’t do it but it would have provided even more usable material (if I needed it – which I didn’t – so, nevermind). · Rough sand any areas that you are planning on gluing. Like back of cover strips, for example. I used a 100 grit paper and it worked well. Use E6000. · Use enough E6000 on cover strips so that the E6000 oozes out along the edges. This is a good thing. E6000 is pretty easy to clean up after it dries. · Humbrol paint is a pain in the donkey. Especially the French Blue – it needs a lot of stirring – at least mine did. Maybe it was an old tin. · I cleaned my armour with mineral spirits in the case of paint smears or drips. I also have Novus cleaner and polish that seems to work really well.

Well done, Paul!! [emoji1303] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks Shane! (a lot of blood sweat, and yes, even tears went into this build)

Welcome back Paul and thank you for your Centurion application. CRL and Centurion Application Requirements: All required submission photos are present. Beautiful job on your build my friend Andrew and I are pleased to announce your armor displays all the elements as set out in the Centurion CRL. Congratulations and welcome to Centurion Other-Armor Fit/Assembly: As mentioned during your EIB application reducing the shoulder bell to chest gap and raising your waist belt would help you armor look even cleaner and more accurate. Minor tweaks you can do in time. Reference photo Reference photo That's it Paul, again excellent job on your build. Time to report to Vader

Well, I finally wore my armor in public today. I was a special guest at my son's kindergarten show-and-tell day. It was a pretty quick visit and I'm pretty sure I spent more time getting changed/unchanged than I spent with the kids but it was a pretty cool experience nonetheless. It was more of a test drive to see if I could pack and unpack my armor in my Husky 25 gal work cart. Everything seemed to go pretty smoothly. I lost track of how long it took to get kitted up, but I'm pretty sure it was less than 10 minutes. The only glitch was my voice software was playing music from my iphone through the amp for some weird reason. It was easy to fix, but that had never happened before and it created a moment of panic. The kindergarten teacher wanted me to meet the kids first out of costume and make it clear that when I got changed, that it was still me in there. Even with the introduction, a couple of the kids got a bit scared, so my helmet came off fairly quickly. One of the first things I said was that Darth Vader was my boss and he was a pretty good guy. That got quite the response! Let's just say that we agreed to disagree. A lot of them have not seen the movies yet, but they all know the drill. As part of the show and tell, my son had to take questions from the rest of the group. Nearly all the questions were, "I like Star Wars", or "I've watched Star Wars". Ok, not really questions but clearly the excitement was spilling out. Something I wasn't ready for - one of the kids in my son's class is non-verbal. I had totally forgotten this at first. There was apparently some concern about how this child would react. She simply approached me and started touching my armor. She seemed utterly fascinated with the whole thing. I just let her do her thing - if she started to grab at something I just causally shifted away a bit and that seemed to be good. She was smiling when she sat down so I guess everything worked out. The teacher seems pretty excited about the whole thing, but she could not get over the complexity of the armor and the time that went into making it - and why a grown man would do such a thing (ok, she didn't ask that, but I know the look ) So I have to thank my wife for being my handler. She also shot the whole thing on video so I can see how TK-34575 actually looks when interacting with kids. I'll see it when I get home tonight after work - I'm actually nervous about it. Anyway, seeing the look on their faces is something I'm going to remember for a long time. Can't wait to do it again.

Nice work good luck with approval

Good luck Mark... but I don´t think that you need it. Soon we will start your request for Centurion. Cheers Christian

You can actually trim off the rear big tab of the shoulder straps, the original didnt have any, I just added those as a extention. Mark (AP)

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To kick off this program, I am offering an incentive for the first one to post in this forum requesting a pre-approval review and then receive basic 501st approval. Once your armor has been reviewed here, submitted to your GML and you receive your official 501st TK I.D., simply sign up for Legion access here at the FISD (link below) then PM me with your information and I will send you a set of flexible hand guards and any hardware you may require to reach Centurion level if you should wish to pursue that. If you already have these items, I will send some cool swag. Good luck, future Troopers! https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/16-501st-trooper-status-requests-include-link-to-your-501st-profile-in-your-request/ --------------------------------------------------CLAIMED-------------------------------------------

I´ll copy what I just wrote Sean That looks great to Did you make these little bends at the ends? Helps sliding it on the belt.

I didn't take it as spam personally. I assumed you were just trying to explain yourself and for me, I don't have a problem with it. But that's just me and I can not speak for others.

Update #24 - The M38 Telescope(s) This thread covers the standard way to build this kit out of the box and alternatives to go the extra mile. Because of that, there will be more than one scope. Brian (Bulldog44) generously sent me two scopes with hollowed core. Never seen such highly detailed resin casts! Very nice work. Thanks again, Brian The plan is to make 3 scopes: standard, then one with lenses and one with hollowed core plus lenses. The standard scope was easy, because the resin part from this kit had a very nice surface texture and already came in black color. It was not mandatory to paint it. What you have just seen, is how I usually finish these scopes. Dry-brushed, not painted. The 2nd scope got real lenses from a monocular. Instead of gluing these into drilled holes (like done in my first build), they got installed from the inside. This occasion was used to run a hole through the entire thing. I began with disassembling that monocular… After the paint had dried, it was time for the finishing touches. Also thought about integrating the prism(s) but a convex lens turns the image upside down and left to right. Hoped that a 2nd lens (see arrangement in the monocular) would revert this effect. But these are used to compensate pillow- / barrel-distortion. Wasted several days researching and trying every possible combination with lens(es) and prism(s). No luck. As a last chance I grabbed some scopes plus monoculars and went to my eyewear optician. Result: with the given hardware, there is no way to get it working correctly and I was not willing to spend a little fortune to try and error. At least there is light shining through that scope and the lenses make it look somewhat real. There is still Brian’s (Bulldog44) scope with hollowed core. That nice piece will be covered next weekend...