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Hello everybody, I have a brief update. I believe now, in comparing the position of my clip with T-Jay and Aaron's (FISD) positions in their respective videos, that mines in the right spot. I now have understanding on how the end cap clip works to engage the end cap for removal of it, I proceeded to figure out how to best install it. Since I had limited height when it came to depressing the end cap clip lever, I decided to add green stuff to the receiver tube to elevate the clip. So this way, when rotating the end cap, it would be clear of the lever head of the clip. I also noticed allot of excess resin in and around the end of the receiver tube. I cleaned some up then went to dremel out the three notches that hold the tabs found on the inside of the cap - this to secure the end cap in place I'm sure. Finally, I'm at a point where I try to fit all the BlastFX wiring inside the blaster. Task proved difficult. Will do better at wire management. Thanks a bunch again for reading!

I'm already half way there!

“How do i get out of this chicken s- -t outfit”! - pvt Hudson Or how about Starship Troopers? “I have only one rule. Everybody fights, no one quits. If you don’t do your job, I’ll kill you myself! Welcome to the roughnecks!” - Rasczak

That indeed is a nice thought. Starting off a bit bigger and if and when needed sizing down. Downsizing is always an option, getting them bigger again is a bit more of a hassle. Excellent tip! Thanks!

Hello everyone, I'm Bas (TK-32294) from Indonesia (Garuda Garrison Indonesia). my experience was pretty luke-leia moment(no,it isn't about sibling kiss) haha. So it was Monday, 21st May 2018. I joined the "Solo" screening troop at one of the cinema hall. At one moment, a woman came to me. She looks like on her 30 and she said "kamu stormtrooper tapi kok pendek ya" that means "aren't you too short for a stormtrooper".I literally got ANH flashback. That night before I went to sleep, I did google "what is the male average height in Indonesia". I'm 167cm(5'5.75) btw. Turns out the average is 159 cm(5'2.60). The good news is I'm above average, bad news is I'm not that tall either. Heart > Height.#BadGuysDoingGood Thank you for reading my story TK-32294 Bas Here's a bonus pict!

After two weeks of travel for business and pleasure, I'm back home and hoping to get some work done on my TK. Unfortunately, my wife is in China this week on business. So, in addition to my full-time job, I'm solo parenting two teens, a toddler, and two dogs! If you haven't guessed, June is a bit crazy for us this year. Regardless, I had a chance to do a little work this evening. My goal is to finish painting the helmet this week. Tonight I added black lining around the traps and tears and touched up the vocoder I messed up. Let me know what you think. Is my black lining too thin? Does the vocoder look centurion approvable?

My hunch is the CSR people are getting their wires crossed and are talking about the OT kits. I don't know of anyone who has received their FOTK kits. I would love to be wrong though. EDIT - And yeah, if these get delayed past the point they can be built for Episode IX I think they're going to see cancellations en masse.

You’ll be just fine - the FISD got your back now

Hi All! I’ve been getting a lot of offline requests to share how I got TrooperTalk to work really well lately, so I figured it makes sense to create a topic with all my info in one place. I just want to say, I absolutely love TrooperTalk. It took quite a bit to get it to the place where it’s useable for me, but it was well worth it! Now, it’s just not useable, I personally think it’s amazing. Here are the details. FYI, I got an iPhone 5 just for using this (a white one no less). When I troop and am using the background chatter, I have a USB battery plugged into it to extend the use for the entire troop. My settings: I’m using the mic that came with my Aker 1505 (it's better than the more expensive after-market one I bought). I’m sure there’s better out there, but it works really well. Voice volume (in app setting): -20 I have "voice volume threshold" at 0.05. I found that higher than that, as soon as my mic wasn't perfectly positioned my voice wasn't always coming through. I went with a slightly higher static burst volume (-25), especially for louder environments. Lowpass: 1540 Highpass: 2070 Radio Distortion: OFF Compression: 0 Don't play with voice pitch either. Just creates unnecessary distortion and latency (lag): 1.00 Echo Delay: 0 Voice Static: Unchecked So, with these basic settings I think it still sounds really really cool, and more importantly, it's way more usable to me. Easier to understand me, etc. etc. Very importantly, there is no feedback and not even any tinny feedback tones in the voice, when used with proper dampening and mic position. A really nice by-product of having these settings off is that your phone battery will last way longer, and the voice lag is very close to gone. On dampening: In early days, once my helmet was on, it loved to feed back. When I had my mic plugged straight into the Aker, with no helmet on, this wasn't an issue, as those high distortion-y sounding frequencies weren't being pinged so harshly. The sound of the app, mixed with the smooth parabolic surfaces of the helmet's interior are a recipe for feedback disaster. I was able to completely solve the feedback only with a 3-pronged approach of app settings, sound dampening inside the helmet and mic position. The dampening setup: Instead of hanging the Aker amp around my neck, I velcro'd it to the chest, at the speaker side. So, the velcro is directly over the speaker. I put a bit of foam inside the chest plate, just below the neckline, blocking sound from coming up through the neck and into the helmet. I bought 1/4" x 3/4" x 10' insulating foam tape, and I covered all the surfaces of the inside of my helmet, from about the temples down. Even the foam surface will be uneven with lines going different ways for extra dampening. Remember to cover ALL of the surface in the front of the helmet around the vocoder…even the rounded ones, cavities etc. The only place I didn’t dampen, was the top, rounded crown of the helmet. I found it wasn’t necessary, and I didn’t want any insulation up there to hinder the fans keeping my helmet cool. One more tiny but very important bit of feedback…even with total helmet dampening, when I have it loud, there will be a little tiny bit of tinny feedback in the voice when my mic is put directly in front of my mouth. However, when I have the mic a little bit off to the side of my mouth there's absolutely none. Solid as a rock. With voice static and/or radio distortion on, there's still more tinny feedback tone than I'm comfortable with. However, I find that it still has pretty close to the same quality of distortion through the app and the tone of the voice that I'm looking for, without them. I don't hear a lot of "stormtrooper quality" voice gained by either of those two features to even think about justifying the noise that comes with them. I'm very happy with the sound of the voice! Trooped with this, outdoor, in a very loud setting with kids, with my Aker cranked yesterday. No issues. Everyone understood me. Used 10% iPhone battery in 1.5 hours. Thanks again to Andrew for such an amazing app, and for those who’ve also helped by testing the settings and got back to me with their feedback!

RASCZAKS Roughnecks!

I’d wait to post on pre-approval until you can get some hi-res head-to-toe photos taken.

SWEET!

Easy fix

Yay! Happy BBB day! Hope you'll enjoy your kit! And looking forward to following your progress!!

Yay!!!! BBB has arrived....today is all about unboxing, making sure everything is here, and its all in one piece(so to speak) =D

Didn't realize it but it does seem the drop boxes had slipped under the belt. Sent from my VK815 using Tapatalk

Good job!

Vocoder looks really nice, as well as the rest of the paint. Good work!

Adding to Daniel's suggestion the drop boxes should reside under the ammo belt. Hard to tell much with the photos being blurry but looking good Rat

Yep, looks very interesting. Following... Wouldn't a rubber blaster be a better base for this project? Thought the Pugman was a solid rubber casting with additional greeblies?! Good thing you seem to have a lot of that POR15, as it will be required to fill the areas below the scope rail, between folding stock and receiver tube, inside the channel for the charging lever and behind the trigger. Can't wait to see this build going on...

Yupp - looks great

Looks great the straps on the holster should be on the inside of the belt though - easy fix

Lots of sanding. Finished the forearms and thighs. About to glue the thermal detonator together And I realized that it needs more cutting to make it more flush. This certainly is the worst made part of the kit Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Following. I love a good blaster build. :-)

You'll be fine, just let the glue cure for 48 hours before forcing your hand through the wrist end.

Coming along nicely Darrell

Love the hand painted look! Sharp and crisp!

Yay excited to see another WTF TK build! Also great that your is goal centurion same as mine. Cricket has done a short WTF TK build, not sure if anyone has pointed you her way yet. I just completed my basic approval on my WTF TK and I can say your doing great. I personally prefer the ear gaps gives your TK character and makes it uniquely yours

Anyone received theirs? I just talked to customer support and they said, as everyone else is reporting, that some shipped out in spring and the rest in a second batch in summer. Today is the last day of spring. I asked if they were going to put the instructions up to which they said they usually put those up when the products ship which I questioned and then the support person was like "I don't know. Not my area". They really screwed the pooch missing deadlines so these couldn't be put together by the last jedi, which means not relevant again until the next movie in over a year. With their price increases, missed deadlines, and insistence on adding $12 handling to an already expensive, which seems to be percentage not cost based, shipping (jumpsuits increased in price by $15 from March to May and now the shipping is almost $2 more), I think this will be my last order with them. I do love my TK they did in their first run two years ago. Not sure how long I wait until I just tell them I don't care anymore and give me my money back. I had a friend in the local garrison that was getting one, but he eventually canceled earlier this year. I ordered the standard kit in Nov 2016, just for reference.

That is interesting to hear. Thanks for sharing. I wonder how old are the "oldest" orders and if it is standard versus premiere. If I recall correctly, I got my order for the standard kit placed within the first day or two. So far, no emails to remit shipping costs.

For the record the cut does not need to be perfect. We will not make you pull out a protractor to prove straight lines lol. Regarding the 22mm kidney notch, though it is screen accurate it is NOT a requirement to create if the armor did not come with it. As stated in the CRL: Level three certification (if applicable): Cut-out notches at the bottom of right and left sides of the Kidney Armor are optional. If present, each notch is approximately 22 mm tall and the back of the notch ideally is aligned with the front edges of the Posterior Armor plate..

I wouldn’t worry too much about it just yet. When you start strapping on the chest and back, you’ll get more feel for the whole thing. It’s early days - you’ll get there. :-)

Thanks for the post. As with everything else on this site, it has great information for us 501st hopefuls.

Welcome and congrats on your BBB! Take your time and ask all the questions that come up and you'll see, everything will go smoothly! Good luck on your build!

Welcome! We recommend you use a photo hosting site for your photos, otherwise you will run out of space here really fast! I use imgur. Good luck with your build!

Welcome aboard. Can’t really say it any better than has already been said. Just take your time, ask questions if your unsure, and have fun with it. We were all starters at some point heck I’m kinda still in that boat. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Welcome aboard, Alex!! Don’t to too anxious - we all have to start somewhere. The key is to do lots of research. Before you start cutting, have a plan. Check out lots of build threads here on FISD, approved Centurion applications, video tutorials etc. This way, you’ll have a solid idea of what you want to achieve before you start cutting anything. Here a couple of handy links: Supplies: https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/31404-supply-list-for-your-tk-build/ EIB and Centurion: https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/35371-eib-and-centurion-what-do-these-terms-mean/ General info: https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/forum/38-getting-started-read-this-first/ And the the biggest things to help you build a great set of armour are to do lots of research and ask lots of questions. We’re here to help. Best wishes Dan

Hi Chris, Nice work so far. If you haven’t seen these already, TK4510 has some brilliant videos on lid painting. Here’s one that I followed for the vocoder paint. Having the right brush shape plays a big part in this. Best wishes Dan

Yesterday afternoon the Connecticut Garrison hosted our second armor party of the 2018 year. This is my sixth armor party I've "lead". The Location The Portal in Manchester. The Portal is a local gaming store. Normally not quite the ideal scene for this sort of event, a member of the CTG (Jonathan Roath) is the general manager / partial owner of the place. He loves the 501st, and though he rarely has the time to actively participating in troops he goes out of his way to make sure these sort of outreach events have a place to happen. Just his way of giving back how he can. The cool thing about using this public venue is we get people that are just wandering in for tabletop gaming or whatever see us, come talk, and sometimes it leads to new recruits/events!! The Troopers Quentin - ID Pending Quentin is a new recruit of the CTG. He's working on a Del Mekko TIE Pilot uniform. Pretty slick, and he had tons of questions about approval, requirements, etc. He came with a printed CRL and a big smile and we were able to help point him in the right direction on a lot of stuff--and save him from a few ebay purchases! Michelle - TK 24124 Michelle is the newest CTG member. Recently approved as an ANH Stormtrooper, she brought along her helmet to ask some questions. Her main concern was replacing the eye pieces from acetate film to an actual harder material. I pointed her in the direction of green tinted face shield and let her snag some pictures of the buckets I'd set those in for ideas. She seemed to have a great time, and is excited for her first troop this Saturday!!! Nick - TX 686 Nick is our resident Death Trooper. He's also at just about every armor party to help, socialize, and put smiles on faces all around. His currently project is an all metal E-11D for his death trooper. Partially aluminum, he's machining several bits himself. Since I had a torched Sterling L2A3 I brought it for him to take for reference (since I'm still a long way from finishing my pipe to weld it to). It was really cool seeing the aluminum parts he'd gathered. He also hooked me up with a spare Hengstler Counter, so that was awesome!!! Brian - ID Pending Brian is a recruit of the CTG that was brought in by stumbling upon our armor parties! He purchases an Anovos TK kit a while back and has been assembling it over the past couple of months. He brought his kit to work on and ask some questions. He had us look over some parts, notably the leg and arm pieces, for a sanity check. Not that it was needed! Brian is doing an amazing job assembling it! I'm hoping to see him in our approval inbox very soon Christopher - TK 66402 Christopher is one of the CTG event coordinators. He brought along his stormtrooper kit to shine up like he does for most events, as well as talk and help out new members/builders. He's pretty fun to be around, that's why I married him. Arthur - ID Pending Arthur has been a recruit of the CTG for a while now. He's most of the way through a stormtrooper Rogue One style kit. He had a few personal complications along the way, but the end of those seem to be in sight and he should be in our approval inbox soon! He came by to meet the other recruits, say hi, and get a set of my Patented (patent pending) Floppy Silicone TK Hand Guards™ (trademark pending) Joan - ID 31461 Joan is the second event coordinator for the CTG. She lives wayyyyyy on the other side of the state, so it was a real treat to have her out and meet up with us Joan has been convinced to start building an ANH Stormtrooper, and came by to ask us where to cut some parts, and what parts are left/right for legs. She also came to nab a set of my Patented (patent pending) Floppy Silicone TK Hand Guards™ (trademark pending), since I'd asked her to testrun the first pull of them Now that she's over her fear of cutting into ABS I expect her to be up and running in no time. Oh yeah, I was there too. Group Shot: