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Complete kit are in the works,,, getting closer

Yes I have no doubt you can my point was ONLY that it`s much faster hence easier which ever word you choose to use, to remove the elastic and there shoulden`t be any need for a solvent, just a good pull working your way up, you don`t want to stretch more of the elastic than you have to, so don`t just grab it at one end and keep pulling, keep the grip just at the egde of the glue and work your way up. If disaster strucks and the elastic gets torn then you still have the option to remove the snap, clean that elastic of, get some new elastic, sew it on and carry on becoming a Stormtrooper

Congratulations The5thhorseman, on a well earned Gold 3D contributors award!! This guy knows how to go over and above, Thank you for your contributions Germain

Big Deal, thank you for the compliment on the paint guide. I will have more to say about it below. As for the airbrushed sections you bring up a good point that I must have forgot to mention in my previous update. Once all the airbrush is done I will apply two more layers of clear coat to the parts that were airbrushed. This will make everything glossy and uniform. I am not sure if these areas were glossy on the actual props but since I have no other reference that can closely detail if they were in fact gloss or flat, I will go with glossy and can always buff them with some sandpaper later to dull them if needed. Update….a big one Ok so I love it when a plan goes well and hate it when it does not. The painting is the latter but not a total disaster. I have already stated that I only have one previous experience with automotive paint so that factored into this issue. As I write this, it is Thursday and a lot of stuff happened on Sunday and Monday so I will try to keep this coherent. So some of the issues I ran into may have been caused by using the non-automotive primer on the armor during my sanding phase but I do not think this is the case. Another option is that the automotive primer may have had a reaction with the flexible fiberglass and I think this is more likely. I will detail what problem I ran into further along. Sunday 08:00 my buddy arrived and everything was ready to go. We mixed the primer and tested it in the smaller spray gun but it was too thick to flow in that gun so we went with the larger gun and it flowed well. We test sprayed some paper and got good color and flow and assumed all was well, it was not. After my buddy had sprayed several parts he notified me we had a problem. Apparently we had the air mixture on the gun too high or the paint flow too low. The air pressure from the compressor was good at 39 PSI. The primer went on these parts like it was powder coat. Here you can see the back plate and how rough the primer was. So me being more familiar with my spray guns, I went into the booth and got the mixture rate correct but the damage was already done. These parts would need to be sanded and this pushed everything back. We pulled these parts and I started sanding them while my buddy sprayed all the other parts. Sometime later all the parts had been primed. After the messed up parts were sanded, washed and dried, they were re-sprayed. We used all the primer so, a note to anyone else doing this, get more than 1 qt of primer. I will include this in my list of lessons learned at the end of this post. Next we inspected all the parts and I must admit that I did a piss poor job of this, there are a lot of things I should have observed and corrected but I didn’t and these became issues later. SOOOO if you are doing this, make sure you inspect everything after primer and correct all the mistakes before you move to apply the paint. One thing for sure that I should have done but did not was to sand everything with 800 or 1000 grit sandpaper. Why didn’t I do this? Well first, I was concerned with all the instructions for the paint and primer and the specified times between primer and paint to ensure adhesion. That time window was closing quickly. Also, that is a lot of armor and most likely two days of sanding, two days that I didn’t have. However, if I had sanded I would noticed a lot of issue and could have saved myself some time and trouble in the end. My other concern is if I sanded the primer to 800 or 1000, I was concerned that the paint would not stick to the primer. I should have considered using 400 or 600 grit and I would have been ok I think. Regardless, I didn’t do any of this and went straight to painting. The paint and also the clear coat are much thinner than the primer so the flowed out of the smaller and more controllable gun just fin but this also meant that we mixed smaller batches of the product and we had to do this more often. I do not know if the larger gun would apply the paint and clear as well, I suspect we it would have come out heavier and would have been more likely to run. Anyway, we sprayed at least one layer of paint on most of the parts before we ran out of paint. I only had a pint of the paint and that went fast. Again buy more than you think you will need. So we ran out of paint and these parts did not get any paint. Sooo Monday I hit the automotive paint supply store again and dropped another $150 on more paint, and I decided to double down on the clear coat just to be sure I had enough. This time I got a whole quart of paint instead of another pint. I wanted to apply another layer to all the parts and that was a good idea. The instructions for the paint stated that the clear coat must be applied between 45 minutes and up to 24 hours after the paint. Any longer I would be required to sand everything. However, I figured out a way to extend this. I would just apply the second coat of paint just before the 24 hours and that would give me another 24 hours. This was good because I found all the issues I had eluded to previously. So let’s talk about the helmet. Painted with compressed air is a tricky thing. You must maintain the proper distance from the item being painted or you will get too thick and end up with runs. But if you get too far from the part you will end up with a powder effect similar to what we experienced with the primer. On the helmet we had these issues with the primer and the paint did not cover them up. First, in these pictures you can see all the yellow circles identify what I found. The area around the teeth was very rough and would need to be sanded. The seam between the front of the face and the mouth was very powdery and would need to be sanded. There were rough areas inside the openings where Hovi mics go and the inside edges of the tears were rough. We had a run under the left eye. I also noticed wherever I had masked an opening such as the eyes, the primer and/or the paint got very rough. I assume from blowback of the product hitting the masking. So all of this (other than the run) would have been apparat if I had inspected better after the primer. Anyway, I had more paint so I could fix all of this with sanding and removing the masking, then repaint everything. The only thing I would not be able to do is re-prime but as long as my sanding was not too rough, I could take the roughness down with some 600 and 800 grit and not remove the primer. I ended up sanding the whole helmet with 800 grit and got everything nice and smooth then re-painted it. The other two issues I found after painting was an insane number of pin holes on a lot of the parts and some of the detail lines along the cover strips were filled in or not deep enough. In this picture you can see what I am talking about. Notice the detail lines along the cover strip and also all the small pin holes. The weird thing is that none of these pin holes were evident when I had primed with spray paint primer and sanded everything two week ago. I can only assume that this is the reaction with the fiberglass that I mentioned previously. As you can see from earlier pictures, most of the spray paint primer was sanded away so I do not think it is a reaction between the two primers. This leads me to believe that the automotive primer reacted with the fiberglass. Again, if I had done a better inspection after the primer, I would have seen these issues and corrected them. Instead I raced to paint and now I was stuck with them. So how to address at least some of these issues. First I applied very small amounts of glazing putty in the largest of the pin holes. I would not be able to prime over the putty so I hoped that the paint would stick to it and it did. I also took a razor blade and rescored some of the detail lines on some of the parts and re-painted them as well. After everything was repainted and I waited the obligatory 45 minutes, it was time to clear coat. The clear went on thin just like the paint. Everything got to layers of clear and that was 1 whole quart of clear. Luckily I have another quart so applying more clear after the airbrush won’t be an issue. It was at this paint that I found a few areas where the paint had separated from the primer or cracked. Most of these areas are very small and not noticeable unless you really looked for them but one area that was noticeable was the back plate. In this picture you can see the paint had cracked on the sides of the cog wheel. I think this occurred because the paint was so thick here as I tried to get the sides of the cog wheel. Again this is an issue with me not properly inspecting after the primer and noticing how rough the primer was on the sides of the cog wheel in all those recesses. I have decided to let this stay for now and I can come back later and mask this whole area off and sand and redo everything inside the square. So Wednesday, after 24 hours of letting the clear coat cure, it was time to mask and airbrush. I started with the back plate by masking most of it and lightly dry sanding the side plates with 220 grit to ensure the airbrush paint would stick. I removed the sanding dust with a damp tac cloth. Sorry, I forgot to get a pic after the black was applied. Next, I masked off the abdominal armor on the sides and sanded them with 220 grit. I measured the circle on the front of the abdominal armor and came up with a diameter of 9/16” so I made some vinyl masks on my vinyl cutter and applied them. I lined them up as best as I could. I also masked the small square area as well. Then I masked the rest of the part off but its not in the picture below. Lastly, I sanded the areas to be painted and hit them with the tac cloth. I also masked off the thermal detonator and sanded it then set aside. Here is the painted abdominal armor. It still needs another layer or two of clear but otherwise it’s good to go. Lastly I started sanding the helmet in the areas that need to be masked and painted. There are a lot of them since the brown trim and neck trim are molded into the helmet. The teeth, tears side ears, back square things, and the separate tube things. I will mask it off tonight but I do not think I will get to paint it until Friday. So you may be wondering just what were the ramifications of the pin holes that I did not fill in? Here is a thigh plate and in the reflection you can see the unevenness of the clear coat. Here is a closer picture. As you can see, it is noticeable but not the end of the world. If I really want to fix it, I can sand the clear coat smooth with some 800 or 1000 grit then apply another layer of clear but I am going to let this go since my end goal will be TD and there will be considerable weathering later on. Ok so for everyone who decides to go with the automotive paint process, I will share my lessons learned. I do not know if you could avoid a lot of this stuff but just using rattle can spray paint but I have had mixed results with spray paint and seen a ton of issue with spray paint clear coats cracking and orange peel. My other concern was the flexibility of spray paint and spray paint clear coat on the parts that need to flex just to be put on such as the lower leg armor. At a minimum you will need to following amounts of primer, paint, and clear. Keep in mind the listed mixture rations for the products I used. You may need more or less of a product if the mixture if different. Primer 4:1 mixture- you will need at least 1qt, I recommend 1.5 quarts. Paint 1:1 mixture- you will need at least 1qt, I recommend 1.5 quarts. Clear 4:1 mixture- you will need at least 1qt, I recommend 1.5 quarts. You will also need a ton of mixing cups, like 20-30 depending on the size of your spray guns, otherwise you will be cleaning mixing cups to re-use. You will need a ton of screen, like 30+. You will need a ton of mixing sticks, like 50+. The color I used was the Ford Frozen White and I thinks a great choice. Lessons learned: Prep is the second most important part of painting. Inspections and correction after primer is the most important part of painting. Test your spay materials every time you refill the gun on plastic not paper to make sure you have a clean and good flow. Unfortunately, the pot life of most of these products is fairly short (30 min – 1 hr) so only mix what you use each time. If you are spraying primer for more than a few hours, you need to stop and clean the gun or it will clog. DO NOT LET PRIMER SIT IN THE GUN, it will become a solid mess and you will need to toss the gun in the trash. Watch lots of videos on YouTube on how to paint cars to understand the process and how the layers would be sprayed and what the “wet look” should look like. When things go wrong, and they will, don’t get pissed, fix them then if you can but also understand that you need to keep your momentum going or you will get more frustrated. This is the main reason I did not fix the back plate cracking when I noticed it. I can fix it later and I kept my momentum up to get to the end of the tunnel. Ok so that is the update, more to come soon. Thanks for the interest.

Not sure if you know but you can wet sand the spot putty, helps stop the sandpaper from clogging and will last a little longer. Spot putty also needs a long time to cure and sometimes for deeper holes it's best to apply in a couple of coats as it can shrink. Almost there, keep up the great work

**As he holsters the smoking gun**

Good point. Backing is drying. Appreciate the advice. I’m thinking the bottom might be the only part that may need a brace at all. Since it does extend much farther. But tomorrow I’ll get the shim on and after that I’ll have a pretty good idea how well it will hold. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I like that idea a lot actually! And I also agree with lucnak that it will need to be very strong to keep from breaking due to the stress. So this is the idea I put together. Basically using a full back behind the shim. Then adding braces in a few spots that go around about half the shin to add extra strength. The only part I haven’t decided yet is if I should use ABS for the brace or maybe find something a little stronger. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Will there be an opportunity to buy a kit or will it be parts at a time? This is looking awesome by the way!

GET a REAL ONE https://www.ebay.com/itm/282266318754?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

I was just about to do as suggested and thought to measure one more time to see how close the new hole would be. was surprised to see that the original hole might actually fit. put the snap on the hole and it actually fit. a pleasant surprise.

Safety levers and switches will be ready to ship next week......

Congrats Germain! Great job!

Full Steam ahead. Mis-haps are bound to happen. I had to re-do a few things during my build. It is all a process. I had to re-do the center snap TWICE.

Congratulations @The5thHorseman!

Hello everybody, Managed a 45 minute sprint after dinner - channel created on the outside of the reciever tube for speaker wire fitting - done it where the grip meets the tube. Now the speaker is positioned for install at the back of the reciever tube. Had a second go at wire management as well. Decided to forego the wiring I did for the selector switch. There just wasn't enough room for the wiring let alone another electronic component. I wish it wasn't so Dan, but no, there isn't much room in the doopydoos tube especially considering also that I want a movable charging handle. I also had to keep wiring and mother board / sound board combo, in and near the exposed bolt so the rear of the exposed bolt could be slidable with less interference from wiring. Wow, at times like this, I feel I'm doing open heart surgery...wire mayhem! But truly, there is logic at play, especially now that I am so familiar with the wire colors, I know what component it leads to and where to tuck away wires. Now with the speaker wire going towards to back amd the grip installed, next up is chopping off the end cap retainer part. My nerves are racked just thinking of it. Until next time; thanks for reading once again! Sent from my SM-G390W using Tapatalk

I believe they are cheaper here than going through Etsy. Check out the for sale sign in section, can't miss good stuff

The sniper plate is a bit flexible so you can bend it a bit to get it to align. Probably won't be able to make it align exactly but it should be close. See my RS kit in the photos. The trick is to make it look aligned without trying to fit it directly against the shin. Ome of it will touch, some will not. The bottom part of the sniper plate will likely not sit flat against the shin, okay. I think I glued and clamped one side at a time. Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

Just ordered one thank you for the tip.

Beautiful pack. Bummer on the crack however, on a positive note you can claim battle damage. Also, if you weather it no one will even notice

ah gotcha. I get it now.

Well well well whadda we have here - the final component for the complete Sandtrooper Check! Good package waddaya know?! It`s my SWAT level field pack #3 from Shawn "crookknight`s Imperial trooper packs"! Noticed the bee stinger was a 3D print but no worries, had this on the shelf - closest option to the real thing but won`t mess with it just now (to busy drooling) Upon inspection a noticed this crack in the upper seed tray *aaw maaan*…..even though it was packaded really well the trays shifted and that crack happend, but...in true spirit of prop building I took some black gaffers tape and result was very stars warsy Also took some time to level the boxes out for a nice clean fit not very star warsy but hey...it`s my pack Enough words - more pics Perhaps went a little overboard on pics but are absolutely loving this field pack!! BIG shout out to Shawn @CrookKnight for this great build and his patience with my inputs on the build- truly amazing' Looking forward using this set up on the next Troop

I would go with one Rob's, Stan. They are made to order for your particular size, and the quality and customer service are top notch. I own 3 and could not be happier! https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/19803-fs-white-canvas-belts/

I used nylon snap plates with Tandy Line 24 snaps and haven't noticed any deformation. I have a WTF kit which is also on the thicker side as well.

Coming along nicely I wish I had your chest plate. Mine isn’t as sharp as your pull and maybe the resin TD.

Your best bet to get started is probably to make sure you’re happy with the pairing. If you look at an “ideal shin” shape there’s a “C” side and an “S” some armours have this some don’t and it is a little subtle. If yours does try match it to the correct sides. There is a diagram around that shows better than I can explain but I don’t have it to hand. Once that’s done trim the front ridge to fit the cover strips and align the pairs at the top. From there you have more of a sporting chance of figuring out the rears. From what I can see you’ll need to trim them and quite possibly need to hot water shape them too. The bottom edges will almost certainly need tidying up as well.

You're not the only one thrown for a loop here. I'm having trouble trying to figure this out, too. I'm thinking the shins are mismatched, but I can't quite put my finger on it. The inside curve looks right, but I feel like maybe the pieces should still be switched. There will need to be width-trimming, but I would hold off on that until the line up is sorted, to make sure you're measuring to the right leg, etc. I would like up the tops, and flatten the front out, like there's a cover strip on them, and that might help you visualize. I'll keep thinking. I've looked at pictures of mine and they unfortunately didn't help. Any else have any ideas? I've been totally unhelpful, I'm afraid.

These first photos are the toes, heels, and my first attempt at the ankle (tarsal?) piece. Since then, I have changed the piece to a more accurate one, but I wanted you to see the process. https://photos.app.goo.gl/gmVjzHZWro5CvMon8 I hope this link inserts the photos, and doesn’t stay a link.... edit: I still suck at inserting photos. Sorry, just look at the link ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

dam that is beautiful

Thanks lol. I find some people are better visual learners and having the step by step can help.

@TK 71627 hope this helps! This is how my rigging looks My straps are glued here and here Snaps here: And here: (Note-I do not undo these straps when i am putting my armor on) I open the side up (right side) Slide the armor on from left to right Over my shoulder and over my head Then down onto my body and snap the side closed! Now i must add a disclaimer here. I put my legs and boot on first. then my torso parts. I initially was going to make it so that I could put everything on then the chest. but find this route much easier. some people will glue both front and back of the left strap (side of the wearer with rivets) and only leave snaps on the front of the right side, this can work too with this process. biggest thing you will learn about this hobby is there are a ton of ways to do something, you just have to find out what works best for you! good luck trooper and keep us posted on what you find and how you fix any issues, you could be helping the next trooper out!

Brian, thanks. Having a basement for a workshop was a mandate to my wife when we bought our house. Her mandate for me in the next house is a detached workshop so all the fumes from paint and fiberglass do not make the house smell like a body shop. Update, I am back from my work trip. Man, being away for a week has killed me but I am back and today I tied up some loose strings in preparation for paint tomorrow. First, I reworked all my air compressor lines and re-dehydrated the desiccant for the filter. I replaced the inline disposable filter and got some new hose. All that sorted out, I hung two more hard mounted wire hanging contraptions to hold the armor being painted. I also added the last cheap A/C filter to paint booth so it now has 4 20 x 25 A/C filters. The negative pressure inside the booth is better managed now and less likely to collapse the drop cloth walls. So here is how the booth looks now. I have staged the primer for mixing. The paint and clear coat are also ready to go as well. These are the paint guns we will be using. So the plan is to start painting at 08:00 tomorrow. I will have the assistance of a fellow Mandalorian Merc who has more experience in painting automobiles than I do. He will do most of the painting and I will mix the paint and mostly stay on the outside of the booth helping when needed. We hope to get two or three layers of primer on the armor. This will depend on how the first coat goes. After the first coat we will deal with any issues with the armor to ensure a smooth surface. For this I have staged a ton of sand paper ranging from 100 grit through 2000 grit. After we get all the armor primed, we will apply two or three coats of the white base coat. After another inspection and addressing any issues we will apply two clear coats. At that point we will remove any of the parts that get airbrush color added. Then we will spray two more clear coats on the remaining armor. I will let all the armor cure for 24 hours then being to mask the parts that need airbrushing. These parts will be the helmet, thermal detonator, abdominal, and back plate sides. I have looked over the “Rogue One Paint Guide” here on FISD and went a step further, I made some graphics to better outline what needs to be painted and what colors to use. So basically I will be using three colors; French Blue, Black, and Medium Grey. For this I will be using flat acrylic opaque airbrush paints. The French Blue and Black are US Art Supply “airbrush ready” (meaning they do not need to be thinned) and the Medium Grey is a Tamiya acrylic that will need to be thinned for the airbrush. Once I have masked the parts, I will airbrush them and then remove the masking. Then these parts will get two more coats of clear coat round them at a total of four coats just like the other parts. The airbrush I will be using is an Aztek A7778 kit that has 9 interchangeable tips. While these last four parts are curing (for 24 hours) I will apply the flex seal white rubber paint to the inside of the other parts. These last four parts will get the flex seal after the 24 hours curing. After another 24 hours to cure the flex seal, then I will add all the Velcro and straps, and the lenses and vent covers in the helmet and lastly do a test fit. Hopefully, I will be updating this thread throughout with what I experience and more pictures. And that is the update, thanks for the interest.

Submission pics and approved! TK 92679

Position the belt so that it is just under the button box, and sits parallel to it. When aligned properly, the top of my utility belt (the plastic portion) touches and is aligned with the bottom of my ab button plate. I know it's a departure from screen-accuracy, but I actually like the fact that the ab button plate on the AM kit is thicker and sticks out more. It makes for a natural stopping point to keep the belt properly aligned and prevents it from rising up and scuffing the bottom ab buttons.