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I just picked up on of @fieldmarshall's new all aluminum blaster kits. This is a thing of beauty. Since I'm building my new Bapty out of this kit I have some (a lot) of parts left over. Luckily I just so happen to have an unfinished Doopy kit so I will be using my unused parts from the FM kit on the DD kit. First up, the Tunisian "Bapty" E-11 (Sandtrooper Blaster) I got these wonderful cast aluminum parts from @bigwam. The grip and rear end of the blaster will be solid aluminum. Need to do some finishing work on these but I am so excited to have a Bapty made with real cast metal parts. To go along with it I have a real magazine. A great replica Hengstler (courtesy of Field Marshal again). A real Sterling folding stock. and a real 1942 M38 scope. Got a lot of mods ahead of me on this one. But I'm excited to have a fully metal Bapty build. Hard to get in the states without re assembling a cut up Sterling. Next up, the standard E-11 This is a blend of the rest of the Fieldmarshall parts and the Doopy kit. As much as I would like to, I doubt ill be able to get the bolt to fit in this thing sadly, same with the barrel, so I will probably be selling those parts off. Keep an eye out if interested. I am super impressed by the kit. It is super fun to put these parts together, the folding stock and grip/trigger were so much fun to build. The grip details are insane. And it came with switches and whatnot to put electronics in it. This second kit should pull together much faster than the Bapty. But this will probably be my new main trooping blaster. The Bapty will be on display in my Sandy shrine lol. I'm excited to start these builds fast so I can get to my favorite part, the weathering. Thanks to Fieldmarshall for such a cool kit, sorry I'm splitting it up, I know some are probably thinking I'm crazy of doing it this way, but Sandy's are my first love and I'm going to uber accurate on that blaster.

Thanks James! I see you're in Utah too? I picked up 6, 1/4" outer diameter threaded aluminum spacers and found black machine screws that I liked with the same threading at Ace Hardware and carefully bored wholes in the Plasticweld mounts with a 1/4" bit. After applying the black plastidip the holes were a little smaller so the spacers fit in there nice and tight, I was considering gluing them in but they were so snug and the lenses are already curved so there wasn't any additional flexing that is going to cause them to pull out (from what I can tell at this point anyway. I also considered the Sugru route like Matt used and they're both great options. I just liked how I was able to do additional sculpting to the Plasticweld to make the mounts look like a molded part of the eye sockets. If you have any other questions about it feel free to ask or even message me directly.

Nice work! Good luck on your approval!

Hi Daniel, thanks for your submission! We'll be with you shortly.

Regardless of what you get, add an insole like Dr. Scholl's. Your feet (and knees and back) will thank you after a long troop! Last I heard TK Boots was shutting down (huge bummer), but had some stock left that it was bleeding off. Imperial Boots is good quality and a good price, but does the "wave" sales, taking orders in waves, like once a month, then shutting down until those are completed (but then they don't get the backlog some other vendors get). I'm going to have to check out Caboots myself- I want a second back up pair, since I troop so much. I'm usually a half-size in Men's, so I went up to the next full size, and it was perfect, and had just enough room for an insole comfortably. If they're just slightly snug, you can also get a boot stretcher and use that.

Fast turn around, can build into a robust suit for trooping. If you are not ultra OCB on getting your suit 100% screening accurate, MTK is a good enough for a frequent trooper. (My first TK suit is a MTK)

Done some shopping today at an amazing shop nearby that got loads of rubber material. Soft foam to protect the paint. I'm going to cover the inside of the shoulder bells with this. Belt material. White velcro for connecting the chest piece to the yoke. Black velcro to attach the shoulder bells to the yoke.

Good job Miguel, check the photos that joseph has requested

I love my MTK. Easy to get it to EIB/Centurion. Got it fast too. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Scope Install:

I have Justjoseph’s hand guards and the nomex gloves he recommended and can’t be happier. For canon events I have the rubber ones but the nomex are more comfortable at any temperature.

Approvals and official LFL troops, I use rubber dishwasher gloves. For comfortable troops, I use nomex flight gloves. They breath and cost about $15 a pair on Ebay.

Snaps 'n' Straps -- Part II OK, back to work. All the snap plates are done, so let's start gluing them into the armor. For reversibility I'm going with E6000 all the way here. Yeah, it's slow to cure but I definitely want to be able to rework and relocate the snaps for whatever reason may arise. Like putting them in the wrong frakkin' place... which I did with one pair. Duh. No problem; just tugged them free, cleaned the plastic, and reset them with fresh glue where they belonged. I took a careful look inside the armor and did some measuring and marking in pencil to be sure that everything would go in evenly and symmetrically. (Symmetrically?!! Yeah, anti-canon, I know. But there you have it.) To make the snap plates easier to handle and to avoid getting E6000 all over my fingers, I used an extension magnet to hold them while I slathered on the glue. This is just one of those telescoping pick-up tools I use in my shop, but it works quite nicely to hold the plates while working and placing them. Yes, I'm still using the white E6000. I found that its holding power is no different than the clear version, and I've also come to like it better -- it's easier to see when applying to be sure you get it right where you want it in the right amounts. With the underside of the snap plate fully slathered, it was a simple matter to use the magnet to place it where I wanted it inside the armor, in this case at the top/center of the Kidney. I decided I wanted the snaps uniformly at 1" from any joining edges, so in the photo above you can see that I used a ruler to slide the plate around as needed to get it into position. (The sticker on the back of the ruler is 1" from the end, and it was easier to just use this side for placement rather than looking at tiny numbers with Old Fart eyes.) Once positioned and held in place with the ruler, I just pulled the magnet free, then used a small wooden stick to press the snap plate down securely and allowed the glue to set. Some thoughts on E6000 --- I think I noted before that even though you want to allow a minimum of a full 24 hours for it to be fully cured, the glue doesn't really take all that long to set. It's all slippery-slidey when you first put things in place, but they'll typically set in 15-20 minutes when gluing webbing. The fabric webbing allows some air movement right through it and unlike, say, gluing plastic-to-plastic, these webbing snap plates were fairly solid in short order. Still, take care not to push on them or they might still slide, but you can safely work with the armor in far less than the full 24-hour curing time. At this point, I just worked my way around the Kidney until all the snaps were in place and the glue set. Next up were the mating snap plates in the Butt. First, line everything up the way it'll be when worn, and slap some masking tape on the outside to keep it lined up. On the inside, I used a pair of small clamps to pinch the return edges between Kidney and Butt together, and glued the mating snap plates in place as before. While the glue is still slippery-slidey, use a straightedge to be sure the new snaps are in-line vertically with those glued in earlier, and adjust as needed. If the snaps aren't aligned vertically, the straps will want to pull the armor pieces out-of-line when snapped on. That would be a Bad Thing, so check that alignment now and be sure nothing moves until the glue has set (again, in about 20 minutes or so). Once all the snap plates were in place in the Butt, I put it aside and glued in the three snap plates at the bottom of the Back piece, and then put it, the Butt and the Kidney aside for a while to allow the glue some more setting-up time while I started with the connections for the left side of the armor between the Ab and the Kidney. If you've looked at the many builds here, you know that there are half a dozen ways of doing this. The one and only thing that has to be consistent is the fact that there must be rivets on the outside of these two pieces of armor, three evenly space in each. But what you do on the inside is up to you -- snaps and straps, glued straps, use the rivets through straps, etc. One of the things I liked that a number of folks here have done is to use a single wide piece of strapping that bridges the edge of that joint between the Ab and Kidney. This keeps things lined up nicely and prevents one piece or the other from shifting up and down, and I liked that idea. So I stole it. I also saw how several folks reinforced this strapping with strips of ABS, so I stole that, too. I combined both ideas to create a strapping "hinge" for that side of the armor. I used a piece of 2" black webbing, to which I glued 3/4" wide strips of ABS using Duco cement for a permanent, fast-curing bond. Next, I secured the left edge of the Ab to my worktable with some clamps, then measured out the locations for the rivets. If you haven't done this yet, it's pretty basic. Measure in 10mm from the edge and pencil in a line. Then, measure down about 20mm from the top edge of the Ab and mark, and 20mm up from the bottom edge of the Ab where the Cod starts, and mark again. Then, just split the difference between your marks and pencil in the center rivet location. Clamp the Ab side of the hinge in place securely with clamps, making sure everything is centered top-to-bottom and that the center of the hinge is right on the edge of the Ab. Now, using a 5/32" bit, just drill through the Ab on your marks and on through the hinge. You can't see it in the photo, but I also have a thin scrap of wood clamped with the hinge on the underside for support. This keeps everything pressed against the inside of the Ab for efficient drilling. With all three holes drilled, I removed the clamped hinge and used the tip of a soldering iron to seal the edges of the holes in the webbing. Now, it's just a matter of slipping in the rivets from the outside, putting the drilled side of the hinge in place, slipping on some washers and bending over the wings of the split rivets. I started this process on my worktable by using a large screwdriver to open the wings of the rivets just enough to hold everything in place, and then moved to the concrete floor. I placed a scrap of ABS underneath, then simply hammered the wings flat and flush with the washers. Keep in mind that even though the rivet wings are flush, they can (and will) snag and catch on your undersuit, so once I have everything done with the armor I'll put a dollop of silicone caulk on those wings, essentially creating a rubbery cap on top -- no snagging and catching. With the Ab side done, now on to the Kidney side. The glue on all the snap plates has set nicely, so I taped the Ab/Kidney assembly together, and then marked matching hole locations on the Kidney side. With the hole locations marked, I repeated the drilling steps as before by clamping the hinge and the wood scrap in place, and drilled right through to make the matching holes. Then just slip in the rivets, position the hinge, add the washers, bend open the rivet wings with my screwdriver, and then move to the concrete floor to hammer the rivets flat. At this point, there's just one more step to do and that's add the "Han snap" to the top right corner of the Ab. Like those rivets, this must be visible from the outside but it's not necessary for this snap to be functional. However, I decided to make it functional and use it as part of the closing straps on the inside (like they did originally). For this, I measured in 20mm from the top and 20mm from the edge, drilled a 5/32" hole, countersunk the hole from the outside to accommodate the male snap post, and then set the snap. OK, let's take a look. Not bad at all, if I do say so myself. (Spoiler alert: I just did.) I'm considering the lower half of the body armor done, ta-da! The Ab, Kidney and Butt are all trimmed and sized, and all snaps are in place. You'll notice in the above photo that I haven't yet done the snap plates at the shoulder extensions or on the lower inside of the Chest piece. There's a reason. When I start making the straps I'll need to make them in sets that match the fit of the lower half of the armor -- in fact, I'll be doing that in the next installment. From there, I'll work up across my back, and it's at that point that I'll decide how those shoulder extensions need to be trimmed to match my height and body shape. Not much you can do with the lower armor since it has to fit snug in the Nether Regions and around your abdomen; can't trim for height down there. You have to trim for height at the top. Wearing the abdomen assembly (Ab, Butt and Kidney), I'll hold the Back and Chest pieces in place, then mark and trim those shoulder extensions to size. That's when I'll add those snaps and straps at the shoulders. With that done, I'll see where the Chest piece falls in relation to the top of the Ab, then mark and add those final snap plates.

Next phase...playing around with weathering...in this case, charcoal powder after a quick hit with a sander on areas that would see wear and tear and show the metal underneath. Hard to say how much is too much. I've found that dusting the whole thing then brushing off thoroughly in flat areas gets the nooks and crannies dirty but doesn't overly do it....please let me know what you think. Bottom (I've already brushed out the streaks visible) Top Lenses Front I plan to hit it again this weekend and then hopefully finish it out with some hairspray to make it stick. After that, I'm going to add some washers to the eyepieces to make it a bit more realistic and then look for some leather strapping...