Leaderboard

Fellow Troopers! The Empire has spread its dominion to Israel. Am a lone TK looking to bring the message of the 501st to the local population. TK-51948 reporting for duty!

At a Troop yesterday I had a discussion with a fellow Garrison TK about the strength -- or lack thereof -- of Shoulder Bridges. It occurred to me that the method I used to beef up the Bridges from my build might be useful as a standalone How-To article. Shoulder Bridges are perhaps the most fragile part of TK armor, so it's always a good idea to reinforce them in some way. Also, since the underside of the Bridges is basically hollow there's nothing there to glue to. Most builds I've looked at fill in all those hollow spaces with slivers of ABS glued in to add both strength and gluing surface. I decided to try something different. My plan was to cover the entire underside of the Bridges with a strip of thin ABS cut from a For Sale sign I picked up at Lowe's for $1.99. First, though, I needed to trim the Bridges down a bit to remove excess edge. I have AM armor, which comes nicely trimmed, but there is a bit extra left on so trimming these was my first step. The AM Shoulder Bridges are already curved (almost perfectly, for that matter), so using the score-and-snap method wasn't an option and I relied on my trusty Lexan scissors. Notice here that I'm not cutting all the way to my line. That's because I'll be gluing ABS to the entire underside and I want more surface to work with. I'll trim them to their final size after the gluing is all done. I had already cut out the ABS from my For Sale sign -- again slightly oversized -- so gluing started by attaching the ABS to the Bridges at the middle. The reason for this is that all the critical gluing of the ABS is mostly around the edges, and I wanted a solid center all the way down the middle for strength and rigidity, and to support the thin ABS. To do this, it only takes a dollop of glue on the center of each "rib" where it'll make contact to the ABS sheet. I'll use something different gluing the edges, but I'm using E6000 here for the longer working time and adjustability. With the glue dolloped on, I pressed the ABS into place and added a series of small clamps down the center and set the Bridges aside to dry. A couple things to keep in mind if you decide to do this --- 1) First, shape the Bridges as closely as possible to the shape you want them before starting this. Yes, you can still bend them afterward but it's not quite as easy, so bend them to shape now. 2) When you clamp on the ABS, ensure that you keep the curve intact the way you want it while the glue is still wet. This is pretty easy to adjust, even with the clamps on. But once the glue is dry it will hold the curve, so you want the curve to be right where you put it. 3) I've talked a number of times in my official build thread about how you can work with things glued with E6000 after only a few hours without waiting for a full cure. That doesn't apply here. You want the glue down the center to fully cure before proceeding. Why? Well, E6000 is strictly evaporative and needs air to cure. The inside of the Bridges won't have air circulation once the edges are glued. So let that glue cure at least the full recommended 24 hours. OK, lecture over. To glue around the edges I'll use Plastic Weld, which does exactly what it says. This glue is very thin, cures very quickly, and makes a permanent, nearly invisible joint. It's also easy to use since capillary action does most of the work for you. Work in small sections at a time -- about three or four ribs length -- from one end to the other. I alternated sides. Dip the brush into the bottle, apply liberally to the edge (the slightly oversized ABS forms a little "shelf" that acts as a guide) and capillary action instantly sucks the glue right into the joint. Brush on a bit more in the same spot, and again it'll be drawn right in. Keep doing this till no more gets sucked in; at that point the joint is fully filled and you can apply your smallest clamps. You only need minimal pressure, and you only have to leave the clamps in place for a couple minutes. The glue works that fast. Important note: Be extremely careful with this stuff! It will instantly start fusing any plastic it touches, including your armor, so get it and anything else out of the way. Keep a cloth or paper towel handy for drips and spills -- it will also start fusing the plastic laminate on my worktable, for example -- and wipe up any spills immediately. Note how I keep the glue bottle in what I call my Tray Of Isolation that I use for glues and other caustic chemicals, plus I have it nestled into a hole in a piece of wood that prevents the bottle from tipping. Then I just kept working down around the edge, alternating sides, until I'd gone entirely around the Bridge. Done? Nope. When this kind of glue cures, it shrinks ever so slightly, and if you look at the glue joint you might see tiny gaps that look like bubbles. Go all the way around once more with your brush applicator, adding a second line of glue. You'll see it suck right into those little gaps. Once you see no more tiny gaps, then you're done. Set it aside for an hour or two. Yeah, the glue is dry, but you want it to fully cure. An hour or two is more than enough, but best to be sure. Now, trim that oversized ABS right up to the edge of the Bridge plastic with a sharp knife, and sand the edges smooth. This is a straight edge, so either use a sanding block, or better yet a full sheet of paper held flat to your work surface. I did a quick rough sanding with 150-grit just to level the edges and bring them to the final size, then followed with 220-grit, then 320-grit for a really smooth edge. And here's the magic: Because this is a welded plastic joint, there is no appreciable glue line. Seriously, take a look: There you go. The Bridges are strengthened from one end to the other, and you have a smooth, flat gluing surface ready to go on the underside for attachment to the armor. Which, by the way, we'll do after making an adjustment to the armor. Strengthening the Shoulder Bridges is only part of reducing their fragility. The second part is how they're mounted to the armor. Here, you can see that although the shoulder extensions at the top of the Chest and Back Plates are trimmed to length and shaped to my shoulders, the ends of those extensions weren't quite in the same plane. You can see what I mean with the armor on my mannequin. The armor feels good on and fits just right, but no way those Bridges are going to lay correctly on that. Sure, the elastic hold-down straps will force the Bridges into the correct position when you wear the armor, but that also stresses the Bridges by twisting them unnaturally. But you can fix that. Leaving the armor on the mannequin, I reshaped those extensions by heating them with a hair dryer. (I'm terrified of using a heat gun, but a hair dryer works great on small, thin areas like this and it's far safer.) Essentially, I just heated up the ends of those extensions, then twisted them until they lay in the same plane with one another. Once I had the left shoulder nice and planar, I did the same thing with the right shoulder. When finished, the bridges will lay perfectly over the top. Now, it was just a matter of lining up the Bridges to center them over the shoulder extensions and making a few registration marks, then removing the armor and gluing the Bridges to the Chest Plate over on my workbench. This is another critical glue joint, by the way, so allow the full curing time for the E6000. All right, let's take off the clamps, reattach the shoulder strapping and put this back on the mannequin and see what we got. Nice. Now, just a little cleanup for some E6000 squeeze-out, add the thin elastic hold-down loops for the backs of the Bridges, and you're ready to enjoy the strongest Shoulder Bridges ever. A.J.

I've never had a bad experience with krylon paints, but I do know you should never blend your paints. Such as use Rust-Oleum primer with a krylon color or Rust-Oleum primer and color with krylon top coat. The two don't play well together. Same goes for any mixing of the three stick with one and do it. Sent from my 5054N using Tapatalk

Grande como un ropero diriamos en Costa Rica. Ja ja Suerte !!

Hi, Your Shoulder bells looks great!

Nice work on the helmet, just watch the pain on the teeth, from the CRL: Frown is painted gray and does not leave the teeth area You may just want to remove any excess paint from the gums, this can be easily done with toothpicks

Your belt is a little high at the back, also take not of the gap in the sides, it's quite big at the bottom, you may want to even this out so the sides match.

Photos update after ears move and shoulder trimmings Enviado desde mi SM-G955F mediante Tapatalk

its ok for the screws, not all movie helmet the screws lined up, I would just remove the last blue stripe thats under ears no two helmet had the same amount of blue stripes, actually many helmet had different amount of stripes for each side and finally the grey frown you need to paint grey after the last hole which is not drilled out, check my avatar photo.

Welcome and good luck with your mission! Long live the Empire!

Excellent Simon. !! Goog Luck with your application.

Okay, so post EIB-approval and following all the little suggestions and fixes for Centurion - there's a whole, brand new set of photos for you guys to take a look at up there! Thanks!

Looks about right Front Back

Nicely done!

Great job!

Furiously working to get this kit d-o-n-e! We were out of town last week, so my plans to finish the suit then went completely out the window. But almost there now. First, to follow up on the issue I had with the elastic strapping for the brackets being too long... can you spot which one of these isn't like the others? That's the elastic from one of my own kits. Much shorter. With a quick pass of these on the sewing machine, I shortened all of them up. And here is Mr. Cricket- his name is Chris (no kidding!). Yeah, yeah, I know: "Chris and Christine". We've been together for over 20 years and have heard it a gazillion times. The strapping to the shoulders/bells was just taped together, and there were no elastics on the biceps/bells, so the bells look kind of wonky. Everything was taped together for the chest/back connection with black gaffer's tape (my white tape had disappeared), so it looks kind of odd in the back, too. But! It's all coming together, and Mr. Cricket is able to move around in his suit with no bites reported. You all know how it feels to get into kit for the first time like this. So much WOW! And he has great helmet hair, I must say. Here he is after seeing himself fully dressed for the very first time. He couldn't stop saying, "Oh WOW!" over and over again. And who can resist the allure of an e-11? So after all the fun came the final work for me. Cover strips for thigh fronts. Strapping for the chest/back connection and bicep/bells to be installed. Attaching plastic straps to chest plate. I had to remove the sniper knee and add some plastic to pop it out away from the shin because we couldn't keep the plate from digging a bit into his knee (despite adding padding to the inside of the shin at the top). Let's just say that there was a lot of final stuff that needed to be glued! This is what it looks like when I use every single set of my magnets and clamps. What a mess! After all the glue has set, I still need to paint the white rivet/screw heads on the armor. And that's that!

Small update. I finished washing my armor. Thankfully the fiberglass isn’t to bad to the touch anymore. Meeting with the group today to discuss our plan of attack.

Hi folks, Another step closer today. Benefits of being up at 5:30 with the baby is getting a head start on things!! Lol I used the Trooperbay Dave M style templates and a ‘special’ vintage shade of blue (thank you again, P). I was a little nervous about applying the templates in case they damaged the top coat / thankfully, they peeled off perfectly in the end. Just one coat here, carefully applied, using the paint sparingly. As you’d expect, a little bleed here and there but nothing that a gently scrape with a cocktail stick/wooden toothpick wouldn’t fix. Also, added the hovi tip mesh (although I don’t think this is overly accurate) and added the acetate lenses. Apart from the s-trim for the neck, were pretty nearly there. Please feel free to comment on the hovi mesh. Note the orientation of the stripes - see here for more information; https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/44755-tube-stripes-anh-stunt-dave-m/ Tubestripes approx a pencil width from the cheeks. Lightly and carefully applied just one coat of paint, trying to avoid too much pressure which could force bleed under the template; Pre-toothpick Post-toothpick

Hey Jayke! Dug through my phone to try to find some more helpful photos for ya. I've been making straps for people fairly often these days and have found some tips and tricks by trial and error haha So this photo of a buddy's Sandy strap setup gives you a good idea of how I've kinda translated the Billhag diagram over into the real world. It works great and I've got about a dozen guys and gals wearing my kits without any issues. I definitely like the double-snap system for the body connections and have never had reports of it failing during a troop. I actually set the male snaps into a piece of nylon webbing instead of ABS like the tutorial you saw (which is great otherwise!). Personal preference, but the nylon bonds really well with E6000 to the armor and can adhere to the curves of the armor better - it's tough enough that it'll never accidentally come apart, but if you REALLY needed to remove it to adjust things, you can pull em off with pliers. A lot of guys will CA glue the ABS squares in, but... then they're pretty much never coming off clean ever. Also, if you're going to do ABS squares, I would leave a lot more ABS around the snap - right now, it looks like you're bonding the actual metal snap base to your armor, which isn't ideal and kind of negates the ABS. A larger, rectangular tab or nylon like mine would bond better. It also helps to scuff up the armor a bit before gluing anything - glue sticks better to a rough surface than a perfectly smooth one. It's also worth mentioning again that anywhere a snap or rivet has been drilled and sunk THROUGH the armor, I never attach a strap there by itself - you don't want them to be load-bearing, because that leads to stress, which leads to cracks. Here's what a full strapping kit more or less looks like when I make em! Another view, and a Shadow Trooper kit, but you get the idea. Here's one showing how I do the sew in snap. If you switch between holes on this side, the visible side comes out really clean. Plus, I integrate my Centurion elastic tie-downs into the shoulder strapping so they stay in place and never get lost. Super easy to do! Anyways, hope all this helps! Hit me up with any questions and keep working away - it's looking great!

Sorry for the delay. Totally forgot to post this. Completely optional of course 19. Helmet Electronics: In this short section I'll be installing my Hovi Audio system, my Stormtrooper Hearing Assist (SHA) system and my cooling fan kit. Before installing the electronics the helmet is equipped with a hard hat liner which serves two purposes, increases the space available to install components and also increases air flow around the head. 1) Install 2" velcro at the back of helmet. This area is where all the larger components will be placed. 2) Add velcro to the back of the iComm Voice Modulation box. Install in helmet 3) Install amplifier 4) Install cooling fan battery case 5) Install SHA (hearing assist) PCB and battery box with on/off switch 6) Install cooling fans near the front of the helmet. 7) Install Hovi tips and Omni-Directional microphone. 7a. Remove old (Original) Hovi tips 7b. Enlarge mounting holes and install harness and mounting posts. 7c. Add connecting wires. Mic to iComm, iComm to amp, amp to speakers. Done! At the time of taking these pictures the headset was worn on the troopers head, since then it has been permanently fixed to the lens screws. Also, the hearing assist pickup mics were positioned at the end of the frown with insulating tape. Since seeing mine behind the ears the trooper has requested to move his, so no pictures for them as well. Enjoy!