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Note: Do not use black electrical tape for this or on the armor. Lesson learned. The black tape left some black residue when I took it off to do a test placement on the knee piece. I had to use goo done. That worked fine and got it off but it gave me a scare for a minute.

Blaster wrap This one isn't too special. I think most of us all have a preferred way to transport the blaster. I just thought I'd share what I do as it's worked well for me. I've tried several different blaster transport ways over the years. I tried a separate blaster case, carry bag, different padded wraps etc. I found in the end, for me, I do want the blaster in the tub for blaster allowed events. But, I want it to take up as little space as possible and also not scratch my armor. I found a Star Wars Imperial Tri Fold golf towel out there. I got mine on Ebay, but it's out there on golf stores too. It's around 16" x 24" which is just about perfect length for the blaster. It's also a thicker towel. I removed the golf bag clip at the top. Then I also added mini velvet jewelry bag for the ammo mag. I doubled the bag up since the set on Amazon I got came with several of them. Having it a little thicker coat on the ammo mag prevents those scratches. You then just use longer black velcro cable wraps to keep it all together. It's a nice, themed way to wrap blaster to prevent scratching armor but not taking up any extra space in the tub. The ammo mag could always be removed and still put in the jewelry bag, but I like to keep it all together.

Trooping Accessory - Citation Holder This is one for those 'no blaster' or more fun type events. I still like to be holding or carrying something at a troop. I always miss the blaster. I really liked the citations we had on another trooper thread. So, I decided to expand upon it. I got a Citation Holder like what law enforcement used to use more commonly back in the day. Mine was a black metal Saunders brand Citation Holder that I believe I got on good old Amazon. This lets you clip the citations to the top. But what is nice is you can carry it around and the lid will flip up and inside you can have more citation sheets, but also your coins, patches, and trading cards. As a TK, it's hard to carry and hand those out. This citation holder helps with that. Plus, you can issue citations to rebels and civilians. I put an imperial cog sticker on the back side so someone would see the logo while they saw us writing up a citation. It's not too heavy so you could also put velcro wraps around your belt and velcro on the back of the holder so it could attach if you wanted to "holster" it for a bit. I haven't tried this yet, but I seems feasible.

For the changing tent, I usually do just the undersuit as it is not a super large tent. If I can put the tent close to the back hatch of the car, I can kind of drift in and out to put on armor with the front pulled up. It's not always possible, but I try not to visibly be seen suiting at those the 'change by the car' events so I don't spoil the magic for the young ones. Thank you for the tip on the isopropyl alcohol hack! Great idea! I'm adding that to one of my mini bottles tonight to add to the medical kit.

Mini -Febreeze Spray Bottle I know some troops can make us get a little ripe. I like having some Febreeze to put on the fabric before you suit up can help in addition to the shower and deodorant. But I don't want to carry the big bottle of Febreeze with me. So, I got a pack of mini misting bottles and filled them up with Febreeze. I took the Febreeze logo off of my refill bottles and then stuck that to the mini bottles too. That way I know or anyone else knows what that liquid is. Now the Febreeze is travel small and won't take up a lot of room. (Note: the lids on these are not super tight, so I use a rubber band to wrap around the top and bottom to keep the lid from popping off. There's probably other travel misting bottles out there that won't do this, but this brand does a nice just actually soft misting and not straight squirting. Amazon.com: TOSERSPBE Spray Water Bottle Hair Mister, Fine Mist Stylist Sprayers 360 Empty Small Misting Spritzer, Perfume Atomizer with Pump Clear Containers 2PCS/2oz : Beauty & Personal Care

The Tub Lid Mirror This is probably the most popular idea I've had at troops. So many times, we have to use car reflections or random things to try and see if our costumes look ok during events. There isn't always a mirror. Amazon carries plastic mirrors that I velcroed a couple to the bottom of my tub lid. When you lean your tub lid up against a wall, you can angle it to see how you look! I use this so much. And I'll find many of my fellow trooper's hover over my way to do a review of their kit as well. I also don't have to worry about heavier real mirrors that might crack, shatter, or add weight to your lid. Especially if you use your lid as a shelf like I do too! Amazon.com: JUNEBRUSHS 4 Pack Self Adhesive Acrylic Mirrors, 12x 16 Inch Mirrors Tiles,Flexible Plastic Sheets Wall Stickers,2MM Thick Mirror,Frameless Small Mirror : Home & Kitchen

The Travel Tub Shelf I first saw a version of this from one of my fellow troopers in the Midwest Garrison. My rolling tub has some little slots on the sides and on the tub lid. Using white side paneling from Home Depot, I cut four 3-foot lengths. Then added a small wood block at the top of each bar. These are screwed into the top of the bars as the base to rest the lid on. The lid then rests on the bars above your tub. This maximizes your space when you might be in a small changing room. It gives you a tub lid shelf.

Secret Time Keeper I have found as I've gotten older, I don't make it as long on troops especially in my TK kit. Often on troops, I'll be looking for the time to know how much time is left in the troop. I don't want to be seen reaching for a cell phone, look for a clock, or having to ask. I just want to quickly see a clock but not have it be so visible. My wife came across finger watches on Amazon. I got a black one and tried it out during Halloween. It was great. Very hard to see from anyone else, but I just look at my hand real quick as if I had a watch on. I just turn it on the inside on my non blaster handle hand.

Changing Tent Using a changing tent for changes in the parking lot or even indoors. I got a couple of weights to go with it. They slide in the little pouches at the bottom of most of these types of changing tents. I used an imperial cog stencil used on black tent. The tents will have little loops on the outside and inside of the tent to let you roll up the front door. I use the loops as a location to put a light. I cut a 1-inch-wide PVC pipe and got caps for it that I can take on and off. This pipe can slide through the loops. Then using velcro, I velcored a push-button battery-operated puck light to it. Because of the weight of the PVC, it doesn't spin with the puck light on it. You can literally tilt the light up, straight or aimed down. The photo below shows the light bar on the outside, but there's loops inside so you can light up the inside of the tent if needed. I like this to have a place to put a light and be able to easily take it on/off. I like this for the underwear changing portion of outside changing. It wraps up nice and I can throw it right back into the truck once the changing portion is done.

Hi all, Love this detachment and forum. Amazing folks here. I'm pretty quiet and more of a reader than a poster. I'm a longtime trooper (since 2002). While, I've been working on my Centurion ESB TK application, I was getting out some of my little inventions I've been using for trooping and my costume to have aside. Over the years, I've got a few ideas with pics that I thought I'd share in case it helps others or they want to use it. My hacks include: -Changing outside/inside -Using a changing tent for changes in the parking lot - imperial cog stencil used on black tent along with bar and puck light to tilt and light the inside of the tent -Changing inside maximizing space with a tub lid shelf- I use 4 white wood panels as poles which are used to elevate the lid of the tub to act as a shelf to put parts on -Time keeping -Using a black mini finger watch turned backwards - super quick way to check time on a troop -Trooping accessory - For troops with no blaster allowed, using black Police metal ticket holder with 501st Legion tickets to issue for civilians that say dumb things to us or 'break rules'. Ticket holder also allows easy storage and lid to lift to give out stickers, coins, patches, etc. -Changing inside and being able to check how armor looks- I've added plastic mirrors from Amazon and velcroed them under the lid of the tub to use to help address costume details. - Changing accessory - Mini travel spray bottles of Febreeze to help keep from smelling in the costume - I even took the Febreeze logo sticker off of a refill jug and glued it to the spray bottle so it looks official but lets you know what liquid is in there. -Blaster wrap - Imperial cog golf towel and mini velvet jewelry bags (for the ammo mag) with velcro wraps. A themed way to wrap blaster to prevent scratching armor but not taking up any extra space in the tub. -Helmet sound effect - Mini soundboard in helmet to trigger compressed air "Tssshh" sound effect when taking off bucket. -Sound - Mp3 player on blaster handle and blue tooth Bose speaker (which is really loud) which fits perfect and hidden inside the holster. I'll show these in some separate posts. Not all these hacks or ideas are meant for official/canon troops but could be used for fun events. Hope this helps anyone looking for new trooping ideas. Feel free to add any of your own! I'd love to see others!

Prep for the Unbonder. Not going to lie. I'm a little nervous. LOL. I put electrical tape all around the glue parts. That way the runoff doesn't hit any other plastic. Unbonder is very thin liquid. So it will run. I'll have warm soapy water next to me to wipe off as soon as the glue comes off. I'm going to post some trooper hacks like my time catching watch ring tonight on the forum. Then I'll come back to this Unbonder part.

I tried a couple of the tricks like WD40, dip in warm soapy water or dip in warm salt water, and I had very little luck to get the prior CA glue off. My Unbonder just arrived. I'll be using it this week and posting results. I also bought the Novus kit of heavy scratch, light scratch, and polish after I'm done. Hope to have some updates soon.

Thank you so much for this information! I'll take a look at that thread too. I'll post back when I have new updates. Cleanup make take a little bit on this one....

I've begun work on the sniper knee plate. Watching football during Thanksgiving let me have something on in the background to pass the time. It took about an hour to remove and I took my sweet time. I took the exacto knife with cut resistant gloves (as a safety) and slowly cut along the adhered spots of glue and got it to pop off. I was happy I did not damage the knee plate. I had one close call of a slip but I luckily miss cutting the armor. Just going super slow and taking breaks for my hand worked. So that was part 1. Part 2 is clean up. Part 3 is gluing the plate back on in the proper position. Let me ask about Part 2. So after the plate is removed, RS had their spots of where they glued it before (and their pencil line). A portion of the residual glue spots would be visible once I put the plate back on. So the old glue needs to go. My question is what is the best way to do it? They are rock hard. More slow cuts? Use a file? Once the glue is gone it needs sanding and polish, right?

It wasn't listed as something to fix on my EIB thread, but I thought for peace of mind I better ask. The right is covered up by the small ammo belt, however does the left side need to have the sugru too?

I'm now moving on to the thigh gaps. I got small ABS pieces added inside to be a back side to the sugru. I added the sugru following one of the guides on the forum. I took two shots to show how it looks. One was with the flash inside and the other outside. How is this looking?

Thank you all for the feedback! It helps tremendously! Belt cuts and cleanup are done. I thought I might share how it came out. I will be moving on to the thigh pieces to fill in the small gap on the back side with white sugru next. I'll post here if I have any other questions on those.

I'm moving on to the belt. I did cleanup on the edges with some trims and then used a little bit of Fray Check along the top and back edges. I let it dry and then did final thread trims. I think this looks way better. I'm preparing to do the cuts on the 45 degree edges. I drew in lines with pencil where the fabric belt intersects with the ABS belt piece. Then also measured the width from top, middle, and bottom of the line to be sure the width of the section being cut off is even. I wanted to see if these lines look Centurion good before I do my cuts.

@Chemi Here is my updated brow trim on my helmet. Do these look good for Centurion level?

My second question is on the ear rank bars. The Centurion guidelines say 2 or 3 bars, but it doesn't mention "balanced" ear ranks. Like 3 on one side and 3 on the other. My ESB RS Props helmet came with the 3 on the left and 2 on the right. Like the Han /auction helmet. If I leave it as is, would this still get accepted? If not, I did a mockup of what adding the 3rd rank stripe looks like by drawing the line on a screen grab (see right side image with arrow below). Doing it like this would give a slight variation in how spaced apart the 3 rank bars are on each ear side. The 3 on the left would be spaced further apart than the 3 on the left with a new rank bar. Would this then be a problem?

I have two items to get opinions on. I am planning to cut the brow trim. I've marked with masking tape where I will be making the cut. I'm planning to cut on the outside line of the tape. I plan to do a straight cut down at the end of the traps. Now originally when I applied it was suggested to do the angular cut on the outside of the traps. I wanted to see if that's changed. All the screen shots I look at, many of the brow traps look like they come mostly straight down, partially inwards under the trap. If I make the cuts where I'm going to do here, would these be ok for Centurion ESB?

Chemi, it's been a couple of years with a lot of life events, but things have finally settled down. I recently trooped in my TK for Halloween and got inspired to go for the Centurion for this ESB. I was going to look at the pieces mentioned above and start to work on them. A few scare me. Others, I just have general questions on them. Can I ask here in my EIB request thread or should I create a new thread and ask questions there?

Justin Philpott9921EIBLetter size Chemi Nice job, Justin! https://www.whitearmor.net/eib/certificates/9921-eib.png

Thanks so much everyone! That means a lot. Today is a good day. To celebrate, I'm dropping in a couple of extra pics in my thread just for fun. Enjoy! I'll see you all again when I run for level 3!

Wahoo!!! Thank you so much! Very proud of this. I appreciate the great details for getting to the next level. I've got a taste of OCD, so I can truly appreciate the granular look at these areas. I spent a good year on updating the kit for this entry, so I'll take a little breather and then start working on these updates to try for level 3. My absolute thanks to the team for the fantastic review. A special thanks to Karen Anderson Designs for the pics. They didn't know these details so I couldn't guide them too well with the kit on. Next photos for level 3, I'll have a fellow trooper help me and we can reference the notes here too. I've been in the 501st for over 20 years, so it's an true honor to take it up a notice. My best to all the TKs out there. I hope my pics help you all on your way for an ESB certification too!