usul45

What guy was being a dink? Are you talking about me? Well name calling seems to go hand in hand with Matty and his friends then doesn't it? I was wondering who would be the first of Matt's friends to actually call me a name on the forum, thanks for being first. I love how if you don't push Matt he will treat you well, how many years have you been waiting for armor XXXX? And how many years was the other guy, what was it two years? Feeling pushy yet? Don't worry you will be treated great....later. Look the point of this was to show Matt in his own words dealing with someone who actually wanted the product he had paid for, its not a "dig on Matt forum", he's a great guy in person and someone I would like to hang out with, but since I'm a dink I guess its out of the question. Matt needs to understand that when people part with a large amount of money they may actually want what they paid for and then when it goes south there WILL be bad feelings, not just on his side for the unfourtunate issue of having to deal with "dink" customers, rememeber all I ever did was give him 1200 and then had the audacity to actually want what I paid for. Delivery issues devolve into he said , he said, issues to fast, but there at least two people on this forum who have been waiting patiently and non-dinkish for over a year, for work from Matt, so IT IS AN ISSUE. And I am convinced if I had not been a "dink" in requesting my product I also would be waiting still. And that is the end of my contributions to this discussion since it is starting to get personal toward Matt and myself I am out of here. Matt has tried to make good and has personally apologized for the e-mails he and I are on as good of terms as we are going to be, he is great at what he does he just needs to work on the delivery part. For the record the armor I recieved from him is TOP NOTCH stuff, the helmets were iffy but he claims he was rushed on them so fine, all issues aside his work is great and he is a great guy most of the time, I have no personal issues with him beyond the buisness issues at hand. Since we are devolving to name calling I think we should go ahead and close this one down.

"The only problem i have, is being told that the suit is going to be sent out next week, or in the next 2 weeks, and after a month i have nothing. I dont have any beef with matt, the only suggestion i can make on his business practice is that he sticks to his word. If its going to be sent out next week, then send it out." And there you go the crux of the issue at hand. "I do apologize about your bad experience and angry letters. But like Joey said, Matt does not take liking to pressure from clients." Well then Matt shoudl not make promises that he knows he can not keep. I do not take liking to people taking 1000 dollars and then not delivering in any sort of a timely fashion that they have agreed to. But thats that. Caleb

It's not dribbel it shows new people the huge issues that this producer has had in the past and continues to have. Since Matt has been banned noone really knows about his issues, I was simply bringing a difficult sitaution to the attention of the hobby.

No no no, not the issue at all, plenty of people have issue with someone and others will have none, you absolutely DO NOT need to walk on eggshells around this thread, support Matt, support his armor, there is nothing wrong with having a different opinion and a different set of examples of interaction. I will never hold anyting like that against anyone, if you had a great experince with Matt then great, talk about it, I'm simply pointing out my experince, that's all. And they aren't accusations they are facts. There are a few people here that have been waiting for orders for YEARS. Matts name calling was unfortunate and in fairness he has apologized.

for Pete's sake I didn't know that! I'm glad I haven't gone out in mine yet, embarrassing.

When you put the forearms together is there a way to get a taper on them? so they snug up a bit better? How did you do it?

yep he can run hot and cold huh? Its the weird hot and cold on the armor that is strange, some of the stuff he puts out is AMAZING and then well you know..

e-mail number 2. which proves Matty has a Sock puppet..... LOL- that is the biggest crock of 1456 i have ever heard. I didnt give you the pieces you picked out? Think again. Yes, you did ask me to hold the suit. You originally said that you wanted me to put it away so nothing happened to it as you were moving and didnt want it damaged. Then you had your wife call me and beg and whine about how I was 'putting you off'... LOL! Seems you cant remember jack crap about what you said. Thats ok.. And oh yes, Crater Lake. We did go, had a family vacation and I could care less what you beleive about that. The pieces were not dry. Know why? I had to reshoot them as they dried too fast the first time and had to give it another coat. Its not normal spray paint I use and it finally dried properly in cooler weather and it takes 2 days before you can handle it. Not finished? YOU took the helmets and said you friend would paint them when I had decals on the way. You also said you would come back for the trim, which is in, and you never responded. I can play that game too. I can post this just as well and it again, was your choice to take the suit. I never said the suit would take a week. I said 3-4 weeks. The guy in XXXXXX his money back? I have no clue what you are talking about.. none at all. So, you can bring the suit here and get the trim, or you dont have to. YOU took the suit before it was done, you also took the helmets before they were done. The choices were all yours. Plain and simple my man. If my email got your attention then it worked. Never finished? Again, it is all on you. The stuff is here. Helmets not to your liking? then you are a liar becasue you said you loved them when you picked them up.. All you kept saying was.. AWESOME... SO AWESOME... If there was an issue, all you had to do was call... you didnt... So again, balls in your court... End e-mail. Well what are you gonna do, I responded that we could talk over the phone if he feels the need, but life is to short and I really don't need more aggravation from the guy. I just hope he fulfills his obligations to everybody else in a better way. Lesson learned.

Oh if only I had done a little more research, but i found THE guy the guy who started all of this i thought what could go wrong...

Here is an e-mail I received from Matt I.E. TE Ok, since you fail to respond and take pride in bashing my work when you are the one that took the suit and didnt ask for anything to be changed, so you can 4565 off. Dont forget it was also you that originally asked me to hold the suit here and then had your wife call me 20 minutes later whining and crying that I was putting you off.. LOL... GROW UP... if there was an issue with the helmets, you should have spoken up. You said you loved them and said nothing. You also rushed me to finish the helmets as you had some sort of stupid excuse that you were moving and they needed to go into storage. I for one could care less about your complaints really. Bottom line: you are a liar, and a piece of 7896. Nothing more. And you didnt pick up tow helmets... you picked up one and I gave your wife the other one. Not paid for... I know you wont respond.. so no worries... ) (cussing has been edited out and replaced with numbers) He' really is such a pro. So here is the story, today I contacted a member about the issues they were having with Matt about having not sent any product for almost a year after receiving payment. And then I get this in my email this morning, now its pretty obvious that Matt has a sock puppet account on FISD or he has some friends here, so if he has friends lets go through a little story about your pal Matt. Matt contacted me through Craigslist after I posted an add for wanting to buy TK armor. I went to Matts house and we talked armor he showed me photos of him in the Lucasfilm archives and then we talked price Matt charged me 1200 for a ROTJ suit and because I gave him 200 right then he throght in a helmet for my wife. Now he handed her a helmet and said that she would be getting that one in a short time as he just needed to finish it. She didn't get that one. Now Matt calls a few weeks later and says hey the armor is all pulled so I drive out to his house and give him 1000 in CASH! He says the armor will be done in one week, and that I am first on the list. I select each of my armor pieces form a large pile or pieces. Now let's flash forward a week, I call and receive the first of what will be MANY excuses. After three weeks or so, of Matt having my money, he says that the armor is done, and he will store it in his garage as I am moving. Now at this point I'm having doubts about our buddy Matt, first he changes his stories routinely first he says that none in the 501st wears his armor its to expensive, then the next time we are over he goes into some weird long rambling rant about how he is going to break into the lucasfilm archives and steal a bunch of props, just weird stuff. he also tries to sell me a CD of pictures he took in the Lucasfilm archive for 500. something stinks and so I call back and say I want to pick up the armor. Then the excuses start, you see it seems the armor isn't really done. Then later the helmets are all done but there's no stickers, then the helmets are not done, then late the armor isn't done. Finally I call him and tell him enough tis enough I am going to come over and just get the armor. then he is magically going to go to crater lake and will not be home, when I start yelling at him, and he starts yelling I figure this jerk has stolen my money. He then says that I can come get my armor at 4:00 that afternoon. Well when 4:00 rolls around and I get it guess what its freaking not dry because he spent the whole day making it as fast as he could because he sold the armor that he promised to me. Final analysis Matt=real quality guy.

Now here I can attest to workmanship. I purchased two helmets from Matt and they were both crap. They were thrown together at the last minute and I had to actually tear one apart and completely rework it to even get it close to looking good. And I'm nowhere near done. I can show photos of his "workmanship" If you want to see.

Looks really good. Question on the top of the helmet right above the left eye it looks like there is a fold in the plastic, is this a illusion or is it really there? I only ask as my helmet had the same thing and I had to sand it out. Looking really good though, can't wait to see more! Keep at it!

Good god. Distraction or relevant. You decide.

He's off Ebay right now, nothing for sale. Like I said though I had no problems with him at all.

I am sort of husky but my main problem is shoulder bells, I simply can not get them to fit over my massive shoulders (snicker).

I got some shoulder straps from him to finish my suit. Pretty quick with the shipping and was a breeze to work with.

You know what, your right. you changed my mind, and I agree with you. I really didn't think about it that way. I was just thinking about it from he point of view of how hard it can be to get into the hobby sometimes. Great points!

And I must just say that everything said after my post was spot on. you guys are the cream of the crop let me assure you of that. I purchased my armor from TE and was lucky, let me reiterate that LUCKY! I had no idea who he even was when I met up with him to talk price. Can you belive that I bumbled into TEs kitchen and talked armor. If I had not lucked into that I would have bought some recast trash on ebay. I found the FISD after my experience with TE, and needed to make some MUCH needed repairs. Without this sort of group and forum, even more peopel would be buying crummy stuff off ebay. As far as SDS goes, I think that law suit stems from a LONG line of bad blood between these guys. Just an opinion. Peace out!

Recasters and the guys that make crummy armor will always have a group of buyers simply because of the fact that the suppliers we all know about TE, TE2, AP are hidden. If you don’t have the secret handshake and the prerequisite amount of posts next to your name then getting any armor from them is impossible. If a noob came on this site and wanted to purchases some armor and begin down the glorious road that is Star Wars costuming he or she would be virtually unable to do so. That is why the recasters on the dreaded Ebay will have a market until we let loose a bit. If you think that old uncle George is going to go to Hawaii and sue TE2 or Beaverton and arrest TE then I must say you’re a bit on the paranoid side, (no personal attack or snarkiness meant there, just an opinion of the attitude show toward a set of circumstances). Look either we open up and let others into this hobby or we stay elitists. Me, I’m for the common man.

Just make Matt actually do it right. Good luck with that if you already paid.

If you don't mind me asking did you get this from TE? Or is this from someone yanking off of his molds? I only ask as the last time I had to deal with him he said he had no more of the molds but had a small stack of armor and helmets in the garage. If you did go through him directly I hope you can get some money back. I practically had to camp outside his house to get my stuff.

Yep I purchased a set of ROTJ from him a few months ago just as the molds were leaving his house. Yes he has had some issues, me included, I will not go into them here, but safe to say I'm not sure I would have him do another set for me. The armor however was grand and is amazing to look at the helmets are ROTJ as well, and after a HUGE amount of work restoring one of the ones I got from TE that was supposed to be finished (OK going off on tangent here) They are nice.

B E A utiful. Great work!

They look so smooth, and shiny, what paint did you use, the uniformity is amazing over all of them just really great! So jealouse.

Hi again guys! So the Elmers glue trick for thickening up the aerators is going great, now I need to pick your brains about a basic thing. I have a heat divot or deformation just above my trim line and extending under the trim (I'd show pics but I can't find the camera) I need to sand this out and then re-paint. I purchased my helmet already assembled and painted by TE. The paint is pretty shiny but I really need to know exactly what kind of paint I should use on this after I do the divot repair. I found some appliance epoxy paint, and then of course your everyday Krylon stuff, what do I use for the best shinyest and most permanent paint application. The helmet is Styrene. I also wonder what sort of sanding material I should use on the helmet, adn if anybody has any technique suggestions. Thanks in advance for the help on my bucket!