pandatrooper

Here here. Mark has done a great job and is always super helpful. I hope we will still see you visiting here though! Welcome aboard Dan.

There's seems to be some scripting problem, it doesn't allow you type anything in the message at all. Tom, have you sent No'l a message? I don't want to bombard him. *BTW: the "need help / detachment helpdesk" button doesn't work as well.

Congrats Paul! 8000 is a crazy number of posts. I don't think I've ever seen a post count that high anywhere!

Congratulations Joey!

Don't worry, there's others like you in smaller areas that might not have much of a 'sci fi" scene, but that doesn't matter. That's what the internet is for! There's a lot of people here to support you and your hobbies. There's a good number of legion members in Canada. There's the Canadian garrison out east, and Badlands garrison out west. In my neck of the woods, there's the Outer Rim squad which has recently been growing and we plan to have a lot more activity. Calgary and Edmonton are current hotbeds for the Badlands garrison. I'm not sure exactly where you are, but I know there's a few members in Ontario. I'm not sure how far away from you they are but I'm sure they would lend their support. The fact of it is, you don't need your next door neighbor to understand what you enjoy as a hobby. My neighbor is a grumpy old man who doesn't like people parking in front of his house, but that didn't stop me from "marching" past his house to troop! The fact is, you should be proud of your hobbies. Just because someone doesn't understand or like your hobby doesn't give them a right to belittle or make fun of you. I would suggest feel free to speak openly, especially to friends or coworkers that understand for support. Reach out to your nearest Garrison and get on their boards if you haven't already. If it's a real problem for you, move to a place that welcomes you and understands your needs. I know if you moved here to the west coast, I'd be more than happy to see you join our squad.

I have them as well. I'm not sure we'd be allow to host them, as technically they belong to the BBC or the person who created them. I guess the least we could is ask the original creator if that was Ok? They probably know that tons of Tks use them. Still, it would be best to ask before hosting.

Wow, just....wow. That is one of the best sandy's I've ever seen. Outstanding work!!!

It does look awesome, great job to the entire staff on this upgrade!

Great idea! Pandatrooper Boots: TKboots Size: mens 8 Looks: the look is perfect to me. Not a super glossy white, a soft leather white. Black sole, nice edge. the heel is the perfect height. Fit: I normally fit into a mens 8.5. The TK boots fit slightly narrow, but the leather stretches, nice fit (not loose inside). The toe has a little extra room, but that's OK. Troop comments: they were very comfortable. The ankle is snug, so use the supplied shoe horn to squeeze your foot in. I put an insole in the heel, as I have some heel issues, and the fit was fine. very comfortable, wore them for over 8 hours straight with no issues. Would I buy again?: I already have 2 pairs, one for a backup.

Nice job, keep it up!

Length looks fine, you might want to bend them to curve them a bit more. Glue the fronts and let the back float for screen accurracy!

Thanks guys, these measurements will work for me! I knew I could count on you guys!

I take the armor off, let it dry / wipe it clean inside if necessary. Some people like to keep the outside clean and polish it, others like to leave their armor naturally weathered with scratches and scuffs, its up to you. I store my gear in a large hockey gear bag. Everything fits in it.

This will be more of an experiment, but could anyone please measure their Stolla Wein MP 40 pouches - or in a perfect world, what they think the dimensions of the screen used pouches were? I know a few people have made their own replicas, so any measurements would help. I'm looking specifically for the length of the pouch (from bottom to inner lip) and the width of the pouches, depth wouldn't hurt either. The rest I can figure out with reference images. I might try and take a stab at making one for myself, just to see if I can do it. Thanks for your help! *BTW: yes, I have already posted this on MEPD. No replies yet.

The Am kit is designed with extra material for bigger troopers, so you need to trim it down. As stated, glue the front first. Is there a reason why you want to Velcro the backs? You shouldn't need to, you can just glue it.

NOTE: I edited my post above, you need to glue the thigh backs, not velcro them. At some point during my typing I started to think "shins". Corrected!

Most people try to glue the fronts to look more "screen accurate" and then adjust the back as necessary, if it will fit your thigh that way. Otherwise, the spacing at the front and back may need to be wider. Most people would work with the "ridge line" on the front and use that as a starting point, and measure 10 - 12mm on each side for a butt seam join. That way when you butt seam the front, you could glue a 20 - 25mm cover strip over the whole seam. Ideally, there would be enough material at the back to allow for butt seam as well. You would put the armor on (I would recommend with your ab and cod sections on, as well as shins, so that you can see how they all fit together) and make some pencil marks where to cut / glue the backs of the thighs. Then take everything off, draw a line where to cut, then cut and glue the butt seam. Apply the cover strip. The thighs should not need velcro at the back. If you don't plan on butt seam construction and just want to overlap, you would take the outer thigh piece, and measure out 20-25mm from the ridge and cut a line. This piece would over lap the inner thigh piece which would also be cut 20 -25mm. Then you just glue the overlap together. The back will need an overlap and gluing, just like the front. *Remember, if you're overlapping make sure the gaps face the righ way - to the inside!! I describe this in my tips post re: shins. Many build threads have pictures or descriptions of this, so it's not new territory. Hope that helps!

One mine, I knew that the thighs would be big for me since I have slimmer thighs (my real thighs!). So for the front, I trimmed the front edges so that they fit the 20mm ANH cover strip. For the back, I trimmed some of the extra material off first, then put the thigh armor on to see how much I actually needed to trim. The backs of mine (VT) were a little hit and miss which might be like AP as well. Sometimes there's a ridge line to indicate where you could measure 20mm away and trim it, but most of the time there's no indication. A trick I did was one of the thigh sides (I can't remember which one, I'll use "outer right" in this description) had a good "ridge line" definition on the front and the back. I cut the front as described above, and then I used a tape measure and wrapped it around the thigh, around it's circumference from front ridge to back ridge. I measured this near the top of the thigh, and at the bottom, like a straight "cut away" cross section line. This circumference could be matched on the "outer left" thigh. So even if the outer left doesn't have a ridge line to indicate where to cut, both outer thighs would have the same approximate size and dimension. Then I could make pencil marks on the outer left thigh with the same dimension, and add 10mm for the ridge, then I cut it. I could do the same with the inners with some test fitting and measuring technique. Hope that makes sense! I don't have any stand alone images of the backs of the thighs, but here's my build thread link. I think it might be more helpful to read the descriptions rather than me just posting the images here. ----- There's some back thigh views in my EIB thread too ----- Of course, check out Stukas AP build if you haven't already. I consider his builds the "bibles" of armor so to speak. -----

I hate this suspense. You're killing us, man!

There's been good responses for the armor, but for the mannequin, take into consideration: - how to get the thigh armor on (if his feet are not removable, you might have a hard time getting the thighs on) - how will it stand up (is there a support going up the butt? Does this line up with the suit?) - will you need to cut a hole in the suit to support the mannequin? - will the shoes fit on the mannequin? - is there a base / support that attaches to the ankles? (does this interfere with the boots or shin armor?) - can you get the lid on? (some mannequins have hair, and may not accommodate a lid nicely). - are the arms in the position you want (holding a blaster? posing?)

You know, you really gotta start sharing information. Post up an image of your idea, and I'll try and help. With 25 years as a designer / illustrator, I should be able to do it.

Take a long metal ruler / straight edge, and use a sharp X acto knife / blade. Be careful of your fingers, the blade is sharp. Score the plastic using the metal ruler as a guide, but only do a LIGHT pass with the blade. Do a second score, a little more pressure than last time, then one more pass. Now bend the plastic with your hands and "snap" the plastic along the seam - presto - instant straight edge. measure 20mm or whatever width you need on both ends, and place the ruler on these new marks. Repeat the scoring described above, and snap again. Now you have a cover strip!

Looks great! Nice job and excellent "superhero poses". Excellent work trooper!

Depends on how many cover strips you have on hand to use. Sometimes you might only have enough for the front and back of the thigh. In that case, you can use styrene (buy it from a hobby store) or extra cuttings / flash plastic that you trimmed off the armor to reinforce the inside of the butt seam. That's what I did.

My shins were a bit wonky when I assembled them too, but I used a heat gun and slowly heated the shins and bent them so that they overlapped / lined up where I wanted them to. I'm not sure if you're doing it ANH style, but on mine, I heated them until the backs of the shins lined up perfectly in a butt seam, then when I glued the cover strip on, it concealed the overlap perfectly. Then just apply your velcro and you're done.