kevster

Well, I sanded off the stripes and redid them, they came out pretty gnarly again but here's what i got them down to so far. I also got my ear rank down. Tomorrow I'll try to refine them a little bit more but I can definitely see the difference now that I have them on the right way. The stuff I used is just not all that great, I probably should of gotten the extra tack stuff instead of the low tack. Before After

Well, I measured my stuff and and heres what I came out to. For my torso, and the straps in the shoulder bells to hold the biceps are elastic. The straps I have for arms and legs I wanted to be a little more durable so I used nylon straps for that, but here's what I got. Arms - 26 inches ( nylon) Bicep straps - 22 inches ( elastic) Torso - 18 inches ( elastic) Legs - 24 inches ( nylon) So those were some quick measurements. The elastic that i have holding the ab and kidney plate are doubled over to make sure it lasts longer and I accounted for that in my measurements. It would be good to take those measurements and add to it for extra in case you need it or use some as test pieces. What i measured added up to 90 but I would add 3 more feet to that to be safe. Lastly, I haven't gotten my drop boxes on, but I'm sure of 1 foot of 1 inch wide white nylon is plenty for that. Hope that helps.

Sorry, I've been away for a few days. I scratch built the scope using these plans http://www.tk560.com/jegner/M19-scope-tutorial.pdf I did a few things different though. The scope is modeled after the M19, but its not as long as it should be in the plans and ya, the pipe pieces being used are probably a little wider diameter than a real scope but i don't think its that much bigger. I found a plastic lense and cut it down to put in the scope then got a CD and some transparent red film then glued the film with the lines onto the CD and put it in the pipe fitting. If you don't want to scratch build one, TK4702 has some awesome castings of the scope!

Well, about to head off to the lake with the family for a few days so it will have to wait until i get back, but do ya'll think i would have to redo them all or just fix the first 3 or so towards the front of the helmet? Because it seems like only the front ones are curved out more while the rest are pretty much all lined up. Oh and also, I was kind of curious about the ear rank. Was it ever explained what combination of bumps painted signify the rank? I tried to look into it but i had read that since the TK's were all about uniformity then they didn't show rank on their armor. They have different bumps painted though. I know theres only so much you could do with so few bumps but i would like to think theres some kind of correlation like the TD's and their pauldrons. Lastly, is it required that I have ear rank for centurion?

usually the official t shirt runs for the 501st are put up on the 501st forums.

I did what luis has. They sell stencil sheets at hobby lobby and cut out my own http://www.grafixarts.com/product/Frisket_Film. I got the low tack stuff and I don't know if it was because of that and trying to stick to a curved surface or just a bad product, but i had very very bad bleed under. Some of my stripes were connected together at the tops or bottoms, and also, the paint was drying so fast, by the time i was putting the stencil up, it was peeling the paint up off the edges. So overall it was just a really messy job with to begin with but i did my best to try and clean them up. Now that you mention it jesse, I know what happened, when i was tracing the lines on the stencils, I had to trace on the back paper of the stencil because it wouldn't stick to the stencil part itself. So since I did it on the back, when i go to apply it, it flips it over Maybe I could just redo the first few to have more of the curve at top unless they are still ok to pass.

09 ATA helmet, S neck trim and fully hand painted details. The thing i'm worried about the most is the tube stripes, do I need to clean them up any more or are they ok? The camera I used is kinda old and I was only getting light from the 2 60 watt bulbs up above so the pictures are a little grainy, hopefully I can take some better pics during the day with more natural light.

I'm sure you could just tear the balloon off and then rub off the e6000 still stuck to the wire and then redo it. Even if you cant get all of the e6000 off, you could still just put more ontop of it. You don't need a lot, just put a little on and then twist the balloon to compress it and it will help put a water tight seal on it. E6000 is pretty flexible if you ask me, and since its at the end of the cord, it doesn't get bent all that much since that's where the little bit of heat shrink is so its harder to bend in that spot.

The PTT button is inside the balloon, and where you see how dark the balloon is, thats from the e6000. ------------

Lookin good man, Gazmosis' idea of the pvc pipe is pretty good, i would try that. I almost know how you feel though, I don't know how many times i went through and counted all my pieces during my build to make sure i had them all then get worried when i would come up one or two short.

I did weather it a bit, the camera doesn't seem to pick it up all that well. I mainly did weathering on the edges of everything and the parts that stick out. The sad thing is the silver gets pretty dull when sanded so it doesn't stand out very much. If you look again though and blow up the pictures, you'll see it. I weathered it pretty heavily on the back of the end cap, on the bottom of the folding stock and also next to the fire select switch as if its been used alot. Oh which makes me think, how could i of forgotten, i didn't do any weathering in the cocking lever track!

Centurion ready? My first blaster ever. Doopy Doos pipe kit, scratch built power cylinders, scope and scope rail. Replaced the front section resin bolts with real allen bolts. Drilled out bottom of folding stock to give the holes more depth. Cut into the rear sight notches to make them more pronounced http://s884.photobuc...kevstertk/E-11/ Some parts weren't aligned completely strait and theres too many coils in the spring than a real one but i'm still happy with it. Thing that I like the most would probably be my scratch built scope with the CD trick for optics

I got a piece of steel 1/8" at ace hardware.

It appears that it could be any of the 3. http://forum.whitearmor.net/index.php?showtopic=16140 He has his on the ab and kidney with the shim in the middle. http://forum.whitearmor.net/index.php?showtopic=15500 and his is on the ab and shim So I guess its just what you want to do with it.

One thing you'll learn when wearing all this stuff, and especially the rubber gloves. You will sweat bucket loads, and it will pool up in those rubber gloves. So I don't think any amount of powder will work in those gloves. I've been thinking about it myself gazmosis. I was going to try putting the little balloon over it, then a small bead of e6000 on the inside then wrap a rubber band over the part of the balloon with the e6000 inside so that way it will make a water right seal. I think that because the plasti dip and silicone isn't really meant for stretching, then that's probably why it began to tare. With the balloon being more of a pocket instead of covering it, it will probably do better. This is just a guestimate of mine as I have not actually trooped with the system. I just have a good idea of how sweaty it is from walking around in my suit for a few hours when it was all built but not painted or anything. I took my gloves off and the sweat just poured out lol

I know what you mean, i'm just bones myself, and i should also add, which shouldn't really be a problem though is just make sure that the edges are not cut down so much that a regular size cover strip isn't bigger than the flat part of the edges. In other words, as long as a cover strip doesn't go past those red lines in my first picture. A cover strip for biceps are 15-18mm. Mine is about 16.5mm wide, and the edge of the flat part ( or red line to red line) is about 21mm wide. It could probably be a little smaller for me, but it shouldn't be smaller than 15mm from edge to edge of the red lines. Ideally the cover strips are the exact width from edge to edge of the red line i would say. I just like the way it looks when the edges are a little outside the cover strip. As for what you're asking, since you're talking about return edge, the parts that turn towards the body, the biceps are kind of weird depending on which kit you have. I have an older ATA kit, the right bicep has a return edge while the left one does not. left https://i.imgur.com/xOSPPyw.jpg right For the fore arms, the return edge next to the wrist is taken completely off which is optional, but required for centurion status. Or the other thing that you might be asking about is some people will take off the return edges on the inside of their joints. This is usually seen on the back sides of the calves and thighs to keep the armor from scratching the wearer. Were the arms you saw something like these legs? ---------

Ok, i hope my horrible paint drawings help explain it. You'll probably need someone to help you out, or you can do it yourself by taping the pieces together over and over until you have the right size you want. So get your pieces and and have them overlapping around your bicep. In my picture, think of the RED line as where the shim part ( flat part that the cover strip goes over) of the armor begins. If you have someone holding the pieces around your arm, have them adjust it to the size you want and mark how much they overlap ( this is what i'm showing in GREEN) Take the measurement from the edge of the piece to the mark, then you divide that in half ( ORANGE) and put half on each side of the bicep pieces and cut that off. That way when you put it together, you've taken equal amounts off each side of the bicep and should be a strait line.

The all resin doopy doo's parts doesn't is hallow all the way through the barrel huh? I forgot about that. I have my spring sandwiched between the end cap and the bolt that you put down the barrel in the doopy doo's pipe kit. You could just epoxy the spring against the inside of the end cap if you don't put a bolt in.

If you drilled the holes for the ears and then put the rivets in, it might of changed the alignment for the ear screw holes

Yep, it sure is. and i went into it planning on sanding down all my paint to make it completely smooth and then polish it out. The little ones on my shoulder were like the ones on the pec of your armor and those just sanded right down, but the wrinkle that happened in the middle of my back piece was like the stuff in the middle of your chest and when i sanded it down, it was hallow underneath like i had painted over a bubble. Does it always happen in the same spot? I had used rubbing alcohol on a few of my pieces but i don't think i used it on my back piece. So i just really don't know.

I was having the same problem. - It was nothing as bad as yours though, that's some crazy wrinkling. I never really did find out exactly what was wrong for me when i did it, but maybe you'll realize something from what was suggested to me. I had noticed my armor doing it just a few minutes after painting. I had washed my armor with water and lava soap after sanding down coats of primer, did you wash it at all? Did you plan on sanding down your armor and polishing it or just leave it the way it is?

Ya, not too sure about the bolt, but here's what i did for my spring. I went to ace hardware and they have a bunch of different springs you can check out. The ones that fit best in my gun weren't long enough so i bought 2 and then cut them down and JB welded them together. I cut it in such a way so i would have 2 flat ends on my new spring instead of one end just poking out. This way it would also look like one continuous spring instead of having a bunch of loops on the center. The big blob on the spring is the JB weld which i'm going to leave instead of sanding down so it has the strength, its easy enough to hide it with such a small slit for seeing into it. Also what i did is i made it just longer than the length between the bolt and the end cap so its slightly compressed so the spring wouldn't rattle around as i move it. In one of pandatrooper's builds he made the main bolt part that goes over the ejection port out of a piece of wood. So maybe if you have a scrap block of wood laying around you could probably shape something from that.

I think they are a great match

I believe it could be fixable with bondo. The bumps on the sides are where you're going to put the screws so those are ok. If the person you got the helmet from is the one who made it you might be able to ask for an exchange. The crack on the side of the face plate would probably all be covered by the ears as well.

Well, it shouldn't really matter since each one was done by hand, they would all be unique right? As long as one isn't going for a specific suit of armor from the movie anyway. I'm trying for centurion, hope I don't have to redo my tube stripes