gazmosis

MMMMMMmminty fresh!!!

The armor pictured is the same. He mixed up some ABS paste by combining abs scraps with acetone. His rivet placements are a little off so use these pics as reference for the seam installation. The rivets need to be spaced out a little more top to bottom.

Good work trimming that rear calf strip down. Make sure the strips on the back of your thighs match that width for consistency. Next is the point on that calf strip. It should be flat across the top with the corners eased just a bit. It should stop at the ridge at the top of the shin; not extend on top of it.

I am sure there are many choices to take out more material faster. However I realized my fear when the bit poked through the housing. And I was taking my sweet time!! The walls are being thinned to less than 1/8 inch. I just don't know if more and faster applies here. But hey! That is the new challenge! If someone can come up with a new mag housing that doesn't need to be trimmed or a sacrifice free way of trimming the doopydoos one have at it!!

Sounds like you gave an interesting build going on. One thing to remember is that the ridges on YOUR biceps were not present on the original costume as you see (or not see) in the screen grab. Just because those ridges are there does not necessarily mean the entire ridge needs to be covered. To be honest, a 35mm strip on your biceps would look way too distracting and unlike the film which is what an accuracy award is shooting for. The finish strips on the biceps should match the forearms. Have you built those yet?

Alright, Jim!!! Dang...nice job on that sniper knee plate repair! No one could tell! As for your scope, I just needed to see that it had been modded. Thank you for your follow-up. Welcome and congratulations on your new EIB award!!! Well done! I didn't see this in your previous pics, but you might want to consider a more mechanical means of attaching your belt to the ab plate like snaps. If you are animated in your armor, Velcro can make weird ripping noises and actually allow your belt to fall out of position. It should sit directly against (if not overlap slightly) the bottom of the button plate. Your is drooping slightly. You are one Sterling based blaster and some photos away from Centurion. We hope to see your application there one day!

You really don't need to. I was merely updating your information thinking you were looking to be more accurate.. For basic level entry, you can leave the thigh as it is

The waist belt should be trimmed to just above the belt boxes with minimal plastic left. But for basic enrty level you are fine. I was unaware of what level you were shooting for.

Sorry to say that the ammo packs were NEVER molded into the thighs. They wrapped a little further around the sides and were attached with cap rivets.

This looks like a miniature. What's this off of? If it is real size, there is too much material on the top and bottom of the belt. The squares in the center and the ends were not molded into the belt. They were separate square covers with a raised circle molded into the center then glued onto the belt over the rivet that held it to the cloth belt underneath. There should be no change in angle between the last box and the end of the belt itself.

Back in the game! There is light at the end of the tunnel and paint will not be too far off in the future. I needed to address a concern with the new inner bolt extension that I built. The problem with it's small diameter sitting in an enlarged inner diameter of the blaster itself is that there is a lot of space that surrounds it now. You can see the bolt sitting on the floor of the blaster when it needs to be sitting against the cocking handle channel above it.I toyed around with methods of filling the barrel but none made my socks go up and down. Then the idea hit me to pin the bolt against the channel from underneath with a screw. I drilled a through hole and a recess indent for the head. The screw is small but effective in keeping the new bolt pinned to the surface. Sadly you can;t see the screw in the pic but you can see how it holds the bolt against the channel.Once final assembly is complete, the spring will assist even further in keeping anything from ever moving! Next is adapting the new magazine to the mag housing.First I needed to measure how much resin I had to work with inside the housing. I intend on using screws to attach the housing to the main receiver and want to leave enough to be stable. The pencil lines indicate how much I have to work with.Now to determine how much of the magazine I want to sit inside the mag housing. The middle line is where the mag will sit.For those of you who bought my magazine, this is a personal preference of mine. You may want it sit in the housing without removing any additional housing material. If this is what you choose, the magazine will need to be cut down which is no big deal. If you are reading this for the first time and would like to purchase one of these magazines, go to this thread:http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/26677-doopy-dos-replacement-e-11-magazine/ You WILL need to fine tune the fit of the mag to the housing as you will soon see. I will once again use this bit on my Dremmel.I will also use the smaller version of this to fine tune the fit. First, I need to cut down the mag.The mag housing should sit against the little corners on the retaining clip on the back side of the magazine. I marked on the mag what needed to come off then used the band saw.I fine tuned the angle on the belt sander.Now to start grinding. THIS WAS A PAINSTAKINGLY LONG PROCESS. iT TOOK ME ALMOST AN HOUR TO GRIND THIS OUT. This is after some initial progress. However, it is clear that the magazine housing still needed fine tuning.There should be NO FORCING THIS!! It either fits nice or it doesn't. DON'T TRY TO CRAM IT IN!! More grinding. You can see that I got a bit too close in some areas.Thank goodness I have a set of power cylinders to cover that up. To give myself a little "forgiveness room", I actually trimmed a little bit off the front of the magazine. I marked what I trimmed in red.This just helped it fit a little easier into the housing. The extra effort was SO worth it. The mag fits great!The gap between the mag housing and magazine at the top is supposed to be smaller. The two should almost touch in this area. This was a slight flaw in the molding of this particular magazine. The blaster's owner said this was OK. With the mag fit complete, I could mount the mag housing itself. I said I was going to use screws but I needed to recess them so I used the same bit to drill a flat bottomed recess.I then drilled the through holes larger than the screw threads so they wouldn't grab onto the mag housing. I did add just a bit of E6000 as a second line of defense and tightened the screws down.The housing needed a little adjusting to make sure its final resting spot was correct.Soon it will be paint time!

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There are many finishes, Russ. I have seen almost every combination of blacks, flt blacks, bumpy gloss, bumpy matte. The only one you really want to stay away from is high gloss black. The ONLY part on your blaster that should be this finish is the pistol grip. The t-track grips up front are mostly painted flat black but I have seen them slightly matte finish. Make what makes you happy yet stays within the rules. Use reference pics available here or anywhere else you can search "british sterling SMG"

Vern....your PM box is full!

This is always great to see!! *wipes tear away*

I had no idea!!!! WOW Congrats, Sir!!!!!!

You are a rockstar, Ruben!!! Thank you so much for your upgrades and I would like to congratulate and welcome you to Centurion!! You will make your Garrison proud!!

sometimes you need to look past cost for the best option. With these dimensions, I would think AP or TM would be your best bet. either way, you may need insert foam padding into your undersuit to fill out the parts.

Fun build to follow so far! I am concerned about the cover strips on the back of your calves. They should be around the 25 mm width. Yours look HUGE.

Well done on that bolt mod! Walking dead......very disturbing

In many places on the armor, inner strips actually sit in recesses taking nothing away from inside diameters. I realize that RS has no recesses on the backside of many parts but an inside strip in these locations is made of a strip of plastic that is about a millimeter thick so that doesn;t take up much room. The only reason you wouldn't want them is for ultimate screen accuracy because they weren't used on the original costumes.

This is a topic that has come up recently. It was discussed in depth in A thread but I thought that this important content might be lost within the ocean of threads and responses. This deserves its own topic. The passion for accuracy is something many troopers hold near and dear to their hearts. Making the Legion accurate should be the goal of all troopers to some degree. However, it has been brought up that some builders wish to emulate a specific trooper seen in the film. Here is where the concern arises. Many times these "screen seen" troopers have details on their armor that fall outside the required elements of the Legion TK CRLs which have never focused on a specific trooper with the exception of the "hero" TK. The CRLs focus on the average trooper. During shooting of ANH between '76 and '77, it is well documented that the shooting schedules and budgets for the film were stretched beyond their means. Mishaps in the costume department made a particular impact on the Stormtrooper costumes. All these problems for a stupid kids' space movie that wasn't supposed to make dollar 1. What this led to were documented inconsistencies, construction errors, and other mistakes that were not addressed with any real sense of urgency, repaired with minimal efforts in hopes that these details (or lack of) would just blend in. Well, if wasn't for detail oriented troopers and DVD pause buttons, we would never catch these little delights. We are talking, of course, about Mr. "No Stripes", Mr. "bicep Gaffers tape", Mr. "shoulder bridge gaffers tape", Mr. "Paint chipped too much on my mic tips hero helmet", Mr. "Three toothed Stunt helmet", Mr. "thigh tops cut way too low so I can fall easier when I get shot"...you get my point. These inconsistencies are known to the Legion as "Anomalies". At this point, this is just a fancy word for mistakes. If our pretend world was real, the Empire would never allow these mistakes to be present. The manufacturing of the armor would be perfect and consistent across the board. This is what the current CRLs are based upon. Consistency. I don't know if we really want a group of troopers walking around with their right bicep coming apart. (yes this was in the movie). Although the CRLs do not currently support these "anomalies", it doesn't mean that they never will. If there is enough interest in a specific trooper seen in the film, steps can be taken to create a new award category or even a future CRL surrounding that trooper but the interest needs to be well documented. I know our DL has been throwing this idea around. The troopers that can set their hearts to taking a box full of plastic parts and make it into something film makers would want in their films, should be saluted. EIB and Centurion awards are not just handed out willy nilly. This level of accuracy makes the Legion and every one of its Garrisons look better. Troop on!!!!

You can do 7-8 MM both are ok. The pic is just for reference showing that you will be trimming off quite a bit in the center. You want a straight seam line in the center. Place a straight edge along the molded raised ridge and see if that is perfectly straight. If not, draw a straight line along that ridge as a guide to take your measurements by. You will measure from the raised edge to approximately the red lines.

Did you just glue it to the blaster surface??

I hope you didn't get the "Hero" handguards.........................Luke didn't wear those.