Darth Aloha

Super clean and accurate build. Now let's see it on you Aloha, -Eric

Hey LePaul.... The first thing to suggest is that you read and search and read and search. There are more resources on the subject of snaps on this forum than any other subject. As Travis and Alex mentioned most people glue plastic snap plates to the inside of their armor. There are many many other links if you just poke around the getting started and howto sections. And use the search luke. ---------- I took Kevster's suggestion and used webbing as snap plates. I haven't trooped yet but it has worked out pretty well so far (see my build link in my signature below.) No matter what material you use just be careful when applying E-6000. I used it for every one of my webbing snap plates without deforming or melting my armor. I was just very very careful. If you're really in a hurry and can't wait for the E-6000 24 hour cure time, maybe velcro is your friend. You can always peel it off and put in snap plates after Halloween. Aloha and good luck this week. -Eric

I'm All Strapped Up (Mm mm oh, oh, yeah, yeah!) The past couple nights have been spent fitting and adjusting lengths of elastic. I am still not there yet, so no photos yet of the fittings. This part of the process been really fun. I will need help with chest and back placement at some point. The forearm armor is too short on me thanks to my monkey arms. I have spent most of my fitting time with those issues. My shoulder bells refuse to sit nicely. If I shortened the elastic on the top of the bell going to the shoulder strap, the shoulder strap contorts and moves down my shoulder. I decided to use a piece of elastic across my back behind my neck to keep them in place. I still have the option to add a snap and attach them to the shoulder straps at a later date. Today will be more fitting. I also need to stop avoiding the inevitable trimming of my shins to make the tops to line up nicely. Overlap construction has its pros and cons to be sure. Too many snaps.... You can see the funny placement of my center ab snap for the cod inside the divot. I could not have achieved this with a plastic snap plate. There would have been snap plates on either side or one long one in the center otherwise. Dritzkrieg Bop I had my first snap plate casualty thanks to my bent ditz vario pliers. Hooray for E-6000! I just peeled the webbing off, re-glued another plate, and moved on with my life without undue snap angst. (it was already peeled off in the photo) Aloha nui, -Eric

Rock'n good progress my RT brother! I've got my forearms velcro-ed on the inside but glued on the outside seam... I wouldn't get my forearms through them if it were glued on both sides. It does add a little bulk tho. Aloha, -Eric

I'm sure you're scrambling to answer all these questions... but I'll add mine to mix (oh btw multiquote reply is your friend) So... wait... you painted the copper and silver weathering OVER the black. Sonofa... that's brilliant. What sort of brush did you paint the humbrol satin black with? I'm guessing it's the same in the US... just with an e... turpentine. It's really a fine looking blaster and something to strive for someday. Aloha, -Eric

Oh Snap! Outside of the crotch snap and the tops of the thighs I am done with gluing snap plates. Placing the snaps at the bottom of the ab for the cod was somewhat tricky. The detail in the center mad it difficult to put a plate in but I the beauty of the close snaps is that they'll bend around corners. So I just stuffed a plate in the center box thing and put a clamp on it. If I didn't put one in the center I would have needed to on either side making 4 snaps just for the cod. Side Rivet Sizes I have two types of brass paper fasteners in front of me. One is 12 mm and the other is 8.1 mm. The lengths I went through to get them both is a bit comical. Maybe I'll just skip the rivets for now and focus on my build Caring is Creepy (The Shins... get it?) I had plans to glue up my shins tonight. Instead I stared at them for the better part of an hour. The tops of the shins are bumming me out a little and I'm thinking of trimming them. The perils of pre-trimmed armor are upon me in a small way. The oddities of overlapped armor is also playing a factor. Fronts The tops of the shins are weird looking no? Of course one top will be under a sniper plate and the other might be covered by the thigh ammo. Bottom left needs a little bit of trimming. Backs Check out the one on the left (actually the right shin.) It looks like Rob went a little trim happy. Tomorrow I'm going to trim to the red line but I've had too much wine tonight and its late There's no reason to wield lexan scissors in this state. Hopefully my shins won't be two different heights when I'm done. Overlap I am also considering trimming the return on the tops to make them line up a little better.... once I'm more sober of course. Finding a clear shot of the top of a trooper's right shin in the screen captures is tough. Either way they should line up better on the top. More about the ill fitting sniper knee tomorrow. Aloha, -Eric

I don't see a need to make it removable but I think a mechanical fastener would be more robust. Brilliant... I would never have thought to just put covers over the existing integrated ones. I'll start asking around. Thanks! -Eric

First Imperial Snap Detachment Can we put an acronym name change up for a vote? I am sick and tired of all things snap related. No good photos of my recent progress. I keep managing to leave my camera at work. I have all the snap plates glued on except for the cod. The whole torso (sans cod) is put together and the arms are attached to the shoulder elastic. No work on the legs yet but maybe tonight. I have been through feet and feet of blue tape as I test my wife's patience during torso fittings. After staring at the short English dudes in white armor for so long you get a sense of scale in your mind. Once I put my torso together all I could say over and over was "Holy crap am I one giant mother trucking trooper!" Even now I can't get how freaking huge I look out of my head. I think I may be better sized for a Vader... I'm a Vader sized TK. Count me in to play the trooper that hits his head... on everything. I picked up a new undersuit yesterday on shopping run to Kona. Target sells inexpensive Champion brand underarmor type gear. The shirt and pants are light and ventilated. The spandex in my dive skin is lightweightish but if I'm out in the hot Hawaiian sun for any length of time I may die. Soon I need to figure out how to get the plastic part of the belt on the canvas belt. The three covers where the rivets would normally go are integrated on the RT belt. Hopefully something besides snaps will be the solution. More soon. Aloha, -Eric

Comb the desert!

Welcome to FISD Gordon! I would agree with Travis... RT-MOD parts have more length in some pieces to accommodate us taller troopers. I'm 6'5" and in the midst of an RT-MOD build. I haven't seen the AM armor in person (please correct me if I'm wrong) but it seems to be more suited for larger trooper than taller troopers. You would have to trim much more from AM than RT-MOD if you're a skinny dude. Neither one is as screen accurate as others but sometimes fitting trumps accuracy. Personally I fear large swaths of black undergarment showing Please do read the link above about the various types of armor and where to get them... then start reading in the getting started section of the forum.. and ask ask ask. Aloha and good luck, -Eric

Vario Pliers Suck As mentioned before the tandy heavy duty snaps do not work with the dritz vario pliers. They are not the same size and don't sit right in the space provided. I should have purchased a snap set tool for my Tandys... but I didn't. Rather than pay for increased shipping costs from Tandy for the right snap setter or run the risk of parcel post taking a month (it took 5 weeks for my snaps to arrive) I had decided to just buy more dritz snaps locally. The cost was higher but since they set well with the pliers the instant gratification was even higher. I will not tell you how much they cost per snap because it even depresses me. The high prices for goods and services here is called "Paradise Tax." My first go-round with making webbing snap plates went really well. I even snuck use of one of the electrical guy's soldering irons to poke nice clean holes. I was cranking out snap plates easily before my trip last week but I still needed about 18 more. Yesterday I had a heck of a time getting the male snaps on the webbing. I wasted a bunch of snap bases in the process. At first I assumed that because I was using a larger and hotter soldering iron the melted nylon created a taller ridge around the hole. I suddenly wished for the taller tandy snap bases. I smoothed some of the ridges around the hole out with the iron and it seemed to work a little better. While I was away I received a package with more magnets from Woodcraft. They're way more powerful than the magcraft of the same size. It allowed me to glue in all the snap plates except the 6 for my cod. This morning I was noodling around with my kit before work and decided to install the righthand ab snap. I sat and stared at other people's builds and screen captures before I drilled a hole by hand. I squeezed the heck out of my vario pliers but I never seemed to get the snaps to squish against the plastic. No matter how hard I squoze it never really set nicely. It took me a little while to realize that I may have bent my vario pliers in such a way that they don't squeeze down all the way. It wasn't easy to tell yesterday because the webbing I'm using for snap plates is quite thick, but it does explain why I ruined so many snap bases. My hope is that none of the snaps I made yesterday will come apart. When I get home tonight I may try and figure how if I can bend the pliers back in such a way that I am able to get more squeeze or so they meet closer together. I will probably use the pliers for the cap snaps for the elastic.and then use the crappy setting tool that came with my dritz snaps to really really set them. Using the webbing plates poses an interesting problem for the left side rivets. The plates about 1.5" long and placing not only the snap but the webbing out of the way of where rivet/brads will go took some forethought. I'm hoping that I'll be able to drill a bit through the plastic and then melt the webbing the rest of the way through. Tonight the blue tape comes out and I test my wife's patience for fitting. Photos soon. Aloha, -Eric

I was thoroughly impressed by the local breweries large and small... Propeller, Garrison, Rogue's Roost, and Hart and Thistle. I did go a little nuts knowing that there was a tube of e6000 going unused on my desk -Eric

So very sorry to hear about your loss. Sending Aloha and prayers from afar. -Eric

Matt.... your signature image is bada$$!

You guys are looking great as usual. Awesome to see you back in your femtrooper armor. What was the event at the Aloha Tower? MmMmmm Gordon Biersch. Aloha, - Eric

Hey man... did you ever figure out which was the right away for the trim to go on for ANH? Aloha, -Eric

His name is Nik Sant (or Saint Nick?) and he's a rebel in disguise. Google image results. Aloha, -Eric

In poking around a demo ip.board.... I found "topic" in the "skin_forum" folder has: <td class='col_f_icon altrow short'> {parse template="generateTopicIcon" group="global_other" params="$data['folder_img'], isset($data['_unreadUrl']) ? $data['_unreadUrl'] : ''"} </td> Is it possible that in "Other Global Templates" that "generateTopicIcon" template is missing? <if test="$imgArray['is_moved']"> <span title="{$this->lang->words['pm_moved']}">{parse replacement="t_moved"}</span> </if> <if test="$imgArray['is_closed']"> <span title="{$this->lang->words['pm_locked']}">{parse replacement="t_closed"}</span> </if> <if test="$imgArray['show_dot'] && empty( $unreadUrl )">{parse replacement="t_read_dot"}</if> <if test="gotolatestwrap:|: ! empty( $unreadUrl ) && ! $imgArray['is_moved']"> <a href='{$unreadUrl}' title='{$this->lang->words['first_unread_post']}'> <if test="$imgArray['show_dot']"> {parse replacement="t_unread_dot"} <else /> {parse replacement="t_unread"} </if> </a> </if> Aloha, -Eric

I drilled out my droopy screw heads (probably on a drill press) and then used a small rasp to clean it up. Aloha, -Eric

Besides drinking as much locally brewed beer as possible? And wearing shoes for the longest stretch in years? Work work work I took 3 flights for about 18 hours of travel. Luckily the beer is in fact quite outstanding.

Yes! More RT-MOD troopers Good luck.... we'll be following along. Aloha, -Eric

Hmmm makes me want to collect FX kits and sell them to unsuspecting Star Wars fans for profit... Ok not really. But what? $1329? I bet it goes for $1500 easy. Aloha, -Eric

From this RL costuming standards page... it was googled and a maybe draft version of the page... but under fringe costumes... #6 is key to any Lando getup. Lando Calrissian (Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Bespin) Required Items: Blue cape with collar and paisley/patterned lining Blue shirt with darker blue cuffs and collar Blue belt Dark blue pants Dark blue/black shoes Winning smile

F-yeah! -Eric

Here ya go man...