Darth Aloha

Looking good. That AM fits you well. I feel your shoulder bell pain. I ran the strap across my back and it made the problem worse. I'll prob eventually do what Hedjii72 said and put the strap across my chest. Plus you can easily spy the strap across my back. My totally noob eye says that your forearms could be pulled up closer to your elbow to reduce the black area. Did you have to do much work on the thighs? Aloha, -Eric

I am an Island Unto Myself Hawai'i Island is a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with an area of 4,028 square miles. It is twice the size of the state of Delaware and three times the size of Rhode Island... and growing. Of the 160,000 residents on island, am now the first TK and only member of the 501st. The nearest Imperial forces need a boat or a plane to join me in keeping the galaxy safe from the rebellion. Not only was I approved but I managed to snag the TK ID I wanted.... 9674 is short for my zip code... 96743 My armor took a year from inspiration to trooping on Halloween. I want to thank everyone here on the FISD forums. There's no way I'd be in armor now much less look as good as I do without everyone's help and support. There are two folks in particular I'd like to call out. Kaptainkaos and Kevster. During my armor build they were tireless, and at time relentless, in their dedication to helping me. Kaptainkaos was kind enough to offer to go buy magnets for me and ship them to Hawaii. Kevster was forever taking photos of his armor and we even skyped so he can show me how his sniper knee was attached to his shin. Mahalo nui loa troopers. Soon is EIB fo me... here's my punch list to install... I have all the parts waitng in my desk: S-trim Green lenses Side rivets 2 lower helmet screws Rank stripes Paint vocoder (remove sticker) Cod rivet Cod snaps Handpainted-esque decals (centurion) Trim belt corners (centurion) Assemble and paint the Jesse TD For centurion... I need a new blaster... but that may not happen until after the holidays. Aloha, -Eric

TK-9674 standing by! http://www.501st.com/members/displaymemberdetails.php?userID=13752

Thanks everyone.... I'll try washing them a few times... Maybe I got ebay'd Please do avoid buying -------- from the bay of e. Aloha and thanks, -Eric

Holy mother of pearl!

What landspeeder? I only see catwoman....

Hey all... has anyone had any experience with stopping Nomex flight gloves from bleeding black all over your armor? I may try washing them but figured I'd ask if anyone has had any luck doing so. I'll have to unglue my Karin handguards but it might be worth it so I don't have to wear my rubber gloves in the Hawaiian heat. Aloha and thanks, -Eric

Yep each anvil and the setting tool are separate items. I'll check the fit of the tandy snaps tonight and let you know. Aloha, -Eric

I got a hold of some snaps and tooling from McMaster Carr. At 100 snap sets for $43.41 or 10 for $5.30 its not a bad deal. The stems are about the same size as the tandy. They're made from zinc plated brass. I haven't seen the tandy tools up close but the anvils for these snaps are really nicely machined. The bases for the male snap fits like a glove. It fits way better than the dritz ones into the plastic anvil. The setting tool seems nice, but again I'm used to the stubby dritz one. I don't have a reason for a while to set any snaps but I'll post here about it when I do. Aloha, -Eric

Thanks everyone. I'm really pleased with my build but I'm far from being done. There's still a ton of EIB mods to do.... more on that later. Here are a few photos from trick-or-treating last night. This one pretty much sums it up... a friend's little girl: Here I am waiting at the bottom of our driveway for my wife to get our kid in his stroller. I don't know why exactly me just standing there cracked her up, but it is funny: Walking through Rosanne Barr's dance party. She has a house half a block away and invited the whole town over last night. The party raged on into the night with a DJ and dancing. She was dressed as Cleopatra and said absolutely nothing as I walked by in my armor and said hello through my aker/icomm: Moments before 3-4 high fives: Aloha, -Eric

Nicely done. Congrats Aloha! -Eric

Have you been over to the SLD? Your FISD login stuffs should work over there. -Eric

About time you started a build thread Looking good so far my man keep at it. Get some sleep and don't let the passing of Halloween slow you down. Your formal outfit sorta reminds me of the pulp fiction image that screams "We should have blasters for this." Aloha! -Eric

I just checked our camera and luckily none of the photos from the party last night came out. The armor does not help my moves. I was doubly the white guy on the dance floor. Toward the end of the night I managed to pop a snap plate off my cod piece. I put on my Darth Aloha board shorts and carried on. My crotch strap kept coming undone and provided laughs every time I tried to resnap it. I admit sight of a 6'5" stormtrooper attempting an awkward ballet plies while reaching his hands between his legs is funny enough. Wearing my aker with an ipod I set it up to play the imperial march when I walked in. Not only was the music in the party too loud to hear my theme music, the PPT switch decided to die upon entry. It is time to come up with a better solution. It wasn't a large party but I won the costume contest by secret ballot. The prize was a $20 gift certificate to the overpriced burger joint in town and a poster of two teddy bears. The best part of the night is that everyone assumed the white video baby monitor I wore on my belt was part of the suit. Here in Hawaii not only do we rarely wear shoes, we take our slippers (flip flops) off before entering a house Japanese style. On the front stoop of a large house party you often have trouble finding your own footwear among the pile. The shoe taking off custom allows people to do something as insane as put in a white carpet. The hosts of the party last night mandated that not only would no one be wearing shoes, but they must take care not to spill anything on the carpet. As you all know, a TK's boots are one of the early items when donning armor. The hostess granted me a special dispensation on the provision that I cleaned the soles of my shoes first. So there I was getting ready with a spray bottle and a rag scrubbing every nook and cranny of my boots. Bear in mind I had only wore them once that morning, but it was on wet muddy grass for a few hours. The keg was outside but no one seemed to care I kept going out of doors out to refill my cup. What I want to know is if I cleaned polished my armor beforehand, how did my armor get so dirty? I didn't sit down once the whole night. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the evening: "I wanted to come over and say hello and see your costume but honestly I find you very intimidating" (said much later in the night) "You're the perfect height to be a storm trooper... oh... really? 5'10?" "Oh you're quite hard!" "Is it OK to touch your helmet?" "Do you have some sort of evil imperial urination system in that thing?" (asked by the guy in the Hunter S. Thompson outfit) "I bet you're pretty good at the robot." (at least 3 people mentioned some version of me dancing the robot) In response to the multiple people who said "Wow... that's a lot of work for Halloween" I found myself saying "It's really more of a hobby than it is a costume." I live in a small town. I showed up at the farmer's market that morning in my armor (more on that soon.) At the party two different people I don't know told me me some version of "Wow I had heard today there was a real life stormtrooper at the farmer's market... was that you?" I guess word got around. All day I wasn't prepared for people to just walk up and start pushing on various parts of the armor in wonder. Aloha nui, -Eric

What part of magic did you not understand? My new nomex gloves got all manner of black on my armor and helmet today. A Mr. Clean sponge rubbed that stuff right off.... where a mildly soapy rag wasn't doing much. Aloha, -Eric

Almost there. Almost there. Immediate Todo List: Install chest/ab elastic to keep my chest down. Chest is way too high. Done! Install belt snaps. My belt slid down. Done! Adjust ab and thighs to reduce black showing. Done! Stop shoulder bells from rotating back Fix shoulder bridges. They're angled totally wrong and one came unglued today. Redo and lengthen side snaps and lose weight. They came came undone while walking around. Find my iComm PPT balloon and hope it isn't totally shorted. Open eyes when someone takes a photo of you Buy Princess Leia a more royal leash (more on the dog costume contest later) The EIB/Centurion list is way longer. Aloha, -Eric

Check out this howto: -------- A few templates listed throughout the thread. Aloha, -Eric

You should see my prioritized excel sheet Good luck! We're rooting for ya. Aloha, -Eric

F'n yay! Thanks man.

Ugh. I just tried using split rivets to attach my thigh battery with not as much success. I didn't think to put a washer in like troopermaster did and the hole I was so careful to make as small as possible got somewhat mangled and elongated I bent mine back with a screwdriver and then took a tack hammer and bent them back more than the screwdriver wrangling could. I'm sure it would be easier if I were doing this some place other than confined space the inside a thigh. Also the RT thigh pack needs to be man handled into place even after heating. I ended up fighting the sproingy plastic on top of trying to bend the pins back. I will no doubt have to redo it at some point in the very near future.... but it was kinda fun to try it out. However.... I'll be using painted brass paperclips on my left side... not split rivets. Aloha, -Eric

I've typed about 5 different comments in here but none are family friendly... yet crack'n me up. So... corsets and lace... you're a real TK fashion trend setter. I'm hoping whatever lingerie based armor solution you come up with catches on with girltroopers everywhere. Aloha, -Eric

I regret using them to attach my thigh battery. They're really hard to bend. I ended up mangling the hole they're put through when you get them bent back far enough. So...yeah.. don't use split rivets unless you have some special tool or method to bend the prongs. The RT thigh battery is hard enough to get on without battling the split rivets I have a few other complaints about the RT thigh pack... but I'm too psyched to get in my full armor this morning to whine about it. Thanks man! (WetOkole my GML btw... so that's a good sign) Speaking of okoles... I need to get mine in gear and finish the last fiddly things on my armor. Aloha, -Eric

Painting Split Rivets Palm trees, dumpster, harbor, and spray painted split rivets stuck in packing foam at work. Not exactly the look I was going for.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue For the moment I think I am done with the majority of my E-6000 application. Until I decide if I am going to trim my thighs.... the rest of this build should be mostly velcro, split rivets, and pop rivets. Last night's gluing.... My beeotch of a sniper knee plate. There was a moment when I wondered if it was a knee plate from another set of armor. I also mangled the poop out of the inside trying to trim it before I understood how it was supposed to lie. The other thigh: Drop boxes: I did not glue the shoulder bridges with the recommended 5 ridges on the chet. My back and chest are too far apart or else the back end of the shoulder bridge would barely be touching the back plate. I went with 3 small ridges plus the big one. I checked on it this morning and I think one of them moved last night from the weight of the clamps. Hopefully it won't look weird or cut into my neck. In my rush I forgot to scuff up the chest plate before gluing which is a little bit of a bummer because there isn't much glue surface area. If I was not rushing I would have glued the Kevster approved small bit of nylon webbing to the shoulder bridge first to make more glueable surface, and then glued the webbing to the chestplate. I have the heat gun from work all packed up to bring home. Tonight the belt goes together, thigh battery attached, my icomm gets installed, and then a final fitting (minus the sniper knee which I will leave clamped to dry until tomorrow) before I head to the farmer's market Saturday in costume. If I get to it, I'll also add the side rivets but I doubt I'll make it that far. Aloha, -Eric

I really wanted to use the word "crotch" in a topic title.... but I refrained. Should the split rivet/brad in the cod crotch be painted white for centurion? Aloha, -Eric