LittleOne

If you look at the picture Joe posted you can see that the paint job is real thick, a lot of people are saying that the hdpe plastic was not taking the paint real well…it looks like it made a crust over the helmet rather than stick to it. I have painted my own helmet which is hips and the only thing I had to worry about is runs, the paint never looked crusty unless I messed up in some areas and over sprayed and such , that was bad painting techniques and that is besides the point… From the looks of it the helmet that Joe used as an example was badly painted and over sprayed…I guess when they guys were painting them they saw that the paint did not stick well and painted over and over and over until they had white coverage and then let it dry, hoping for the best. If you look at the areas that have flaked off paint, it is smooth; if it had been bumpy it would still show… I know that there is some spot on the helmet that shows a few actual bumps, but I think they were actual mold defects and these bumps show on different helmets at the same places so it is a mold defect or whatever you want to qualify it has. Now it would be nice to know if this would have any impact on the centurion program…the helmets have a bumpy look because of the paint factor, not the moulding process IMHO…which is a double edge sword because you want to get the screen look while maintaining the making of the helmet process intact…a I am sure that recasting, glue and paint and mold damage contributed to the fact that the cap n back became bumpy at some point. P.s according to legend, the empire helmets were repainted for the movie, addign one more layer to the flakie paint from anh...so bad paint job over an other one....

well you be the judge: si-man another link

Hi , I know this is gonna stir a lot of people but i was always wondering if the cap n back where really that bumpy like on some versions i have seen. But now i have seen the si-man helmet and i am inclined to believe that the bumps are not screen accurate. If i remember correctly most molds that are floating around have been cast from the inside of helmets and again ( correct me if i am wrong) many defects came into the mold when the casting was done because the insides of the original helmets were not the best looking thing thus "maybe" altering the real look of the cap n back. I think there was some bumps and stuff but not to the point of what some people are telling to other people.... I have an ATA and people know where the ATA comes from and what it looks like but while still a nice Cap, "if" you compare it to the si-man cap you are gonna see that there are big details missing like the sharp edge under the traps and the fact that the rear and side traps are almost all softened out vs they are real sharp on the si-amn helmet.... But most buckets out there are like that and i would not trade in my ATA for anything in the world but if you are looking for accuracy... the si-man helmet has shattered a lot of things about the details of the helmet casts we know about.... let the burning begin! p.s I wonder if ATA is considering modifying his bucket though?

Fredericton New Brunswick

what look are you going for....a new hope or ESB or just as best as you can?

My own ATA kit is ready, Terrell is waiting to ship it to me...i asked him to hold the shipping off until i know for sure that Canada post is not on strike, if i remember correctly it got nasty in the last big strike and i don't want some disgruntled Canada post ----- to kick my package around because his boss cannot come to an agreement on what they want for wages and stuff or have my kit sit on a deck for 2 weeks because of those idiots... i guess it was just bad timing for me.... one thing for sure is that i will need to get different clamps, i had bought some for my helmet and even though they were a super tight grip the shape of them was bending the eyes and then i stopped using them....i ll have to use some other type of clamp, cant find those damn earth magnet around here...which i knew where to look for them around here... but keep up the good work and post some pics....cheers!

I am under the impression that only Joe does but am i wrong?

too late for that, i already scuffed my helmet with newspaper and it looks great...looks a lot like natural battle and "being ruff" on suit type of effect. at worst i could sand this off or repaint but i like it... i did not go overboard..ten-fifteen feet away it does not really show up but up close you can see the "carbon scoring" on it.... why would it cause yellowing on the armor? I have had to do pencil marks on my helmet at some paint and the pencil marks stay worse than the newspaper ink....the krylon seems to take in that stuff like a tatoo on your skin, very hard to get rid off...so i am a bit afraid to use charcoal on the helmet because i did not like the way the pencil worked on the helmet..... my helmet was HPDE painted with white krylon....so it might be a different situation with full abs....i ll have to test the diffferent ways on spare parts when i get my armor kit and see if i like it or not....

someone suggested rubbing black and white newspaper on the armor to give it that awesome look....i might attempts that on a piece of my helmet just to see... cheers!

thanks mate, that was a long post to read but it was worth every minutes of it...this is gonna help me plus something to aspire too...this suit looks like an actual prop from the movie... freaking awesome!

What an awesome post! was late ot it but glad i found this out! cheers to the builder(s) and the guys sharing the pics.!

HI all, is there a reference of some kind on how the original suits were strapped? i am interested in seeing this. I have seen other ways to strap the shell over you but would like to make as screen accurate as i can...i have seen the tuts here but like to know more.... thanks!

Hi All, i would like to know if anyone has any ideas or tutorials on how to weather a TK armor and helmet. I dont mean turn him into a sandtrooper, i mean give it that used, banged up look that we see at the start of ANH. i would like to reproduce that look not the look that the Dave M or Brian bucket as right now but more like mister no stripes who had not of nifty little things going on on his suit... any suggestions welcomed. thanks

HI all, Just a heads up in case you were planning on ordering stuff that comes in into the country... a strike is never a good thing and you may wait more than usual to get your items so i would hold off on orders until the official news is in.... Hopefully this will not happen but if it does then i would off on ordering or sending anything until it is resolved. Canada Post strike

The ears look great, there are supposed to be gaps...it was pretty apparent in ANH..cant recall if ESB had many gaps but i believe so....ROTJ was the movie wherein they got rid of the gaps but you are doing good! cheers!

man, what a weird postal system you have, i live in canada and they could not care less about what is shipped or how big it is or even what is inside the package..i think your postal system is over zealous with their regulations if you ask me...they should not give you so much hassle, after all, without people like you i am sure they would be out of business... i feel your pain too my dear!

update: Mike sent me a new set of tube stripes stencils.. i tested them and had much more success. It seems Mike may have made his stencils more sticky and changed the thickness if i recall hsi words well...i also figured out that if you tap in the paint with the tip of your brush, you are less likely to have bad bleeds under the stencil, i gently tapped the paint in each tube and let the paint dry out for a bit....just make sure that you dont leave the stencil on for too long because they will leave some glue residue like it happened to me but i cleaned this up with thinner...id rather cleaned glue than paint... and it did not really affect the paint too much , much to my surprise.... i ll post some photos when my computer is up and running again... now that part is almost done.

Where is Han when you "really" need him. we need him to smuggle the stuff! I hope you can find a good solution Karin !

You did a nice fitting of the helmet for a first timer, congrats...everyone strugles with that the first time...i had to drill a rivet out because i did not like the way my bucket turned out but i fixed it up. but you are doing real good. a good site for reference on the star wars helmets is this Star Wars helmets You will learn the differences between the helmets and the helmets in the movies..i read and reread that site so many times over and never get tired of it, the best source for your general knowledge.

Well i think that Hasbro-Kenner is synonymous with the success of Star Wars on many different levels, all the toys they have made and sold helped Lucas do more movie and TV series and hopefully a full live TV show soon. So I feel that the Hasbro stuff should not discounted because it is part of Star Wars universe. Just for the Jive of it, it feels cool to have a Hasbro blaster, i am running around the house pressing that trigger like crazy, aiming at my dog and i am 40 years old now, plus the sound that it makes is fun too. Besides how would you feel if someone came to you and said to you that you have to ditch your helmet and armor because now there is the Si-Man suit which is 100% or so screen accurate and that is what you have now because someone seems to think you should have to have it to be more accurate...i dont think you would appreciate that at all... i ll work on my hasbro and mod it and later down the road i might buy another better kit...not because someone tells me so but because i would feel the need to reward myself in respect of the accuracy of the movie but that being said i would not do this for another or just because somes says so. I would do it for my own knowledge and learning benefit. my 2 republic credits...

its gonna be the who wants to buy this kit or helmet for collecting or trooping... for trooping the price would be too much and for collecting only a few people could "easily" buy it... I really hope Simon reads these discussions and thinks about what he is doing to avoid another TE debacle or alienate himself with fans like AA has done with his machinations. Simon does not owe anything to anyone but a gold mine fell on his lap and he has to be careful how he is gonna use this gift. If greed gets in the way, it will come back to bite him in the behind. It's not that people are cheap but the reality of it is that a lot of people already have buckets and suits that does the job and pretty well at that. Buying this would be more like rewarding yourself more than anything else. Will people want to invest thousands of dollars again on a hobby just to say i have a "better" looking kit than i have right now. Its like having a cool looking Honda in your yard but you want that vintage Harley also...you already have a cool looking expensive bike...do you really need another one just because of the name? Another thing that worries me now is that everybody is jumping in the air and are happy but what about the guys that offer very good kits like ATA , Gino ( sometimes ) and TE2 and the others...where does that leave them? Will people drop them in favor of the Si-Man suit? It would be a sad day if this happens if you ask me because they are well known and respected contributors to this hobby and i would really hate that troopers do an about face on them and stop buying form them just "because" of you know what... my 2 republic credit..

300 pounds is too much...even if it feels like the real deal, not a lot of people will be able to afford that because the pound converted into other currency becomes even more expensive for other countries 300.00 GBP = 485.880 USD right now.... you are entering in the realm of SDS prices....and there is too much competition now that offers extremely good replica buckets for way less.... Thats a lof of money for a small amount of plastic....ok.ok granted that it is special and so on and so forth but still too much.... Only a handfull of person would be able to afford that and besides the stuff would be pirated and end up on Ebay cheaper, lets not kid ourselves here on that part...the guy has to have competitive prices...and he can count his lucky stars that he got this without actually paying for this...so his profit margin is already almost in the gain area, almost no debt so to speak... well have to wait and see but i think this is gonna end up in one big mess because it looks like ( and i pray i am super wrong ) that this is a get rich quick situation brewing.... my 2 republic credits

well i have looked around town for quite a while, this is the first that pops up...and i think it might be old stock that the local toy'r'us wanted to get rid off... other than that i would have had to go thru ebay or some site like that. the odd thing about hasbro toys is that their distribution system for their toys completely blows....one back water town may end up with 20 blasters while a big chain in New York may get none....and dont tell me it's the fault of the local stores because i do not believe that...

yep, i shaved the letter off in a matter of seconds by gliding the blades accross the raised writing, making sure i get it flush to the plastic below, while sanding whould have probably taken me 10-15 minutes...i still need to sand but minimal like...

yep, i think i read your thread on this and looking at you for guidance..thanks what was cool is that for the embossed lettering all i di was take my x acto blade and shave the letter off, just like shaving your beard, they came out pretty easily, much to my suprise, i did not have to dremel anything so far...