Sparrow

SO I am looking at adding a DLT-19 to my Hero look. I have heard lots of good things about the Doopydoos unit, but have also head of issues shipping it to North America. Has anyone had any experience or is familiar with the Cusham verion, which is shipped out of the USA? http://www.cushmanpaintball.com/ReplicaMg34DLT.html Thanks for you advice in advance!

Congrats!

I answered this in my build thread a few months back. I have been costuming for years and I always portray a character, a role that I get into. It is more enjoyable for me, as well as those I interact with, being a character as opposed to some guy in a costume. Vader is easy to portray, as is Captain Jack, who i did previous. But a TK? How do I separate myself from the rest of you? So what do I want him to be? Well, my handle is Sparrow, so he will be the TK version of Jack Sparrow. As Jack always referred to himself as a Captain, so will will the TK be. Now knowing I am a Captain and that Jack is always getting in scuffles, my armor will tell that story as well. So I my armour has some moderate weathering. Basically he has been in this armour for a few years, so time (and fine sandpaper) has removed some of the polish and shine. Plus lots of scuffles and battles have added scratches and carbon scoring (newsprint). From across the room he still looks like a shiny whitey, but up close you can tell he has been knocked around the block a few times. Plus the Hero armour is very suitable for him as well. But what is some of TK Sparrow`s history? It is a little known fact that he was one the key troopers involved in the capture of the rebel ship which led to the capture of the princess. He was also on the Death Star, but was off shift in the mess hall celebrating his victory, and getting sloshed. He was however sober enough to follow the oldest and noblest of traditions, to fight in order to run away. He did just that, and saved the lives of 1,000 of his fellow troopers, possibly some of you before things went BOOM!

Makes me want to be a TD! Gorgeous

Congrats, looks great. Again, awesome weathering. looks FANTASTIC

Are you going to post your build, or should I say modification? Which helmet did you get? I went with the Hero. Feel free to take a peek at my build to see what I did with my SDS armour. Lots of mods. It took me two months of solid work to get it to where I wanted it. I might recommend too use E6000 for your build as opposed to ABS glue. When you make mistakes, which you will, it is easy to pull E6000 apart after it dries. ABS is impossible as the pieces are fused. Plus if you add too much, you can warp the plastic due to the heat generated. E6000 is also super easy to use and works great.

Glad to hear that. I thought that is what he might do. He gives fantastic customer service, one can't argue with that. Hold onto those spare parts. Once you are done using them as reference, perhaps you might be interested in selling them?

I bought the fully assembled SDS as well for the same reason, I was not confident in my building skills at the start. I had to do a LOT of work on it, but it was the other way around for me, it was to big. But I would have had that issue with armor from anyone, and i knew this going in. I don't regret buying a fully assembled, as I would have been lost starting from a scratch kit. His pieces are made to a specific size, so getting pieces un assembled might not really help you. From the picks i dont think you will get your needed wiggle room. Unless you make your shims wider. I received amazing service from him. He replaced some defective pieces for me no problem. But that wasn't a return... The other option is to replace the effected parts. You can always sell the other parts seperatley as those of us with SDS armor sometimes have accidents and need a new leg or arm. I almost lost a thigh last troop, and would have been in need of one...

I'm 6'2" myself and 180 so it is no problem

We have a troop friday afternoon for dk books, to be followed by the avengers

How heavy is it? i'm thinking about getting one for my hero

I have two fans, both with 4 AAA powering each. But I can also remove the battery pack and attach a 9v. The AAA dont generate as much power as the 9v, but it still a nice breeze. But it is also WAY quieter!

I also would recommend to tighten up the strapping between your butt and kidney plate. There is way top much of a gap on the sides. It should sit more flush. A bit of velcro on the left and right would fix that and you could play with placement to get it right. Agreed, shorten up your drop boxes . Your but plate is also sticking out. Perhaps the but to cod strap it to long. I would also recommend to pull the back plate up a bit, so it is flush with the kidney plate ? There should be any overlap. I have tight snaps connecting the two so it is a very flush fit. Minor tweeks, but looking good!

Now I start troopin in this puppy! We have the largest si-fi convention Vancouver has ever seen in a couple weeks so it should be a lot of fun! I think we have six events in the next two months. Looking forward to it. But as for costumes, this is it for a while, hence why I got soooo detailed with it

Always nice to have another lady in the group!

Looks good

Agreed, the second looks fine. I would replace the white strapping that is connecting the back plate to the kidney plate with black instead of white, so it isn't seen.

The chest mod is finished. Thank you Pandatrooper! Below is his post on the mod. “Sparrow asked if I could help mod his chest plate to be more ANH accurate. The SDS armour (after many rounds of recasting by AA himself) has lost the "ogee" shape on the chest plate, originally created by Brian Muir. Some TK nerds like myself try to modify the parts to be more accurate, sooooo...... Original SDS chest Added pencil lines to guide how deep the return should be Start heating and creating a return using a heat sealing iron Post return and trimming and some sanding. Will need some polishing if he wants it shiny but no one usually sees the bottom edge except for TK nerds. Completed chest mod! “

Just signed up 10 more from the Badlands. Guys are planning on calling in sick from work or school so they can go. Maybe Mr. Lucas will sign our doctors note?

Agreed.

Don’t beat yourself up Etienne. As Paul said, you didn’t do anything wrong and it still does fall within the CRL specs. I totally agree with what the guys are saying. Ones first reference should always be to the screen used reference pics, be they from achieves or screen shots. We then use our fellow troopers costumes for reference or inspiration. I used some of the same screen shots as you for my reference as well. As you can see in screen shots, mine blow and yours above, no two troopers looks exactly the same. CRL is the guideline that guides us all. These are the essentials for what ones armor MUST have if we wish to attain 501rst approval, then EIB and then if we wish, Centurion. Each step up is a higher degree of accuracy. Outside of the CRL specifics, we do have wiggle room as to what we wish to do with our particular armor. Do we want to go for a 1976 screen accurate, or do we want a fresh off the transport look? Do we want clean or weather worn? What sort of strapping’s do we want? Helmet lining? Do we prefer stickers on our helmet or the painted look? Mesh in the mouth or not? Plastic of normex gloves? Also your body type. Are you short or tall, slim or wide? These personal preferences will guide how we direct our build to a large degree as well. ie, with the SDS armor, the bottom part of the chest plate does not have the correct ANH swoop. It swoops down instead of down and in. Now it is not part of the CRL, so you can get Centurion without fixing that, even though it is not completely accurate. But it is an extra step one can take it to be more accurate (Pandatrooper is helping me with that as we speak). Paul is right in saying we haven't done anything wrong. It is not against CRL. I personally did not want the wonky look, which is why I mounted my knee plate as I did. I knew exactly what I was doing. It still falls within CRL for EIB, which is what I am going for. Im not sure if it would effect centurion or not, but I'm not going for that. I suppose our setup could be viewed as wonky as well. So perhaps it is just a matter of what degree of wonkiness one wants?

With sds armor you can't have the rivets even or the ammo pack sits crooked, as you discovered. The rivet on the inside of the leg is higher, but as it is on the inside, not as noticeable.

Looks better!

I had the same holes in mine. I used Elmer's Wood fill to fill them in. Got it at home depot. It is the same shade of white as the armor. Unless you know what you are looking for one cannot tell where the hole is. Look atbthe pics, can you? I also used a dab of regular white glue to seal it in. I used it to also fill in the wholes on the knee plate as it needs to be glued on for centurion. Actually, if you trim a straight line down on the end, it might remove your whole all together, then add you curve at the bottom. Measure ten times, cut once!

Cant tell if you did, but knee plate needs to be trimmed as well