Darth Voorhees

WOW! this is the first topic i ever posted that got pinned! Wooot! lol Good work guys! I am so glad to see so many of you doing this mod, it helps SO much with the look of the FX kit. The shoulder bells look great too! that was going to be the next thing i did, but i got the AP kit Another mod i wanted to do was shorten and return edge the kidney plate so the back plate doesnt overlap it. This is how the movie suits are(and the AP and TE suits as well). Whats good is you can trim it to your height as there is PLENTY of kidney plate to trim lol... It will make the FX that much more accurate looking great work Troops!

haha.. Like was said its probably ok to leave as is, BUT..if you find it gets too uncomfortable by the wrist bend, you can take a little bit off in a curve on the inner part of the sleeve to assist in not cutting off the circulation to your hand if you bend your wrist in. i didnt need to do that much with my AP, but i did with my FX as the forearms were larger. Just something to think about down the road if you have issues.

i had those same corner edges on my AP...i just took an 80 grit sandpaper and slowly sanded em round to make it a soft curve. i left the full RE on the rest, just sanded off the corners basically, a little at a time, sort of like this: ------------- plus remember when you wear it, since you are not made of wood or stone, heh, it will push into you a bit (not so much that it hurts, but i think you know what i mean)..so it will hide that its a fake edge.

I seriously wouldnt bother with the FX helmet. I think most would agree as well. Get your self a Master Replicas CE helmet. (aka MRCE)They run around 100 bucks, and are way more accurate and all ready assembled. They look pretty good right out of the box, but will need a few minor mods to make it 501st acceptable, or if you wish, even more screen accurate with a lil more work. You got a killer deal on the armor, might as well do it right! Even better if you dont mind spending a little more, you can get a "seconds" helmet kit from AP, its only a little more cash and none can even tell theres anything wrong with it. AP is very strict with the quality and even there "seconds" are excellent. EVEn better, get a regular AP or TE2 and you are golden. Good luck with the rest of your build, and damn you for getting such a good deal! lol

lookin good bro! ya know, Lizzeh was telling me about those induction troops....we dont have those in the ECG, we just start troopin! but i guess the UKG is HUGE and probably easier to keep track of all you new recruits?...eh i dunno, but hey, imsure you'll be troopin in no time!

mine was a combination of things.. i wanted 6901, which is to represent my lifelong love of "the dukes of hazzard", but more specifically the greatest car ever. 69 dodge charger, and the infamous 01 on the door. But that was taken, one of the other numbers i chose was my birthday which is 1208, also taken, so i combined them and got 6908.

heh yea, im still toying with this idea. noithing set in stone yet. Im going to be starting fett within the next few weeks so thats taking priority, but i have a feeling ill eaither go ESB or sandy with the TK in the future, just not sure how far in the future that may be.

So, from what i can find, these are the changes id have to make. if i missed anything, let me know. I am concidering making the switch. Also, im guessing id have to re-apply for elite? 1. frown is black instead of grey 2. 4 lines on the tear traps 3. holster on right side and wrapped around the belt 4. no counter on the blaster 5. Snowtrooper handplates If theres anything im missing here, let me know thanks!

wow that breakfast alone would make me throw up lol Im also on the opposite end of this spectrum. I need to lose about 20-30lbs, i wish i could give it to you lol. I tell you though, i wouldnt eat ANY fast food, there are way better ways to gain good weight. Most have been mentioned before. Protien shakes are good, combined with a little working out with weights. Cardio you probably dont need lol. There used to be a product called "joe weiders dynamic weight gainer" Not sure if its still made, but back whan i was in my early 20s i weighed 120lbs at 5'8", so i was pretty thin, and i used that to help agin a little weight, along with na little weight training. of course i got lzy and stopped and lost it all, and then 10 years later i gained it all and thensome and couldnt tell you how haha. But yea, my main point is stay away from junk food, and fast food. Pizza is better than that stuff,but i wouldnt go overboard on it.

ive used it for about 5 troops and even dropped it once, I doubt there would be any problem with the front being weak. I pretty much just hold it, cant see how there would be any stress put on that area at all....unless your planning on pistol whipping people haha.

Anyone know where to get one, or something similar? I think the newton isnt made anymore, but i thought there was some new version out. My triktoys amp just isnt loud enough, and everyone who has that newton amp i can hear them from quite a ways away, and i can understand them clearly. People stand right in front of me, outside on a busy street, and they are always "what?", so i really need to fix this. Any other suggestions would be good too. i had the hovi spekaers, but disconnected those to opt for a speaker in the chest plate, its a bit clearer, but still not very loud. I do however want to avoid the expensive stuff, (like rom fx n such)as i dont see it necissary for a tk or scout. Anything anyone may knowwould be helpful. thanks all!

thanks guys! great info here. I had used hot glue on my FX one and it held up fine. For thie AP one i hotglued it for the day, though of course one clip fell off as i was setting up my gear, but Chris (curemode) was once again to the rescue and gave me some velcro to hold that one clip on, and it worked for the one troop. when i got home i re-hot glued it, and then drilled a holein each clip and put a screw in it. so i think its good now!

haha yea, i learned alot from my FX kit, i must have re-did the strapping like 5times before i came to pretty much what i used for this kit. So far this seems like a good method and everything pretty much stays in place.

heres a couple of pics of how my forearms are trimmed and together: wrist end: elbow end: Ok so here is an overview of my strapping system. Its comprimised of mostly snaps and clips. This is the inside of my chestplate. As you can see, i have a speaker mounted in it, along with an amp and the wire to hook up my headset mic. The straps you see with the clips in the center under the amp and speaker, attaches to the ab plate to keep the ab from popping over the chest. The ones on the sides are to attach to the backplate. You can also see the snaps at the shoulder which attach to elastic pieces which also snap onto the backplate. All the straps are attached with double snaps for strength. The snaps are attached to the armor via "daves garage" method. the snaps are mounted into webbing, and the webbing is then epoxied to the plastic side of industrial velcro that has already been positioned properly. this way, even though it is very difficult, you CAN remove the snaps from the armor to replace or move them. Here is the backplate, with the elastic shoulder straps still attached, and the clip straps that attache to the chest plate. Here are my shoulder bells. They have a loop of webbing attached to them with snaps which snap onto the same elastic strap that the front and back are attached to each other with at the shoulder. The biceps are attached to the shoulder bells with elastic. here you can see the inside of my ab plate. it has the other end of the straps that attach to the chest, and industrial velcro on the side to attach my side gap plates. the ab buttons are actually vaderdave's. I drilled through the button box plate and munted it using the ab buttons as screws. I also added a snap on the left side that attaches to the other end of that snapo mounted on the belt. It hold up that side of the belt from drooping cuz of the weight of the blaster. i use a suspender type system with wide elastic that snaps onto both the ab and kidney plates. here is my kidney/butt plates. Pretty self explanitory. All elastic pieces the 2 with the snaps are on the "daves garage" way. the rest are hot glued. Ok thats all i got, any questions, feel free to ask! hope this helps someone out!

Unfortunately i didnt get to take pics of anything else as i was pressed for time. Obviously i did the other thigh as i did the one above. The forarm and biceps i just did the overlap method which works fine for those pieces. I was going to do the strip on the forearms, but i decided to go with glue one side and the other side velcro so i oped against it. Of course the AP forearms are a little weird and just didnt go together well with the velco on one side, so i ended up gluing both sides and thats worked out much better. the shins i did as i did the front of the thighs, and they have industril velcro on the rear.

Ok, better late than never huh? lol thanks for all the compliments on my build. i wont say it went without incident, but all in all, it went pretty well. So heres the other pics i had taken before i got too bogged down on my deadline.. THIGHS So basically what i did was trim the backs to taper them and size them. Since the AP kit has "normal" thighs, it wasnt too bad. I trimmed them till they fit the way i wanted and then taped them with boxtape on the outside on them to hold it. heres after i marked where to cut.. i then added extra ABS to the insode to fill the gap on top from the taper. inside: outside: i then mixed some glue and added a wider strip down the inside to support the 2 sides. i then clamped it till it set. Then after that set, i removed the box tape from the outside. So we then had this: I then added a strip down the middle to cover the longer seam so we have this: I have been meaning to fill the other seam with the ABS goo made with ABS shavings and acetone, but havent gotten around to it yet

thanks Peter! i checked it out, and thats how i was thinking of doing it. I guess ill need a larger rivet gun and rivets. For now i hot glued it like i did on my FX, and it held up fine, i had even bumped it into stuff. But i will definately be riveting it on in the near future. i just needed a quick fix so tomorrow im not less a TD. thanks again Peter!

Ok, i used my FX 02 tank for my last troop, but wanted to use the actual AP one for my troop tomorrow. I have no idea how to attach the clips to this piece of PVC pipe. My first thought was drill holes in the clip and then in the tube and rivet it on. But the rivetsi have are to small and the rivet gun i have wouldnt even fit the size rivets id need. Then i thought i could use screws and nuts, but wouldnt be able to hold the nuts in place to tighten the screws. Now im realizing i cant seem to drill the holes in the clips in the first place. Not sure how to go about it now. I dont want to lose the thing. i had the clips hot glued on the FX one and it seemed to work fine, but the FX 02 has flat surfaces on it to mount them too. Any help would be great! thanks!

i use one i got from triktoys. One piece, zips up the back ,and has a fly in the front for pitstops. I have a shoe lace type string tied into the zipper on the back to assist me in zipping up so i dont need to ask anyone for help Its a nice thicker material, but not so much where its too hot. Definately thicker than the cheapy 20 dollar dive suit i had got at first.I trooped in 90+ humid weather in NYC for a few hours and was fine. It cost about 65 bucks i believe.

Hmm..if that happened, id try something else, the last thing you need is that happening when your wearing it! the plastic welder is def great. i hear the e6000is really good also, only thing is it need 24hrs to set. The devcon sets in i think 5minutes? but reaches 100% fullstrength in 24hrs. you can gently work with it though within an hour, so you can remove clamps and use them for another piece.

when your ready, AP is a great kit, just look at my avatar! haha

yup...all grey is screen accurate. Like was said above, the silver strips are an FX thing. i never used the silver strips on my FX, and dont even have those for my AP. Id go all grey for sure

that is god awful!!! plus its half based on ROTJ,which was the worst looking of all the OT armor (no offense to the ROTJ troopers here). it looks like kiddie crap and cost more than an AP ot TE2 kit. if it was 100-200 bucks id say it was fairly priced, and good for any halloweener that wanted something a little better than a painted jumpsuit stormtrooper. just by looking at the pics of this and then those kits i mentioned, you can easily see the difference. Its not even a matter of its a crappy looking stormtrooper, its just looks like a cheaply made item, reguardless of what it is. i can spot crap pretty well, and this looks like crap.

haha sleep is foir the dead Lizzeh! Terry, i actually didnt do the strip method on the arms at all. i did just glue both sides though, as the one side glued and one side velcro looked horrible on the AP. i recommend Devcon Plastic weld. thats what i used for my FX and it held up great, for a few test runs and 1 official troop. However for this kit, i was able to get a deal on some elmers fast set epoxy, from my job, so i gave that a go, sofar, so good, only one troop in it so far though. Inhave another this sunday coming so we shall see. im bringing some CA glue with me just incase lol.

Terry this is coming out great! Glad i was able to help ya on a couple of things! keep at it, lookin great! ...and dont worry about wakin Lizzeh up at 7am, shes got no college now! she can stay up forever =P