chuckisme

Thanks Glen, yes indeedy! That's what it's all about The Sydney Royal this past weekend was my first troop with numbers

Whacko guys, apologies for my lack of posting! I've been back at uni and a bit busy ... anyway ... As at 20:08 hours on the 18/3/2013 (local time) I was APPROVED! TK-93822 reporting, proud and ready to serve alongside some of the greatest troops in any galaxy Always things to fix up, so this is not going to be the end of this build Plenty of mods as I find the time in which to do them

Many thanks

Heya! TK 93822 requesting 501st Permissions http://www.501st.com/members/displaymember.php?userID=14714&costumeID=126 Thanks, Chuck

Thanks! And lol, I can see where the confusion came in I've only become good at metric-Imperial conversions in the last year because pretty much everything in everyone's build threads is measured in inches, for both the armour and blaster

OK, cool! Thank you so much I'll pop some foam in then, and keep sizing it with that on.

OK, these are from the inside ... Ab across the guts is about 45cm, just under the button box. The edge on the kidney that butts against the butt plate is about 55cm (so the butt also measures 55cm across the top) So which would require more trimming? Thanks for this, by the way, Glen

This is intriguing ... I'll grab a couple more measurements. Would you be able to grab a couple off your kit to compare, for me? Please?

Yeah, I even trimmed a bit further than it on both ab and kidney. Perhaps ... is my thought on the butt and kidney lining up actually true? So, does the edge that butts up against the ab actually need to be in line with the ascending part of the butt plate (so, the last picture on my last update)?

Hm :/ That is confusing! I'm a tad worried about stuff sticking out if it requires too much padding, as well ...

Slowly getting there I have finished my helmet, except painting the ear bolts and the rank stripes ... I have been working on strapping as well. Biceps and shoulder bells have been strapped, and am working on the torso currently. One more question regarding trimming ... I am 6 foot tall and 65kg (I think that that's around 145lb?), so the kit fits me well height-wise, but when it comes to the ab/kidney ... well, I measured the inside diameter of the waist of those when plugged together, and they were about 100cm, and my waist is 77cm. At this point, rather than trimming, it has been recommended on the garrison boards that I pad it, but I thought I'd better check to make sure that I can't take any more off ... The overlap: And how the kidney lines up with the butt plate (as I understand it, they should fit flush with each other along this edge? Thus ...): Thanks all

Still not done, I'm afraid But getting there? I've got the bucket about finished, and my rare earth magnets have arrived, so I have started gluing the longer seams (forearms are glued, I'll do the thighs tomorrow, and get to the greaves soon after that), and will be able to put some snap plates in too. All the elastic and webbing is bought (and sitting in a bag, waiting for all the hard parts to get finished), and it won't be too much more work to get the belt done, either. So it's getting there! Very, very slowly, but it is getting built.

Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? But, since my exams have finished for now, I have not been idle! Here we go ... I've trimmed pretty much everything out now. All the arm, leg, and torso pieces, as well as virtually all the detail parts. Just a few more cover strips to do, and fix up the ammo belts and sniper diamond. I have dozens of pictures of the armour trimmed out, but I won't put them up just yet. I've even done work on the bucket. Here is where I was at on it yesterday morning. I've since fixed the teeth up: I'm going to finish up on the eyes today, try to so some work on my blaster (which I have neglected ), and start putting the bucket together.

I did indeed ...

Whew! Exam periods, hey? Never go to uni! Anyway, I have three more exams before I can recommence work on this. One question though ... do I just use standard pop rivets for the holster to hold the loops on at the top corners? Chuck out (to pretend to study ).

I thought I'd best put this up as well ... The soldering was a bit shoddy, and the muzzle discs didn't line up properly (it slipped as I clamped it, and I didn't notice it until after the glue had dried). This in addition to the super glue reaction already mentioned above.

Ah! I forgot. Inside that length of pipe (which is 25mm diameter) is a length of 15mm pipe which has an array of 20 red LEDs, and a piece of reflective plastic. The end of this sits inside the muzzle, and is separated from the outside world by two discs of perspex sandwiching a piece of red cellophane. Ooh! KotOR just finished loading! But I digress ... There is a rack of three switches that will be mounted on the barrel, inside the mag housing. These switches control the barrel lights, an LED mounted in the scope as backlighting for my reticule, and a master switch for the entire circuit. The barrel lights are also controlled by a momentary switch, which will be mounted in the handle, in series with the master switch bed. I've had to fix my original attempt at the muzzle though, since the bayonet disc was a little off centre, and a weird super glue/wire reaction had happened (which I found when I pulled the inner barrel tube out), so I decided to redo the whole of that. Hope that clarifies it?

OK people, here's some stuff. This is where I was up to mid-March, and I'm pretty much in the same spot now. Uni is taking up around 36 hours per week (ergh ...) which leaves the weekend for armour and blaster building. I'm using a different type of plastic than the one shown above (High Impact Acrylic; the other one is as well, but a different type of it), since this one doesn't easily score and snap, but is more rigid. And my scope. It has had some minor difficulties associated with it, but is just about finished now. It looks a bit different to this at the moment (because of a botched paint job, and the associated removal and repair), but should be finished by the end of this weekend. That's all for now, Stay tuned!

In a nutshell, it's not done yet. I've had it that close to finishing plenty of times, and then messed something up. That something is invariably either the scope (VERY close now) or the detail parts (stock, sights, magazine and mag housing, etc). So currently, the blaster consists of the barrel (the same one that I've had since starting), some plastic (which is what I'm making the detail parts out of, and the bane of my existence because it's finicky stuff), and the scope, which now just needs painting and some detail work. Pictures to come shortly.

I did actually work on my build over the weekend! However, I didn't do much filing/sanding of the armour, so I have nothing to report there. What I did do was start on the holster. I took a trip to Tandy last Thursday and bought a shoulder of 3mm leather and some dye. I drew up a template based on the Troopermaster dimensions, and went nuts with my scalpel. And ... All that's left to do on that is to cut out the straps, dye the leather, put in the snaps and rivets, and sew the sides together.

Thanks for the tip, Juan! I've got them! Very nice, and very quick organisation and shipping too. Hey Noah. It's only getting done slowly, I'm afraid. Despite my whole "I'm going to build my armour, forget about the blaster for a month or two, and not do any uni work on top of lectures" outlook, I still haven't even finished filing the crotch plate Oh well. I think I'll go try to get something finished now.

Thanks all. I'll go check it out now ... they seem like they'll fit it to me ... Yep, looks good

Hi all, I'm wondering if anyone has dimensions of the mounting brackets that hold the M38 scope to the scope rail? That is, the bits that go hereish: Sorry about my mad skills at paint I'll post the build thread for my E-11 tomorrow, or soon at any rate. Thanks in advance, Chuck.

I would love to see a Darktrooper! I figured once I knew my way around building armour, I'd have a crack at trying to build one, but I don't know ... It's going to be a long time before I'm at that level

Oh, and I realise I got the wrong handplates ... I'm going to have to look into fixing that