Owen91

My T/MC build went quite smoothly! I recommend aviation snips from Walmart for cutting the plastic if you'd like to spare your fingers and work a lot more quickly. They're like 14$ or so.

I haven't gotten to troop yet, but my best memory so far has been the look on my dad's face when I surprised him wearing my kit. He's been a die-hard fan for Star Wars and stormtroopers all his life (as have I), and when I removed the helmet he completely geeked out. I don't think I've seen him that excited in years. I might even be inspiring my little brother and possibly dad too to come out and join the ranks of the dark side. The family that troops together stays together!

I am, however, extremely pleased with my right gap at the ab. The second strap evened it up nicely! Notice the difference in the gap between the left and right thigh pieces in the thigh armour? I think the left inner piece is shaped differently than the right inner piece. It would explain the better fit of the right thigh and the noticeably lower left thigh. That or my legs are deformed!

I opened up the thighs a good bit in the back and saw about 1" lift in the left thigh and .5" in the right thigh. I don't think it helped much, so I will likely loosen the taper in the back, which I left at its original tightness. Most of my height is in my legs, so I don't think I'll be able to bring them all the way up to the cod piece without exposing too much black at the knees.

I can look left-right pretty well in my TM/C lid, but only a bit up and hardly at all down. I'm pretty sure its meant to be that way, the troopers in the movies didn't have a lot of flexibility either.

It feels like you're hurting the plastic but as long as the rivet is what's taking the blows you'll be alright.

I didn't much think I'd be able to handle stairs in the kit, but they will definitely have to come up. Armour bites hurt like the dickens!

Is it EIB acceptable for the shoulder bridges to free float? The CRL kinda skips from Basic acceptance, which allows free floating, to Centurion, which does not.

I also only have the one strap connecting the right. I'll be sure to add another and maybe another and see how I can make it work

I was thinking the thighs would need to come up too. The left thigh bit the absolute crap out of the back of my leg when I was testing out the stairs yesterday. I'll pop 'em open today and loosen them up a bit.

ab and belt: ammo pack: sniper plate: holster (unfinished, waiting on E-11!):

Helmet:

Bam. This just happened

I bought mine from Neo_Kerberos for about 35$. It comes pre-made in the style of your choosing. The only difference is it is made of two layers of pleather instead of one layer of leather.

Congratulations!

So a chin strap is one of those items that isn't really necessary? I can see that, considering I can't do much bending over. I can walk, jog lightly, climb stairs and descend without being pinched, and squat and pretty much everything else a TK is supposed to do except die.

I've got everything to where I can wear it now, (except the helmet)! Some things I'm looking at doing next: 1. Padding forearms and calves. 2. replacing provided cut-out lenses with a square sheet from Trooperbay (hot glue wasnt doing a good job of holding them down, by the time I tried E-6000 they were too sloppy from my previous failed attempts to even fool with.) 3. addressing a fitting issue that has my chest plate favouring the left side. 4. Putting the guts in my helmet. For now it's going to be plain foam but I may try to fancy it up later. How do I keep the helmet from doing the "Bell" thing? It swings left and right from the top of my head like a bell when pushed/bumped. I've padded the back of the head, the brow, above the ears, and a thin slice on the scalp. 5. Painting! I got the ab buttons done with 3 coats. Next I'll do the helmet. 6. Still waiting on the rest of my decals to come in.

Have fun! I'm almost done with the same kit. Did you get the trapezoid stickers to your helmet? I got a sticky note with my helm saying they were on backorder :/

I simply had access to a bunch of it for free. I also found a few posts on here claiming that Plumbers Goop is the same thing as E-6000 (strong 24 hour adhesive) except its not as reactive when contacting metal. I tested it on a snap at one point and did not notice any rise in temperature. It's got a good permanent hold and if need be you can still pry it apart to make adjustments.

I'm using a combination of both, but I highly prefer the nylon plates. They're more flexible for the curved areas of the armour. I'm attaching them with Plumber's Goop and its working on the snap plates just fine.

When I wear the butt plate, the part that extends down to snap to the cod rubs and pinches my inner thigh a bit when walking. The back of the butt plate also likes to overlap the kidney a bit (that's normal, right?) and it pops the center snap. To remedy this I think I'll remove the center strap and add 2 more straps farther from the center. I'll post some pics this evening to hopefully show what I'm talking about. This is my inspiration for fixing the butt plate: (from zsavk's T/MC build, which I'm trying to follow)

Finally I have a camera. Here are some much-needed pics. More to come! My work space. Not much to look at but it keeps the mess off the floor. A few helmet pics. I think might need to open up a few of the teeth some more. What do y'all think? The torso: Riveted side, I used spare plastic to make the washers. No return edge on forearm, is this good?

Getting paid to troop? I like it!

I was delayed until today to glue the last thigh seam, so that should be ready to go tomorrow. Any recommendations about snapping/strapping procedures? I was thinking about doing the thighs to a garter system first, then working my way up to the ab plate, kidney, butt, etc. etc. finishing with the shoulder straps. I'm not gonna mess with the helmet teeth anymore until I can get a dremel. Otherwise everything else came together nicely. Tray, the provided CD with pics has helped me out tremendously! Thanks!