DroidHunter

Well, I made my first cut! No pics yet because I didn't do much. I started to trim the control panel for the thermal detonator. I grabbed a pair of Fiskars curved blade scissors, but they have a handle that is too small, and they don't appear to be a good substitute for the Lexan scissors IMHO (placed an order for a set of the Lexan scissors last night). Hopefully by the end of the weekend I will make some progress worth posting. I was suprised how tough the plastic was to cut. Anyway, it took me a week to work up the courage, but I am officially off to the races.

The panic set in about 10 minutes after I stopped staring at the contents in awe. The sense of "I can't believe I own this" gave way to, "Now that the hell am I supposed to do!"

Oh Yes!

The package is in the mail!

Summer got busy and I took a break from my side projects. But I now have word that my kit is next in line and should be ready in another week or two! Then its on to the build!

TK_LEPER made a great vid on building them yourself if you want. The strips of aluminum can be bought at Lowe's. Cut 'em, sand 'em and bend 'em. I'm in the process of doing that now, just need to make the final bends. But the one's mentioned above look outstanding if you would rather purchase.

Keep in mind, this post is more than 3 1/2 years old. Might want to pm the author for details instead of asking here.

Going to see what I can do to accomplish that. Just got word that Terrell is backed up about 6 weeks on armor so my date of arrival is now probably late August. So I still have time to get back to work on some of this peripheral stuff.

Actually, aren't there quite a few troopers who use an open ended TD (meaning one end is removable) to store things like keys, money and other items?

Thank you my friend. I'm watching your build thread closely.

I really hope to get back to the neck seal this week. In the meantime, a little more on the TD set up.

Been held up on the neckseal for a little while so no new progress pics. Life got in the way and my ancient sewing machine is now giving me a hard time. So on to the TD clips. I grabbed some aluminum, cut and sanded to a shine. Next step, into the vice grip for shaping.

Regular. Like I said, I did not pre-order, but got lucky and grabbed a pair from their last shipment and they were/are pristine. They will let you know up front if they have any imperfect boots available.

Hey there 'boss' (Dave's my cadet advisor over in Garrison Carida). Looking great. Sitting around (im)patiently awaiting my kit is killing me!

A little more progress. I am stopping at 8 ribs as any larger would be too long for my neck. It is very stiff due to the parachute chord inside and the fact that multiple sections overlap so additional ribs would make it too hard to move around. I still have to attach a section in the back for the vlecro enclosure. I also need to make the bib. The extra section you see here will be trimmed and sewn down -- it is just part of the cotton lining. Not the best construction method, but its been a work in progress. Here are some updates shots:

Minor update. I have sewn the first 3 sections of my homemade neck seal together (not an easy task with an old machine and the parachute cord inside), and attached the cotton backing that will go against my neck. Once all 9 sections are sewn together, I will trim the cotton backing and secure the bottom into place along the seam where the bib will attach. Still only out about $4 for the Velcro and parachute cord I picked up at Michael's, and it is slowly coming together. The concept is a decent look for minimal price. If you can make it, why buy it, right? Here's a couple of captures from my old cell phone: I know you can't see much detail in these lousy pics, but I still wanted to post up my progress. Better pics later.

Wow. Not sure what the heck just happened to make the post come out that way.....

I don't even have my bucket in hand yet, but still trying to get everything lined up. I have to repeat what others have said and thank Pandatrooper for this. I know this post is old, but since its pinned, I thought it might be okay to still comment on it (no necroposting here). As with the others who have commented in the past, I'm trying to figure out exactly how to reproduce these files at the right size. Without a bucket, I cannot be sure. However, Panda notes that the stripes should be 13/16" high. So I messed around with pasting these into Word and came up with this: The picture is a bit off, but this was about as close to 13/16" as I could make it. I'm also attaching the word document with the scaled templates. If anyone has the opportunity, let me know if these come out to about the right size. Tube Stripes.pdf

I saw the Lexan scissors on the recommended tools page. Has anybody used the Fiscars version of the curved scissors? Just curious if they would do the job as well.

Well, I meant it when I said that all information that is passed along is greatly appreciated. And I must say that your threads have provided an enormous amount of great information. Echo, post up that bit that you use if you don't mind, or just shoot me a PM. I'll probably avoid my Dremel, but you never know.

I appreciate the feedback. I'll check out those vids on Trooperbay. I assumed there were some threads here that I was missing. Believe it or not, I really have been researching and reading threads non-stop, but somehow had not read anything on trimming preferences. And every now and then (as it did today) the search function acts wonky for me when I'm at work. So, my apologies if this was one of those annoying "why didn't the newb research before asking that question" threads. I still appreciate the responses.

Is there a 'preferred' method for trimming? I know it may depend on the part being trimmed. And I know some of the methods are score and snap, scissors, Dremel, etc. I see a lot of posts on helmet builds, but not a lot of discussion about the best method for trimming, especially the initial cuts to the front and back sections. Do the curved scissors work best? If this has been answered elsewhere, I apologize. But its one of those questions I have not stumbled across yet.

Trying to anyway. I'm going to give Terrell a shout next week and see about picking up the helmet early. I'm starting to feel ready to tackle that.

Not much progress, but I did manage to run into HobbyTown and grab some Testors 1138 grey, 2715 Model Masters french blue and the gloss black (plus some white to boot). Hope to get that neckseal completed this week though.

I finished off 10 sections of ribbing for my neckseal. I have not sewn them together yet, but only just finished making them. I read that the hero seals worn by Han and Luke had 11 sections -- including a couple of tapering sections as far as I can tell. But the stunt neckseal don't seem to have the added tapering sections along the jawline. Is that correct? I'm looking stunt here and was trying to decide between 8, 9 or 10 sections. The 10 together seems a little tall for me as it is quite stiff. Any good advice would be helpful. Here's a lousy cellphone pick of the sections sitting together. I hope to start sewing this weekend.