LeMaxim

That's too bad. I found something that might work. I have more than one so if you PM me your address I'll send one to you tomorrow for you to try out. And also. Since you have started with your build you should start a build thread.

Thanks Logon and Locitus. A future question of mine have been answered today.

For reference. Here's my kit D-ring. I guess you got the same. I don't have it at hand but had this picture. http://m1275.photobucket.com/albumview/albums/LeMaxim501st/DVH%20ANH%20E11%20BlasTech%20Build/IMG_2674_zps318be667.jpg.html?o=87

I also just have one end cap too. My build is on hold now due to armour building and lack of access to the workshop I'm building the blaster in. I would/will do something like what Locitus suggests with my D-Ring but it will depend on how easy the ring bends. Nice find of the drill. Good option for us here in Sweden to get an affordable pillar drill. The only other I've seen were 4-7 times more expensive. They had laser aim and stuff, which is cool, but the price put them a bit out of range for my limited need. Thanks for the tip.

Happy Birthday Vern! I hope you are having a blast.

Stalk on my friend. If it wasn't for my own stalking I would not know what to do myself. I'm glad I'm able to offer ideas and pointers for my fellow troopers to be. Where did you manage to score a 75 dollar bench drill? That sounds like a great find. I actually haven't tackled that yet but were thinking of a combo of super glue and putty. And possibly a screw or two.

Cheers guys! I'm very eager to get home to take care of the right ear now.

So. It's been a longer while since last update than I was aiming for. This doesn't mean I haven't been trimming away. Just have had too little time to write any proper updates. I have been tackling the body armour and helmet. I wanted to make some way with them to get a feel of the end result. Feeling good. Anyway. Just as a short note to let you know the build is coming along. Here's where the helmet is now. Eyes poked and teeth plucked. Left ear is finished, for now. And a slightly changed angle... Feels like a good start on the bucket.

Thanks Paul. I'm assuming you mean abs overlapping the lumbar. How would that put the, for lack of word for it, split-rivet-hinge and closing strap. Wouldn't that offset them too much for a good looking fit? If the abs cradles the lumbar it looks like the lumbar-returns buckles quite a bit. I did try with belt and it just reaches around. I'm currently AFP (away from plastic) and have no good pictures. I might perceive this as a bigger issue than it is since the arms and legs aren't clad yet. At any rate I've started to take the ish-factor into consideration and to heart. My calliper approach just didn't make sense and the more screenshots and screen used armours I look at the more ish everything becomes. Current approach is to get it assembled before I start to obsess too much about smooth edges and like-a-glove. Also. The more pieces I get assembled the more I realise how white the PVC is. I might have to board a renegade ship and get myself some battle scorch.

Question time: In what should be described as a frenzy I did an initial trim and test fit of the full torso (no pictures now and I will update build later). While there's still need for additional trimming I'm a bit concerned about what to do with the abs - lumbar section. I'm slim (67kg / 147 lbs & 181cm/5'11") with a waistline of about 30-31". The RS suit comes with a lot of room... And I could easily reach my pockets through the gap on both sides of this section. If I trim to fit I would probably take away most of the returns on these sides, and more. And after trimming I would would still need to bend a bit. The bending would put stress on the upper and lower return edges, so these would probably need to be to be trimmed to a sliver. I'm going for the original brackets hook-up and have already put the brackets and temporary hoops in. Any thoughts, pointers or examples? A factor is that I'm aiming for centurion so please keep it kosher. Cheers!

I'm dreading the helmet part of my build... but I'll have to get over that soon enough. Yours turned out very nice.

Very nice! It's on my "sometime in the future list" now

Wow! Nice work indeed!

Cheers mate! Much appreciated. It's the nice comments and engagement that really fuels the fire. I'm actually planning to have it finished and approved before the end of August (oh my!). I wouldn't want to miss the NG-card-run.

Thank you for confirming my initial impression. I'm trying to stick to the "build, try, modify" way of the force. That's not a bad idea. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for the cheers! It's interesting to see how rewarding it is to labour through these details. Especially considering that the actual build time for it is less than 30 minutes. Research takes time but it's well invested. Next build should be a walk in the park (if I stick to TKs)

Thanks mate! I've gotten a bit delayed here due to armour-focus but will gear up soon again. The IKEA leg was a nice find. Nearly perfect and easy to come by. A bit more tricky to work with than PVC though. I'm glad I could share this tip.

Next up. Belt, drop boxes, and holster. Having read and gotten a lot of feedback on my previous belt-hard-part trimming I figured the actual assembly should be fairly straight forward. Right? Everything front and centre and rivets away! I can safely say that I now have spent more time looking at and researching belts than, I assume, the ANH production team spent on most TK stunts. Combined. And it was not without pitfalls. First of I started by making sure that the central indentation in the hard-belt was actually in the centre. I've been warned both here and read in other threads not to trust markings blindly. Turned out it was very much in centre. Next I checked the cap rivets measurements for drilling a hole. I had previously made myself a hole guide on a piece of scrap PVC for the hole-puncher so it was a small thing to find out I needed 3 mm holes. Guess which drill bit was missing from my box. A 2.5 mm bit and some force sufficed as a substitute and soon enough I had a nice centre hole for my rivet. I then, using the hole-puncher, made holes on each end of the belt following TM's recommendation of centre, roughly 10 mm from the edge. So far no problems. Next I wanted to make holes on the canvas belt. Careful not to stare too much on the canvas belt markings (black round stickers) I decided to map out and see how the belt sat if I put the centre hole between the two belt snaps. As it turns out this was the exact position of the marker and it would have placed the belt far too much to the right for my liking. Surely the right-wards off-set would give some balance to the left-side holster position, but I decided to do some screenshot studies. As it turns out I was correct in that it should be 10-12 mm more to the left. A small thing, but after spending a lot of time on screen shots I decided to call it a win. My new placement: References (1, 2): (This was just two out of many from FISD detailed ANH screen caps ) Also found the same placement on many centurions and on TM own 1 mm build I found this: I'd say that's support enough for my 10-12 mm move. Comparison: Before: After: Change: Bliss. And as I was punching the hole two words echoed in my head. “Upside downâ€. *facepalm* After som fruitless research I decided that I had in fact punched the hole on the wrong side. I couldn't find any screen captures that supported any orientation of the canvas belt (and I strongly feel that the production crew probably just put them together). I decided to follow the most used (from what I could find) and the most logical orientation. My selected orientation puts the outward facing velcro on the holster side of the canvas belt as I assume that side will be the more difficult/heavy to align. By this the inward facing velcro (right side) would be the part used for fastening and alignment. (I hope my reasoning makes sense) I decided to keep the first hole untouched. For sentimental reasons. The right and left hole on the end of the belt was easy enough to establish once the centre one was in place so I then went on with trying to win points with my neighbours. At this time it was well past midnight and I was not about to stop because I needed to rivet a few things. And a well deserved trial run: Next up. Drop Boxes. I had at some earlier point trimmed the DB's enough to get rid of the flaring. this left me with DBs at 10-12 mm thickness. I knew I read somewhere that the one rivet should be centre about 25 mm from the top and this seemed to fit with the previous references. So first out - rivet hole. Next I looped the elastics around the belt and marked the position for the hole in them. I simply put the dropboxes down where it looked good and removed the top, then I penciled a mark through the recently punched hole in the inner one. After making sure it was centred on the elastic I punched holes and went on to work on my best-neighbour-award. I believe it was now closer to 3 am. And yes. This happened. Before riveting the elastics I cut off rogue threads and seared the cuts. Riveted and loose parts laid out. Getting there. Final belt part before glueing. Holster. I started by laying out my holster to see what I had to do. It seems it would go well for both stunt and hero and I decided to keep the extra strap length for possible hero build (in the future) or strengthening the hold later on. I had, following much advice from troopers, decided to attach the holster by way of snaps. Following the Billhag diagram for holster placement I measured, punched, riveted, and hammered them into place. I put the snaps in backwards to what you might do on a piece of clothing. This left the smooth top of the snaps closest to the armour. I hope this will keep chafing against the armour to a minimum. The belt-part of the snap was riveted to the canvas belt. And then finally, to my neighbours delight, the only part remaining was the glueing. 30 odd hours later I de-clamped my belt and ta-da! Apart from the blaster strap that awaits final fitting with my blaster when I've finished building it the above picture represents the finished belt (and first finished parts of my build). What do you say? On track for Centurion?

Did some work during the weekend. Belt and TD now finished. Process of each piece separately to keep my sanity and a red thread. I got the TD control panel that was missing from the original package and decided to get right down to business. Armed with, chiefly, the TD-reference pictures in the Photo References I set out. Reference pictures for measurements and placements: (FISD source) And screenshots like this: (FISD source) First I wanted to trim the end caps. I started by thinking I'd use one of my marking tapes as ruler and draw a cut line. Silly me. Unsteady hands and shifting pencil soon put an end to that idea. I retreated to old faithful and simply took my measuring tape and put it on as a marker. When the marker tape was secured I used my lexan scissors and quickly trimmed the most excess of. Then I cut of more and more, alternating with trial fittings on the pipe, until I had two nice end caps. Next of I prepared the TD-control plate. I have no pictures of the process but it's very straight forward in getting this to fit on the pipe something like this Apart from cutting the obvious away I had to shave some of the sides to get nicer lines. When satisfied with the result and placement I went full in on E-6000, clamps, and masking tape After putting that aside I decided to add the finishing touch on the TD and paint the screw heads black. Roughly 30 hour later I ended up with this: At this point I decided to not glue the end caps. They sit very good on the tube but I plan to revisit this when I know everything is in order. TD - check!

So close! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

Sorry for the late reply. Halfway between Gothenburg and Stockholm then. I'd say it might take a while to get an answer after last weekend as I guess TM, and many with him, have just gotten back from Germany. I wouldn't worry about reply or availability. I'll have some more updates on my build today. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

From my own build / research I would say Yellow ones: yes. 2 for thigh ammo pack. 3 for main belt 2 for drop boxes (1 each) 1 extra Blue ones: Looks like the holster attachment rivets. 2 for stunt and 4 for hero. Purple ones: the only place I can see them is on the original strapping brackets. Maybe extras for them? That's my thoughts on this but I would wait for a more experienced builder to chime in on this. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

I just did the drop boxes on my build and Locitus was nice enough to post me some images and info. The elastic is looped around the belt and is attached with one cap rivet on the backside of the DB (ie. the inner DB). On my phone and don't know how to link but check out Locitus picture on my build. Post #45. I think it paints a better picture then I could. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

Nice save! Hat tip for raising a discerning daughter. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

Great work! This thread was one of the first that really stood out when I started to frequent the FISD boards and I have been working up excitement about it with the rest of you. Really great to see the result of the teams hard work. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

Sweet mother of... Awesomeness! Very fun idea! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2