TB5K

Great shirt!

Dude! Congrats!! Welcome to the club! Great to have you and great work on the suit. You've done an incredible job.

Looking fantastic, Andrew. Great job!

Chicago screws you could potentially remove and replace...

Wow, man, you are killing it with this rebuild. I love seeing it get the royal treatment!

TB5K is an abbreviation of my old Facebook handle "Tardbot5000". It can easily be misinterpreted as a Biker Scout ID; "TB-5000".

Hopefully this will rage into the night. I'm booked for the 501st Medieval Times dinner that night but you can bet I'm gonna rush straight back to drop in on this! Looking forward to meeting you all!

Hey hitman. Awesome work! What exactly did you use for Bondo? You mentioned 'Microlight'. Are those two different products (bondo vs microlight?) Thanks for your time! -Aaron

Hey Happy Birthday Vern. I hope the Hengstler worked out for ya.

What's in the bucket... ???

My girlfriend's cousin was in Scotland at some games event and she sent us this. No idea who it is. Just thought I'd share.

TK-55321 requesting 501st access. http://www.501st.com/members/displaymemberdetails.php?userID=15697

I wanted to jump up there and play my helmet on stage but thought better of it.

That was hilarious. I loved the 'Ewok Brazilian'.

Cool! Were you in costume? I'm waiting on a kit from TM. Looking forward to building it up from the begining. Fixing up this RT Mod has been incredibly educational and I feel much better thinking about that "first cut" on the TM. I'll be at the Public Works party on May 4th. Hope to see you there! -Aaron

Yeah I didn't think it was gonna happen but we kinda forced it. My crotch plate was all but unsnapped when I got out of the car among other parts of the armor. I had to do some buttoning up before moving along.

The clamps came off Sunday evening and I wore it out on it's maiden voyage to SF's DNA Lounge where they were having a SW Cantina party. But before leaving I wanted to do a few more tweaks and get the fans in the lid. First off I took a quarter inch off of the bottoms of the shins and tapered the edge and sanded them smooth so they would be more gentle on the boots. They held up pretty good. I still may put fabric on the edges to ease the boot wear even more. The armor definitely puts a crease in the leather from sheer gravity but the tapering helped from them chewing up the leather I think. I wore my TKBoots size 11s with gel inserts for this first outing. TKBoots come about a size large with a longer, narrower cut. As a normal tennis shoe wearing size 11 I decided to buy a size 10 AND a size 11 to compare. The 10s fit pretty good but I like the 11s with the gel inserts. In the 10s I can feel that narrow cut. The old fans were glued in originally. I bought a new set and decided to try a velcro system. I put the soft loop side on the helmet and wrapped the edges of the fans with strips of hook side. Worked out well and they're adjustable. I can pretty much point them in any direction. The armor bites were extremely minimal. Just an occasional pinch here and there. My friend drove us to the club and to get in the car I sort of sprawled out on the back seat. That got uncomfortable so I found another position that worked although I looked ridiculous: As far as the undersuit I got an inexpensive black diver skin on eBay. It has stirrups on the feet, and loops on the cuff. It zips up the front and has a small mock turtleneck cut. Very nice for 30 bucks. Unfortunately there is no crotch access so I took a pair of C9 boxers (with the duo dry wick-away tech fabric) and cut out the fly section, had my girlfriend sew it on the crotch of the diver skin and then cut a hole in the diver skin after the new crotch was sewn on. Worked great!! I was able to pee without taking anything off. The party was a fund raiser for Burning Man's 'Black Rock Cantina' camp. I don't go to burning man but if I did it would be with them. So many cool peeps and costumers. I met a Golden Gate Garrison 501st member, TB-9349. Good times!

I get it every once in while where the thighs meet at the top of the thigh pieces. Thinking about sewing into the undersuit those pads they have on equestrian pants...

And more toy sales. As Tim says, I'm looking forward to seeing how they interpret the evolution of the trooper.

JJ Abrahms is a huge believer in In-Camera and practical effects. He may be able to convince a budget to have hard armor on set. That is my prediction. Also he's a fan boy and would want to see them in real life!

Here's what the bottle looks like: https://www.google.com/search?q=E6000&num=100&lr=&newwindow=1&safe=images&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=FRR3Ub_GH-7FiwKC-oGoCg&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAQ&biw=1696&bih=1118

Hey there James. E6000 is a plastic bonding glue popular among armor builders. I've just started using it and it's pretty great. There's tons of info about using it right here on the FISD if you do a forum search for "E6000". You can get it at any well stocked hardware store or hobby shop and they also sell it on Trooperbay. Good luck on your upcoming build!

Started a rebuild last week. It's going well and I'm about to update with the tales of the maiden voyage and pics of the finished rebuild: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/23732-rt-mod-rebuild/#entry298841 Also I just sent in my application to the 501st tonight! WooHOO!

Thanks Walt. I'll give it a shot. Any type of blade in particular you'd recommend?

I got the sniper plate in shape with a heat gun. To cool it off I ran it under cold water for a minute. Then I sanded the contact points a little with some 60 grit, washed the dust off, and got the clamps ready. Clamped the hell out of it and walked away. I noticed that the overlap of the shins pointed outward whereas I've read they should point inward. Luckily the RT Mod shins are identical so I swapped left for right and put the sniper plate on the proper shin piece. A side note: some of the clamps I use have metal ends so I use a little rubber strip on the outside to protect the ABS. These Pony clamps are hardcore. Typically used for lighting and rigging, these things out clamp any magnet or plastic clamp I've seen. Then I finished the cut on the crotch plate. I rounded off with the exact-o and some sanding. On to reapplying the snaps. I cleaned up the salvaged snaps by removing all the old E6000... ...trimming the sides down, and sanding the corners for a nice clean look... E6000 and clamped. 4AM and time to sleep... More snap salvaging, repositioning, gluing, and clamping: It's a clamp party! Next: new fans in the lid and initial try-on with new adjustments!