tkrestonva

Perhaps this will help: http://forum.whitearmor.net/index.php?showtopic=10719

Where are your speakers located? If they are contained within the aerators (as in the kind Stomper used to sell here), then I'd go with the first option you listed. If you have a plastic toy Easter egg or something like that laying around, you can fill each half with some sound-dampening material (cotton padding?) and use the two halves to cap off the speakers from inside the helmet, with the wires running underneath the caps to your amplifier and mic.

As noted in another thread, the new eFX on the Redford Films site appears to be an MRCE with a black ESB-style frown. Not that that's a bad thing - lots of troopers use MRCE and it's certainly EIB-qualified with a few mods. A good alternative to the FX bucket at a reasonable cost if you ask me, especially if you prefer the idealized look and you're looking for something preassembled. Besides, MRCEs had been getting expensive & hard to find as of late, so it's good that they are becoming available again at a reasonable price.

The host hotel is the Doubletree - the same location as the 501st Bash on Friday night. You can always go to the Doubletree directly and make your own reservations, or via an online travel agency (Expedia, Travelocity, etc.) and I'm told the hotel's within easy walking distance to the convention center. http://www.doubletreeorlandoidrive.com/location/index.html

Looks spot on if you ask me.

The 501st will have quite a large presence at C5, including parties, our own host hotel, and a HUGE display area. http://www.501stBash.com

Congratulations, Terry! I've been a HUGE fan of your work, and am following your AM build with especially keen interest. Keep up the good work.

Excellent info, thanks Tiffanie. Sounds like you already know the problem - you need to eat more, spend more time in the weight room, and possibly less time in your running shoes. If you're like most avid runners I know (1) you run A LOT, (2) you have a sky-high metabolism, (3) you have an intense dislike of weight training, and (4) you don't eat nearly as much as your body needs to gain quality weight. Knowing how many calories you burn in a typical day - factoring in exercise and any other physically exerting activities (including farm work ) and bumping it up by about 500 calories would help you a lot. As for your question regarding protein powders and such, I've been using them for many years. They're great as a quick, convenient way to get extra calories and macronutrients (protein/carbs/fat - important to read the label to determine how much of what you're getting), but supplements are exactly that - supplements. They can never completely replace whole foods, and should not become the mainstay of your diet. First make sure you're eating as often as possible - clean foods, NOT JUNK. Also make sure your training is conducive to muscle gain - too much running or any other form of endurance training can be counterproductive to mass gain. Finally, make sure you're getting enough rest and not overtraining, training serves as the stimulus but actual growth happens while you are resting/recovering. Once all 3 components (nutrition/training/rest) are dialed in, then supplement as you need. Bodybuilding.com is an excellent online resource to learn more when you're ready.

I've always read that a basic rule of thumb for losing (or gaining) weight safely is to try to create a calorie deficit (or surplus) of about 500 calories a day. If you're trying to lose, you want to consume about 500 calories less than you burn per day. Works out to about 1 lb of body fat per week. In order to do this, it seems the first thing you need to know is how many calories you burn daily simply by being alive and breathing. Add to that your level of daily activity, and you have the amount of calories you need for steady-state weight management. From there, for weight loss you can either ramp up the activity (exercise more), throttle back the calorie intake (eat less), or both. Tiffanie, any tips on the best way to determine one's minimum daily caloric requirement?

Man, I cringe every time I see the "badged helmet". What was the previous owner thinking?

All I needed to see was that last photo. Congratulations.

Nothing problematic stand out. Looks like you're good to go.

Everyone has their unique motivating factors, it all comes down to what will get you started and keep you going. Good job.

Dude - this is an AMAZING thread! Even though I expect my inbound AM kit to fit me pretty much out of the box (I'm 6'1" & 215lbs) I'll definitely have this thread up when I start my build. How about asking someone on staff to either pin it or add it to the Academy?

Sculpting and pulling your own armor requires a considerable investment in time, skill, and money. For what you'll spend for a proper setup, you can get a top-of-the-line kit for a fraction of the cost. I realize you're on a teenager's budget, but there are kits available here for a wide range of budgets. Spending some time(actually, a lot of time) reading the threads here will help to find something reasonably affordable.

Can you mount your shoulder bells a bit more forward and/or closer to the shoulder straps? Your first photo shows a lot of undersuit showing at the shoulders.

I didn't bother checking his profile, but I did notice the post count. And I still wonder what he wants to do with raw plastic. Tanner, it would help to post an introduction in the New Member Introductions section and provide a bit of info about yourself and what you're looking to accomplish.

Use it for what? Are you trying to pull your own armor? It seems that you can find ABS suppliers simply by googling "ABS plastic sheet".

With those measurements, neither. In addition, FX is no longer in production - AM is it's successor. At 6", 150 lbs, and skinny with a small head, you'd be great for an AP (more expensive than ATA but easier to build) or an ATA (less money than AP but takes more effort to build). They're both more challenging to build than AM, but both are ideal for thinner troopers.

I really like the way you have your armor hung up like a suit, I may have to do that myself. If nothing else, it certainly seems like it makes working on it easier. Looking at is as a whole like that allows you to see the "big picture" and how it all comes together, as opposed to focusing on the individual parts.

Seeing this thread up reminded me of an older thread, I think it would be appropriate to provide a link here: http://forum.whitearmor.net/index.php?showtopic=5010&hl=bernard&st=0 For the sake of convienence I'm reposting Bernard's (TK8280) entry, hopefully you'll find is as inspirational as I did.

I love that kind of morning wake-up call. Almost as good as ...

Could just be I was looking at the aerators wrong, it's a bit tough to tell for sure in your photos. If those are Stomper's aerators then you're good to go - I use them myself on my RT Mod.

Great info Tiffanie! I can certainly relate to your point about BMI. My BMI is 28.4, which is overweight based on the standard scoring (Normal weight = 18.5-24.9 BMI). Problem is - at least from my untrained point of view - is that BMI is a height/weight computation that makes an assumption about how the average person carries their weight, i.e. amount muscle vs fat, and ignores the fact that different people have different bodyfat percentages. For example, take 2 men of the same height/weight/age. One has a 30% bodyfat percentage, the other has a 10% bodyfat percentage. Would the two look the same and/or reflect the same level of physical fitness? Absolutely not. Like you said, BMI (and with it overall bodyweight) is OK as a general rule of thumb, but the tape measure is better. I'd also throw in a stopwatch and knowing how/when to take your own pulse as good fitness measurement technique. Here's the online calculator I like to use (not an official endorsment), there may be more accurate calculators out there that take into account a greater number of measurements. Still, I've found this to be a fast and easy-to-use tool, and since the point is to be able to track your progress, as long as your consistent in your tool usage it should fit the bill. http://www.linear-software.com/online.html

Cool - great background! That's very gracious of you, Tiffanie.