mikedwelle94

NICE! Another magma! Looking forward to the build!

Canon?! ^

Anyone who blatantly rips off a helmet such as this (or anything for that matter) doesn't deserve respect. He didn't even credit eFX for the master helmet used to produce his castings.

Huh...didn't know he sold on eBay till now. He's got a good reputation here and I've bought a few things from his website. Remember that 99.9% of Stormtrooper armor on eBay is bad? Well this listing has got to be the .01% that's a safe bet.

I understand that there is a high cost that is associated with making molds, so why would anyone bother with this? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Star-Wars-Stormtrooper-helmet-ANH/111187717468?rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222002%26algo%3DSIC.FIT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D18219%26meid%3D1980965996980587094%26pid%3D100005%26prg%3D8342%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D261306732979%26 It looks like the recaster did not remove the brow, and removed the metal mesh from the mic tips from the master helmet before casting. So here you have a fiberglass recast of an EFX/MRCE helmet. If you're looking to raise the brow, you'll have to grind off the fiberglass one and order a replacement... You must still add ear screws and paint the helmet. The cost is around $150 USD, which is close to the price of the real thing. That doesn't include the price of the materials required for modification and paint. He includes padding, mesh for the mic tips, and bubble lenses. These seem like attractive options, but still not worth a purchase imo. You have to supply your own decals, too (or paint them on). I never considered buying this. I'm just putting this out there so that you know to avoid it!

I say go for it

You may find individual parts on the bay, but there are vendors out there who are willing to ship out individual parts at a much more reasonable price. I can vouch for ATA's willingness to do that. I ordered a right shin from him on a Monday and got it on a Friday.

+1 We're telling you this because we hate seeing people throw their money away. Get a refund when you can, and put it towards something better!

It's not a lie, I can see the scribbled writing inside the bucket, but that doesn't change the fact that it's an FX. Not only that, but the frown is painted incorrectly, and it's missing the vocoder. EDIT: You can't really prove whether or not it's a lie. It could have been anyone who scribbled that name in there!!

Cancel that order as soon as you can. If you just did it recently, it's not too late.

That, my friend, looks like another FX bucket. I have two suggestions for you. http://www.amazon.com/EFX-Star-Stormtrooper-Helmet-Replica/dp/B005J35PG2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381291006&sr=8-1&keywords=EFX+stormtrooper+helmet That is an EFX ANH Stormtrooper helmet. I currently own one of these. Many troopers have been approved with these helmets after making minor modifications. http://forum.501stspecopsdet.net/index.php?/topic/1366-fs-at3-anh-stunt-buckets/ You will need to register in order to access this forum. You can send a PM to ARAKYEL, the maker of the AT series of helmets. He mostly specializes in Blackhole, Nova, and Magma Trooper helmets, but he will build a white one on request. His feedback is always positive; his helmets are considered to be masterpieces, true works of art. I'm thinking about getting a new Magma bucket from him soon. As for your ear pieces...I can't say. I never assembled my own helmet; the EFX did not require assembly.

Sorry if I'm being a bit blunt here, but even with all the added bells and whistles, I still think that money could have been better invested. I got my lite ATA armor kit (w/o helmet) for less than half of what you paid (won't say exactly for privacy reasons). That price doesn't include the separate EFX helmet(purchased prior), soft parts, or any of the assembly materials, but I can rest assured that it's of good quality and won't be needing any upgrades to bring it to 501st standards (the EFX helmet needed modding, but it wasn't hard to do). Best of all, I got to assemble the armor myself, to get the best possible fit. It doesn't surprise me that people in the UK would get their hands on a US-made armor. From what I understand, FX was really popular back in the day. If you intend to keep this suit, good on you. You CAN get approved with FX armor, but I'd at the very least swap the helmet out for an EFX. It's commercially available, it's the cheapest almost-ready-to-troop bucket, it can fit a large head, and it doesn't look half bad after a few minor modifications.

Because acetone...is flammable.... Well that just goes to show...how lacking my knowledge of this stuff is. I think I better stop now lol

I know enough about the process to understand what you're saying. What if you used a negative mold for creating the flat sheets themselves? You could pour the right amount of acetone into the mold, and keep adding styrofoam until the desired consistency is achieved. After that, you can apply to the hardened styrofoam sheet the same tried and true method of pulling Stormtrooper kits using positive molds. I bet there's a lot of unnecessary effort associated with this, and will probably never be practical compared to using ABS, but I'm interested to know if it could theoretically be done. I don't have much of an interest in attempting it myself.

Uhh...huh. That *might* be what you'd call a "recasted" FX helmet. Genuine FX helmets are generally frowned upon these days anyway, so your best bet might be to sell that off for whatever you can get and put it towards a better, more accurate bucket. Examples include ATA, RS, and AP among others. Unfortunately, you're going to see a lot of this "recasting" on eBay. Read this: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/19329-where-what-and-whom-to-avoid-when-buying/ and this: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/11538-the-various-types-of-armor-and-where-to-find-them/ By any chance, would you still happen to have the link to the auction? Good luck and welcome. Don't forget to introduce yourself and tell us why your here, and what costume you're trying to emulate. There are people here who will be happy to guide you along

After watching some YouTube videos of what acetone can do to styrofoam, a lightbulb went off in my head. Depending on the ratio of acetone to styrofoam in the mixture, I came to the conclusion that it could be possible to make styrofoam have the right consistancy for mold making. How plausible would a complete Stormtrooper kit pulled in acetone-treated styrofoam be? I don't have a lot of knowledge of this stuff, so berate me as you see fit, but I figured I'd share this info because of its "interesting" factor. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRxTX7amBLk

Halo is the kingpin as far as I'm concerned, but it won't hurt to invest some time into Star Wars. Start with Battlefront on original Xbox or PC. Only Halo players will get this: My Spartan wears the E.O.D. helmet because of a certain resemblance...

Semi-completed Magma Trooper As some of you may know, my completion goal was this year's Granite State Comicon on September 28. Staying up until 2 that morning, I managed to bang out enough snaps to make the suit wearable for a day. Little did I know that most of these snaps would fail me by the end of day 1. Despite this, and my horrendous bathroom experience, I had a wonderful first (unofficial) troop in my red armor. Here are some pics of the build so far that I have found scattered on the Internet. I could not find any pictures of my back. Things I need to do before 501st membership application: - Assemble replacement right shin armor - Assemble thermal detonator - Remove all scratches and blemishes; polish to a shine - Trim kidney plate sides - Take apart thigh armor for further trimming - Attach belt to ab plate - Re-do snap system (AGAIN...) - Borrow a good camera More than a month ago, I remember posting somewhere that I was 90% done with the entire thing. How wrong I was.

They were alright. I wasn't a huge fan of the gameplay, but I can appreciate that they filled the storyline gap between RotS and ANH. Star Wars: Battlefront II ranks as my all-time favorite Star Wars game. I strongly believe the new Battlefront will de-throne Call of Duty when it comes out.

I just bought that game a month ago for $15... Worth it, though.

Correction: My straps did not fail, my snaps did

The CRL doesn't seem to specify the width of the strap, but I'd go for half an inch. That's what I did. You really shouldn't be able to see most of those straps anyway.

Sweet deal. I think I saw a picture of your helmet on ARAKYEL's sale thread. If his Magma buckets look anywhere near as good as that, I'll have to consider replacing the EFX What kind of fans are you running? I bought an Evilboy fan kit second hand from a 501st member, which decided not to work when I needed it. My sweat must've caused a short or something.

Thanks Eric. I'll post again over there, but you've answered my question for the most part.

Maine. I hope to join the New England Garrison before 2014.