Dark CMF

I guess since we're talking about the belt, do you have the next level of covers for the rivets? It looks as if yours has a single raised surface, which you've riveted through. There should be another raised bump, which would cover those rivets. Just a dime sized, rounded piece of ABS glued in place will do.

Also, since it was mentioned, I'll add that I think the thumbprint removal would be a pretty solid CRL change. Far more so than a notch or something like that, but I digress.

Okay... I may not be the one that started the "remove the thumbprint from the right bicep" craze, but I certainly did so in a build thread that turned out to be a pretty high-profile thing around here, so I'm going to go ahead and weigh in on this for you. As both Eric and Steve have said, you've done a good job with damage control - even though I don't think that the damage was anything significant. It would have looked perfectly fine, but I realize that you're not trying to be perfectly fine, so I'll tell you what I did and maybe it will be of use to you. For starters, the heat sealing iron that you found is indeed the tool that you want to use for this job. As I was reading through your thread updates I saw you make mention of a heat gun and the possibility that you were considering using it for the thumbprint removal and no joke, I lost my breath for a moment, my heart skipped a beat. I was thinking in my head "Oh, God... Please, no. After The Walking Dead tonight, there's no way I can handle this. Please, tell me he didn't do that!!!" I was fully thankful to see that you didn't. LoL. The heat sealing iron is a tricky one. If you don't know where to look, you'd possibly never find it. As you discovered, it is typically a hobby store type of thing. Particularly, one that specializes in RC planes, as it is primarily used to shrink the skin to the frames of the aircraft. The "sock" for covering it is a nice idea, but in my own experience it was a pain in the backside to secure to the iron so, since my iron is Teflon coated, I opted to not use it. That's an option only if your iron is Teflon coated. If yours isn't... USE THE SOCK!!! Before actually taking the iron to the bicep, I took a piece of "spare" ABS and went through about an hour of "practice" and getting a feel for it. I applied a lot of return edges to flat pieces of ABS, and I removed them shortly after that. Once I felt at least comfortable with how the ABS reacted to the iron at different heat settings, and what level of heat it would take to soften the ABS until it was pliable, I took it to the bicep. One thing to remember if you follow this same approach: Spare ABS has not been vacuum formed. It is the full thickness of the ABS sheet. The bicep has been vacuum formed and therefore, it is not quite as thick as the sheet. It will take less heat (as I'll explain momentarily) and will happen a little bit quicker as a result of the vacuum forming process. Also, in between each of these heat iron "sessions" I allowed the ABS to cool back to room temperature for 20 - 30 minutes. Initially, I set the heat to what I would call "Low-Mid." It wasn't on "Low" but it was not half-way up. Maybe 3/8 of the way up. I felt like that got the iron up to an appropriate temperature pretty quickly, as I could feel the heat through the bicep and watched the thumbprint start to push up a little too quickly for my comfort level, so I took the iron out of the bicep and turned it down to just about 1/4 of the way up. To actually begin pressing the thumbprint out, I used the flat surface of the iron against the entire thumbprint - again, until I felt it softening up and flattening a bit. I then moved to the tip and edges of the iron and starting at the bottom edge of the thumbprint, I pressed against the thumbprint's ridge/outline until it was softened up, and then moved on to the next section of the outline. It is important to remember that the ABS has a sort of memory. It wants to go back to the vacuum-formed shape. The thumbprint is not going to go away in one session. It is going to take several sessions to remove it completely (mine is still there a bit, via hands-on inspection, honestly). All you want to do is to essentially shift that memory in your favor each time you go through this. If you turn the heat up too high, your ABS will turn into soup. It will wilt, it will collapse, and you will cry. Once I had the "hard edge" of the thumbprint softened up and relaxed some, I took the flat surface of the iron and the upswept tip and used it to push up the actual thumbprint itself, working in pie piece wedges until it was mostly flattened. After that I simply put the entire flat surface on it and pressed it to meet the shape of the surrounding bicep piece. My final bit of work was to once again switch to the front edge of the iron, and "roll" it across the entire area, slowly, several times to even it out. Hopefully, this will help you (and others) out, as I'm pretty sure that I've given a far more in-depth explanation of the process here than I did in my actual build thread. LoL. If you have any other questions, feel free to post them and I'll do what I can to assist further! You've got this man... It's looking good. Believe me when I say that the first armor build for most of us probably had moments where we wanted to cry because we were sure that we'd just destroyed a piece somehow, but we're all here as Legion TKs now so no matter what we did, we found a way (through FISD in all likelihood) to correct it and achieve Legion approval or higher.

Hey Jake! Glad to see you've come to the serious Trooper hang-out. I know you're used to sitting around and lounging, but those days are gone. Feel free to stand around though. LoL. Go ahead and cut the corners on your belt to 45 degrees, too. Looking good though.

Excited!!! Not too much, no big spoilers. The first thing we see is a Stormtrooper... (Well, after the desert) Well done, folks. Well done.

That's six hours and one minute from the time I'm posting this. Source: http://movies.cosmicbooknews.com/content/star-wars-force-awakens-trailer-said-hit-1015-am-est

Inform Lord Vader We Have Dinner Ready!

Just another thought, if you get the piece from Rob, you will know that it will work with the TD pieces that came with your kit.

Happy Thanksgiving to all who are celebrating today!!

Tell Rob you didn't get the PVC. I'm sure he'll square you away. Then, you can use that same spray paint above, that StarSaber used. Same paint that I used. Although, it might very well be cheaper to buy a piece of Gray PVC plumbing pipe than to buy the paint, which isn't expensive either.

Here's the answer to your tossing and turning. Happy Thanksgiving! http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/26477-what-we-know-about-strapping-snaps-rivets-etc/?view=getnewpost

Off to a good, clean start!! Brian is absolutely right about the modifications. LoL... One leads to another, and another, and another... You've seen it. LoL

Looks like you did a good job with it. I was going to suggest the Dremel for the trimming of the assembled forearm when you got to the cover strips. The "extra" time and frustration that are there right now, are going to make a huge difference in the end!

It is probably easier on the inner piece especially, to simply line up the elbow end, and trim the wrist a bit further.

Great job, Eric. They look beautiful!! Well done, indeed.

At your height and weight, you'd probably have no real issue with most of the armor kits that are available through the vetted list here at FISD, although AP might be a bit on the thin side as it usually gets a bit tight on troopers with a waist around 33 - 34 inches or so. AM and RT-Mod are going to be too big for you, but you could order one and spend an extra amount of work cutting it down to size and then re-shaping it. I wouldn't do that, but you could if you wanted to.

Making good progress my friend!!! I have to shamefully admit that somehow, I had un-checked the block to receive the notifications of new posts in the threads that I follow. I have been wondering why nobody was posting to anything. Not sure how I managed that, but I clearly did. BAD ATTACHE!! BAD!!!! Apologies to you, for my (completely ignorant) absence when you needed some help. Won't happen again. LoL

Check out some of the build threads, Brian. Here is a Hasbro Conversion done by Gmrhodes13: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/20496-hasbro-e-11-conversion/ You can link to my own DoopyDoos build using the link in my signature. Each of those build types requires a unique bit of work to be done, depending on how much you want to customize them. There are a lot of other great examples of both of these types of builds that do not have as much customization as these two do.

Not a case of TMI, guaranteed. Yes, if you can list your height/weight and waist measurement, that will help everyone to offer some suggestions as to which currently available kits would work the best for you to build.

Awesome tutorial, Steve. I want to go and buy a bucket with eight sets of ears to try it out. Thanks for putting this together and sharing it.

Congratulations Artie!! Persistence pays off in the end! Welcome to the ranks, Trooper!

Greetings Jack, and welcome to the FISD!!! Where are you located? We've more than likely got a local Garrison nearby that would be able to help you out on your desire to become a member of Vader's Fist!! As for SDS... you've already seen what the overwhelming majority of FISD would have to say about it. There are much better armors available for substantially cheaper. Is it good quality? It is probably better than some other commercially available costumes. Is it worth that price tag? I'll say again: You've already seen what the overwhelming majority of FISD would have to say about it. You've come to the right place to find out about all things TK, before you went ahead and made any purchases, so you will be alright, I'm sure. Research is your friend in this hobby, and you're off to a good start. Good luck, and don't hesitate to ask questions!

If I'm understanding correctly, you need to adjust/fix/create some return edges. This is a relatively simple process with an iron of any kind (household, hobby/sealing) if you start on low heat, and keep some non-fuzzy fabric in between if the iron is not Teflon coated. As for the CA glue spots, you should be able to remove those using a Novus polishing kit, if you follow the instructions. I don't think that you'll need to worry about painting if you go that route. Good luck, and keep us posted!

Very exciting stuff Felix!! Will be following along also. Nothing quite as exciting as brown boxes - outside of putting on that bucket, eh?

It took me just about a year from the time that I signed up here at FISD, to get my TKID from the Legion. This hobby is not an overnight sensation, so patience is (as difficult as it feel at times) a necessity.