T-Jay

Congratulations Ruben on getting the EIB badge

Very cool progress. Power cylinders are looking like coming fresh from the factory . I like the fact you left a little of the red wire visible. The curved counter display is much more realistic and also creates some kind of zooming-effect to the numbers. Really nice.

Hi Brett, can you post a link for us? Finding the droids we are looking for, seems easier than finding something on the RPF

Very nice John - especially the soldering on the red wire And I like the fact you made those resistors from the green stuff, too. Good luck for the paint work...

Have to say I LOVE this mod, because its exactly what I had in mind for my next build. You can be proud of your work. It looks like the real thing By the way: the guy who used the wire in that gap on the scope front was me

Any ideas what happens when the people at the customs office ask you to open all three boxes in front of them? There will be a fully assembled TK helmet on the desk and it'll get hard to explain, this has nothing to do with Star Wars. 2 years ago when I thought of buying armor overseas, I was told to avoid ANY Star Wars-wording in such a case. But I doubt it'll work with that completed helmet... Any thoughts?

Good to finally see some color on that beauty Would recommend to place the counter a bit higher and 1 or 2 cm towards the rear. When you paint the golden part of the counter, will you also paint the brass screw head in the grip? Trigger guard looks good. What a shame you can't get gloss black for the grip. Hope your work-around with the semi-gloss black will turn out fine. Any plans to add weathering?

Regarding the weathering on the counter: can you use the same technique here that was used on the scope?

John, it looks like you really studied that power cylinders tutorial . Thanks for the kudos and I am looking forward seeing your completed power cylinders with all the wires and some paint... Nice work so far.

Hi Rebecca and welcome to the "white zone". You already have the most important tool for such a build and now it is up to you, how accurate you want it to be in the end... Do you aim for Bapty style, factory new appearance or a weathered blaster?

And don't forget about the blaster. Maybe you want to start a scratch build for that in the meantime...

Hey John, very good workaround! Would have done it exactly the same way. Until somebody with a real Sterling chimes in, here are the readings from my resin blaster (not claiming these are accurate, but at least you got something to continue with your build). The height was 12 mm from the receiver tube to the highest point on top. Hope this helps...

Interesting find! Checked the aurebesh alphabet to see what's written on this helmet, but couldn't identify the letters...

Yellowing plastic is a point, which I am very concerned about at TK armors. Fortunately it only appears on the covers stripes and no vac-formed armor parts. In your case it seems like the maker had used some different kind of plastic sheet to make these cover stripes from. That is the only explanation for having nothing else gone yellowing. If your able to remove the affected stripes, you could replace them with new ones. If you can't removed them, I would stick with Patrick's plan and paint them - although finding an exactly matching color might become a problem...

Brian, very sorry to hear this, man. Sounds like not the silver paint is the problem, but the black one. Doesn't seem to be good on any surface. Is the black spray paint also from Tamiya (TS6, TS14, TS29, TS40)? Is the silver you used TS17? Did you use a plastic primer for the resin parts before adding the first color? Is there any indication of an expiry date on your spray cans? Do you have any other black spray paint available to test on a leftover part?

Your biceps parts will be made of 2 halves with cover stripes at their joints. Have a look inside the biceps. If there is enough material left under the cover strip, you can "open" the biceps and re-glue it with a bit more space for your arm. This will of course be limited. For more, you will have to add that extra piece of plastic.

Major differences: - Stunt has flat eye lenses, hero has bubble lenses. - Stunt has bigger frown (mouth/nose) than hero. - Hero has a deeper brow, very close to the eyes. When carefully studying Stormtrooper pictures, you will soon find out, these variations make then have different "faces". But none is better than the other. While the heros were used for close-ups with the cameras, the stunts were made for the background. But that all got mixed up very often. You'll even find screen shots with a stunt and a hero next to each other. In the end its fully up to your personal taste...

Would suggest to place it on (or under) your blaster, instead of the armor. This way you can "aim" for things you want to catch and it doesn't distract from the armor.

Compared with the classic E-11, some parts have been moved to the other side. Due to moving the magazine and magazine well to the opposite side, I doubt real Sterlings can be used for a conversion any longer. The same can be said for softair guns or paintball guns (or whatever has been made to look like a real Sterling). It won't work anymore and at the same time it might make life a bit easier for us, as we don't have any risk of shipping deactivated firearms across the world and struggle about conflicts with the law just for our hobby. However, the mirrored appearance of the TFA blaster will (in my opinion) mainly lead to resin builds and 3D-prints. Yes, after a while somebody will surely offer an aluminum version, but the majority of builds will be resin or scratch builds (unless Disney might offer a licensed kit for us). And who knows, maybe I have to offer a different type Completion Sets, specifically designed for the TFA blaster...

Hi Matt, would say it also depends a bit on what type of trooper you are planning to build. RS for example recommends to choose PVC when people order their "Move Along" sandtrooper helmet. ABS seems to be a good choice for the cleaner armors and some makers even offer different types of ABS (like standard or acrylic capped - for a more glossy look) When I struggled with that decision, it was very useful to actually see some armors in real. My intention was to build a clean white trooper, but when I saw one of the glossy versions, it appeared to me as being a bit too much. In the end I took the standard ABS (as the screen used suits had) and here you can see, how it looks (added some light weathering later) http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/28549-fully-finished-anh-stunt-tk-15mm-abs-from-troopermaster-with-some-modifications/

Hi Mathew, have you already seen this? http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/gallery/album/40-sterling-l2a3-mk-4/ Hope this helps...

Well, actually I only mentioned to keep the T-tracks and the grip without silver weathering, as these are not made of metal. But your 2nd weathering looks more realistic than the first one did. Might be an idea to dry-brush some silver to heavily stressed areas/parts of the gun like front sight guard, end cap, muzzle and folding stock butt.

Good job on the frown! Regarding the brow: Depending on what specific type of stormtrooper you build, you can check the "Photo References - Gallery" (link is on top of this page) for screen shots. On my trooper I did it like this: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/28549-fully-finished-anh-stunt-tk-15mm-abs-from-troopermaster-with-some-modifications/

A far more detailed thread of the same build has been posted here on the FISD already: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/31068-clints-build-thread-tk-61281/ But that is the TFA armor and it is much more work to build this than the classic TK armor. The classic troopers don't need any bondo at the joints and no white paint.

Hi Chris and welcome to the FISD. Here is a link to the ANH Stunt frown reference. Would suggest to enlarge the openings a bit. http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/gallery/album/36-helmet-frown-a-new-hope-stunt/ Regarding the cut in your cap: just add the brow and you'll see where it ends in the traps. A deeper cut allows the brow to be a bit longer.