Talan Kain

I have no idea what the SPF 25 stamp is on the mag well but unless I am very much mistaken the F59 on the mag is a Fazakerly stamp, quite a rare thing to find, if it is a Fazakerly stamp it means the mag at least was made there between 1956 and 1960 when Fazakerley’s production was permanently closed. they made about 165,000 guns there in that time. It would be interesting to know the serial on the other side of the mag well, especially given the finish, if it is prefixed UF or US you may have part of a British Military Issue there..

RPF too, I picked up my M19 there.. Failing getting hold of the originals there are some good casts around and a lot of the screen-used were casts, they weren't all originals..

M38's are pretty scarce, I was lucky with mine but searching for them on the net for months didn't yield much.. People have used these, then filled and sanded them to fix the angles and gap before painting them, you can see the differences here http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/gallery/image/2669-scopes-compare/

When I first started looking into this I thought that a symmetrical helmet would be the obvious choice, once I had learned the originals were asymmetrical it didn't seem right to me and I thought I wanted idealised. After a while I realised I was wrong This is a thing sculpted by hand and eye, the asymmetry is part of it's beauty, this was confirmed to me 100% (although by then I was in no doubt whatsoever anyway) when I first held my TM faceplate in my hands and started cutting out the eyes, I had to stop myself over-exaggerating the eye bump which is what I found myself wanting to do. If you ever do move onto producing armour from your CAD designs I think you'll have more interest in something that mimics the originals as closely as you possibly can than in an idealised armour. I'd suggest leaving symmetry to the clones but it's just opinion and it's your baby, it'll be an interesting project to watch however you go about it

RS and TM were my two to choose between, I went with TM. Wait was around 9 weeks from initial contact to delivery so not bad at all and it's now sitting in a box upstairs as I am too scared to touch it I'll start building it this week, The TM kit is cheaper than the Jedi-Robe and there are pictures of the Jedi Robe armour on here, don't go there. RS is a little more expensive but a £100 spread covers them all, even including Jedi Robe's current sale. You have to wear the armour so it's not worth trying to save on the armour when two of the best are only a small amount more than one of the worst.

Whoa Excellent job, that's a beautiful doopy! If I was going to be picky I'd mention the small amount of metallic weathering on the grip, the grip is shiny plastic on a Sterling but that's a small thing on this blaster, nice work, don't drop it!

This forum really needs it's 'likes/rep' function activated, it's IPB so it's inbuilt, you can have the 'up/down' version which causes problems or just the 'likes' version where you can just show you appreciate a post, nothing negative is possible. Over the time I have been here I'd have 'liked' a hell of a lot of posts, 95% would have been the "How-To"s and other technical posts but this would have got one too.. We have Star Wars stuff on our tree too but no Vader topper, I'm jealous Happy Xmas all

Ninja'd by Tolo

The armour and blaster are ROTJ (tour suit?), you're building an ANH suit so there will be considerable differences between them

Congrats on the RS! I agonised over which armour to go with, I very quickly narrowed it down to between RS and TM and after looking through all the Centurion applications, TM won out for my tastes but I eventually want to do a sandy too, so whether I go with TM again or the RS for the sandy I dunno, I'll agonise all over again when the time comes.. I just heard that my TM should be arriving next week and I'll be building mine between the kitchen and living room too, I'm scared Dunno why but I love reading about girls becoming troopers, we need more, I tried to persuade Mrs Kain but she's not having any of it Good luck with your build and hopefully the shoulder will heal soon..

The listing is wrong, as are you lot, this is another 'lost' screen-used helmet! I'm going to buy it now, please I hope nobody snapped it up while I was writing this!

Not sure quite what you mean Vern, you are losing your stepmother through illness? Not a trooper yet as I am still on the list for armour but as a normal person who's been through it I don't think you can prepare for it, if it is somebody you don't want to lose then preparation isn't going to help in the slightest, it'll hurt like hell and anyone telling you different is wrong. The pain will heal quicker than you think though and once you have accepted the inevitable you'll view that person you have lost differently, they really are still with you if you remember them, their past advice is still there, you anticipating what they would say and how they would react is still there. If you understood them properly they can still advise you, they do it from your knowledge of how they would act. My grandfather still has a major influence on how I act, him passing 17 years ago makes no difference, my utmost respect for him and my memories of how he acted in certain situations, my knowledge of how he would act in certain situations guides me. In this respect he is still with me and always will be.

It's a possibility but definitely not a certainty, not that it really matters. There have been a few infamous murky 'backroom' arms deals in British history (we are far from alone in this BTW ) "Arms to Iraq" being one of the better known ones after reports of arms sales in the 1980s to Iraq by British companies lead to a famous judicial inquiry (the Scott Report) and for around 14 years worth of records to mysteriously vanish around the time of this inquiry is a little suspicious.. Most of these records will have been legitimate sales but all arms producing countries are known for backing certain sides 'on the quiet' in foreign wars when it suits them politically only to have it blow up in their faces when the political scene shifts, such as the US, Britain, Switzerland, China etc backing and arming the Mujahideen in Afghanistan against the USSR during the Cold War and early backing of Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, history is littered with examples like these and it's entirely possible some Sterlings were involved I suppose. This is just possible Sterling history, not politics and sorry for the slight thread derailment, back to topic.... My Sterling deac is a re-imported KR although it's seen some action by the looks of it and has been repainted a few times, by the looks of it the last coat was hammerite or something similar, there is residue of a wrinkle finish on a small part of the stock. I am thinking about stripping the paint and redoing it but in what I am not sure yet, I can get hold of Suncorite 259 but it's hazardous and difficult to use, I know it's also old stock so it might not be that stable, it's possibly even unusable. I don't want to recreate the oven baked wrinkle finish because it's not really to my taste personally and I'd quite like it to look like a British military issue so a very slightly textured but basically smooth matte paint might be the final choice. The ex domestic military US and UF prefixes seem to be quite difficult to get hold of but I am trying, in the meantime a lookalike will do Just as it's difficult in most shots to see the fingernail and palm texturing on the gloves used in the film because it's black on black, it's difficult to tell 100% if the E11s had any textured finish or if they were smooth matte. From what I can tell they were smooth, I'm almost certain of that but wouldn't bet my house on it, Bapty is a British company too so it is entirely possible that the Sterlings they hired out for the film were sourced as military surplus from the British Forces. I don't know this to be correct, just supposition on my part although I'd like to know though if anybody has any knowledge of this?

They were painted with Suncorite 259 which is a smooth matte/flat black for British MOD specifications, although some British issue weapons ended up with crinkle buttcaps due to a relaxation of the specs after a mess-up with an order for India the main weapon was always Suncorite 259 so smooth matte finishes for the British military issues, never wrinkle or crackle finishes..

I don't know much, serial numbers beginning US or UF were British military issue, KR was Sterling commercial for export and there are some prefix 'S' too. Records after 1974 are lost as far as I know, apparently under dodgy circumstances.. The book Guns Of Dagenham is the best resource there is regarding the weapons made by Sterling Arms 1940-1989 but it's out of print and quite spendy

Jesus and I thought the way they deactivated Sterlings in the UK was an abomination, at least ours remain in one piece, externally anyway Good luck with your project Zach

42 but might as well divide that by three for how I feel TBH. On the wait list for armour like a lot of you and also funnily enough my lad is now a bit older than the age I was when I first saw Star Wars and getting into it himself. Sod this growing up and becoming 'responsible' lark, I'm still an excited kid, just a bigger one than I was in 1977

I want to do a sandy too, want both TK and TD.. The best thing I can suggest is look through the RS and TM EIB and Centurion threads here and see which look you prefer, both good looking armour, both different. You'll see them clean here obviously but imagination can do the rest, along with the Police Officer and SWAT drives on MEPD to get a look at them dirty.. Both TM and RS do TK and TD details so you can just choose

I'm by now way on this planet an expert but I'd agree, the heels look too high to me too..

Report the listing to eBay stating it's a stolen image and that the 501st is the copyright holder, might be better coming from staff but anyone can do it really. Link to the original image in the report and eBay should remove the listing and kill the auction..

Nice shot! Is that the Marigold hatching on the rubber? The lighting was in reality only slightly different on the two pics I took for post #21, I moved a few feet away from the window and retook the picture with the light behind me shining straight onto the back of the glove, yet they look like different gloves..

I still think they were Margold Industrial G17K gloves, even on the blu-ray captures it will be difficult to pick out black on black detail from a distance and they'll look smooth, the lighting in these scenes isn't brilliant and I would imagine it wouldn't capture the detailing perfectly. You could also wonder how well the transfer process onto blu-ray was done, it would have an effect on trying to pick out minute detail, especially when it's black on black, moving and at a distance. These are Marigolds, the pic was taken admittedly only with an 8mp camera so it gets a little grainy out of direct light but it's comparable to those blu-ray captures. The glove from an 12" distance right next to a window in daylight ------------- Same glove from 18" in the same room but out of direct sunlight ----------- Those blu-ray shots we are studying were (even at their closest) taken from a lot further than 18" away and these were still, the actors were moving.. We'll probably never know for 100% certain and anyway I hate rubber, I really wish they'd used leather

From my understanding it is approvable, it has been used in successful EIB and centurion applications but is disliked for reasons that are all over the forum, it isn't what it is claimed to be and it will take work to get it up to standard. There is better and cheaper to be found elsewhere

Hi Tehya Also very new to this so I can relate, I can't add much to Tims post above, we probably not anything you're going to want to hear anyway, so apologies in advance The advice given by Tim is golden, this is kinda second time around for me insomuch as I used to lurk this site and the UK Garrison site 8-9yrs ago drooling over armour I knew I couldn't afford and there wasn't the availability and quality back then that there is now, at least that's how it seemed to me at the time so life took it's turns and I stopped lurking only to find myself at it again a few months ago. The sheer amount of information here can seem overwhelming but you'll start narrowing it down automatically as you read, I fairly quickly narrowed my armour down to two possibles by reading this topic and looking through the EIB and Centurion applications as they give you a very detailed view of what the armour looks like and an idea of fit, I found those threads invaluable as they give the armour make with the troopers height and weight so you can get an idea of how good a fit it might be for you. I have chosen my armour and am now waiting, using that time to read more and concentrate on getting the other bits organised, I'm currently painting boots, have a blaster due for delivery on Tuesday and have been collecting tools, paints, soft parts etc. in the meantime. The level of knowledge and experience on here (and on your local garrison site, don't forget to join that) can have the effect of making you feel out of your depth, I do too but on the other hand it is reassuring and on the whole I haven't seen many other hobby/fan/lifestyle forums where the help is so forthcoming and experienced people are so tolerant of newbies like us and so willing to help. I'd put money on somebody in your local garrison being willing to help you with your build too so don't worry about that too much right now One thing I noticed is costs mount up quickly, there are costs I hadn't taken into account or had just brushed off as 'irrelevant' in comparison to the investment in the white stuff, I was wrong I'm keeping a detailed list of items and cost including delivery/import charges etc and it's getting to the point where I don't really want to total it up, this is definitely not a cheap thing to get into and yes, I may have been able to do some things cheaper but at the end of the day I'd rather spend the money right in the first place and then not be left with the feeling later on down the line that I could have spent the money better. I have made one mistake already on this score, I went too cheap on my boots, they will need to be replaced but they were only really intended to keep me going until TKBoots have their stock problems sorted, however once I realised just what a finish it is possible to get on black leather with Angelus paint I am wishing I had bought better boots to start with. So boiling this wall of text down, all the information you could possibly want is here, I found it helpful to break it down into chunks and concentrate on one aspect at a time. I concentrated just on armour and the EIB and Centurion applications first, that really is an excellent resource when trying to choose armour, then I started looking at blasters until that decision was made, right now I am looking at threads showing weathering and other techniques to 'finish' it. The blaster is definitely something I could have done cheaper but I am happy with the choice I made. Good luck with everything and don't forget to enjoy every step of the process, I am enjoying reading and learning, enjoying painting my boots (I didn't think I would) and am like a kid waiting for Christmas now I have a firm date for E11 delivery. This whole TK thing? I don't remember being this excited about anything for a very long time

I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again I just thought doopy's looked better than that so was surprised but they're crap pictures and I'd had a few