usaeatt2

Thanks, Ian...I think. Yeah, I wish it were that easy, especially for what $$ I've got in this, becasue I would have jumped on that deal. I saw a $10,900 price tag on the Wiselite Arms replicas...if I had that kind of cash laying around, I probably wouldn't be building props...

Hi Ed, I'm sure others will chime in on this, but here are the basic differences between hero and stunt (as I understand it): Hero has 6 teeth total (3 per side) while stunt has 8 teeth total (4 per side). Hero has 3 bumps on each ear while stunt has 4 bumps on each ear. Hero uses bubble eye lenses while stunt uses flat eye lenses. From what I've read, when ANH was made, 50 stunt helmets/armors were cast. Late in the game, someone decided to have hero helmets. By then, the moulds were in bad shape, so they were reworked and 6 hero helmets were pulled. Some people claim the back of the hero helmet has more of a 'V' shape than the stunt, but evidence of this isn't 100% clear. I've searched countless screen shots and I can only find one shot from the whole movie that supports the 'V' theory. Could just be the camera angle and/or lighting.

David, Yes, my Hovi's are bolt-on. I'm talking about reinforcing the helmet. The bolt doesn't do much good when it's only held by thin ABS.

Thanks again, Glen. It was a good day! I've got one shell left from 2 cases...LOUD!!!

Nice. Thanks, Steve. I was thinking maybe I would glue in a washer, but now I think I'll glue in the washer and back it up/reinforce it with some kind of poor man's fiberglass.

I'm EXTREMELY impressed with KG Gunkote - the ease of application, 0.003-0.004 inch coating thickness, chip and scratch resistance, corrosion resistance and lubricating properties. I can also control texture depending on the pressure/flow setting I use on the airbrush. I'm so impressed that I ordered several more colors including titanium, brushed stainless, mil spec gray/olive drab, gloss and satin black. This stuff is going on almost everything I fabricate from now on! I think I'm going to coat the bolt with the satin titanium color...waiting to see the color in person. I may spray test panels for comparisons. I've got several friends with AR-15's and expensive road racing bicycle parts lining up to have this coating applied...like I needed more work...<palm to forehead>.

Just curious... I've heard the belt should be assembled while curved instead of laying flat since the canvas part (inside) needs to curve more than the plastic part (outside). If assembled flat, it puts a big strain on the two outer rivets. Any trouble with that? It would obviously be way easier to assemble it the way you did it...

Awesome. Thanks, Kyle! - that's exactly the kind of advice I was looking for...

I've seen reinforcement added inside the helmet for Hovi Mic installation on a few builds. Is this necessary? Recommended? What are the pros/cons? I'm guessing there are lots of troopers who have installed mic tips with no reinforcement and have never had any trouble. Just curious because I'm getting close to that stage...

'MERICA!

Thanks Lucas! I can adjust the media flow rate on my media blaster. Last night, I adjusted it for low flow and blasted just the mistake area along the charging handle slot. I filled the small pit in my weld with silver solder, filed it flush, then recoated the whole area with KG gunkote. After baking, I'm quite pleased with the result. "Like it never even happened".

Hi Steve, In my mind, I'm thinking out of the box shiny, but to match the level of shine on the Midwest Garrison TK's I've seen, I'll probably end up with Schwarzenegger size arms from polishing...which means my armor won't fit anymore...

The 4orce of July... Nice. Thanks, Glen!

I think the right eye looks different because it has the infamous stormtrooper "stye in the eye". The stye looks slightly too large though. Most I've seen have a "bump" along the bottom edge, but the eye returns to normal curvature before reaching the inside corner. In other words, the stye doesn't reach the inside corner nearest the nose. That's tough to describe! Then again, maybe it's just an odd angle with the photo. Other than that, it looks really nice to me. Dude, you nailed it with the hand painted details! Nice work! Good job with the ear gaps too!

It's a sickness. I know right now I'll end up re-spraying the whole receiver unless somebody comes up with a REALLY compelling reason not to do it... Sometimes, I need input to save me from myself.

OK, it took awhile to get a whole day off with no other obligations so I could play around, uninterrupted, with the KG Industries 2400 Series Gunkote. The process goes as follows: 1) Wear nitrile or latex unpowdered gloves and a respirator for EVERY step (this is nasty, dangerous stuff!). 2) Degrease all parts (I used two cans of non-chlorinated brake cleaner). 3) Media blast parts with CLEAN, 120 grit aluminum oxide. 4) Degrease parts again (just in case any oils got into your aluminum oxide). 5) Suspend parts from stainless wires. 6) Warm parts in the oven to 120 degrees F. 7) Use an airbrush to apply K-PHOS phosphate corrosion inhibitor (also acts as a primer) 8) Warm parts in the oven to 120 degrees F. 9) Use an airbrush to apply KG Gunkote while parts are still warm. 10) Bake parts in the oven at 325 degrees F for 90 minutes. 11) Liberally apply oil to all surfaces while the coating is still warm. 12) Wipe down and enjoy. I have to say, this coating is absolutely AMAZING. It's REALLY TOUGH, which is probably why it was developed for U.S. Navy Seals. It takes a LIBERAL amount of force to scratch it. The coating is infused with Molybdenum, Boron Nitride or PTFE (I guess it's a secret which combination they use), so everything slides together like rubbing satin sheets together. Solvents, including acetone, will not affect it once cured - the only way to remove it is by sanding or sandblasting. I'm pretty sure this is the factory coating for most AR-15's. The coating goes on really nice and it dries INSTANTLY as it hits the warm metal - you'd have to cake it on super heavy to develop a run. Coating thickness is only a few thousandths of an inch, so there's no interference with parts fitting (like powder coated parts) and details like the allen bolt cross hatching are crisp. The BEST feature? It's almost impossible to leave fingerprints on it and it resists dust. The surface feels silky smooth. You'd have to pick up the blaster after handling a big, greasy piece of deep-dish pizza to leave prints on it. As you could imagine, with this many steps, there's a high potential for screwing something up. I made it all the way to step 9 with all the parts before I made a mistake. Of course it was on the biggest part and in the most obvious area... While airbrushing the Flat Black Gunkote on the last part (the receiver), I looked away for a fraction of a second. I allowed the airbrush to drift too close to the part and messed up the coating along the top edge of the charging handle slot. @#$%!&^!!!! Some would say I could just "weather" this area, but everything else is almost perfect, so I'm considering making my E-11 like it's brand-new. Like it would be issued to a new Stormtrooper on the Death Star. No weathering. This means I will likely media blast the entire receiver back to bare metal and start over. Thoughts?

This is pretty much EXACTLY what flashed through my mind while reading Andy's PDF and research thread. Well said, Lucas!

Ian, LOL, yes, try to refrain from using a grinder on your armor. I made some serious modifications with a heat iron and, of course, I chose the most obvious place to experiment with my first attempt. I didn't see any "try in an inconspicuous area first" tags. Definitely clean everything before mixing ABS paste. I even made sure there were no pencil marks on the pieces of ABS. Call it OCD if you must. Brenton, I bought a pack of "micro" sandpaper at Michael's near the model paints. They had "Alpha Abrasives" micro sandpaper in an assortment pack and they also had squares glued to a foam backer. The stuff with the foam was more expensive. I bought the micro sheets and a sheet of 3mm thick "fun foam" in the kids section and made my own sanding pads. I glued the sandpaper to the fun foam with 3M Super 77 spray adhesive. Then I cut out many different shapes and sizes. In all, I think I ended up with at least twice as many micro sanding pads as the more expensive stuff. Tough to see well in the pictures (I wasn't trying to get a good image of the scratches, but rather the modification) but here is a comparison. The red area is where the 80 grit sandpaper scratches are located. The yellow and blue areas are where you can just barely see some heavy scratches. The blue area is where I made the modification. All the sanding was from blending in the modification. The second picture is after polishing. I tried to take the second picture from exactly the same angle. There's absolutely no gloss inside the red area in the first picture, but you can easily see the gloss in the second picture. It looks much better in person. I just kept polishing until it shined like the TK's I saw from the Midwest Garrison at the Chicago Entertainment and Comic Expo. There's hope - it just takes a lot of patience and determination.

Brenton, When I made my ABS paste, I kept messing with it until it was about the consistency of peanut butter - it took an hour or two of stirring and adding small scraps of ABS until it was smooth and thick. My thought is that your paste has too much acetone, and is therefore eating into the area adjacent to the repair. Also, I didn't know any better, so I made some modifications on my faceplate, then sanded with 80 grit sandpaper. On the face. In a HIGHLY visible area. Gazmosis said it's a sin to use anything rougher than 100 grit. Trust me, it took forever to polish those areas. I had to LIGHTLY work out the scratches with progressively finer sandpapers. 100, 240, 320, 400, 600, 1000 and 2000 grit papers. THEN, I started polishing with Novus #3 on 4000 grit paper. I progressed to Novus #3 and #2 on flannel. My faceplate and helmet look like acrylic capped armor now. About twelve hours worth of polishing total. A boatload of work, but ultimately worth all the elbow grease because I can't find the repairs and I know exactly where to look. I'm my own worst critic and I'm quite pleased with the results. Trust me, I'll seriously hesitate before using anything rougher than about 400 grit from now on.

Hi Bailey, you'll definitely want to check out Ericia's AP ANH build. She did an incredible job with a similarly sized build! http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/26674-ericias-ap-anh-tk-build/?hl=+aicire

Little side note here, but it relates to your question... I couldn't find the correct size white elastic for the shoulder straps locally. I found other sizes, but none of it looked substantial enough to hold this critical area properly. After looking at several fabric/craft stores, I decided to cut my losses and include this item on my Trooperbay list. When I received my order from Trooperbay, I was surprised to find the white "elastic" was not really elastic at all. It's white canvas with edge banding. These canvas straps have virtually no stretch. They measure 8.25 inches by 2 inches. I was puzzled at first, but after considering the function of the part, it makes sense... There's A LOT hanging from those two straps. They hold the chest and back together. The shoulders are snapped directly to them. If you strap the arms, they also hang indirectly from the shoulder straps. The kidney, butt and abdomen also hang indirectly from the shoulder straps since those pieces are connected to either the chest or the back. If the shoulder straps were made from stretchy elastic, they'd probably be worn out and sagging in no time. Trooperbay's shoulder straps are made from a white canvas very similar to the canvas used to make the ammo belt. Nylon webbing might also work if you could find white. You might ask what others are using - especially the screen accurate guys.

<Head spinning> And then plan on selling several hundred sets of armor just to break even on your investment...didn't this whole thing start out as a simple art project?

AP is the only choice here. You won't be disappointed.

I would contact Jim (TK6294) directly. From what I've seen, he stands behind his product.

AWESOME!!! Nice work removing that thumbprint. LOL, what's next, bank robbery? You can barely see it and I'm sure another session will erase it completely. Working a large, open area like that with a heat sealing iron is no joke - it takes plenty of patience to do well. I don't hesitate near edges, but an open area is reason for pause. It seems to me the ABS has a bit of "memory", so you have to push it just a little past where you want it to end up. I never thought about the smell... I considered myself lucky the other day when my wife came home from work and I was "baking" E-11 parts in the oven...I thought I was doomed until she said her coworkers couldn't believe what I was doing. "You told your coworkers?" She said, "Oh ya, nobody else has a husband baking gun parts in their oven. I think it's cool." Looks like I'm golden! <swaggers back out to the garage>