stormtrooperguy

i still need a ribbed neckseal for my eib pics.

I used plumbers epoxy putty to build up a surface to glue to, then hot glued my lenses in. My old helmet had a single piece of plastic that was taped in, but my new lenses are scraps from clone helmets, so they are 2 separate eye shaped pieces. The putty cures fast, so it was a pretty easy way to do it.

Interesting to see how he puts them together. For those that have his helmets... are they actually built with paper fasteners and hot glue, or is that just for demonstration purposes? I like his vacuum forming machine. And I need to get one of those hand held 1" belt sanders!

!!!! 1 week per coat? I know I'm impatient, but that's surprising. I typically go through the sand/paint cycle 3-4 times in a single night. I let the paint dry for around 30 minutes then wet sand and have at it again.

beautiful. the one thing i don't like about my sterling is that it's got no bolt and the receiver tube is solid steel. There's about 1" left at the end with a small piece of spring, but the rest of that channel is solid and the lever is welded on. it looks nice enough, but the poor thing was badly chopped up in the process of being deactivated.

coolmodels / arsenal props sets up a booth at a local con every year. all of their packs have "official" logos.

wow, i can't believe this high end armor is made on such a low end rig. i was using similar equipment when i started doing clones and found it to be just slow and awkward. once people realize how much goes into the actual production of this stuff it changes your whole world view. it costs me around $175 to make a clone armor kit, depending on what i paid for plastic that time. it can be +/- $50 depending on size of order and costs of the day. it takes me around 2.5 hours if i'm going solo or around 1.5 hours if i have a helper, per kit. if you add in mold repairs, trash pickup, blades, etc... we're looking at as much as $250 per suit cost. anything over that goes toward future projects / system maintenance / recouping investment / profit.

i've only got the 1 stormtrooper helmet. i've got 5 clones and 4 mandalorians, but just the one TK.

a little bird told me about this and i had considered flying down, but airfare sucks right now.

isn't the AM on the large side? one of the smaller kits (ata, ap) would probably come closer to fitting. we've got a tiny little TK who wears FX and it all fits. she cut a LOT off, but it worked.

22 pounds!!! holy magnets batman!

i've been on stage with mark hamill. i am 5' 9". he was not as tall as me. i tend to agree that 5.0 is a bit on the small side. i've seen it work. the armor can be trimmed and fitted well. but she would always be getting short jokes.

custom mandos aren't 501st acceptable in any way, shape or form, no matter how well done they are. i'm not particularly familiar with the mercs standards. basing on fett-fit, everything seems too big. the vest needs to be really tight fitting and tailored to you, and the armor then needs to fit that just right. otherwise it comes out all wacky looking.

my first boba suit was HUGE on me. it took a lot of tweaking to get right you'll have to forgive my canonness... to me everything is boba, jango or vizsla. boba's armor vest stops at about the belly button, and the armor is a bit shorter than that. it doesn't come all the way down to the waist. i think that's why yours looks big. i'm expecting the armor to stop a lot higher on the chest. the shoulders on boba start way further down on the arm... they don't stick up over the top of the shoulder like that. if you want to stray from that there is no reason not to. but, i figured it was worth mentioning. good call on adjusting the visor. that will make the helmet look a lot better. i like the rifle! the color scheme works well on it.

i posted on the RPF about it when i needed one and got contacted by someone who had a couple of sale. mine was plastic case / small eagle, but close enough for my tastes.

in the grand scheme of things, i don't think gino's t track is unreasonable. i had the saberfreak stuff already when he came out with those, but had timing been different i'd have gone that way. by that point i had close to $1000 into my E-11 already, so what's a little more for really good t-track?

the fit of the armor seems off... like the plates are too big for you. the vest also seems really loose... most mando vests are tight. my boba and vizsla ones are "suck it in and don't breath" tight

what are you using them for? (clamping, connecting things, etc...) the pull force is more important to me than the size of the magnet. do they say on the pack anywhere how much they pull? the ones i use for clamping are just shy of 8 pounds each.

mine didn't fit together perfectly either. it all averages out in the end. once the sides are screwed in it will hold it together.

Tonight was my first troop as a stormy since Sept 2007 (which was technically a sandtrooper. For clean stormtrooper I go way back to feb 2006!!). Gotta fix the belt boxes and shorten up the straps on the thighs. Other than that it was a success! Nothing fell apart!

ah, somehow i had it in my head that they should be aligned with the last row of boxes. easy fix

how so? too high up, too close in? i was thinking they should come down a little bit.

First fitting. Not quite to EIB spec yet, but good enough for basics. Things still to do: My neck seal isn't ribbed... it's recycled from my clone costume. I need to adjust the fit on the back of the knees a bit... can't bend my legs quite as much as I'd like. The butt can is too heavy on the cloth belt and makes the belt sag. Gotta reinforce / support that a bit. Overall it's fitting pretty well. I'll break it in tomorrow night at the One Man Star Wars Show.

i hate you stormtrooper thigh! after all that fuss, it turns out that i really just misjudged the size of the shim. i need another 1/2" diameter. so at this point i'm just cheating it by making the finishing strip down the middle wider. reglued, ready to paint tonight. i put a bunch of the strapping together. there's a bit more strapping to do tonight... i got frustrated at the thigh last night and didn't finish fitting it. so close!

I've got an affiliate program with K&J Magnetics now... if anyone buys magnets through this URL I get a cut, and you don't pay any more than you ordinarily would. So, feel free to help out