ShavedWookie

Two updates in one day! Time for shins! My first "Aren't you a little BIG for a stormtrooper" moment (I knew it was coming). My calves are quite large, to put it into perspective, I ordered size 13 Jackboots (for my TI:RP), and they had to be widened at the top. The V shape of leather fits in well, but shows how round (not fat) my legs are. The side views of the shin armour look fine (thanks to Oota's Awesome Armour). All shots of the armour include me wearing undersuit & TK Boots. The front and back just look wrong though. Also - it's really hard getting a shot of the back of your own calf! Just saying. My problem with the front is the overall shape. It appears far too tapered (too me). Should I loosen up the ankle, which would look a bit off at the bottom - but have a better taper, or leave as is? The back will have to be shimed, at the moment I guess it will just be a wider overlap / coverstrip, again with a funny angle. The back of the piece without my leg in it showing the gap (I haven't over-trimmed. Promise) On the upside, it is really comfortable, stairs & sitting are no problem. I have only done one shin so far, I'm not going to start righty until I can sort out lefty. Help me fellow stormtroopers, you're my only hope. (Actually you're not, anyone - TK or otherwise, please feel free to chime in).

Onwards!! Gluing! A quick rundown on my method for gluing - probably nothing new for most that read this, but maybe, just maybe this is the first build thread that someone is reading. If so please feel free to copy anything you want - but only after you have read through 20-30-40 more threads (most of which will be better than this one). Anyway! I have glued both biceps & the left forearm already, perfecting my technique - so to speak. I was able to do a whole bicep in one go, but due to lack of resources (buy more magnets - always), I have done the forearms one side at a time. I start by taping inside the piece, so it stays (roughly) in shape, and cutting the cover strip to length. I tape the cover strip on to determine the best position. And mark with pencil the edges of the cover strip on the forearm. Pencil marks are there - just hard to see with bad photography. More tape along the pencil marks gives me an area that is easy to sand & apply glue without going into the 'good' plastic. Apply glue - following directions leave for a short time to tack up. I spread the glue with a bit of scrap ABS. Clamp & magnets. I am using ratchet clamps here, I have tried spring loaded clamps but find they move quite a bit. With magnets, I use a couple of bar style, although not so strong as the round rare earth magnets, the bar's provide a larger, even area of pressure. As can be seen here, other magnets can be added to increase the 'pull'. Not all that interesting - I am just procrastinating the start of my shins. So far I have used the excuse that I need boots to fit them properly. But now I have boots. More to follow.

It was my understanding, as you state, that there should be no elastic for ESB, or at least use white. But I just looked at the CRL and it only says this: No mention of shoulder / bicep elastic at all. Has this been changed recently? And if it is not excluded, is it allowed? Anyway... On to more practial things. Gluing coverstrips today!

Progress (I think). Hopefully this will be my last post before I get to glue stuff!!! I have finished both arms, and have tapped them roughly as I envisage strapping them. And while being worn. Photo's taken by my partner, preceded by quite possibly one of the wierdest questions I have asked her in the last 12 1/2 years: "Will you tape my shoulders to my back please?". She is not a huge Star Wars fan, though she did come and watch both marathons with me on May 3rd/4th. I am wearing nomex gloves and my compression top that is part of my undersuit (and a t-shirt, cos there's a lot to compress & no one needs to see that ). As far as how they feel, the left is great, the right feels a bit tight - especially the bicep. I am going to try and make it rounder (?) and reduce the return on the lower inside. I did it with the left and it made a huge difference. The shoulders are not the usual OGA ones, these are an XL pair Oota was good enough to pull for me. I am really happy with the length, I think they overlap the biceps nicely, but on the side views they seem to flare out a bit. I intend to leave them until finish the chest & back, hopefully the will look more approriate then. Any feedback would be fantastic, as always. Hopefully I can move on to the legs soon!

If we titled individual posts rather than whole threads this would be called: A litany of failures. or So close and yet... or How to overcome those little things in life. or Wookies secret project - revealed! Some of the things in here are a warning to future builders, some are just me being honest, most aren't a big deal in the long run. D-Ring Although the DD comes with a D-ring now, I though it looked a bit small / pathetic so I purchased a screw clip and cut off the screw. Unfortunatley it leaves the gap off-centre & it looks not good on the back of the blaster. Next time I go shopping, I'll try and find some chain with correct size links & cut one of them. Scope rail I was slightly dreading this part of the build, metalwork is another skill to learn and as such I was planning on putting it off until the last. But, I happened to see a piece of aluminium while shopping for something else, so I grabbed it. It is 20mm x 3mm. I decided to put the front bend in first, as I thought it would be the more difficult task. I reasoned that once the front was bent I could measure back to where the sight was and cut the length correctly. I also chose to bend a longer piece that I needed & cut it back. I started by cutting a groove with a hacksaw about 1/3 of the way through. I gripped with a pair of pliers, and bent. Then this happened As you can see something went wrong. I think I tried to bend it too far, or didn't cut deep enough. So I tried again, ending up with this. My secret project. I promise there will be pics. Just wait (or skip all the writing). This has not gone as well as I'd hoped. But it is on the right track. I'd appreciate any feedback, positive or otherwise that could help me move to the next stage. While researching through the forums I saw a couple of people had hollowed out the DD supplied scope & installed monocular lenses. While reading, I thought this was awesome, you could get a working sight! However, due to the stepped shape of the scope, it appears as though light would pass through but you couldn't see an image. (Idea v1.0) This is where I had my flash of inspiration, and thought to put lenses / mirrors inside the scope to get an image. I even started the maths on this, but it got really complicated really quickly. The biggest problem being the tolerances when placing the lenses was minute. (v1.1) I thought for a bit and came up with the idea of stripping down a microscope. It already has an eyepiece that is bigger than object lens, and should work with our 'backwards' mounted scopes. Unfortunately the focal length is so small you wouldn't see anything at a distance. (v2.0) My next idea was to mount a digital camera & screen in the scope. I started by researching the smallest screen I could find. I intended to still hollow out the scope and needed a tiny screen to fit in the end. This is what I found (and bought). If you think it doesn't look that small, the following image isn't in great focus but the height of the screen is visible as 11mm (less than 1/2 inch) So it is small, and it works! You can see the screen glow when hooked up to a battery. This had me thinking happy thoughts! So I purchased a small camera, with screen, from work (I sell these things). I picked one with a screen already attached, thinking that I could just swap out the screens. For the record - you can't (not at my skill level anyway). I am keeping it though, I am considering using it inside my helmet with a small downwards pointing camera, hopefully giving me a better view of what is in front of me. Back to this build. I forgot to take a picture of the camera as purchased, but here it is after I voided the warranty. I picked the cheapest one we had in stock, without measuring it or thinking how the circuitboard was set up. At this point I nearly binned the whole project, but talked myself around in the end. (v2.1) For a short time I considered removing some of the components from the circuit board & cutting it down in size. The camera was originally an in-car event recorder co it has an accelerometer or g-metre; low light sensor; microphone & speaker and probably some other stuff I don't need. This idea was short lived as I feared removing too many items would render the whole camera inoperable. I did remove the IR LED's next to the lens though. I am keeping the LED's as they look like they could be nice greeblies. (v2.2) I was talking about this project with a local TK (the one that got me involved in all of this - thanks Hads!), and he pointed me in the direction of a tutorial to scratch build a M19 scope (this is supposed to be an ESB build after all). With a scratch build there would be more space inside the scope to fit stuff. Maybe. I took this idea a little further & thought that if I could build a scope that was scaled up a bit, it might work. So I put this together, it still needs a few parts but is moving in the right direction. For all the critics this is not going to be a scope that I apply for EI with, this would be a trooping scope only, I am trying to get a basic profile of a M19 scope - not perfection (which would be an original). (v2.3) Despite the bigger scope, the camera parts still won't fit inside. At this point, slightly frustrated, I put what I had together and I have this I was a little bit amzed at how good it looked. Obviously it needs glue & paint, and something to hold the circuit board, but I think it might work (again as a trooping scope only). I would leave the connections from the camera & screen as is - mush like the wires on an ANH blaster. This is a working camera, it has a micro SD card slot & can take video or stills. If I were to troop in a location that does not allow photography, the card can be removed yet the screen will still work. (v2.4) I will still be using the inside of the scope, the battery that comes with the camera is pretty useless. Only 250mAh for a device that uses 800mA. I will be installing a 2500mAh battery, giving me approx 3 hours use. What I would need to make this project work properly would be a smaller donor camera. I haven't ruled that out & am still hunting for the perfect piece. Please feel free to offer up suggestions that may make this look / work better.

Thanks Germain & Tim, I think the problem lies with the length of the spring rather than the position, I have it on about a 45 degree angle - easy fix, I'll get onto that & post pics in the weekend. One spring good, two spring bad cause head to hurt. Maybe on my next build, or the one after that

c: Other 1st timers had done it & I can shamelessly copy them! Thanks Some more progress. I have continued to place pins for easy (easier??) assembly, today was the stock. The right pin still to be cut to length. Almost looks like a proper folding stock [no it doesn't & I have no intention of letting it move] Pin in the front of the stock, as far as I can tell there is not a lot of contact area at the front for the glue to hold too, thus pin. Pin for placement of the front sight - will also be the front sight, two birds one stone pin In addition to pins, I finished my spring! Yet another thing I wasn't planning on doing at the beginning of the build, but now I'm really happy how it turned out. I made the spring by wrapping 1.5mm wire around a 12mm aluminium pole. This left the spring too narrow to fill the space in the DD for it (and way too short). I stretched the spring by twisting around increasingly larger metal cylinders (in this case drill bits), it has resuled in very evenly spaced coils. After placing it with my inner barrel into the DD I trimmed the end so only 1 1/2 coils stick out, the end cap locks into place with a bit of tension, but not enough to allow it to pop out. Finally the blaster in all it's current glory - pinned only, no glue yet. The rest of the day I battled a scratch build of a M19 scope, some parts have gone well others not so much. I'll post up more about that when it's sort of complete. Quick question about the trigger guard: Is it supposed to touch the trigger? Mine seems very tight, especially with a spring trigger, is it meant to be like this or is it a doopydoos thing? Thanks for reading!

Damn! Another bit of excellence that I need to live up to - very impressive (and useful)

Good morning all, My first TK build (still can't wipe the grin off of my face when I say that)! A little bit about the armour first. OGA (Oota Goota Armour) is an original fan sculpt made here in New Zealand, by a guy with the forum screen name Oota Goota. It is a reasonably new version, with less than 30 suits (so far). Anyone that would like to see the process involved in making the moulds etc have a look here (it is a long thread and does wander off on tangets occasionally frequently). Oota has also made a helmet to go with his armour. As if that wasn't enough, he has started working on a set of female stormtrooper armour. I have put all the links here as to the best of my knowledge, this will be the first OGA build thread on the FISD forums, though a few have been approved 501st, and I thought it might answer a lot of the questions that I am not qualified to answer. About me! Name: Sam Screen name: Shaved Wookie (long story involving good friend & a bottle of wine) Height: 194cm 6'4†Weight: 120kg 264lb (and trending down), target for armour fitting 110kg Basically: big guy. Unlike many of the builds around here mine will be done with no rational order. Before I started I seriously doubted that I would have the skills to make my armour. Thankfully I got to meet Oota, and he is awesome! He offered to provide me a small sample to test myself on, before I committed (or not) to the whole suit. This gave me the option of backing out if I ballsed it up, without a huge outlay of $$. Feeling a little more confident, I started with one arm; shoulder, bicep & forearm. Some very tentative cutting soon led into a wild abandon of dremeling, trimming & sanding (only wounding myself twice – so far). If you've read this far you probably deserve pictures! The first parts (one arm & one greave – cos it fit in the space allowed) I didn't realise how much of a mess a rotary cutting tool would make, but I'm learning, also had one spinning disk thing break off and fly past my face. PSA: Saftey Glasses Mandatory When Using Dremel My TK Rambo moment (first blood) First forearm taped up, notice the wrist looks very oval, due to my having to keep a large ammount of material that most people would have cut off. Fixing the wrist, hot water & a Thermos flask, now I have a nice even opening. The arm, only taped but I am quite happy with it. My compresion gear should be here next week & I'll be able to get a better idea of how the arm looks. Question on cover strips: Having read many builds it is my understanding that in relation to the photo below, the red line is where the cover strip should be placed, the top of the forearm should be cut 7-8mm from here so that the cover strip sits evenly across both pieces of the forearm. As I have large body parts these measurements won't work for me, but do I stay with the 15mm cover strips or can I upsize them a bit so they appear proportional to the size of the armor? The green tape is 20mm (and in the position where the cover strips will have to go), to me it looks ok - but I'd really appreciate feedback on this. Yesterday I picked up this: So I have a bit more to work on! Also building a Doopydoos E-11 More updates as they occur...

Firstly my apologies for no brown box photo - I know how much everyone seems to love those! I do have the also required layout photo, though mine is not really in any sort of order. Also some extra SW stuff that arrived in the mail the same day. Down to business. This will not be the thread to end all threads, nor will it be the ultimate E-11 build. I don't have the skills for that, and there are many better builds out there already. I feel as if I have read all of them (and certainly have many bookmarked). For me the one I have gone back to most often is Dark CMF, I have certainly been inspired by others but this is my primary source (except for the folding stock). As this is an ESB I have given the power cylinders & hengstler counter to a local trooper in need. When I ordered the kit my intention was kit + glue + paint = blaster. Now I have decided to do more, but I don't know quite how much more ... yet. I do have one mod planned that I haven't seen before, but I'm not going to let slip any little secrets until some parts arrive that should make it work. Sorry for the cryptic tease, but it really is a cunning idea almost weasle like - just needs a tail pinned First thing done was the sight, getting to use my new rotary cutting tool. I'm really loving the flexible entension thingee, it's much lighter and therefore easier to control than the main body. I also decided to drill out the extra holes at the bottom of the barrel where the stock goes, I started with small guide holes before bringing in the big bit. As late as this morning I had no intention of installing an inner barrel, but then (while cleaning) I found these metal things. I'm not completely sure what they are (were), but the size is almost perfect for a DD. The shorter one had a handle looking thing on the end - but it lost in a fight with my hacksaw. I think they look pretty good at the front on the blaster. At this stage I am not sure whether I am going to run them all the way through, what I consider the "Blaster" look. Or if I am going to make a spring to attach to it, the "Converted Sterling" look. If I do the spring the longer tube seems to position itself pretty well for the blue bit to be the basis of a bolt. Still undecided on this one. I have drilled out the bit at the front of the folding stock (sorry, don't know what it's called), it needs a bit of a tidy up but I am pretty happy with how it went. I have decided to use guide pin's to locate the major parts correctly, and drew a template of the grip to make sure the holes line up as well as the parts need to (definitely a stolen idea - thanks). I'm quite happy with this for a first day, I'll post more when I do more.

Cool, thanks so much!

Hi all, I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, if not please lock it down & throw away the key... But if I can get away with it I'd appreciate some help with a 501st / SW problem. I have joined up here (FISD) & jrs501st.com to get ideas / help / inspiration with my planned TK & TI:RP build(s). I have also been trying to sign up with imperialofficer.com But I am having problems validating my account, the automated registration email says to contact an admin if there is a problem but I don't even have enough access to find out who they are & how to contact them. I am hoping someone here is able to guide me in the right direction. I woudn't put it past my being technically incompetent, but I don't think it is - this time. So the email came through like this: And the link (clicked or copy & paste) leads me to this: I have tried Firefox, Chrome & IE, getting the same result with all 3. I don't know if it's related but I also cannot access the IOC home page, I am always shunted to the forum page - where noting is visible. Any help would be awesome. Sam