MoSc0ut
-
Posts
519 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
4
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Gallery
Articles
Media Demo
Posts posted by MoSc0ut
-
-
The advantage to the snap plate method is that you can take the whole "clamshell" torso apart and store it in a smaller box. I personally like the traditional strapping method and having one larger piece but ultimately it's up to what you want. There are many good suppliers for each piece you're looking for. I made my own brackets and loops for the strapping and also my own belt. I did that because I have the equipment and, thanks to my mom teaching me, I can sew!
Jim - TK50899
-
3
-
-
In case things don't work out between you and Jim
Amazon might be a bit faster but mines at the low, low price of $Free.99!!
Jim - TK50899
-
2
-
-
Hi Tony,
I'm having great difficulty locating 3/16" elastic for the shoulder straps. I've been to Michael's, Hobby Lobby and checked Amazon. Do you have a link you could share?
Thank you!
Chris
I have like 2' of it doing nothing in a drawer. Do you want me to send you a foot of it? PM me your address and I'll drop it in the mail tomorrow! No charge.
Jim - TK50899
-
1
-
-
Woo! I made it through all 48 pages. Glad I did, as a lot of the questions I had were answered. On the shorter side at 5'7", 160-ish pounds, I think that I've determined AP would be a good option for my first build--I'm hoping for a sandtrooper that I want to get to level 3/SWAT approval and start trooping. I emailed Mark a few days ago through a link on TK409's webpage. I keep getting returned-undeliverable emails from Chris (TK409, copied on the email link) but haven't heard anything yet from Mark. Hopefully my email went through to him and I hear something soon, as I'd like to get in line for my order. I might also contact some of the other builders that have been mentioned just for my due diligence on pricing and availability. I've been a fan of the 501st for years and really want to get involved ASAP. Thanks for this site and the wealth of info. I have a friend that built a TK years ago before resources like this were available and he had to do a LOT of work to find stuff. This is way easier.
Check out Walt's Trooper Factory too. I'm 5'9", 165 lbs, 32-33" waist. He only has a 6 week turn around on his kits, one of the fastest in the biz! Search Walt's Trooper Factory on FB and join the group. Their armor is super durable and the brightest white! Customer Service is amazing and he's an approved armor maker! You'll be building by early Sept. (Maybe earlier). I just got my Expert Infantry in mine and after 1 tiny tweak I'll be submitting for Centurion. Check out my build thread for detailed pictures of their kit. http://bit.ly/jimsstormtrooperbuild
Jim - TK50899
-
My drop boxes are, literally, the exact same, as they came from the same molds. Don't glue them together until you attach the elastic to them with the double cap rivets (if you're going the "Centurion ready" route). You can get the rivet sets from justjoseph63 here on the FISD and they're cheap and since you're on the east coast you'll get them fast (he's in Florida). He also does the latex hand guards if you want those too.
With the TD you'll find one cap fits much better than the other. I had to do a lot of sanding on one end to get it to fit well, and that only happened after I did a water bath to soften up the ABS so they'd slide on better. I did a pretty extensive section on the TD in my build thread. If you'd like more detailed pictures and measurements let me know and I'll snap a few for you.
As for scoring, I always use a pencil to draw my line first, it wipes right off later. Then the trick is to do the first score line fairly lightly. It's much easier to maintain a straight line that way. Then repeat it two to three more times, following the same score line with only a slight increase in pressure each time. I learned this the hard way and have a couple places where my blade "wandered" on me because I was using too much pressure, too early!
Jim M.
-
Congrats Jim. That's awesome. it looks great!
Thank you pewpewpew I appreciate the compliment!
Wow, congratulations! I hope to be where you are someday
I'm sure you will. I followed the advice of several folks on this forum and built it with the intent of it being Centurion ready that way when I'm ready to submit it is already good to go or very minor adjustments to get there.
I'm here to help if you have questions and so is just about everyone on this site! Have fun with it!
Jim M.
-
1
-
-
I thinned down the Admiral Grey and shot it through my airbrush so that it matched my traps and tears on my bucket. I have a local hobby store that sells the correct Humbrol colors if you can't find it close or for a reasonable price. Some shops online were charging $12 plus shipping each! Also ignore the dark blue color in the chart above, it is no longer acceptable, French blue is what you want. I think I spent around $7.75 on ALL THREE colors that you need. I can run over there and pick them up and send them to you. Send me a PM if interested and they'll be in the mail Monday. I'd call it an even $10 to cover shipping. I am in Oregon so it'll take about three days or so to get there.
-
1
-
-
I just got the message today that I made EIB!!
There are only a few things to make slight adjustments on and one of them I was already planning to fix.
1. The elastic that joins the chest and the back the top of the armor. It has been pulling out to the side and bunching up on me. It's a little too long and it also is canted toward the rear which makes a larger gap between my shoulder bells and chest.
2. Take off most of not all the return edge on the bottom of the shoulder bells so they sit closer to the biceps. This will take like 42 1/2 seconds to fix!
3. Here is the big pain in my rear bit. The tops of the fore arms are a little too big so I have to take them all the way apart and make taper them down a bit so that the top of the forearm is closer in diameter to the bottom of the bottom of the bicep. I had originally used E6000 here but when I boiled them to reshape the ABS and they fell apart I re-glued them with CA glue.
4. My drop boxes are not quite to the edges in the picture. They are on loops of elastic like it is suggested. On the left side it is very tight against one of the snaps that hold my belt on and always slides in as I move about. I am going to tack it in place with a couple of stitches of thread and that should fix that! I'll work in on these few things in next couple of weeks and then it's all new pics and submission for Centurion!
All really minor fixes and except for the few pictures I didn't add originally to the post, it's a first time go!
Jim - TK50899
-
4
-
-
off what?
were all always wayyyyyy off lmao
Speaking of our predictions in how long it would take to assemble our armor. I thought mine would take a week instead it was more like 6-7 weeks.
Jim - TK50899
-
Took me about 6-7 weeks of constantly plugging away at it. There were a few times I had to walk away from it for a couple of days just so I could breathe, do some research and refocus. When I felt it was becoming "not fun" or frustrating that was a good indication to me that maybe a small break was in order.
Jim - TK50899
-
Okay. I took a closer second look at your pictures and you have definitely NOT trimmed too much.
Here are the pics of mine for reference. The bottom front of the cap and rear of the face, on mine, barely overlap on one side and not at all on the other. The bottom of the ears cover that. If you have too many layers of ABS it's really hard to get the S trim on too.
Also as far as trimming goes I used the same trimmers you have for the rough cuts and the "score and snap" technique. My rotary tool was only used for "fine tuning" followed but 220 grit hand sanding.
That being said I did my teeth by sanding with the rotary tool from the backside then cleaned it up with the needle files. It was super quick and it turned out excellent in my humble opinion.
Jim - TK50899
-
1
-
-
Thanks you! I do have a question about the WTF helmet- when you trim the brow of the cap, it looks like people trim closer to the line made by the bottom of the trap on the left side, and there's more extra room below it on the right. Is this intentional? Also, how much excess faceplate siding (potentially I have trimmed too much!) did you have because I don't have very much which is making securing the left side very difficult! OOH and one more thing! Why aren't Walt's ear screws centurion standard? Thank you- I've looked through your thread and it is VERY helpful!!!
On one side of mine there isn't much between the back and face either!Remember that the ears will cover up some of that so you're not necessarily in trouble just yet. As for the brow, when Walt n crew rough trim it it's not necessarily even so that may explain the extra material on one side vs. the other. I used what is known as the "Dave M" helmet as reference for my build and also watched (many times) the Trooperbay videos on You Tube before and during my helmet assembly. This was my first time building too and was very nervous about each and every cut.
As for the screws the heads are too small as far as being "screen accurate" is concerned. It has absolutely no bearing on any level of approval. If you use them it will be perfectly fine, so don't sweat it. I just went the extra step because I was at the hardware store picking up screen for the Hovi mic tips and thought, why not, and bought the 6 I needed.
I hope this helps. I'm going to take another look at those pics of your bucket and if I see anything wrong I'll pipe up again.
*REMEMBER, nothing about original Stormtrooper armor is symmetrical and the helmet is a little off center one direction. It bugged the crud out of me too until a more experienced member put my mind at ease too. Feel free to hit me up with any questions. I've got a pretty good archive in my head on where to get you answers on this forum. If I don't know it I can point you in the right direction.
Jim - TK50899
-
2
-
-
Emma jump over to my build thread and see how I did it. Mine's a WTF kit too! I'm in the process of having my EIB application reviewed but Celebration put it on hold for a bit.
http://bit.ly/jimsstormtrooperbuildJim - TK50899
-
1
-
-
Hey it's your fans to do with what you want. I'm glad you're making it work for you!
Jim - TK50899
-
1
-
-
Love it! It gets to be addicting, in a good way. I've stuffed my battery in the chin now. It also keeps my helmet from tipping back, which I think I've said. We did a movie in the park event, The Force Awakens, Friday and the Seattle Seahwaks and Seagals showed up! It was nuts! I thought at one point we were going to get totally mobbed but we survived.
Jim - TK50899
-
2
-
-
What is your store/seller name on eBay? Trying to find your listings and not having any luck.I will hopefully get a chance shortly to go through the sterling horde soon . Ill have some aluminum replicas that will be alot cheaper than vintage completed in a couple weeks. Ill get some picture up on the warmachine site this week so you can see the
creation process...
BRYN i have a couple of stock up on the ebay store there in great shape and shipping down there should not be a problem... Is there any gun laws that stop you from getting stocks? if so i may have a few in parts... The aluminum one im making would not be a problem either may take a 6 weeks to get them on my laser cutter it pretty busy
Is it vmusicstore ? It looks like your stuff but with the warmachineinc and t-shirt gun stuff I'm just not sure.
Jim - TK50899
-
Hi Jim
Could you please add some missing info from the top of your application.
Name:
Legion ID:
Forum Name:
Garrison:
Thank you
Edit: Can we also have an external photo of the snaps on your Butt plate, as we cant see them in your photos. Just need to make sure they are not painted white.
Absolutely!!
Original post updated with requested info and photo.
Respectfully,
Jim - TK50899
-
1
-
-
Same ones I use for all my blaster builds.. Always available and actually cheaper on eBay
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
These come from the same manufacturers that sell these on AliExpress and they are even cheaper on AliExpress, only by a dollar or so. AliExpress offers a discount if you buy in bulk too.
Jim - TK50899
-
1
-
-
Industrial Velcro is the king! The better reason for fuzzy (or loop) side being on the inside of the helmet is that you don't want the hook side facing toward your skin or hair as it with scratch or grab you! It's not that it's painful, just annoying.
I mention gaffers tape in some of my threads. It is more resistant to moisture than painters tape. I am using to test where I am thinking wires and such may go permanently. Like painters tape it doesn't leave residue when you pull it up, but it is spendy.
It's also in my "Trooping emergency repair kit" and I just happened to have a roll left over from something else I used to do (volunteer stage hand).
Jim - TK50899
-
1
-
-
Where did you get the lenses?
Will do! I ordered two, one for my scratch build and one for your scope I will be completing. It doesn't include a prism and the lenses are backward from how they should be as far as being able use to see through anyhow. (25mm lens should be converse and 12mm should be convex) but as it's just for show and at this point it doesn't concern me. Maybe a future build I'll go crazy with it!
Jim M.
-
The lenses in this one fit perfectly into a Doopy Doos scope:<br><br>
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GIG9COU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1'>https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GIG9COU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1</a>
I used my digital caliper to measure my scratch made scope and these lenses should fit perfectly as long they are true to the sizes that are in the description.
Jim - TK50899
-
Where did you get the lenses?
AliExpress. They can take 3-6 weeks to get here but you can't beat the price.
Jim - TK50899
-
1
-
-
"Nope. No I didn't. I can't really see anything in this bucket, dear."
Those smiles though. I really can't wait to get out there.
That EIB application looks pretty sweet. I'm sure you nailed it.
Thanks! Too true about the field of view from the bucket. I just realized that a few of the pics didn't post so I'm going in to add them in now!
Jim - TK50899
-
I have it in the rear offset to my left. I was going to get the push on/off type but they were all out of them. I will keep checking and when they have them again I will probably switch it out. I'll give this set up to my son for his Mando helmet. He's got a lot more flexibility in his costume.
Jim - TK50899
-
1
-
Adder's ANH TK Build Thread [TM]
in Build Threads Requireing Maintenance
Posted · Edited by MoSc0ut
That's awesome! For only $26 how can you go wrong!! Does the place you bought them from still have any left?? Lol!
Jim - TK50899