MoSc0ut

I'd buy one of the "B" versions with the bubbles. I'm pretty handy and could fill those so you'd never know! I am soooo looking forward to these being ready!

Walt's is a great choice and quick and a good price point. I'm working on a OT TK set right now. Keep in mind that it comes with all the features of some of older armor types, bumpy cap, not much symmetry, like the left arm is different from the right, etc. AND it's supposed to be that way! The screen used armor was the same. It's not an "idealized" version like a set from ANOVOS, a decent armor (from what I'm told) but not for me, I likes it authentic! He also offers it in a magma (red) version and shadow (black) version. John the group on Facebook and look at the very first "pinned" post by Erica for info on what they offer. Then directly message either Erica, Pedro, or Walt on pricing once you decide and they'll get back to you super quick. That being said ANY armor maker listed here as "approved" are fantastic choices. Walt's are approvable for any level of build, but because his armor is actually a blend of some of his own and some of makers that no longer produce theirs (he does have their permission and original bucks, from what I have found, after lengthy research and some speculation) he may never be on the "approved" maker list, but his armor is solid and of good quality. Jim

Looks awesome! I'm going with the hard hat liner myself. I like the idea of the fans being able to move the air around my head better without a block of foam obstructing the flow. Jim M.

Yikes! Could almost by a real one for that price! Jim M.

The M145 the US Army currently uses is the same way. The little end is the objective lens. I smoked so many soldiers as they walked on to my range with it on backwards! Jim M.

Absolutely! White Armor has endless resources! I can't even tell you How many times I thought I had it figured out I stumble across better guidance. I think I'd purchased 3 different sizes/types of ear screws before finally landing on UKswrath's ANOVOS helmet rebuild and there was like a 20 post discussion that got me to the right ones! Thanks! Between family, work and granting wishes for Make-a-Wish Oregon, time to work on this is a bit randomly sprinkled in there somewhere. I'm usually posting progress during breaks at work the day after!

Thanks for the feedback. I see so many variations out there. I went with what I thought looked right. Now I can get onto gluing the rest of the strips in place!

While the glue was drying I heated up some water and bent the shoulder straps and trimmed, cleaned up and painted the ab button and covers for the belt snaps. These were easier to score and snap from the inside as are many other parts on this armor. Here is how I went about forming my shoulder straps. Detailed description below. *edit* Based on the photos I've been studying the front part seems to be straight then it curves in the middle over the top of the shoulder then it straightens out a bit on the back, I also wanted it to lay down on the back of the armor a bit better. I'll also be adding a "fuzzy" piece of white Velcro on the back part so it doesn't scuff the back armor as I am moving around. I got the water up to boiling then pulled it off the heat. Then while holding it in basically the shape I wanted it I dunked it in until I started to feel the plastic "give" then I moved to the sink and ran it under cold water so it held its shape. Being that the plastic seems to be a bit thinner here due to the vac pull I was scared to fully immerse it for too long. I think total time in the hot water was maybe 10 - 15 seconds. By holding it, I really had a feel for when it was becoming pliable. Slow and steady for the painting of ab buttons. All those years of painting miniatures is paying huge dividends during this build. I've got to say, remembering to take pictures while working on this is the hardest thing for me to remember! I just get going and don't want to stop! Jim

Making the edge of the table useful by hooking the open side around the edge. *keep in mind the test fitting pictures are in the mirror. Now time for some glue. Using 15mm cover strips for the arms. One slid on me as the e6000 was setting so I'll have to redo that. But all and all it's moving along.

More trimming and even some fitting and gluing done! Yep! It's going to fit!

This is happening literally right now! Lol!! Sorry Spice, for the little sidetrack.

I'm in the same boat. Except I don't have a band.......or maintenance guys (I'm the maintenance guy).....just a wife that glares at me when she doesn't think it's the appropriate time to work on mine! So basically the same. [emoji51] Jim

Next I used the same scrap wood and lined up the straps where I wanted to bend them, made a light pencil mark, in case they moved, and bent away! Pretty rudimentary but it works! Then to get a tighter bend I used a C clamp and a shop towel and made the bend tighter. I had to trim a bit off the ends of the straps as it was looking a bit long, then added the small flare on the end. I referenced pictures of actual TD's online and freeze framed my SW blu-ray for how these should be bent back and there are a lot of variances of how these look. I think mine is pretty dang close to how it should look. I'm sure it's not perfect to some but there are also A LOT of much crappier examples out there too! So I tapped on the ends, after trimming off 1/4" off each end as I had it 8" long and the CRL says "around 7 1/2". I'm calling that done! and I couldn't resist doing this as I have yet to do the belt! How's it look? (My TD, not my butt.) [emoji12]

Since the ends were sticking up I grabbed my rubber mallet and tapped the ends down almost flush. As you'll see later, I did this a few more times throughout the build and got it looking even better. All of the bolts installed.

Onto the strapping. Yes the actual width should be 1 1/8" to be completely accurate but finding that width is not possible within a reasonable amount of time and at too much expense for me. I went with the commonly accepted, 1" that is readily available at the local True Value Hardware just down the street for $4 and change, Plus the extra will be my scope rail for the E-11 pipe build that went on hold when my BBB showed up. Using TKbondservant's tutorial along with the input and pics of and original TD later in the thread. I got to work. I cut the aluminum on my bench bandsaw to 8 1/2" (x2). Marked at 1/2" in and at the 2" mark centered. Using a scrap piece of wood from my remodel (mentioned above) so I didn't drill through my kitchen table, I used a 1/8" drill bit and drilled away. I also cleaned up the aluminum by going lengthwise with first 330 grit then 600 grit sand paper it looks much better when finished. I also rounded the corners and de-burred the edges. I centered the control panel and attached with CA glue. Panel dimensions are 4 1/2" wide, button side about 1/4" above the "button" and about 3/4" inch below the thing that looks like a Twix bar (I'm still learning what all these bits are referred to!) After lining up the strap with the holes just slightly off center from the panel edge, towards the pipe end. I marked and drilled the first hole. I attached the first bolt then bent the strap around the pipe until the second hole was touching the pipe. Holding it in place I drilled the second hole and attached the second bolt. That's when I remembered to take a picture. *Don't forget to drill a hole in between the two holes where the bolts attach to let air out when you put on the end caps!

Now it's thermal detonator time. I was originally going to go pick up 2" grey electrical conduit. It's less than $7 for ten feet. Then I got to thinking, what the heck am I going to do with 9', 2 1/2" of left over conduit. I'm already overflowing with left over _____ <- (insert random construction materials here) from a recent bathroom and downstairs ceiling remodel and repair, from a backed up shower drain, in my garage. So I used the supplied white 2" PVC pipe that came with my kit. So rather than trying to draw a line 3/4" all the way around I made a series of tick marks at 3/4" around the circumference and played connect the dot.with blue tape and trimmed. In prepping the white PVC tube I first cut it down to size then when attempting to test fit the ends they are a bit smaller than the ends of the PVC because here it's measured by inside diameter. So I tapered the ends with my sander and they slid over nice and snug. I didn't put them all the way on as I'd never get them off without damage. I then thinned out some Humbol Admiral Gray and gave it a coat. Jim

After getting all the pieces sanded down to where I wanted them it was time to tackle those missing rerun edges. I don't have a hobby iron but I do have an old regular iron and an old cotton T Shirt! The 100% cotton T shirt is important here as anything synthetic can melt into your armor. I didn't make that mistake but I would suggest using a white shirt or even better white cotton sheet that has a higher thread count as some of the green from this shirt did transfer and also impression from the weave of the cotton. I figured out that if you move the plastic or iron in a small circular motion while doing this you don't get the impression from the fabric weave. (Duh!) A little light sanding with some 1500 grit got rid of both the color and impressions. Polish will brighten this up later. Here are the results: That's the arm bits ready to assemble. Jim

Worked on the arms last night. I had already trimmed up the forearms but had gotten a bit ambitious with the trimming and trimmed most of the return edge off the upper part of the forearm! (Oops) The molds from Walt's differ from other armor makers and what I have learned is I rough trim down to about 3/8", give or take then sand from there. First I use the larger of the two sanding drums from my Dremel then switch it out to the smaller for tighter inside turns. Here are a couple rough trimmed. Jim

Party on Wayne!

Might be too late at this point but have you tried ABS paste to fix some of those deep scratches. You have to be super careful with applying it but I've seen it work wonders. russelr2d2 has a great tutorial on how he did it in his ATA build. I haven't had to do it..... yet, but I will be using it to fill the gaps on the forearms and such when I get there. Jim

I think everyone will agree that the R1 TK is indeed screen accurate, they don't have a choice it's on the screen. I'm thinking people are just frustrated that there is another version of armor out there and initially even I was a bit frustrated too. In my head I said, "Dang it Disney! You have an awesome resource, the 501st, you could have called just about anyone who's been doing this for more than five years and built a "super squad" of armor builders and had awesome, consistent, armor!!!" Seriously give that a thought, if they called in the all the great makers, TM, AM, TE2, AP, ATA, Gino, RS, Walt, etc. not to mention all the great builders and those with passion for "getting it right" (as this thread shows there are PLENTY! Love you guys but WOW!). This is all total fiction but wow, it would be the ultimate "dream team". But Disney being who they are, a totally amazing mega corporation, but at the same time tying to protect their brand. They "tolerate" us. They even allow us to participate in events at Disney parks. If they were to do what I'm suggesting it would almost officially endorse us. I'm not a lawyer (I'm sure that's obvious! [emoji51]) but if Disney did this I think they fear the flood gates would open up. Instead they license crap like Rubies, who they have control over if it's not outright owed by Disney in some way. Sorry that got a little off topic. That being said I believe the frustration is that people now feel the need to like and accept something new. If you observe human nature, as I do, people don't do that well. Right now we're in the latter parts of the anger stage / beginning of bargaining. Soon it will be depression then acceptance! Don't worry we're here for those of you that are having trouble in these trying TK times. Free hugs are available if you want them. [emoji12] Jim

You could carefully sand the paint off and start over. Take it down to a thin layer then use thinner to get most of the rest off. Doesn't have to be perfect as you'll be covering it back up with paint again.

Sorry, spyder918 is correct. I left out that I have a piece of think card board, like what they make MRE boxes out of or what you find between the plastic covers of a three ring binder. I use it as a paint palette. Really you can use anything like an old cereal box, some people use plastic but I find things run on plastic. The cardboard will absorb a tiny bit of paint but not enough to matter. Personal preference really. You can see it in this photo. I take a little paint first and make a small "puddle" on the palette, 2-3 "dabs" of paint, then I dip the brush in my thinner and mix it with my puddle of paint to thin it out. I always have a small container of thinner separated from my "supply" bottle so I don't foul the "supply". I then keep an old plastic milk jug that I pour my dirty thinner in so I can dispose of it properly at the local paint store (or sometimes I forget about it and it's evaporated by morning! Oops). Good catch spyder!

Here's the other side. This is the side that needed no clean up. Jim

If you haven't got around to them here's how I did mine. They turned out pretty great (I think so any way!)In the first pic you can see the decals that came with my kit from Walt. First I cut some strips of my painters tape all narrow like. Then I taped the decal where I would have applied them. Then I made some dots on the painters tape either side where the stripes were. Removed the decal. Then I free handed a little curve with my liner brush all the way down. I let it dry for 45-60 min then pulled away the tape. I used Humbrol French Blue. Humbrol has a kind of rubber like consistency when it's setting up and not fully dry. If you pull it away too soon it gets all stringy and causes a bit of a mess. I had very minimal clean up and only in the spots where I tried to lightly score the paint with my xacto before pulling the tape(only did that on the side that's pictured here, the other side needed no clean up at all.