TK bondservnt

it's a plastic pipe with plastic parts glued onto it. it would be shipped in primer. you'd paint it black and silver according to the photos. it's a kit. the tip would be painted orange. I have all the parts, and can build very fast. you want ANH style? I make them with scope and hengstler counter. but you will have to get the power cells and wires. metal scope rail, and D ring. I use aluminum for the scope rail, and screws. PM me.

I can always build you one? look at my signature

I just wrote him and told him that it's completely bad form to put the problem on your shoulders. I have asked him to read this thread, and replace your entire suit of armor. there is not any way that I can support a maker saying to a trooper- "I sent you bad product, now it's your problem to solve." that in and of itself has very bad customer service at the core of it's suggestion. hopefully mark will understand that, and the suit certainly could be made into a stormtrooper commander, or a sandy... and he should sell seconds, just for that purpose! see mark? we can correct minor flaws by making the suit up as a painted one. I'm in the market for such a kind of suit, but there's no way I'd pay premium money for a suit like that. let's say 1/2 price or maybe 3/4 price, but not full... no way.

ben, your holster is in production today and will ship today. photos very soon! and a special thanks goes out to MARK G/ Peter and paul, for the amazing work on showing us all the internal strapping that we've been wanting to see for the last several years. and joer has also a lot of incredible credit for showing us all the ROTJ hidden details! kudos to the elite team! huah!

this is bad form on mark's part. I think I'm going to step in, and also message him...

it's perfectly acceptable. especially when the screw post looks like a silver rivet. I use screw posts for the following parts on my armor: belt fasteners from canvas to plastic front ( I glued the plastic belt caps to the rivet side, and glued them to the plastic. ) this way the belt is completely removable from the plastic armor. I also used screw posts to assemble my shims on my black suit. allowing flexibility and removal for storage, cleaning. then finally I used screw posts 1/8" to attach my holster to the canvas. when I sell holsters I have now completely replaced using rivets for the upper straps, it allows for making a single holster into any kind of film holster you'd want. from ANH tan upper straps, to ESB and ROTJ styles. it's also stronger and more secure than a rivet, since rivets can pull out from leather over time.

you really want just black rubber gloves, with texture on the fingers. basic cleaning rubber gloves. those look like they might be the proper kind. karin can most likely help you best in this part. her work is the best by far.

I doubt that you'd get an auto body shop to go that low. there are a lot of complex parts to paint on an armor kit.

the rom fx is an amp on it's own. but people have used that in an aker setup no problem. just using one of the inputs on the aker. and the other for an mp3 player, for some radio chatter.

having an auto body shop paint your armor is a great idea. the color probably won't be correct for the polish method. the plastic used and the color you get will really depend upon that concept for shining the armor up with a polish, or a clear coat. when you get your armor in, it will most likely have a blue cast to the white color. which then requires paint to correct. having a nice clear coat does wonders for painted kits. it's just harder to get all the materials matched. you need to be specific on your types of brand of paint and keep them matched.

some sport glasses in the form of goggles might be a solution? form fitting? like something a basketball player might wear?

painting plastic requires a lot of patience, and an environment where you can have an even temperature and lot's of slow moving air flow. you will need to sand the armor lightly with extra fine grit, usually wet sanding is the best way. prep the surface of all the parts AFTER YOUR ASSEMBLY IS TOTALLY COMPLETE. so for example, you would assemble a forearm, with all of it complete, with the parts glued, and the finishing strips on. then wet sand everything. then after completely dry, and dust free. you hang the part up where you can rotate the part easy. lightly paint a coat of primer. allow to dry. then paint primer again, lightly. after the prime coats have fully cured, say 2 days later. then you can work on laying down the top coat. some types of paint cannot be sanded much after application, and some paints can be sanded. you just have to decide that when you get your first paints. it's usually best to purchase all the cans from a single source, at the same time... I'd figure on getting about 10 cans. it takes about 3 cans to cover a helmet. after painting the top coat very lightly, you should wait 3 days and then paint another coat. then wait another 7 days before you even touch the part again. when the part is completely cured, lets say 10 days after your first primer coat- you can then apply a clear coat for protection. after that cures, then you can apply a UV protectant sealer, or wax. I don't cheat by heating up the paint, or applying heat lamps. just let the paint cure naturally. the goal when painting armor is to lay the paint on as thin as possible, while getting a full coat. plastic round shapes like armor, cause lots of paint to load up quickly. you will need to cordon off a section of a garage, or shop with plastic drop cloth and have a clean and dust free environment to lay the paint down. make sure that you wear a paint mask with filters. otherwise your nostrils will have paint inside them! it took me about 2 weeks to fully paint up a suit of armor, and the helmet and thighs give the most problems with runs, and bubbles. the main goal is to keep the paint thin. thin... did I say thin? hope this helps. the key when applying a clear coat, or finishing with a wax or UV treatment, is to make sure that the paint has fully cured down to it's base coat. say 2 weeks after you've finished up the top coat. yes, it takes a long time for layers of paint to cure to their base. I like to let the sun hit the armor and bake the finish a little for about 10 minutes a day and rotate the parts to let the heat and light cure the paint to it's end. you could use shop lights to simulate this, if they are not too hot. don't want to go over 90d.

how in the world did I show anything about the internal strapping? that is not due to me... that's the awesome element of pete/mark and paul.

you can get it in the USA, it's just though one of his agents. and the battle spec helmet has been modified from the original mould and on his website he states that the battle spec mould has some CNC machining done for the part, so that would explain the variance in that design. it would be interesting to compare his original stunt mould.

another good reason for a mentor, to directly teach and instruct on the base skills needed to feel confident in a build up.

from the looks of it he's got the internal strapping at the ab/chest like the new screen used setup. makes it ride up just like on screen! see the screw caps in his photo here?

war is hell.

nice job!!!

the parts fit better when clamped under pressure, usually...

contact ABS 80 for a better kit. that one is nice, but by the time you bid on it you'll go a lot higher.

tango d fett has resin m19's for sale... nice job he does on them...

well, you know the gino track has a curved base to follow the original "found" profile and the sabrefreak is just also a "found" item, so it could not be considered 'recast' but it would be considered prop replication, which is fine in the prop community. I was wondering how much research you had in mind to cover the concept.

are you going to use the Gino profile? or the sabrefreak profile?

the rakes are really easy to use, but have that subtle taper... really hard to notice!

that looks correct, but the EIB requirements don't state the configuration. nice example of the m19 with hengstler with power cells...