Khazid

Brandon Miller requesting 501st Access TK 19725 501st Profile

If there is, I doubt they could. Most production companies work under strict NDA's that include not disclosing production information outside of the company. I have several of these in place with the carriers and exclusive vendors that we sell in our stores. I work in logistics for an S&P 500 company.

The mental image of this is priceless.

I have a fellow sqaud mate that ordered an officers cap from them in May of this year and it has not delivered yet. Based on that, I would think early 2016 (Feb/Mar) is a more realistic date. I would be shocked if any kits go out before the new year.

I'll second that. Tandy Line 24...you can get them in multiples of 10's on Amazon. The last batch I bought was 10 bags of 10...then buy the tool set separately. Will save you money over the long run, and you can make emergency snap plates to keep in your transportation box.

Woke up to an e-mail in my inbox that my costume has been approved by my GML. Just waiting on my official TK ID from the legion now. If anyone has comments for improvements to make before I go to EIB they would be appreciated...otherwise, EIB within the next week, maybe two. So excited now...

Donation sent.

The crackling you are getting is the accelerrant in the paint. Temperature, humidity and how long you shake the can prior to spraying all come into play. Sadly, once you get this the only way to fix it is sand down the affected area and repaint.<br> I would suggest a test spray to determine what is going to work, including distance from the piece, before applying more to your actual armor.

Thank you Jason.

As promised...and sooner than I thought, here are some detailed photos of the entire kit being worn by yours truly.

Nice work on tapering the thigh.

My journey to become a TK is now ended and the adventure of being a part of the 501st has now begun. I look forward to every step and every blaster bolt. I promise to post pictures of me in full kit soon. The first round that I took did not turn out well and will be redone. I hope to have them up in the next week or so, a lot is on my calendar right now. Until then….

Ok…back to the build. I then moved on to the cheesecloth installation. I cut up small squares (~2”x2”) in size and then glued them to the interior of the bucket using Elmer’s glue dabbed in just the corners; leaving most of the cheesecloth floating free. I left the Maker’s Mark as visible as possible. Two coats of plasti-dip were then applied using chip brushes. I did not want to use the spray version. Now…if you thought E6000 was strong, try working with plasti-dip. I had to use my respirator the stuff is that strong! Thankfully, the smell completely dissipated after about three days of curing, with a fan running 2 hours a day to promote air exchange. Here are two shots of the finished product. The first is with flash, the second is without. I am very pleased with the final outcome, and the cheesecloth definitely adds a create texture to the inside of the bucket. It was now time to paint the details. I quickly armed myself with my favorite #2 and #0 brushes some nail sticks, a rag for cleaning and the Trooperbay templates. I first masked off all the areas that would be getting gloss black and covered those areas entirely. The reason for this is I wanted a consistent underbase of black. This made the next steps of adding grey much easier. First, it gives you a nice consistent base for the grey to lie on top of. Second, grey really likes to have a darker base coat; it comes out richer in the final product. Especially when using thinned paints, which I always use when doing modelling. For the bucket, I thinned my paints at 12%. Every 10cc of paint was 8.8cc paint and 1.2 cc airbrush thinner (Testor’s brand, will not harm ABS). When painting with thinned paint like this it takes more coats, but I find there is more control and it allows me have a clean surface with little to no brush strokes visible. The next shot shows you the tube stripe template. I used a chalk pencil I had laying around to help me line it up with the cheek for proper distance. After four coats of the French blue I was able to lift the templates, clean up with nail care sticks dipped in Mineral spirits. Here is the right hand side of the bucket, now painted complete. Here is the left rear trap. Can you find the exhaust vents??? They are almost impossible to see, the striping within the traps completely camouflages them. That was a victory for me there, until this very moment; I had no idea if that mod was going to be able to be pulled off. Here is the left side of the bucket. And the front, the vocoder and mic tips are painted in satin black. I was very happy with the vocoder layout. I was able to get this painted essentially free hand. Little clean up with the nail sticks was needed. I just got myself into a good groove and pulled it off. Of course, it did take five coats of the satin black to get to this saturation. From here I just moved on to the final touches. The split rivets on the Ab/Kidney joint were painted white. I installed both the brown trim and S-Trm in the bucket. And then…then I was done. Updated Final Checklist: Install split rivets in left joint of Kidney & Ab plates Glue shoulder bridges to the chest plate Strap armor to fit. Paint rivets on armor: Ab & Kidney rivets Assemble Bucket: S-Trim attached Install Bucket interior: Install Fans Install EAS Complete electronics to external battery Paint bucket: Traps Tears Vocoder Ears Interior Submit photo’s for TKID, then EIB and lastly Centurion.

Build Log – 9/28-10/23 – The Final Steps Yet again I find myself making an update to my build by having to start with an apology. Nearly a full month has gone by with no word from this thread. However; I got myself into a serious groove and I have completed this build, yes that’s right, completed! Earlier tonight I submitted my application to the 501st and while waiting the next week or so for a response, I thought it would be time to get in these final updates to the build. Sadly, I forgot to take some photos along the way, but the progress is definitely documented in the final scope of the build itself. So where did I leave off…..oh yeah, strapping and completion. I had made my way to the ab/kidney plate and it was time to get in the Centurion notch. One of the big benefits of MTK’s kit is that the kidney notch is already pulled for you. I purposely waited until this moment to finish it on the off chance I would have to trim the kidney and the notch pulled in the armor would not be of the correct size. That didn’t happen, so I was able to follow the original pull to get the final result. Once that was done, it was time to put in the split rivets. Three for the ab plate, three for the kidney plate. First up was getting the alignment on the ab plate. The rivet placement here will dictate where the rivets go on the kidney plate. Using blue tape, I taped the two plates together to make sure my placement was even and would align properly once drilled. Looking good! Even though blurry, here is the final installation. Now it was time for snap plates. Lots of them to glue into place, so I tried to cover as much ground at the same time as possible. The far right of this shot are the plastic hand plates getting their elastic straps. I will use these with nomex gloves when not in Centurion deployment. The chemical gloves make me sweat a heck of a lot! And here is where the first tube E6000 fell silent, giving its last drop to some snap plates. Next up were the shoulder bridges. I first test fit them so I could label where they fit best. They were marked were ultimately I would apply the E6000. Now they were clamped to the chest plate to dry for at least 24 hours. The sachets in the lower part of the plate are the interior snap plates. I wanted to do as much work as possible, so figured what the heck. Have multiple parts drying simultaneously. For the right hand side of the armor (ab to kidney) I decided to keep the Han snap functional, saving myself one snap plate. To help support the bottom of the joint I went with elastic, which should give me a little movement while kitted up. Elastic for the strapping was first measured, then cut and singed to seal the elastic to prevent fraying. I then used a white crayon to mark where to put the female snap. A scrap piece of 2x4 with a 1/4” hole drilled gives me a space to poke the hot soldering iron through. The iron cauterizes the hole, again to help prevent fraying over time. This technique was used on all the strapping positions in the armor. Now it was time to get back to the bucket. First up was taking the cheap pair of Amazon headphones and taking them apart. The ear covers came off super clean, just had to remove a few screws. What is great about these is the wiring does not run through the headset, so once removed I had clean oversized ear buds. The squirrel fans were then put into run into conduit which I had already measured for the internal diameter of the bucket. Also pictured is the initial cutout of my circuit board, the master switch and the power input from the external Anker battery; which will be installed into the ab plate, just below the chest plate connection. Next was joining the rear exhaust fans onto a single wiring circuit to eventually punch down on the circuit board. All these connections were soldered and then covered with heat shrink. Here is the rear assembly. Exhaust fans, EAS system from Active Armor, scavenged headphone buds and mic tips. I then started on the circuit board itself, doing all the work outside of the bucket of course. The completed board was put into its casing, awaiting final installation. Test fitting the installation. I think it is important to note at this point that I have some work to do on these electronics. Once the installation was completed I was doing some test runs and sadly, the regulator is overheating causing the chip to spin down dropping the voltage way below the required 5 volts to run the fans and the EAS. I am going to take the assembly apart and install a heat sink using some scrap aluminum from my TD clips. I also am getting some pretty terrible bleed of fan noise into the EAS system via what can only be a ground loop. I already have a suggestion from a fellow member of my squad (Thanks Drew!) of putting a diode into the circuit to isolate the fan noise. I don’t have any experience with diodes, but some research showed that it is theoretically possible. These will be upgrades at a later time to fix these problems. Until then, sadly I have no fans and no EAS. I just have to suck it up, literally. LOL!

Congratulations, good luck on your journey.

I personally like ears on the thinner side, but the basic shapes you have are fine.<br> Just a tip, your right ear should slide closer to the front of the helmet. It should cover that seam made by the joint of the font cap and back cap.

Yep, ears are on the wrong sides.

Once you have the initial trims done do a test fit with your compression top on to get a feel for how the two halves will join. This gives you a chance to fit the armor to you personally before making that final trimming prior to cover strips. This where the size of any taper (if needed) will become apparent. Don't forget to leave space for the gloves at your wrist opening.

Check the return edge on the bottom edge of your shoulder bells. That could be what is giving the odd tilt. To get them closer at the top, shorten the strap from the bell to the elastic bridge. All I can think of for you.

Steve, my thanks to you for all the help you have provided behind the scenes with my blaster build. Your comments on all the EIB and Centurion applications gave me faith that I could take the journey. Well earned retirement; your mark here in the detachment will last a lifetime

Congrats to you both!

Babty was the style of blaster used on location in Tunisia due to their strict gun laws. Still an E-11, but 100% non functional, unlike the E-11's used in the death star scenes.

Same with the bottom. Don't trim that until your ear locations are finalized. Then you can slowly trim away the flash to get to the final opening for your melon....I mean head.

I think I have my wife convinced to do Isaard.....still twisting a little.

If you can get ABS Pro-weld from your local hobby store, you could use that on the front to finish sealing the repair. Then buff out with sandpaper and novus polish.