Khazid

Welcome aboard Jared. If finances are tight you should focus on the items most important first, the FISD and the 501st aren't going any where. I would suggest reading all the pinned threads here and start compilinf a budget for what you want to achieve. While there are very acfordable kits starting under $700, it is all the extras that will add up fast. Tools, glue, under suit, blaster (for lvl2 and above), boots, etc. The community here is incredibly insightful and supportive, no matter what path you take.

The smallest quantity you can buy will be way more than sufficient. Unless you plan on sculpting your own parts, the smaller tubs will last a long time. I had my initial purchase for almost 8 years before the hardener finally gave up the ghost and I needed to buy a new batch.

If you go with magic sculpt and have questions, drop me a PM. I'll be happy to help.

Good luck with your build.

Magic Sculpt. It is an epoxy resin that smoothes with water, has a 2 hour working time and can be handled easily with clay tools. I swear by it. Check out the repair I did on the folding stock in my E-11. It was done with abs shims and Magic Sculpt.

Nice job Chad, well deserved!

Nice pictures, thanks for sharing!

Vern the master has spoken...as always sound advice.

The best bet for the battery is amazon. You can find them normally with two batteries and a charger. Around 18-20 dollars if I recall correctly. Good luck with your build.

Get the LED driver from DX-Extreme (they ship from China). There is a link to the site and the part in the first post in the thread.

This thread should be a "Go To" for anyone working on a retrofit. Way to stick with it!

Sounds like Scott just volunteered to take up the project on developing said CRL.

Nicely done!

Removing paint is tough as ABS and PVC can be eaten by most commercial paint strippers. Your best bet is mineral spirits and lots of elbow grease. For the tiny nooks and crannies use toothpicks or nail salon sticks. Ince your ready to start again, the beat tip I can give is to thin your paints, it helps with flow. You want the consistency to be a tad thicker than milk. Good luck!

E6000 is an evaporative glue, which is why it takes so long to cure. Normally the faster the cure, the more likely you have a chemical reaction accelerating the bond. Heat is a normal byproduct of such fast reactions. Test on some scrap (as suggested above) if you are concerned, but E6000 should be fairly safe. I believe Vern had a great suggestion of using a buffer piece of duct tape on the exposed metal prior to gluing.

The only other project prior to painting was to finish my scope assembly. First up was the easy part, the front. I cut out a piece of CD-Rom and then glued that piece to the lens I trimmed down several weeks ago. A little dremel work to sand it flush and it was time to glue into the front of the scope. The purplish effect from the cd-rom backing is most impressive. Now for the fun part, the front layers. First up was putting on all the decals onto the clear styrene. I used Micro Set to get the decals on, then applied four layers of pure Future to seal them. It took a couple of days to get all that done as it takes a while for Future to completely set so that it isn’t tacky. For the layer closest to the LED, the back of the styrene was scuffed with 300 grit sand paper to further diffuse the light. Then it was painted with the Tamiya Clear Green paint. Two layers of the paint did the trick. Once dry, that was attached flush to the reflector that acts as the base of the front targeting computer. Two tiny strips of the clear styrene acted as stabilizers so I could glue in each layer. Here is the completed unit prior to trimming those stabilizing strips flush to the uppermost layer. The LED was then glued to the back of the base and the unit was epoxied into the scope. Some magic sculpt to hide the seams and strips gave me a base for the front lens, which then was also filled along the outer edge with a small ribbon of magic sculpt. Once painting is nearly complete, this part of the scope will be painted in brass, with a layer of patina created by the Tamiya Clear Green to represent aging of the brass. Here are the final results with the LED off, and then on. It is very hard to see with the pictures, but the illusion of a three dimensional sight inside the scope is great. I even got lucky and some small dust particles and scratches stayed in place, giving the sight the appropriate aging that I had hoped to see. To say I’m pleased with the final outcome is putting it lightly. Nothing holding me back from paint now, so over the next two weeks that will be the focus. Once paint is done, then it is all about waiting on the LED drivers to finish the electrical. Final assembly is around the corner, I can taste it. Besides, my MTK brown box is calling me. I truly hope that the armor is not as complicated to assemble as I have made this E-11. LOL. Until next time, Krazy Khazid is signing off.

Another two weeks has passed and it is time for another update. I committed to showing all of you the back of the circuit board that I fried so that you can see the wiring. Here you go… It is a shame that I shorted out the main chip. Thankfully, when I got the replacement programmed I put it back onto the testing breadboard to check out my counter electronics; nothing was fried in there. I dodged a blaster bolt there! Just have to replace this main board with all the wiring. I am still waiting on the replacement LED drivers to arrive, but I am already wiring in a new board to replace the one pictured above. The layout will not change as it was my own stupidity that fried the Arduino. While waiting, I decided to go back and address my front sight. I had accidentally filed the needle point on the wrong side and had originally decided to just say a left handed trooper owned the weapon and would flip it around so that the lock nut was on the same side as a the magazine. Yeah, yeah, it was bugging me too. Time to fix it! I cut off the old needle and bored out the top of the sight. Since I was here, I might as well replace it with a correct looking blob as the actual sterling front sight is a small bolt where the needle extends from. I didn’t take a picture of the final trimming, but in that last picture you can see that I have a small rounded section that protrudes from the sight encapsulating the needle for the sight. I feel oh so much better now. Prepping for paint was my next project. I already posted my paint swatches above for comment and critique. Still looking for feedback if any of you have it to give. Here is a nice shot of my spray booth. It is a 4’ wide, 38†deep, 36†tall box constructed of 1†pvc. The primary joints are not glued, so the whole kit will come apart when I am done painting for storage. In the back of the box I have a 20†box fan that is pulling air out of the booth. Between the booth and the box fan I have two inexpensive house HVAC filters. This is to remove the paint particulates that are in the air. The entire booth is covered in 8mil painters plastic that is taped down with blue tape. I vent this out of my garage with air duct that is attached to the back. In all the booth cost about $200 to build, but can be used in many formats, including taking to an armor build party for people to use. For the rest of my paint prep it was all about masking off for final assembly. Glue does not like paint and instead of doing sanding later with a dremel, I did a dry fit of each part not attached to the barrel prior to painting, outlined it in sharpie, then put masking tape into those locations leaving about 1/8 of an inch for paint to create a seam. This will give solid adhesion when I get to final assembly, but allow me to do all the painting. Here is another example, this time on the bottom of the power cylinders. Notice again, the edging that will get paint, but I am ok with that.

The grey on the pipe should be the same grey used on your helmet for the traps and tears.

Best way to clear the glue areas is small strips of masking tape. The tape should be around 1/8" less in diameter of the area the glue will adhere too. That way paint is a little under the joint to make a seam, but allowa for good joint ashesion.

Thanks Christian!

Novak, where did you source the image files for what is under tour plates?

Yep, did the old hack the webcam trick. I really like that Rebel Legion tattoo on your right shoulder On a serious note, I am out of ideas other than you have defective pickups.

Just a thought here, but sometimes facial hair can be an issue by causing a dampening effect. If you have 1-2 day stubble, or even a full beard that extends onto the neck, that could also be interfering with the pickups.

Google is strong with the force....

All you would ever want to know about rivets can be found here. A speed rivet is also known as a semi-tubular rivet.