AgeOfStrife

That is looking great.

Yeah, looking at the materials list on Shapeways it's mostly nylon based and other plastics that Acetone wouldn't work on, sorry for any confusion. I get my 3d parts printed either on a Fortus printer at work which is ABS, or my colleague who has an Ultimaker 2+; the biggest thing I've had printed is a 1/6 scale Emperor's Throne for a 12" Hasbro figure, would have been about £1000 on Shapeways due print time, ended up being about £5 in material cost on the UM2 and didn't charge me for time Sorry to derail the thread, I'll try to keep watching quietly from now on. Looking forward to see this DLT come together. Dan

My colleague has had success with Ultimaker PLA, reading up on some UM forum posts it looks as though somene of their PLA is actually a composite with some ABS mixed in which is why it works. I didn't realise it didn't work with all brands. If ordering from Shapeways they offer a smoothed print which appears to be ABS which has then been through an Acetone vapour step to help the surface, although I've read some forum posts where people have said that their parts arrive slightly sticky. Dan

If you have any more 3d parts that you want to have a smooth surface on, I've always just sanded on fairly flat surfaces, and where the surface is curved or angled and has more striations I've put on a little Humbrol modelling putty smeared with my thumb so it almost fills the gaps and then sand. Acetone is supposed help with getting a smooth surface, but if too much is used it can make a mess as it dissolves the ABS/PLA. I haven't tried it myself, but a colleague at work has with his own prints and most of the time it's given a good finish. Dan

Can you drop the left ear a little? I seem to remember having to do this myself when I built mine last year. The ears will be at different angles as they're slightly differently shaped. If you can drop it enough to get the bottom under the edge of the tube, how much gap do you have above it to the brow strip? You could also thin the inside bottom edge of the ear where it goes under the tube so it doesn't have to drop as much. If you check out photos of screen used helmets such as http://www.starwarshelmets.com/original-ANH-Stunt-Stormtrooper-armor-helmets.htm you can see that on most while the right ear just about touches the brow strip the left ear has a gap. Dan

Is probably be interested in a resin stock kit too. I started to try to make one from abs but have and used the one from the doopys kit

Netfabb is available for Linux too, but you'd have to check if your specific distro is supported or has a makefile. Netfabb is one of the apps used by Shapeways for checking files and repairing them, although the free version has some features disabled. Even though you aren't thinking of creating files it can be handy for checking them and looking at them in depth. Dan

If you want to check STL files for dimensions there are quite a few free applications that can do it simply. Netfabb free version has a measuring tool as well as being useful for checking parts are valid and rescaling then if needed, and also for slicing up models into smaller parts. I also use Google Sketchup as I find it easy to use to create models, and also imports STL files. Exporting to STL is a bit more fiddly, there are plugins which can do it but I tend to have more success with converting through other apps but that can get messy. If you're just using it for checking measurements, and maybe creating tubes of various diameters to check parts fit, it's worth playing with it you have some time. Dan

This is looking great, will be following it as I'd love to build a DLT-19 from PVC pipes, just need to have the space to display it first. Dan

Thanks for the mention in the credits. If it helps, my name is Dan, but ??? adds an air of mystery Dan

Fantastic work. Almost makes me want to build one to replace my Doopys version, but I know I'd have a meltdown trying to get it half as good as yours. Sent from my XT1032 using Tapatalk

Using CA glue you risk fogging the glass. Try to use a glue that won't fog, such as a contact adhesive, or better yet don't use any glue at all - with my scope the holes I drilled are a really tight fit for the lenses and I only had to push them in, although it took a while to get them all the way in to position. Dan Sent from my XT1032 using Tapatalk

Looking good. For padding I just used the movie style foam star, got mine from trooperbay along with an elastic strap. Sent from my XT1032 using Tapatalk

Trooperbay is down for me too. As to the traps, I'm a complete beginner so you might want to take what I write with a pinch of salt, but I spent a few weeks studying the CRL and many build threads here on FISD to try to get my ATA helmet right. I agree with you that the traps should be painted out to the recess inner edge, it does look like they haven't been painted correctly. What are the rear traps like? Are the edges on those also not up to the inner recess edge? The left one looks red in your second photo, is that a reflection of something red near it? The left temple looks to be OK in your photo, although it does almost look like it's not quite up to the edge of the recess, but that might just be the angle of the photo. Also the ear screw heads need to be painted white. If it's any help, there are links to photos of my ATA helmet build here: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/31379-my-first-tk-helmet-build/page-2 Dan

Fantastic build. Now you can take a break

The details on these cylinders is going to really put your blaster up another level. I've stuck with the Doopys cylinders, but might replace them if I can motivate myself to follow your lead.

Not a great picture, but here's my Doopydoos kit with lots of mods I recently finished. Finished for now, but I'm sure I'll find a reason to tweak the future. Dan

That looks great. I haven't had a problem with little hands, my son is old enough to know not to touch.

If you build that saber hilt I'll be watching your topic like a hawk. I've got access to a .25mm resolution industrial 3d printer at work so may be able to print up some parts, but might be too expensive to do the whole thing.

Looks great. Looking forward to seeing it painted. If you're like me, you'll start looking at either a pipe build, or a RotJ. Haven't decided to do either yet. I've also been looking at maybe a Vader lightsaber hilt but the prices for something decent are a bit higher than I wanted to pay.

The gloss is a better protector than Matt or satin. Putting the satin over it takes the gloss off, but still gives the extra layer of protection to the paints underneath. And leaving the grip masked when laying on the satin or Matt top coat leaves the grip glossy. I prefer the satin look for the bulk of the body over the black and pewter areas as Matt is too flat, but I'm tempted to use Matt on the t tracks at some point. The pewter spray gives a nice steel colour so the metallic areas round the trigger don't look too shiny, and for weathering the steel areas, a silver would look like it was clean and polished. It's a bit darker than GW boltgun metal if you have a pot of that to compare to. Dan

I personally wouldn't use GW chaos black as a primer coat, I've found in the past it doesn't bond well to resin and flakes badly after a few weeks. For my own blaster I used a Halfords grey primer spray for the first coat, this creates a good key for the paint to bond with. That was followed by two coats of B&Q pewter spray, then two coats of B&Q satin black. Finally used a couple of coats of Halfords gloss lacquer, then all but the grip gut two coats of GW satin purity seal.

That scope looks great. Is the image clear through it, or distorted by having the prisms further away from the lenses than in the monocular?

Looking forward to seeing yours completed, might give me some more details to copy

I managed to take some slightly better photos with my camera. I also figured out how to post images inline, I've had to add a rewrite mod to my own website to allow pseudo image URLs as the FISD image handler doesn't seem to check the MIME type in the URL response, it must parse the extension from the URL instead which doesn't work with phpBB forum attachment URLs directly. Dan