hupspring

Richard Boyda 17695 EIB letter size Tony http://www.whitearmor.net/eib/certificates/17695-eib.png

Revisiting this build once again, I just wanted to add a little update. After one of my troops in October or November, I saw a picture of myself and I noticed how much extra room there was in my thighs. I knew about this before, but that picture made it obvious to me that I had to trim them down. Previously I had a piece of foam padding in the left thigh to stop the holster from pushing that thigh too far inward. After trimming it to fit better, I no longer need that padding. I took off the cover strips from the rear of both thighs and measured how much I needed to cut. I think I had to take close to 3 inches off the left thigh and about 2 inches from the right. Most of that removal was at the tops of the thighs since the bottoms were fitted much better. I had to cut new inner cover strips, using left over scraps from my wife's sandtrooper thighs. The outer cover strips were still usable (just make sure you are careful when pulling them off if you ever need to do this). This is how much plastic was removed. Here's a before and after shot of the thighs - although I forgot to take the 'before' shot before trimming and gluing together the left thigh. It's quite a difference. Now that the thighs are fitted better, I can actually walk much easier as well since the thighs aren't constantly rubbing against each other.

This looks awesome and I'm definitely going to follow your progress. I like the idea of falling back to your standard vision in case the tech fails (usually at the worst possible moment). Would it be useful to have multiple views/screens? For example, you would have the standard screen with slightly extended peripheral vision, and then another screen below that which shows what is directly in front of your legs.

I'd really love to see your vision improvement system - not necessarily widening the field of view, but being able to see directly in front/below you (where little kids and small obstacles like to ambush you).

Donation sent!

So I finally got around to changing out the interior of my bucket, going from the hard hat liner to padding. The military padding alone wasn't doing it for me, so I bought a motorcycle helmet liner that also came with cheek pads. The liner itself didn't fit that great, but it was perfect in my wife's helmet, so she got that for her padding. But I was able to use the cheek pads - after a bit of turning the pads in different directions, I found one that worked. I'm not sure how the cheek pads are actually supposed to sit in a helmet, but this way I'm able to slide the helmet on with earbuds on if necessary. I did remove the hearing assist for now, and I'm going to be ordering a fan bracket soon, so the look of the interior may change a little again. I also velcroed a challenge coin (still in a plastic sleeve) to the interior of my bucket just in case I get challenged while in armor. Better safe than sorry!

I was going to take a picture tonight but totally forgot to get cookies

Thanks for the explanation François. The tracking still shows in transit, but USPS attempted to deliver something the other day and left a note, so I need to go to the post office to see what it is. And since I'm not expecting anything else, I'm guessing it's the boots!

Thanks! The scope was probably my favorite part of this build. I still want to make a functioning scope some day. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

It feels good to finally have it looking like a blaster and not a bunch of parts. I'll probably do a light black wash on those screws, and do some light weathering on the rest of the blaster (just a few small scuffs to give it a little bit of personality). Then it's on the wall for display since I feel more comfortable using the Hyperfirm for troops!

Hopefully yours takes a plane instead of a ship!

I ordered some pilot boots on Aug 13 and got shipping confirmation on Sept 6. Tracking still just shows that it's in transit, so it's probably coming via ship which could take a couple weeks or more. Which sucks since shipping was $70.

I was able to get the end caps off by holding the cap in boiling water for 10-15 seconds (might have been a little longer, it's been a while since I did it). The cap came off pretty easily after that. Just make sure you wear gloves or you might burn your fingers.

Unfortunately I won't be able to make it.

Thanks! Agreed on the short sleeves vs jackets too. So far I've only been wearing the lighter jean jacket at work since the AC is always on there and I took the hoodie to Colorado last month. I mostly wear the black short sleeve, but hopefully it starts cooling down soon so I can wear the jackets more (once the temps drop below 70 it's jacket weather for me).

So the end of May deadline didn't happen It's been really slow going trying to finish this blaster, mostly just trying to find the time to do it. But over the last few months I've finally finished it to the point where I just need to weather it (who knows when that will happen!). There are some parts that I wish I had done differently (like the counter), and there are a couple parts that I want to fix, but I doubt I ever will (like the position of the rear sight).

It's been a while since I've updated my build thread (since I'm basically finished building ) but I thought I'd add some notes now that I've done several troops in the armor. After my latest troop, the rear cover strip on one of my shins pulled off halfway as I was taking the shin off. It was probably partly due to the shin not being flat where the rear halves met, so the cover strip was at an angle when it was closed (I use the velcro method). So when I got home I pulled the cover strip off the rest of the way and cleaned up the glue residue, then gave the shin a hot water bath to try to make the backs a bit more flush. The back of the shin does sit more flush now, but I don't know if the hot water bath loosened the adhesive on the velcro (the part glued onto the shin). I re-attached the cover strip and it closes better, so I'll have to keep an eye on the velcro at my next troop. I've also decided to get rid of the Anovos hard hat liner. The longer I wear the helmet, the less comfortable it becomes as the hard hat liner starts digging into my head. I even added a little padding to the strap but that doesn't really help at all. I have the military style pads and will try positioning those to find a good fit, but I think I will also need something thicker for the sides of my head, otherwise the helmet will swing freely if I move my head side to side. I ended up ditching the iComm as well. The static bursts are cool, but for some reason, they would be a lot louder than my voice. So if I turn up the Aker volume so my voice could be heard decently, the static bursts would be really loud. If I turned the volume down so the static bursts weren't too loud, then you couldn't really hear my voice through the speaker. In the end, amplifying my voice won out. Since my wife's sandtrooper is almost finished, I'll probably get her an Aker and see if she wants the iComm. I've had problems with the hearing assist at every troop so far. I first tried the little speakers, but couldn't hear anything coming out of them unless I pressed them to my ears, so those were out. I tried corded headphones which work great, but it was a hassle putting the headphones in my ears before putting the helmet on, then tucking the wires out of the way. Finally I tried bluetooth headphones which were great in that I could put them on without worrying about the wires, but I was getting a 1 second delay which was making it hard to follow conversations. It also had a lot of fan noise...I still need to buy a fan bracket from ukswrath which should help with that. So until then, I'm not using the hearing assist and if the bracket doesn't help, I'll probably just remove the hearing assist altogether. Overall though, the armor has held up well. I was lucky enough to get in a Weird Al troop, and we had to do a brisk walk down to the after party (I think almost a mile away) in our armor, and make the walk back up to the venue to change. I'm happy to say I didn't have any armor bites or problem areas. I also may have gotten a bit obsessed with patch jackets. My wife only has one patch jacket so I promised I wouldn't get any more (for now!).

I've been using a hard hat liner but the longer the troop is, the less comfortable it becomes. I've been thinking about replacing the liner with some type of padding but haven't gotten around to it yet.

I used E6000 - after several troops they are still holding on just fine.

The nomex flight gloves are great - my hands don't sweat in them and they fit and feel great. I also glued the JustJoseph latex handguards to them so I don't have to worry about straps holding them on. But I also tried gluing the Trooperbay latex handguards to the nomex gloves and they wouldn't stick. A little bit of pressure and they came right off. I don't know what the difference in material is, but the JustJoseph ones glued on and stayed.

I plasti-dipped my bucket mostly because it looks cooler (to me).

I'm definitely introverted and a big reason I like the TK is because of the anonymity. But even with the bucket on, I'm still quiet and let other troopers do the talking. Exactly how I feel. I do like trooping so I'm trying to get out more, but I do love staying at home!

I'm eagerly waiting to see how they turn out - I really need some brackets!

Many thanks! Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Not sure who to address this to, but I noticed the title above my profile picture on posts still says "Expert Infantry" - would it be possible to update it "Centurion" whenever someone can get to it? (no rush!) Thank you!