themaninthesuitcase

Welcome to the FISD Tracy!

Welcome to the FISD Frances! Good luck with your Stormtrooper build. Sounds like you know the score with the UKG clearance process so won't teach you to suck eggs. But do make sure you show us how you're getting on too!

I have updated all of the forum supporter badges to date. You should be able to see it on the left side of the forum under your name. Unfortunately this doesn't show on tapatalk, you need to use the website. It was great to see how many are first time supporters, as well as a lot of returning supporters. A couple of troopers have been very generous and I thank you for your very kind gestures. No matter the donation though, it's thank to you all we can keep the site alive.

https://sites.google.com/site/3dsfinfo/part-ii-the-sets/part-iic-the-docking-bay-sets Updated link for this site

Welcome to the Forum, seems that you're well on your way and other members have been helping you out. Once your BBB (Big Brown Box) arrives make sure you start a build thread and we can continue to help you along. Justin and the rest of the SCG seem to also be very active in the real world with armour building so I am sure they will jump at the chance to help you out.

Looking at the instructions looks like it still comes with a "hero" style belt connection. But does come with shoulder strap reinforcement, which is good my Anovos ones almost snapped off. I can't see any obvious reason not to add DN, being a retail situation it's a very different to most builders. I've order from DN, had an issue and it was handled well.

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For the forearms this reminded me I needed to upload the ones I did

Captains Dry Dock also did some, I need to make some as one DN ones is the wrong size for the plate. Not sure he posted them here, but the are on the First order build group on Facebook in the files section.

Been working on this a couple of evenings a week, I'm not a fast worker and easily distracted. But as my niece is over for the next week and likes to touch all this is being packed up so I may as well write it up instead. Hopefully out of sight out of mind doesn't kick in again. I got some Novus polish and after a 1st pass realised I need to start again on filling the forearms. I have now done 2-3 passes and am slowly inching closer to flat. Don't think it will ever be actually flat but closer. ABS filling is an art, and one I am not great at. Getting better but I suspect this is going to be the weak point on this build. I seem to flip between too thin and too thick and completely miss just right on the slurry. Slowly getting there. I have now also built the abdomen up. When testing the fit I saw there was a pretty substantial step once the sides where in place so decided to add a shim to lift the sides up and get closer to a flush plane. Using some 1.5mm ABS from Amazon I added a layer along the length of the lip and the box. This was attached using pure acetone, I simply painted it onto both surfaces and then clamped in place. This welded it on solidly. I also drilled through the holes on the side panels before I glued them on. The pull is a little soft there and hard to see where to drill from the front once mounted. Shims done I glued the sides on more typically using E6000. I don't anticipate needing to remove it later but the chance to re do before filling was something I wanted. I did toy with welding these on but I don't trust my self just yet. Maybe on the shoulders. The seam is now more or less flush, vs a big lip to fill and deal with. A 2mm shim would probably have been better still but probably not worth worrying about. Need to clean up the remaining glue before ABS paste. This done I drilled out all of the holes for the resin boxes. I started at 2mm then offered up the boxed to check the marks lined up, bar one they did. This done I opened them up to 4mm with a step bit. For the boxes them selves I didn't really want to use the supplied self tapping screws. Instead I am using M4 threaded inserts. Using some calipers I measured how deep the resin was to not drill too deep. Then using a 6mm drill bit, to match the OD of the inserts, and a 3d printed depth stop I drilled them all out. And of course blew through on 2 holes This was filled with Milliput (epoxy putty) and I used the butt end of the drill as a form to stop it filling the whole thing, basically this meant I didn't need to drill again. Now they are sanded you will never know once painted. All holes drilled I dropped in the inserts. A couple holes needed a little more depth, blew through on the big #5 where the recessed rectangle is so that was also filled. For that there wasn't enough meat where the hole is designed to be so I filled the whole thing. I might drill 10mm or so in where there's a little more meat, see how well 3 work. The #5 box is a lot thinner so rather than buy some more shorter inserts I used some coarse sandpaper to sand off about 2mm. This proved to be faster than trying to use a file. To hold them whilst sanding I printed a quick holder with a grub screw where about 3mm stuck out so was easy to rub on the paper. The inserts are glued in with CA, applied using a wick tip to help with precision when applying. This wicks down the side and so holds it solid. I've offered up these to the ab and checked for alignment. About half are spot on, about half have wondered in the drilling processes. Not like I am doing this on a drill press with it all clamped up. Opening up the holes to 5mm fixed a few, but for a couple I'll screw the box into place mark the drift then use a dremmel to nudge the hole in the right direction. I am also going to be using some 3d printed ASA washers which will spread the load over the enlarged holes. On ones that I feel need it I'll use some ABS sheet to weld on some reinforcement. I also have some thicker washers where the shape of the armour curves mean the screw will hit weirdly. Finally, at least for the amour, I was looking at the resin drop boxes. I decided I didn't like how heavy they were so replicated them in Fusion and 3D printed some in a ASA. These will also use M4 inserts on 40mm centres. I was originally matching the templates until I realised the templates, like all of them it seams, didn't match the actual parts. The smaller box was printed solid in 1 part, the larger one I made as a box and a lid to make sanding the groove easier. All of this printed with no support, even the little slot for the lid to line up on. This shows the larger box: The slot in the lid allows you to line it up perfectly easily when glueing. Not glued yet, I want to prime them and sand that first. Will glue before colour I expect. I used ASA which was fine on the lid but there was a small amount of warping on the small, and large box. A brim helped a bit but there's still some there. That said if you get close enough to notice you're too close, get your head out of my groin. If you've read this far and want to know the weight saving: Resin: 370g, ASA printed: 118g (3 walls, 10% grid infill) so almost a 70% saving before I add the inserts. I have also resin printed the forearm rails in Elegoo ABS like which seems pretty tough from some other parts I've made, and dropped. I've also been working on the blasters but basically sanding, sanding and more sanding. Might need to re do a few parts I messed up gluing but there's amount of no one other than me would notice but I know.

Congratulations trooper!

Welcome to the FISD, good luck with your build!

20 is indeed Senior Armorer, congratulations Justin! I believe this makes you the 2nd recipient of this award. I look forward to seeing you at Master! I have updated your profile, congratulations again trooper!

Greetings troopers, We inch forward! We have now raised just over 57% of our years funding. If you have found this forum useful and can spare even $1 it would help move us closer to our funding goal!

All donations are welcome, if you feel we've helped you and would like to help out then please go ahead!

Seems the Etsy is dead, but found their Cults. Thank you!

On a less formal note: The prod looks really cool, what was your source for it? I sort of want one for my first order now.

Hey sally, Is there lore of the prod in use? We have the figure with the SE-44C and F-11D but I've not read the book so wouldn't know if we could make this a CRL option or not.

Welcome to the FISD, start by reading and asking questions. Mistakes can be expensive and are usually easily avoided with a couple of question.

Welcome to the FISD. Have a good read, starting with the links above and as you get any questions feel free to ask them.

One of these:

Do you want an aluminium plate? I have handful I’m not using.

Welcome to the FISD

Before painting check the match. There’s only so many places to get ABS in the IK so you might find that RWA and RS use the same stuff.

Welcome to the FISD. if you start either a build thread or a preapproval thread we can take a look at what you have and guide you from there. We have threads on pretty much all makes of armour so there should be something we can point you to, worts car there’s some experienced builders who can help you.