C0bra_M3nace

Yup! I noticed that as well. Planned on going back through with a super fine brush for the inner lines and straightening out the outsides with a toothpick in some thinner. Thanks for the help buddy!

Can you get the top of the shoulder bells any closer to the shoulder straps? They should be almost touching. Other than that and the elastic on drop boxes stated above it looks awesome man!

Touché. What do you think of everything else? Like the paint so far? I've been assuming the lack of feedback is good?

I'm positive he meant top of shins and bottom of thighs. That's what I understood from what he said. Anyways since you've begun insulting everyone who is trying to help I'll kindly remove myself from this thread. Clearly you don't need any help!

Perfect. I figured since they're hidden it wouldn't be a big deal! I don't know, there's something about two snaps that makes me feel, weak. Lol. I'd prefer 3 just for the solidity. I wanna troop, not screw around with snaps. Lol.

Btw. No one is saying that the cut shouldn't be there, people are simply saying that it should have been rounded instead of 90 degree cuts is all.

Took the picture right out of my gallery. Sorry man but I don't know what blue ray captures you saw. But none that I've seen had them square. Here's another. And probably one of maybe 3 good captures from our references that show them. All that aside. The armour seems to fit you well and looks good on!

Big update! I got in a determined set of mind today and got my groove going. Tackling a bunch of things this afternoon. Almost finished painting the helmet. Left the stripes out so I can wait for the paint to fully dry. After that I painted the ab buttons. There's still some work to be done on the helmet paint though, I do plan on sharpening the edges and the outlines. Specifically around the ear bars. I made the line too thick so I'm going to draw them in a bit with a toothpick and some mineral spirits when I get the chance. Then I tackled that belt. Which brings my first query. If I can't do it I'll live but I was hoping it was okay to build a triple snap system for the belt to ab plate. One in the center and one for each end. If that won't hurt Centurion approval I'd like to do it that way. This is what I mean. I don't have pictures but I started glueing the drop boxes together, one of which I built an "Open/Close" system. Where I'll be able to keep ID & possibly debit/credit cards while trooping. Very happy with how it turned out. TD is about 90% finished. I just have to drill one more hole for the second clip and then glue the second cap on! I'm also very happy with how it turned out. Again no pictures yet I'll have some when complete. I got the last cover strip glued for my shins at the back and then I have to apply Velcro to it and trim. Now I'm onto the strapping system. Which I'm going to make a spreadsheet showing each strap along with their measurements. I'll also be mapping out which snaps I'm going to make "permanent". So 1 snap on each strap will be snapped in then glued. Hoping this will avoid snaps from popping off mid troop. Technically cutting my odds of it happening in half. Hopefully this will be my last big update until the final reveal. Gosh I'm excited. Thanks for taking the time to read and follow my thread. If you spot anything please feel free to let me know! Love the feedback! Thanks! -Justin

Had some time this morning and I got some Velcro on the shins. The left one looked bad in that pic above because it was tough keeping it closed. This is both shins with boots on Pretty comfortable aside from the small bites I get at back up top. But I'm gonna dome the tops at the back down to the cover strip like they did in the originals and hopefully that will cure the little pinches I get.

Been slacking off on progress pics. But how about this? Done pretty near everything except the strapping. I was going to do it last night but it snowed/rained and I have to hammer my snaps outside so instead I just threw some tape on everything and tried to fit it together as good as possible. This is just a quick teaser because it doesn't look really good just yet but it's coming together. A list of things yet to do. -Start the belt (I know for some reason it's most intimidating part? Maybe it's just me.) -Finish drop boxes -Install Velcro on back of shins -Install elastic at bottom of shoulder bells -Fit/Construct strapping -Finish garter belt -Soft Velcro around bottom of shins to deter boot scuffing/ Place a piece of hard Velcro to front of boot to keep shins from rotating -Paint rest of helmet -Paint ab buttons -Swap already installed 9mm rivets with proper 8mm (only realized afterwards that Marks rivets that came with AP are a tad too big.) -Install Cod rivet -Glue handguard to gloves once received -Install helmet padding WOW. Haha. That's all for now, I'll try and keep tabs on my strapping, I'm still debating on whether or not I'm going to fabricate one large piece of strapping with 6 snaps for one side (where kidney meets ab plate) we'll see. Also, one quick question before I leave. BELT. I somewhat realized why it's so daunting. I've read and read and watched that you measure to the center and punch a hole, that's where the middle of the plastic belt is attached. Now, I'm a pretty thin dude and it doesn't take a seamstress to know that I'm gonna have a lot of excess belt. Do I trim or do I just wrap it around anyways. Is it just me or if I wrap it around the center of the belt will change? Surely the TD isn't going to hold the excess down? That might be confusing I apologize! Anyone who understands please chime in or let me know I can try to explain it better. Thanks a million guys!!

Hey. Don't be too hard on yourself man. If you like the look of it have at it and put it on the display. Honestly, most armour kits you buy from our vetted vendors come with, or have the option to: get a helmet. PERSONALLY. I would beg for a return but that's me. My reason? Simple. The kit I'm doing up now will be on a full size mannequin when not in use. So I get a life size Stormtrooper to guard my house. I can then take it off, wear it myself and troop with it. So I get he best of both worlds! An awesome display and a tool to bring joy to little Star Wars fans (okay, adults love it too!) at all sorts of events. Ultimately it's your decision but trust me when I say that trooping with the 501st will be worth every penny. And if you decide to make that plunge. There's a flurry of experienced and compassionate members here who will help you with that quest. -Justin

Hey guys! Minor update. I'm moving along quite quickly. Things are actually a lot easier than I had anticipated so progress is great. I always tend to veer off course though, when it comes to pictures. I just start forgetting to take them; likely in my excitement. However, I do take them when I have a particular question. I'm very happy with how this guy lined up. I'm just wondering about this gap here at the bottom. It would barely be visible but it's an eyesore nonetheless. Should I fill it somehow or is it alright?

This thread has actually let a huge sigh of relief out of my system. Not that I've messed up on my build yet but if I do, It's not all lost. Thanks for this Tony!

That's a build thread that I've not been to. Although, knowing now how knowledgeable he is, it seems silly that I have not. Thanks Jason!

PERFECT! Thanks for clearing that up! This may be my next piece. I would also love to ask what are peoples preferred methods for doing the belt. I've strayed away from it until now, and it's almost my last piece. I tried to find some ways but a lot of people do it very differently. I've been told to put three male snaps behind the "buttons" and then matching female snaps on the canvas belt, then making the female snaps on the belt facing inward to attach to the male snaps on the ab plate.. I personally don't like the idea of having the canvas snapped to the ab plate, then the belt snapped on top to the canvas belt. I just doesn't sound very solid to me. Would it not be best to permanently "rivet" the belt to the canvas, then just snapping the whole thing to the ab plate? I thought I saw a method like that but can't find any diagram or tutorial on it. Hope that explanation wasn't too confusing! Thanks guys! Appreciate all the help so far! If my strapping goes good I might have some pre-submission photos in here for suggestions soon. Maybe end of weekend or sometime next week.

Okay so I have a quick question regarding the detonator. I've seen a very nice animated picture showing all the measurements but have yet to find it again. I know it must be approx. 7.5" long. I know pretty much everything about it EXCEPT the cap sizes. How wide do the caps need to be? Thanks!

No problem! I'm a 33" waist give or take so yeah, you should be more than okay !

No, I didn't. But! I'm also VERY lucky and I could trim my kidney plate back so the notch was about almost exactly 22x22mm. It also allowed me to trim the ab plate to match and I got the seem almost perfectly down the center of my side. As shown in the earlier pics. The notch itself is indented into the kidney plate but elongated. I wish I had a picture before I trimmed but I don't. Basically when the kidney plate is untrimmed the notch is indented and runs ROUGHLY 22mm tall x 100 or so mm long. If one has a bigger girth, you would need to put a shim in and redo the notch. Hope I explained that well enough, I would imagine someone of wider girth will have same issue I explained shown and resolved somewhere. EDIT** Here's a pic I found of an untrimmed piece showing the notch indent.

Here buddy! I quoted his post in the other thread, it's somewhat of a tutorial. Will help if you're looking to do this in your build!

Someone in Danny's (MechaPumpkin) build thread showed pics of it. Very very easy to do. I didn't even need a tutorial I just used the pic in that thread as a reference and then just did it my own way. He actually placed his putty differently, and used regular nuts instead of the motherboard posts as I did.

New update! Got to work on a few things today. Started glueing the front cover strip on my left thigh. I had just enough clamps/magnets to do it lol. (should have gotten more, oh well) But I did get quite a few things done today. I made snap plates, using 2" nylon strapping that I scrapped from tie down straps bought at Home Depot. I also bought all the elastic (no-roll) that I need to hook everything together. I got my lenses in, and I must say I did a good job. Hahah! Had to toot my own horn a bit. I don't get to do it often. Then I painted the frown and inserted the mesh. I actually just taped the mesh in with painters tape. Couldn't think of a great way to do it. I'll just leave that for now and maybe get some ideas for it later. (if you have any, please feel free to let me know) And the last thing I did was make sure my ab button plate turned out okay and I'm very happy with how it turned out. I was struggling a little bit today because a lot of pictures weren't loading on my phone or tablet on FISD. I have been trying to find the cool diagrams showing snap plate placement, etc. I know there's a ton of them but I couldn't find any, because I couldn't see pictures. Anyways, I'll figure that out. I actually gouged a good chunk of my knuckle off today on, of course, the last little cut I had to do on the shins. So I called it a day, now it's time to play the waiting game. Which is like watching glue dry haha. See what I did there? Thanks for reading! Any feedback is appreciated and thank you all for the support and assistance! -Justin

You won't regret it. Mark is great to deal with and his kit is very good!

Okay great! I was just worried about it for Centurion. Thanks a million!

So the large gap isn't a major issue? I plan on sticking a card holder inside and allowing it to open and close. Might skip it if the gap becomes a problem. If the gap is fine, I may just leave it for now and figure something out later. Not a big concern really.