Sandy Pimpernel

Your helmet looks fine, and I really like how the lenses were mounted. They do look dark enough in the pictures. If you think they might not be, put on the helmet and ask someone if they can see the details of your face in a well lit room. If they're almost dark enough, you could tape off the lenses, mouth, and edges of the inside of the helmet and give it a good coat of black plastidip paint. Looks like there was a booboo on the mask part near your right ear (red circle). You can repair the hole by removing the upper ear screws, using a tongue depressor to smear in a very small amount of ABS paste, then either grinding it down with a small file or using increasingly fine grit sand paper (start ~250, then step up in increments to 1000). Keep in mind this will remove the finish in that area and you will need to take care when weathering, as paint or fuller's earth will take to this area more than areas that have a gloss finish. You probably don't need to repair this 501st approval, but I think you will for PO or SWAT. The builder left some pencil marks on the right ear (red box) that you should be able to erase with a pencil. If you want this ear to sit more flush, remove it and trim the disk part millimeter by millimeter (blue line). Like ABN Trooper said, if you want PO or SWAT, you'll need to copy a specific on-screen character down to every detail, including the wonky ear gaps and high/low brows. I don't recommend altering the ears if you just want 501st approval right now, because the gaps you have are normal and altering any part of the shape will make your screw holes off when you try to remount it. If you want PO or SWAT or you just want more screen accuracy, I recommend you buy at least 1 new set of ears to work on, maybe 2 because it's easy to make mistakes. The left ear looks good. If you decide you want to replace it along with the right one, I recommend mounting it about 1/4 in. higher on the helmet (red arrow) so that the top of the ear is aligned with the bottom of the brow. What you have is right now should get you approved in 501st. Again, reiterating my statements on ensuring you match each part to a on-screen character if you want PO or SWAT. Once you trim the front end of your forearm (red line), check for fit. There shouldn't be much gap between the bottom of the bicep and top of the forearm, so don't trim the forearm until you've fitted your bicep, bell, and have them attached to your kit by snaps or other system. Those are my very nitpicky critiques that you should take with a grain of salt. I'm not PO or SWAT level because of the effort that would need to go into upgrading my kit. Overall your kit is looking really good! Keep up the good work and keep us updated.

Check out my build thread. I had to mod almost every part to get a good fit. I had to buy a large 2 x 4 ft sheet of 2mm ABS ($20) and cut out custom shims. Luckily I had my wife who was also building a TD help shape the biceps, bells, and butt to fit with a heat gun. Best advice if you decide to use a heat gun: go slow and practice on a scrap first. Heat the part while it's on your body. When you get the fit you want, let it cool on your body so that part will keep its shape. Post pics and ask questions if you want more specific help.

Check out my build thread. I had to shim my my biceps, ab, kidney, thighs, and calves.

Congrats. It took my wife and I a month to get approved. Stay in touch with your GML and ask for an update if you don't get your approval email in 3 weeks.

You can also attach a piece of black elastic to the MP40 pack and loop it around the shoulder bell attachment strap.<br><br> That's what we did. Sewed a 4 inch long piece of 1 inch elastic into a loop on the back of the pouch, then hung it from the strap that connects the shoulder bell to the shoulder strap. It's not something we're going to keep permanent, but it's good enough for now. I think we're going to troop a few times then decide on how/where to add a snap to keep the pouch in place better.

Requesting 501st access. TD-30002, Garrison Titan http://www.501st.com/members/displaymemberdetails.php?userID=19956​

Adding the belt snaps. We heated the snaps that we set in ABS so they curved with the abdomen plate and glued them in place. I didn't think our magnets would hold them in place well, but it turned out just fine. Covering the rivets on my belt with buttons: The minor warping on my hand plates were obscured pretty easily with some very fine grit sandpaper and weathering: Back of my thighs before weathering, but after 9 inches of shim, ABS paste, cover strips, and so much sanding. I think the shims were obscured/blended pretty well. Screen mesh after E6000: Calf shims after ABS paste and a lot of sanding: Test fitting out my armor, I found out my 2 inch shims on my calves were just barely enough. Scarlet helped warm and shape the calf shims so they sit a bit more comfortably and look better when on my leg and closed with elastic strips. I still want to work on them more later, but I'm getting kinda burned out on tweaking my calf shims every other day. First coat of paint, but before rubbing quite a bit off to make room for 2nd coat of gray-burnt umber mixture and later fuller's earth: Finishing the fuller's earth layers in the garage: Close-up of butt plate. The incandescent lights make it look more orange than it is: Here's the part everyone cares about: I 'finished' my build and am submitting for approval! Other things I still want to work on after taking a short break: Tweak any remaining parts of my DLT-19 blaster to make it troop ready. Add an additional snap and elastic strap to the sides (lateral to the fronts) of my thighs to keep them in place better. Fiddle with my calf shims until they sit how i want them to. Replace my film lenses with stronger hard plastic lenses. Replace my neck seal with the one I ordered. Find some more comfortable gloves that breathe. Look into buying/installing a voice PTT system. I want to do a few troops before I decide I need/want this enough.

I'm getting behind on posting and haven't been the best about taking progress pics. Scarlet and I are getting into the final/finishing stages of our TD builds. Sometimes it's overwhelming working on our 2 kits together, but we've been finding that the teamwork is helping us go much faster that we would have been able to alone. Ok, so the mic tips were a bit easier than I thought. I read on some other threads that some kits have a tiny dimple in the space where the mic tips go and to drill straight through that. It worked out really well. The dimples are hard to see, but here's the progress pics: Find the dimple Drill the dimple Screw in the mic tips An additional step that's not shown above is we went back and added a touch of white to the end and inside edge of the mic tips for accuracy, then added some glue to the screens, as they were a bit loose and I imagine hard to replace if we lost them at a troop. Then I did some finishing trimming, sanding, and glue picking to get my upper body pieces ready for weathering. Scarlet Trooper and I ended up trying our weathering out a 2nd time, as the first attempt (2nd pic below) came out too splotchy once we wiped it with a wet rag. We found that hot water and a wet rag with a bit of lava soap will scrub off all paint easily and leave no scratches. Scarlet got really into the 2nd weathering attempt and I like the first layer of burnt umber on my helmet. More pics for these parts soon: After doing some finishing sanding on my thighs, Scarlet made me a garter system to hold the thighs in place. I helped her design the webbing garter belt, using our dog's collar as inspiration. Scarlet sewed some elastic loops for the hand guards and we used ABS paste to adhere the loops to them. There was some minimal warping, so I wouldn't recommend ABS paste to anyone else. In hindsight, E-600 would have been better here. We added another layer of burnt umber acrylic paint mixed with some gray last night as we felt just having the burnt umber looked too warm on its own. Adding fuller's earth tonight to finish weathering on upper body and helmet. We followed TM's advice on belt building and used this diagram to help align the buttons and rivets: http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/28772-belt-measurements-question/ We followed TM's advice (clamp, align, drill, rivet - no heat) on knee ammo pack placement and riveted, then trimmed the curve, using a tube of caulking as a guide to draw on the curve at the ends before cutting with curved lexan scissors. We later added a blob of glue between the knee ammo pack and thigh to keep it from moving up or down. I cut some new shims (2 inches each) for the back of my calves, then glued them in place. Scarlet warmed the shims with the heat gun, then shaped them to my calves so they look more natural. I picked the glue out and added some ABS paste that I'll be sanding away later tonight to get as much of a flush appearance as I can. Once that's done, I'll start weathering my leg pieces. Scarlet cut out and glued in the screens for our mouths last night, will check on how it holds with E-6000. She also touched up a few spots on the inside with more plasti-dip. Our last step on the buckets is to install the lenses. I'm going to try to affix the film we got with our kit in a temporary fashion, as we ordered a different set of lenses that I want to try out.

How thick is your ABS sheet? I was able to score and snap some 2.5 mm ABS to make some of my shims. You may need to score the same place 2 or 3 times, then use pliers to grip and apply pressure to snap. Longer handle pliers will help.

My neck seal didn't turn out that great, but should still be good enough for 501st approval. I ordered a proper replacement that should come in a few weeks. I spent the past few days finishing up my thighs. Some of the ABS that I smeared on the shim seams left some pitting after I sanded. I applied a 2nd thinner layer of ABS and will sand it smooth tomorrow. I'll post more pics when I'm satisfied with the way they look. Scarlet Pimpernel and I also worked on our snap system. My back parts are complete. I'll be working on the front pieces today and tomorrow. I want to install the hovi mic tips on my helmet tonight, but not sure about technique. I see a lot of finished mics tips that look good on the forums, but haven't found a guide that helps me know where to drill the holes. I'm pretty sure I just drill straight back in the center of the bowl and fasten the mic tips in with the nut and washer that came with my kit. I'll take before/during/after pics that may hopefully help someone else who likes more detailed instructions like me.

My stripes came out great! I still needed a toothpick to clean up a few splotches.

I don't care about PO or SWAT levels. I keep reading in the mepd forums and here about how getting into the upper tiers is "restrictive" and not "accurate". Not saying they don't care about accuracy, but those aren't the descriptions used by current and former mepd members. I'm making this to get approved in the 501st and trying to keep it as screen accurate as possible, considering there wasn't a single on-screen TD my size with large shims on everything. Shouldn't the notch on the kidney plate align with the corners of the butt plate instead of move to my sides? There's maybe 2 shots of a TD kidney plate in ANH and neither are the character I'm using as source. I'm trying to get my build to closely resemble Davin Felth (look, sir droids) and that actor didn't wear shins during filming <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://forum.mepd.net/?showtopic=10833'>http://forum.mepd.net/?showtopic=10833</a>

Mega Update I started with a 4 x 3 ft. piece of 2mm ABS and cut out the very large shim I need for the back of my thigh (after measuring twice!). Because the shim is noticeably thicker and less flexible than the thigh pieces, Scarlet Trooper helped me warm it with a heat gun and get the general shape I needed for the back so it looks like leg armor and not a box. Then, we did a test fit and glued it in place with E6000. I still need to apply some ABS paste then sand it smooth to hide the seams, and glue on the cover strip centered on the shim. I added 2 inches of shim to both sides of the abdomen and kidney. Glued on with E6000, covered with ABS paste, sanded smooth and test fit. I still intend to round the sharp edges of the shims with the dremel for comfort and later with fine grit sandpaper for aesthetics. Abdomen inside Abdomen shim outside - any remaining defects will be sanded again and then obscured by weathering later Kidney inside Kidney shim outside - any remaining defects will be sanded again and then obscured by weathering later The tube stripes have been a nightmare. I tried using Panda's templates on regular letter paper, cardstock, laying down a layer of white first, trying different painter's tape, etc. It always came out extremely blotchy and bled so bad that I couldn't just clean it up with toothpicks and q-tips. I came up with a method that worked for me and I hope to go home tonight and finish cleaning up any tiny smudges that came out of the process. Start with Pandatrooper's template and x-acto. http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/14867-tube-stripe-masking-templates/ Lay down a strip of 2 in. painter's tape on your cutting surface that is roughly equal length to the template. Place the template evenly on the strip from the previous step and tape down all edges of the template to hold it in place while you cut. Cut out the stripes and press down firmly enough with the knife to cut through the tape that is below the paper strip. Use the edge of the blade to scrape up the paper and then the slit of tape underneath. Peel off the template and tape that was used to hold it down. Very gently, lift your new tape template... ...and place it on the tube. Lay one side of the tape strip down on the tube, then lightly stretch the tape to follow the natural curve of the tube. Press the tape down firmly with your finger and then again with the back of your thumbnail when it's positioned correctly (sorry no pics of this). If you made the paper template run parallel with the edges of the tape, you can use the margins on your tape template to align the stripes where they need to be. Next is finishing the neckseal, starting the belt, and finishing the remaining work on my thighs.

Worked on sanding some abs today and putting a base coat of white on my helmet today. Found a really helpful thread about putting on a base coat. http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/23204-tip-on-tube-stripe-painting-with-no-bleed-through/