Haso

Bucket lenses Just wanted to share how I fitted my lenses so that they are nice and tight in the bucket with next to no gaps between lenses and the bucket. I think of it as a hybrid method: 1) Use Trooperbay's dark green lens strip, here: https://trooperbay.com/costuming-accessories/dark-green-lens-material 2) Use TK 1636's helmet clip method, here: Because the Trooperbay lens is a thicker one piece plastic strip, I found that I needed to cut two separate lenses* from it, then I could use the helmet clip method using superglue. If you've painted/plastidipped your bucket already, peel/clean the paint off the areas where you'll fix the clips, so that they glue to the plastic directly. I shaped the individual lenses by getting a hot iron and pressing it on top of the lenses till I could slightly bend them - a little at a time till they follow the bucket's curve. Place a towel between the lens and iron, and do one lens at a time. *Trooperbay has a video showing how to mount these lenses, but I tried it, and much prefer the result I've gotten from cutting lenses and fitting clips because the lenses fit tighter against the bucket. This is the result and I'm really pleased with how it turned out (and yes that is one meaty chin strap attached to the ear screws, don't know why but I decided to fit a 38mm elastic piece for a chin strap - it works though).

Lol alright! Takes someone in Canada to find a place about an hour away from me in Melbourne! Gonna check it out when I'm home tonight. Thanks. Sent from my HUAWEI G510-0251 using Tapatalk

Some good news, Mark at AP says he can send some more ABS to get those 25mm cover strips. Yeah!

That's great mate, thanks for that. I'll be in touch when I'm home from work today. Troopers helping Troopers.

And in other news.... My thermal det. It's about 190mm long, so as it's an AP one, I had to trim the panel down a bit to shorten it across. This was actually the very first part I put together, thinking it was going to be easy. Yeah right.... My gloves. I got the hand guards from Trooperbay. I ordered the plain rubber handguards because I wanted to get a real rough finish on these. Added some weathering on them as well, by accident actually, the black scuffing comes from the newspaper they were laid on while the paint dried. I glued them to stock black heavy duty kitchen gloves using the two part Loctite super glue (the one that comes with the activator pen). It worked great. I was trying to emulate the way they were made back in '77, with paint bits cracking and chipping off. Thigh ammo plate - I've just cut the curve in each corner, and haven't fixed this yet. There is a slight curve on it already but it should just bend around the thigh pretty easy I'm hoping. I was also hoping to acquire some cap rivets but I haven't found any yet, so I'm leaning towards split rivets/washer to fix it. Belt: I've gone with the snap connection for the plastic ammo belt to canvas belt, so that I can interchange the belt between an ANH and ESB in future. Also, it makes it easy to disassemble if I need to. The holster came from Mark / AP, but I had to trim it down in order for the blaster to fit further down and allow the strap to reach over the blaster handle and into its snap stud. I did this with a snap/scoring knife, with a fresh blade fitted. It was pretty easy to do, but needed to be done carefully. I used the Trooper Man holster plan and followed that for the shape of the holster. Next few days I'll start posting up arms, legs, torso and bucket pics.

Thanks for that, appreciate it. I've PM'd my GML for his opinion, so I'm now waiting on him and Mark.

Hey thanks mate, appreciate it!

Here's my shins, with the 20mm cover strip laid on top of the back of the shin (not yet glued down). It looks as though the bottom of the shins don't align but that's only because one curves inside the other - I've still got to do a hot water treatment to get them to contour the same. When they are butted up together, the bottom of the shins align perfectly. Anyway, what do you guys think of my shin cover strip? You're looking at a 20mm one, I'm trying to source some matching ABS to make 25mm ones, but am I just being too fussy here? I'm leaning towards putting the 20's on anyway, and ripping them off when I can put together some 25's. BTW, I've got skinny legs so maybe they're proportional anyway. Still to round all the corners off the cover strip too. Also, here's some WIP pics of my pipe build E-11. I've sanded back the blaster in some areas to redo the painting / weathering, and I'll end up going over all of it with a final coat of black, so there won't be the large silver/grey patches you can see on it in these pics. I've also since glued the power cylinders to it. The weathering result I'm going for is if I'd just picked this blaster off the smoking battlefield ruins of Sullust!

Ok I realise I've still got to get some progress pics up here, but basically what I need to do now is: Attach should bell connections - snaps to the shoulder bells and shoulder straps Glue the plastic shoulder straps to the chest Fit the shin elastics (first choice) or velcro ('Plan B') Fit the shin rear cover strips Get the whole suit properly fitting - I know I need to pad my shins or anchor them to the boots to stop them rotating. Touch up painting of screws, helmet etc and I'm pretty much done! My only hangup is that I've only got 20mm cover strips on my rear shins (just an oversight when I made all the cover strips) and don't have enough ABS to make 25mm ones. I've emailed Mark @ AP a couple of days ago but haven't yet had a response - I just bumped that email today and hopefully he does have some. I'm going to fit the 20mm's in the meantime as I don't really have a choice. Nothing wrong with the look of it, I just know that the accurate way is closer to 25mm. Ultimately I'd just rip of the 20's and replace when I can get the ABS.

Looks great mate. Looking forward to trooping with you when mine's done. Sent from my HUAWEI G510-0251 using Tapatalk

I'm watching, and following. Wrist return edge is looking good. Sent from my HUAWEI G510-0251 using Tapatalk

Awesome that you're doing this mate. Good luck, the parts look great! Sent from my HUAWEI G510-0251 using Tapatalk

...also the sequence I followed to glue the sniper plate: front of plate, then 24 hour cure with E6000; inner side, another day for E6000 to cure; then outer side with super glue. Sent from my HUAWEI G510-0251 using Tapatalk

That's my thread for the sniper plate fitting. I found the water bath treatment somewhat helpful to close the gap on the outer side, but also packed under the sniper plate outer side with scrap abs to give it additional surface to glue on. It came out nice and straight. I'll get some pics and commentary up in my thread this week. Sent from my HUAWEI G510-0251 using Tapatalk

Ha ha! Too carried away doing the build to keep this updated. Just need to fit ammo plate, shoulder bell connections and ab /kidney snap, get the fit right and I'm done! Sent from my HUAWEI G510-0251 using Tapatalk

OK I've let my thread go dead for a while but I can say I'm 90% done. A stack of pics and updates incoming this week... Sent from my HUAWEI G510-0251 using Tapatalk

Personally I left the returns on all torso parts for the thicker look and would say keep wherever possible. I don't think it's mandatory to keep though and is up to you. See what others say too. Sent from my HUAWEI G510-0251 using Tapatalk

If you go the TK 1636 clip method and you've painted the inside of your bucket, just strip the paint off from those spots you'll glue to clips too. I just used super glue when I'd done a dry fit and knew where I wanted to put them. Sent from my HUAWEI G510-0251 using Tapatalk

I got mine as a strip from trooper bay. After trying the ear mounting method, I cut it into your individual lenses, put an iron over them (put a towel between lenses and iron) till I could bend them, then mounted using clips. For the clips I referred to TK1636's YouTube tutorial episode 'helmet lenses' Sent from my HUAWEI G510-0251 using Tapatalk

I agree with Sentry. Fit the butt plate and see how it all sits together and in relation to each other first. Great going so far. Don't feel the need to stop asking questions, its in all our interests that every trooper has great looking armour! Sent from my HUAWEI G510-0251 using Tapatalk

Hey mate, if it helps I ordered some kit parts from them on 14/3 and heard nothing till 29/3 when I got an email to say its posted. Then received it on 5/4. That's to Australia so the postage was quick but yeah, communication prior is a bit quiet. Sent from my HUAWEI G510-0251 using Tapatalk

Hey all, After the weekend's Armour Party I can now start back into my build. I had help with fitting for the torso section and am now up to strapping. I just realised though that I've glued 20mm rear cover strips to the shins. I've used 20mm for the shin fronts, and thigh front and backs as well. I'm going with the bra clip and hook method, and they seem to be adequately hidden behind the 20mm cover strips, but I need to check properly once the glue has dried (E-6000) where I've anchored the clips into the shin. My question is: as I'm going for a Centurion build, will the 20mm rear cover strips on the shins need to be upgraded to 25mm? I know that the larger width seems to be widely accepted for the back of the shins. If so, I've got no worries ordering more ABS plastic from Trooperbay (I don't have enough scrap to make larger cover strips), but otherwise, if 20mm is acceptable at Centurion level for shin back covers, I may leave as is....depending on aesthetic results when I can try on the shins to test the clips. My other concern is because the strips are 20mm, it forces the clip holes to be closer to the edge of the shin...potential cracks etc... I got a feeling I'm starting to answer my own question, but would be grateful if others could chime in.

Well done buddy! Great news and well deserved!! Sent from my HUAWEI G510-0251 using Tapatalk

Congrats on getting this far mate. Now bring it home! Sent from my HUAWEI G510-0251 using Tapatalk

Helmet's looking great mate! I'm following this thread too so I am keeping tabs on it. I'm thinking of getting another bucket to do an ESB one after my build - its my favourite movie of them all so I could make my suit interchangeable with some new hand guards, belt, holster etc... Sent from my HUAWEI G510-0251 using Tapatalk