jason10012

Ok some slight progress this afternoon after the troop. I was able to show a few of my garrison members my bucket and they said it looked good except for the gap on the left ear and that I needed to close it up some in order for me to get approved. So slight setback with the ear but not worried just means I need to take some time working on it. I'm hoping I wont need to order a new ear but I'll do what needs to be done to make it right but I'm pretty sure I can get it. I took the ear off already and did some preliminary sanding to try to make it fit better. I also drilled another screw hole on the lower dimple mark and added another screw to help pull the pieces together closer to the gap. I didn't do too much more after that point because I decided to get more things gluing so that I could move on. I got out the measurement for my shims and cut them out and glued an inner strip to them so they could dry in preparation to attaching them to the abdomen piece. I needed 1-1/2" shims, I could've made them slightly smaller the actual measurement was about 1-1/4" but we decided to make it bigger for comfort and being able to breath. Now that I have a table full of parts gluing I dont have any more room to do much more so I started on my nylon snap plates. I'd already cut a bunch of them out while I was waiting for my armor to arrive so that I could stay busy so it was just a matter of making the center hole which I made with a soldering iron so that I could melt the ends of the hole at the same time. nylon plates ready to go, its time to mount some snaps into them. I'm using Tandy snaps. I know I need a bunch more but I'll make them as I go it only takes a few minutes. With some snap plates ready to go I marked up the back pieces of the torso to line up the snaps and I glued in the first 3 to the butt piece. I still need to put in the 2 snaps on the butt plate and I'll do those once the snaps dry. I think thats enough for today I have to take a couple days off work in the next 2 weeks so I'll get an extra couple days to work on my armor.

Ok I'm attempting to get as much done as possible so as I finish I'll do an update. I'm spotting on a troop this afternoon so I'm just going to do what I can before I leave. Started on the thighs this morning because I knew that we sized them properly at the armor party yesterday. I pulled my parts out of my bin and made sure to mark the mid section where I needed to cut the overlap and then removed the tape, clamped on my ruler and drew a line. As you can see I literally had no overlap at the top of the thighs. After I got both sides marked and the pieces trimmed and sanded I cut out the 20mm cover strips for the front and back. I had to do some quick research on the cover strips before I cut them to length to make sure I was doing it properly. Thank you ukswrath for having such detailed build threads so that us first time builders have an amazing library of knowledge at our fingertips. Now that I know the cover strips do not extend down into the raised area on the bottom of the thighs I measured the strips and cut them to length. I cut out 4 strips and I would glue the front side on one half and the back strip on the other until all 4 pieces were sitting and on their way to fully drying. Tomorrow I'll get the front side of both thighs glued together and then after another 24 hr wait I'll glue the back halves together. I've also used up the majority of the clamps I have so I'm debating going to harbor freight to get some more so I can keep working considering I also need to start gluing on my nylon snap plates to secure the torso pieces. Heres where I'm at right now And yes I've been supervised during my entire build by Lord Vader and a Strormtrooper who sit on my little table next to where I've been gluing all the pieces together .

I'm trying, I'll get as much gluing today as I have clamps for

I was lucky enough to be able to attend an armor party today and I feel like I got a ton accomplished, thanks to TI-7343 for opening up your home. I didn't really cut a single part but I got my thighs, shins, biceps and all my torso pieces fitted and sized so now I just need to cut a whole bunch of cover strips and wait forever for them to dry haha. Of course I'll double check each piece before I actually cut it to ensure that they fit correctly. We did determine while I was fitting the torso that I will have to shim about 1-1/2" of gap on each side between the abdomen and kidney pieces, not as much of a gap as I'd originally thought but a gap none the less that needs to be addressed if I want to reach centurion. The first thing I did before I fitted the torso pieces was to make sure I trimmed off some of the extra plastic on the butt and cod areas and made sure that any sharp edges were rounded off so it wouldn't tear the compression suit or give me any armor bites Here are the torso pieces all taped up after fitting. I did trace the top of the abdomen on the inside of the chest piece as well just in case any of the tape ripped during transport back home and before I could mark and mount my snap locations. I was lucky enough that all the pieces fit pretty well and that I didnt need to worry about my height too much. I just needed to make sure that my chest had enough overlap on the abdomen piece but yet still high enough on my chest to look good. The back pieces lined up perfectly the way they should touching one another but with no overlap. Another thing we did while fitting all the torso was to place the shoulder bridges on top of the shoulders and mark where they should be glued on the chest piece. Both bridges lined up evenly with about 4 bumps on the front and back. We did however forget to determine how long the 2" white elastic/nylon strapping to bridge the chest and back pieces should be but I'm not too worried about that because it'll be easy to determine that length once all the torso pieces are attached together with the interior strapping. We didn't get the measurement for the belt I simply forgot while we was fitting but like the shoulder strapping it will be easier to determine once most of the strapping is in, and something I can easily do by myself. I also need to install the split rivet and the 2 snaps on the butt and cod pieces still. After we managed to get the torso fitted I worked on fitting the shins and thighs. I tapped the front of them to make sure they wouldn't move and then wrapped the shins around my leg with my boots on and marked the outside of the abs and then took them off and tapped them up to those lines so I could mark the center of the overlap for the cut lines. I did the shins by myself so this is how I marked the outside of the plastic so when I took them off I could line them back up. I also made sure that according to left or right that I had the overlap opening to the inside of my leg. I didnt take any pictures of my thighs but as far as overlap they were 0 at the top, meaning I had no overlap at all and the bottom tapered in 2-1/4 inches on both sides. I'm going to have to trim off the top of the thighs as well so shorten them up a little bit. I plan on only making 1/2" to 1" cuts at a time after I get the cover strips glued on. Shoulder bells did not need to have any adjustments I just need to round off the sharp corners and install the elastic for the bicep connection. I did get the biceps fitted while I was there too but they need a little more adjustment so I didnt take any pictures of them yet and I'll do that once I work on them again. Once the day was over I packed all the pieces inside my bin so that I could work on them at home, cutting and gluing on the inner and outer cover strips. I left them taped up so help when I double check the fitment before I make the final cuts. It was a very productive day and for me it couldn't have come at a better time in my build. Now I have about a week worth of gluing ahead of me, and of course more research to make sure I cut the cover strips the correct length on the pieces. I'll be helping our CO as a spotter tomorrow for another event, I try to be an active cadet in our garrison, but I'm sure I'll have some of the pieces cut and started to glue tomorrow night.

Thanks

Ok time for a couple updates. I've been working on the helmet mostly but between coats of paint drying I've managed to finish my right forearm completely. The left forearm will need a hot water bath to get it to the right shape. I'll take before and after pictures when I do it. Shins I've trimmed off about half of the return edge along the tops so they would fit more comfortably but I havent done much more than that up to this point. I managed to get the lenses installed using trooperbays technique that he has on his website. This is also the upgraded lenses that came with the AM kit. They look almost identical to the ones trooperbay sells, I know I'd bought a lens prior to getting my kit based on alot of the build threads i'd read. As far at the helmet I got the tube stripes painted. I used the templates from Trooperbay but rather than place them and then paint over the top I got them in place and penciled in the outline, removed the template and then painted. Heres what the template outlines looked like prior to painting and how the tube stripes came out after I made sure that both sides were not much more than a #2 pencil width away from the cheeks before I started painting. I did have to clean up some of the lines and in a couple spots the squareness of a couple of the stripes. And while I had the white paint out I also painted the ear screws and touched up a couple spots on the frown that I'd gone a little over on as well. Before I did any of the painting tonight I installed the hovi tips that I painted last night so they would have plenty of time to dry. And with that I can say my bucket is complete other than the foam padding inside which I'll get to by the end of this weekend I just need to get the foam still. I also need to install some fans I'd already purchased but after reading this thread here on fisd, http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/36631-how-to-diy-usb-helmet-fans-no-more-9v-or-aas/, I'm going to upgrade to an anker battery pack rather than the AA batteries on each side of the bucket. The delivery man was very kind to me as well today and delivered my hyperfirm B-grade blaster. I can only imagine how good the elites must look if the b-grades are of this high quality. Maybe after my build I'll buy an elite to put on display.

Thank you. It's been fun working on my own kit rather than reading about them every night, but I'll be happier when I can go troop in it already

I've been slowly getting return edges trimmed and sanded and I can say I'm very thankful that the AM kit comes mostly trimmed. It has made it so much easier to work with not having to trim out the extra plastic before I can even start sizing it and removing the return edges that I need to in order for a more comfortable fit. I managed to get the return edges taken off the biceps and sanded down but I haven't begun to fit them to my body yet. Not sure if I can fit them properly by myself or if I'm going to need some assistance for this part of the process, anyways right now I'm just trying to get as much done as I can seeing as the weekend is coming to a close and how dare work get in the way of my build . Here is a picture of the left bicep and both biceps trimmed From here I moved onto the shins and thighs. I know that the cover strips are supposed to be 20mm so I took out my ruler and measured 10mm from the raised edge on the shins and made a mark on both ends of the piece. I then clamped my ruler to the shin and drew a line, unclamped the ruler and double checked that I would have a sufficient amount of plastic left to wrap around by leg and boots and then made my cut. I did the same thing for the thighs as well. You can see how much I had to trim off the front of the shins. I think the thighs were close to the same thing. I'm saving the extra scraps in case I need them for abs paste or I need to shim. As of right now I'm pretty sure I'll have to shim my abdomen and kidney pieces a couple inches but not much. Once I finished making these cuts and sanding them down I took a piece of scrap I cut off of the shins and glued it to the inside of each shin so that I would have extra support when I opened and closed them to put them on. I still need to cut the 20mm cover strips but I'll wait till I have them fitted the rest of the way. This is how the front of the thighs look now. I still need to trim the back to size and I dont know if I'll have to trim them down in length yet but that will come soon enough.

Back at it. Time to paint in the black. I masked off the rear traps so I could get an even line across the strips. remove the tape and this is what I ended up with next comes the black outline Not the straightest lines in the world but I'm very happy with it and super happy with how my bucket is coming along. Tears and front traps next Vocoder is next up I w I was doing really well with not touching any wet paint right up until I finished and placed the helmet back on the table and my pinky finger managed to touch the vocoder and in turn somehow I managed to get some paint in the eye socket area, ooops . Now time to let the paint dry again, not that I dont have plenty to work on still. Once the paint is fully dry I'll come back and clean up everything I need to and give the bucket a good look over and correct anything I might see. I still need to paint the tube strips and the hovi tips, install the lenses, neck seal and brow trim and the bucket will be done. Took me about 2 hours to paint all the black. I havent used any stencils up to this point and its all been freehand. I already purchased the tube stripe template from trooperbay to pencil in the stripes prior to painting. Onward to the next step.

Well I know I said I was going to work on my biceps but I decided to start my bucket and see how far I could get it done. I'd cut out the teeth the night before and started to file them, finishing and squaring them up today. Now that the teeth are done its time to assemble the bucket. And even though the ears were already trimmed I was still not looking forward to this part but it needs to get done so off we go. Here is the right side ear looks fine, minimum gap I was hoping I was going to get lucky. Then came the left side ear..... I could drive a truck though that gap. I sanded the ear where I could to reduce the gap but when it came down to it the face tube just was not contoured the same as the other side and no matter what I was going to do it just wasnt going to match up. My only hope was to push the face plate and the ear as close together as I could and with assistance from my neighbor, drill out the bottom screw which helped to pull the ear in closer. Ok crisis averted, although its still a bigger gap than I'd like I can live with it. I have momentum so I'm going to keep going. I pulled out the decals that Troopergear includes with his kits just to look at them, I'm going to hand paint mainly because I just like the way it looks more than the decals. Out come the brushes and the testors paints. I looked for the humbrol paints locally and no one carried them and I didnt want to pay shipping to get them online. I took out the Testors gray #1138 and shook it up and then taped off some areas of the helmet just as a precaution and to make painting the ears a little easier. I just used a small brush thats easier to control and I can get straighter lines with it. It does take longer to fill in the areas but this isnt the place to make mistakes. in the You can see the brush I used in the last picture. I plan on using the same one to do the black outlines and stripes for the traps and tears. I have to do a little clean up from the paint on the frown. I did manage to put a small drop out of place near the teeth so once the paint dries I'll clean it up and if necessary I'll add a second coat of gray. For now I think I'm done building for today so I can let all the paint and glue dry.

Now that the forearms are sized its time to make my cut marks. I dont have to trim too much off the forearms, the thighs though will be another story. Now that I have my marks I took the tape off and following navajo bros lead I used a flexible metal ruler and a clamp and connected the 2 marks so I would have my cut line. Take the ruler off and this is what I have to remove Note, I've seen some build threads where they leave the ruler clamped in place and run their knife down the plastic to keep a straight line, I took the ruler off because at least with these pieces I felt I could keep a straight enough line that I would be fine. Next up was to cut out the cover strips. Little bit of research from some saved screenshots on my phone and I have it. Forearms and bicep cover strips should be 15 mm in width and shins and thighs are 20 mm. I marked a piece of the extra abs that Troopergear includes with the armor and clamp it down to a board on my coffee table, clamped the ruler down on one side and using a knife I scored the strip 4 times and then unclamped it and snapped off my first strip. I did this for all the strips. This time I did use the ruler as a straight edge since this will be seen and I wanted it as straight as I could get it. A quick trim to length, some E6000 glue and a lot of clamps later all the cover strips are on and drying. Onto the next thing while I wait for glue, biceps here I come

well before I went to bed I managed to get the cap and dome glued together without too much hassle or sanding thanks to the AM armor. I also got the elastic glued down onto the hand guards, still haven't decided if I want to use another piece of elastic or just sew in some velcro to the glove for the front part After I finished doing these it was time to go to bed. Think it was close to midnight when I finally gave in but I was still way to excited to actually sleep. Woke up Saturday morning at 550am to meet with some members of Alpine Garrison to troop the Salt Lake City Marathon We had a Magma trooper, LoveMonkey in his Sandtrooper costume and a Biker Scout. I was there along with 2 other spotters as the 6 of us cheered the runners on at mile 4 of the 26.2 miles. This was just one of those events that is so much fun to do. The guys had to pose for a picture after the last runner had passed before we left. Fun over it was time to get back to my build. Started with the forearms like almost everyone and grabbed the exacto knife, closed my eyes and made my first cut. Actually after all I had researched up to this point I was so ready to actually start building my own that this first cut was a pleasure to do. Finally my armor, not a bucket someone was letting me try on, or a piece of armor to hold, this was mine. The first cut I made was to take off the return edges on the wrist and elbow side of the forearms. I originally only took it off the wrist side and sanded it down but once I was fitting it to my arm I realized that the elbow side return had to go as well for comfort. Two hours later after trimming, sanding and fitting the forearms I was ready to move onto the next step. I will admit, one of the things that did slow me up some was which side belonged on which arm. After reviewing a couple bookmarked threads, 11 bumps on the left arm, 12 on the right .

Well after what feels like a lifetime, here I am finally with my own build thread. I've always wanted to be a stormtrooper and after EP 7 I finally decided that it was time. Like many first timers the only thing I knew was that I wanted to do it right the first time, and that I wanted to join the 501st. Well after some research, which led me to the FISD, the next step was trying to decide just what type of trooper I wanted to be. I decided on ANH stunt. The next step was to sign up at the local 501st group, Alpine Garrison. As of now I have 13 troops under my belt as a spotter, another one tomorrow morning with Lovemonkey, and a few other members of the garrison, and I can honestly say its been a blast and I cant wait to join them in my own costume. I spent the first couple weeks after I knew what I wanted to do just reading, and reading, and reading. I never knew there was so many different versions of a stormtrooper or just how much information was out there and at first it was a little intimidating but now I'm so thankful for all of it, as well as to all of you that continue to help fellow troopers with their builds and to make sure everyone looks their best. I hope I will do Alpine and the FISD proud with my own build and look forward to your help and advice along the way. Now for the basics, looking to reach Centurion level: Mandatory Information Armor = AM 2.0 (Troopergear) Helmet= AM 2.0 (Troopergear) Blaster= Hyperfirm B-grade Optional Height = 5'-11" Weight = 250lbs Boots = TK Boots Canvas belt (49" off-white) = TKittell Latex Hand Plates = Justjoseph63 Centurion Level Rivets = Justjoseph63 Neck Seal = Darman Now that the formalities are out of the way lets begin Mandatory BBB picture Wow thats alot of stuff in that small little box One of the most debated items on FISD....the shins and their proper placement. I think I have this right thanks to all of you Soft Parts I had ordered one of the darker green lenses from Trooperbay as well prior to ordering my armor and after I ordered it I got an email that Troopergear was updating the lens material in his kit. From what I can tell they look identical so now if one pair gets scratched up I'll already have a spare. And now to finally start building, here we go

You have to email them first before you place your order. Just click on the email link on their site. They'll also want to know the following, copied from my email to them, your e-mail with your name, shipping address and which US Men's full size you would like, no money down. Once the boots are completed we will e-mail you straight away and ship.

I haven't even purchased my armor yet but I am already planning on doing ANH stunt just because of how iconic it is and how it's the one stormtrooper that everyone knows, other than the new first order stormtrooper.

thank you for doing these videos. I have yet to actually purchase my armor but I have been slowly collecting the other soft pieces I need while I save up and these help to understand what I'm getting myself into . I cant wait to actually start building!