Cricket

Today, stirrups! These will keep your shins snug against your boots and prevent them from twisting around. These are super easy to make. Here's how I did mine! Get a length of elastic. The stuff I'm using is 1.5" wide. You want enough to wrap under your foot, into the boot, and allow for extra- a few inches or so. This length looks good to me! So I measured two of these- one for each foot. I want a large surface to stick to the inside of the shin with these, so I choose to sew the elastics together to make the ends 2" across. My velcro is 1" wide, so I'll be using two strips of velcro on each stirrup. I pinned them together and decided to make the length of the velcro/sewn section 2.5" long. Be sure to make a looped section at the bottom of the stirrup. This will make them easier to step into. Like this! Now that I'm happy with the fit, it's time to sew. I did a quick double stitch along where the two pieces of the elastic overlap. Then stuck my pieces of velcro on top. I used my sticky velcro because that's what I've got on hand. You'll have to clean your machine needle if you're sewing the sticky stuff! Now it's time to try it on! View from inside the shin. This is before I put the looped part of the velcro inside the shin. You'll definitely need sticky velcro for that! Once I had figured out where the hook velcro of the stirrup would be placed in the shin, I eyeballed where to place the loop pieces of velcro. I use black velcro here instead of white because it's easier to see when putting on your shins. Always put more loop velcro inside than you think you'll need! Stirrup installed! That shin isn't going anywhere I don't want it to now. No more worries about the shins twisting or riding up on my boots. Shin stirrups rock!

I'm now at the point of the build where snaps are necessary. Not everyone uses snaps for connections, and that's okay. I like snaps- especially for the arms- because that allows me to fully nest the arm and leg parts inside each other (and all that goes inside the torso shell) when putting everything together in my half bin. I also like to make sure that my snaps are built with an extra layer of ABS in them. Not only does it make the snap strong, but it makes removing the snaps a breeze when dekitting! All you need to do is get the edge of your finger under the corner, and POP! Super easy. I start with some extra ABS pieces cut to the same width as the elastic. Mark the centers. Punch the holes. Make an ABS sandwich with the elastic. Punch your elastic holes so everything is lined up. You can also punch everything at one time if you have the strength to do so. And there ya go. I also melt the edges of the elastic with a lighter to ensure that the elastic doesn't fray. Works great! Another trick that I thought I'd share is marking snap positions. Here you can see I've got a snap plate installed on my chest. I like making a double snap here for extra security. Not everyone does (elastic glued here is canon), so do what works for you! The female halves will be assembled using an ABS plate inside the elastic strap, so the positions must be absolutely perfect because the female snap parts will be rigid. Now, I could spend time measuring, remeasuring, and remeasuring this in order to get the other halves of the snaps in the perfect positions. But instead of spending lots of time measuring it all, I just use a metallic sharpie on the snaps, making sure that there is a lot of ink on the snaps. You just need enough so that it doesn't dry before the next step. I like using the metallic sharpies for this because it takes a longer time for the metallic ink to dry- which gives me a little more time to work. Then I pressed the elastic exactly where I wanted it to go over the male halves. This ends up making a perfect mark for where I need my female snaps to go. Then I make my holes in the elastic and ABS plates. And install the snaps. Here is the snap before putting it together... Yay! Perfect fit!

That moment when you see yourself as a Stormtrooper and say to yourself, "OMG! That's me!" (That's me on the far right in my RS Props kit.) I don't really look all that short out there, do I? This is currently on the Atlanta Braves website, promoting Star Wars night at the Stadium for May 4, 2018. The photo was taken at last year's Star Wars night, which happened to be my very first big troop. I was excited, nervous, and proud to represent the Empire! And here is what they told us just before we went out on the field... I had no idea that they expected us to levitate across the field. #troopergoals This will be my last update to this particular thread since I'm not building on it anymore (I'm over working on my WTF Hero Build right now, so I'm still around!). This kit is destined to become a Sandy in a few months. Building my RS Props TK was a great experience for me, and I really hope that I've helped other vertically challenged individuals along the way. Long live the FISD and long live the Empire!

Moving along to modify the belt and knee ammo pack a little... They are flat and need some shaping. My waist line is so small and curved that it necessitates adding some bends to the belt. If I don't add some curving to it, the plastic ends of the belt will flare out and ruin the nice profile that the belt should have. If you have a wider torso than mine, then you won't have to deal with this kind of thing. Lucky you! And adding some curve to the ammo pack just makes installation easier. Here you can see the belt before the hot water dip. I use chemical gloves to protect my hands from the boiling water and to easily handle the hot items as I shape them. I also use a pair of paint stir sticks taped together to help clamp part of the belt flat while I bend it. So, at the end of the belt I want it to curve a little, but just where it meets the box, and I also want it to keep kind of a flat shape. So I clamp the belt with the stir sticks next to the last box (like in the photo below) after I've dipped that section in the hot water to soften it. )You can do this same process to the middle sections as well if necessary.) Then I just apply gentle pressure and bend it where the box and the clamps meet. The stir sticks are wide enough that they just fit between the boxes of the WTF belt. After a few minutes of shaping, I ended up with a gentle curve in my belt and ammo pack without any warping or loss of detail. If you don't like how your bends are coming along, just redip the part of the belt you don't like, and let it sit in the boiling water for several seconds. It will return to its previous shape without any coaxing. Try again from there until you end up where you want.

HUGE congrats, Nicole! Way to go! Now the fun begins... trooping!

Woo hoo! Contrats TK-42715! You look amazing!

Who likes cracked shoulder straps? No one? So let's reinforce some shoulder straps before installing them, shall we? A strip of stainless steel, 3/4" wide is measured for the strap first. One package is enough for two shoulder straps. e6000 glue applied to the ridges. Then the strip is cut to length and bent a little to conform to the shape of the shoulder strap. It's set on the e6000, and then covered with even more e6000. I cover that with some super thin white styrene. Here you can see how thin and flexible it is. Then all that's left is to sandwich things together really well with a mess of clamps and magnets, and voila! Reinforced shoulder strap that should be able to take an extreme beating.

If you want that extra width to make you look bigger, and you already have all the foam in there you can stand, you might want to consider adding a kidney tab to stabilize things on the right side. The tab helps to 'lock' the alignment of the kidney and ab. Here's what I did on mine (there are many ways to accomplish this, go with what works for you!): https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/41502-crickets-wtf-hero-build-even-more-tk-for-the-vertically-challenged/?do=findComment&comment=601645 It also looks like your strapping on the inside of the the kidney rivets might be too long, which is allowing the ab and kidney to move around a lot more than it should on the left side. If you shorten them up a little, that might help with some of the overlap issues. If things aren't fitting together as they are now, a hot water bath can do the trick to get the pieces into better form for your frame. The front and back halves of the armor should meet together nicely without any assistance from the belt to pull things together.

Looking good, there trooper! I'm all sorts of jealous because you really flew through this build! Great work sizing things down to fit. The only thing that really jumps out at me are the placement of the forearms. The dimples should be facing outwards, and as you're wearing them in the photos, they're facing to the back. You want the "ridge" seams on the forearms to be facing forward in line with the forward facing seams in the biceps. The forearm dimples should line up with the outer ridge of the bicep. Just rotate the forearms a bit so the dimples are to the outside. It should be an easy fix.

Here's how I made my ABS paste: https://www.whitearmor.net/forum/topic/38416-crickets-rs-stunt-build-for-the-vertically-challenged/?tab=comments#comment-514232 Hope that helps!

Congrats, Dave!!!!

My gloves look just like these. And nothing was ever mentioned to me on my Centurion application.

While waiting for the glue to dry on my kidney tab and for the ABS paste repairs to cure on the bracket holes, I began looking at other parts of my kit to see what else I could do in the meantime. I remembered that my biceps seemed kind of small on me. Not that they don't fit, because they do. But I would prefer them to be a little more loose than they currently are. Since removing the ridges on them, they're awfully small. I saw somewhere around here that someone increased the bicep size by simply creating a gap under the cover strip. So I decided to pull apart my biceps and increase the circumference about 1cm. I'm only going to pull apart the back side of the bicep for now because I don't think I'll need much more than 1cm. (I could also do this to the front as well.) You can see where the halves of the armor meet together, sandwiched by an inner and outer cover strip. After removing the inner and outer cover strips, it's time to make a suitable gap. You don't want the gap to be any bigger than 1cm on each side. This is because you want to have at least a few mm on each side to glue the cover strips on. (Remember, the cover strip on the biceps should be about 15mm wide.) I taped things off from the outside first in order to secure the halves with the desired gap size I need. You can see the light shining through here. Then I applied a bit of e6000 to the edges of the gap. The inner cover strip will be secured here. Then I take the same inner cover strip I'd used before and clamp it down. Further clamped with magnets. Once these cure, I'll remove the blue tape on the outside and glue the outer cover strip back on. **Note!** I don't think that I would do this procedure without having an inner cover strip on there. When I attach the outer cover strip, there will be glue applied to the edges of the bicep and to the inner (exposed) cover strip. This new closure should be pretty strong!

Thanks! It would probably be helpful if I shared my PVC supply list, wouldn't it? This should be enough PVC for most average height trooper displays. It cost about $36, but should even come to less than that because I purchased some extra 1/2" PVC pipes and connectors for this, and never used them. It took me less than an hour to cut and assemble it, even including adjusting the height down to my size. Fittings 1" tee- 3 1" cross- 2 1" 45 degree- 2 1" 90 degree- 2 1.25" tee- 6 1.25" caps (not entirely necessary, but nice to have)- 2 Pipe 1" PVC pipe- 10 feet length 1.25" PVC pipe- 10 feet length I made my mannequin similar to the one in this video: I like how you can easily separate the torso and leg parts on this. I didn't do the same 'floating arm' modification because none of the 1/2" caps I could find would fit into the 1" PVC, even after heating things up with a heat gun. I made the top half of the torso out of 1" PVC and connectors, and it works just fine.

Day 4 guess: 13!

Hey, lookie at what I finished! No, that's not my WTF kit. haha... I built a PVC mannequin last week and dressed my RS kit on it. I think my kit is much happier here than in my bin. My helmet is displayed on my wall, so that's why the mannequin was headless. I've since added a foam head, complete with a beret and aviator sunglasses. Anyhow, if you've got an extra $35 bucks or so laying around, and you want to display your kit, I highly recommend picking up some PVC pipes and fittings, and building a PVC mannequin. I'm still building the platform base (to hide those ugly pipes and to properly display some 'display only' boots), but it'll be an easy assembly once I get time for it. And now, back to the build! I tried on the torso last week and discovered that the right side of the kidney could be trimmed about 2 cm to better fit my frame. I hadn't trimmed anything off the sides of the kidney yet, and glad to realize that I didn't need to take much off in that area. In fact, the 2 cm only needed to come off of the right side! Yay! I used my compass tool to draw my cut line on the kidney. I removed the gaffer's tape and traced again before cutting. And I measured about four more times after this to ensure that everything would be even on both sides if I did this little trim. But before I could cut, I needed to remove the kidney tab from the inside. See, I told you that it's important to use e6000 for this! Okay, I can't deny that there is immense satisfaction when you can peel a whole section of e6000 off at one time. It's as good as popping bubble wrap, am I right?! Okay, with that tab removed, I removed the brackets on the right side of the butt plate and kidney as well. I have to move the brackets due to the loss of that extra 2cm of material. Here's the outline for the new kidney notch. The return was so strong that I couldn't cut through it. I had to cut along the corner, then score/snap the return first. This allowed me to then easily cut the ABS of the kidney. I'll patch up the extra holes left from the previous placement of the brackets, then install the brackets in their new location once everything has cured. I did some minor hot water bath shaping on the chest to curve it in a little more and fit the ab better. And glued the ab buttons on. I'm currently waiting for glue to dry on the chest/ab elastic connections. I've glued just the ab parts first, and will follow up with securing the chest part later. I think I'll tackle the shoulders next. I don't want to get the ab/chest fully attached just yet because I don't have the shoulders properly fit at this point. Once I get the torso fully dialed in, then I'll begin sizing down the legs.

Day three guess: 71!

I'm having that issue as well. I trimmed off all the ugly stuff, thinking it was supposed to be removed. Even though I have a small frame, the shoulder bells now seem too small on me. Very frustrating! I've ordered another set of shoulder bells and am hoping that the pull marks on them won't be as prominent. If they are, I may end up trying to flatten them out. I don't like lumpy shoulders.

39

Hang in there, Jen! We've all been there. Some of us more than others! *cough cough* You'll get your TK build mojo back soon, then there will be no stopping you!

5!

In my experience, if you put it back into the boiling water all by itself for a short time, it should go back to its original shape! The hot water will allow the ABS to 'relax' back to a semblance of its original shape. I've done this many times with success when I've 'overshaped' my armor. I would give that a try before busting out the heat gun. Good luck!

It should be that the hole center is 10mm from the edge of the plastic. I'm sure you'll be fine with how you've got yours! My problem was that the top two holes were fine, but the bottom hole on the kidney was off. On the WTF kidney, it's got this odd flare part to it. It doesn't end in a straight line. It's difficult to explain, but for me, I've had problems getting the bottom hole on the kidney side properly set. In the pics of my kidney, my rivets seem to look okay, but I'm not happy with that bottom kidney one. As a result, I have removed the bottom rivet and am currently repairing the hole so I can move it a mm or two further away from the edge and a mm up. I'm totally OCD about these kind of things. If it's off by a mm, I will do it over and over again until it's perfect. Which is crazy because it will all be hidden by the belt!!!

Looks good at this point! It'll be easier to tell how the holes are once you've got the rivets in there. I had to make adjustments to my own kidney/ab holes after I installed the rivets because two of the rivets ended up looking like they were too close to the edge. I thought the holes were sufficiently placed away from the edge, but noooo! The rivet heads will make things look different.