Cricket

Thanks Michael and A.J. for those holster tips! I don't know why, but it was kind of scary to soak my holster! I really had to work up the courage to do it. Once I soaked the holster, I double bagged my blaster (using my Hasbro e-11, which is slightly larger than the Hyperfirm), and shoved it in there. I let it dry for two days next to an air conditioning vent. And it worked brilliantly! It's an 8 oz. leather, so it's fairly rigid and holds the shape nicely. I can easily put the blaster in the holster- and remove it!- without any struggle at all now. I'm sure that someone out there will protest and say, "But now someone can easily steal your blaster without your knowledge!". Yeah, and someone could steal my TD as well, too, and I'd never know (recalling when a Jawa swiped my TD on my very first troop!). My blaster stays in my hands most of the time while trooping (because it's a flippin' cool prop!). I only need to holster my blaster for a few minutes at a time just to give my arm a rest. Typically, that would be during troop breaks (no public there), or when on group standby (where we're still in public, but kept away from the masses while we wait to emerge like the bad-a$$ troopers that we are). I like knowing that I can quickly- and easily- holster the blaster while fully kitted up now without any help. Woo!

You'll only need a centimeter or so to build the new return. With your height, it shouldn't make that much of a difference. Post some pics with the ab/chest taped to you so we can see how everything is lining up right now.

Hey Daniel, I think the arms of the grappling hook are black in the movie. Don't know if you want to paint those arms or not. The movie scene: https://youtu.be/VrbvWt5kerw?t=1m12s Everything is coming along really nice! Keep up the good work!

Hey Diego! Don't panic! I cut off the bottom chest return (plus a little more) on purpose, and I rebuilt it without any issues. You'll only need a centimeter or so for that new return, so all is not lost. Here's where I outlined what I did to rebuild my return. Hope it helps you!

Those half-Husky bins are fantastic! So easy to transport everything in there with minimal space. Have you picked up a bag for your helmet yet?

So sorry for the thread hijack, Rob! The rest of your kit looks great. Well done!

Yay, Hero build on the way! Excited for you!

Awesome. Thanks, Paul!

So this?

I originally put the long sides and short sides together because it seemed natural that they went together that way. Then I was told it was wrong, so I tore them apart and reattached them. Now it's time to remove them again and put them back as I had done originally. Thank the maker for e6000. And thanks for enlightening us, Paul!

If we assume that the RS Props armor comes with two right shins, then it's easy to see the odd man out when comparing to the WTF armor. Paul's correct on this one, and I believe that Walt is mistaken. Unless I've totally mucked up my WTF assembly, then just ignore me. This whole WTF shin issue has been a headache.

I've tried both methods: just snaps and just velcro. I tried the velcro first because I was told that it made adjustments easier- and I suppose it did. But I didn't like the extra thickness that the velcro gave to the belt. Even with the low profile velcro, it adds bulk. I didn't like that at all. Near the end of my build, I tore off all the velcro and went with just snaps. I liked the look much better! It wasn't always as secure as I wanted it to be, though. I ended up putting a small piece of low profile industrial velcro in the center of the ab plate (roughly at the center of the belt), and small pieces of velcro on the left and right sides of the lower part of the kidney (with corresponding velcro attached on the belt). This (along with the snaps) secures the belt nicely without adding bulk, and keeps the belt from shifting around during troops.

After four troops, I'm still having trouble getting along with my holster. I'm hoping that someone can offer some suggestions because I can't seem to find help when I use the "Search" function here. I like to carry my blaster when trooping. It's fun when I get to surprise kids when I trigger it and it goes "pewpewpew!" and lights up. The kids love it. Anyhow, even though it's relatively light (about 2 lbs), my arm begins to ache after holding it for an hour. I haven't been able to successfully holster my blaster while in armor because the holster is super snug on my blaster. If a handler is close, I can ask for their help, which is always a good option. But once it's holstered, I have a difficult time getting the dang blaster out of it. Which requires me to find a handler again. Most of the time, I end up toughing out the aches in my arm and switch arms. My dream would be to be able to holster and remove my blaster on the fly without any assistance, though. I've tried the plastic bag method, where you wrap your blaster in a bag and put that into the holster for 48 hours. It's supposed to stretch the holster a bit. But that hasn't worked at all. I've now put the blaster into the Ziploc bag and wrapped the bag in wax paper (put all of that into the holster) and waiting another 48 hours to see if that helps. I'm not optimistic, though. I've considered purchasing holster lubricant, but I don't know how well it will work. Does anyone have some tried-and-true tips that will work for making the e-11 easier to insert and remove from the holster while in full armor? Thanks, troopers!

Interesting. Seems on this screen-used kit, both are correct? Or maybe they are different screen-used kits? Weird! Either way, as long as the back (back/kidney/butt) fits you properly, and you make sure your ab/kidney is lined up at the top, you will do fine for Centurion.

Yeaaaahh, Frank!!!! Way to go! Well deserved. Congrats!!!!!!

About the greaves... Shove them down as far as you can before considering any more trimming. It looks like they can be pushed down still a bit. That might be enough to clear your knee. Make some elastic stirrups to keep them in place. (I love my elastic stirrups!) I overtrimmed the bottom of my shins because I wasn't watching how they kept creeping up on me while I was adjusting the size. For my new build, I will install temporary stirrups before sizing to make sure I get the length correct this time.

About that kidney/ab thing.... Make sure the kidney and ab are lined up at the top. Don't worry about how the kidney notch is lining up with the bottom of the ab. The top alignment is what matters for Centurion. The bottom is all covered by the belt. On my kit, you can see how the tops are aligned, but the bottoms are not. That's okay for Centurion.

Hahaha... those shoulders! The RS shoulders as sent need a huge amount of plastic removed. In case you're hesitant about trimming them, according to Rob, the cut should be 12" from the bottom of the spine to the trim, then 5" from the edge of the spine to the trim. See how much?! Even with all that removed, I still had to remove even more to avoid the Linebacker Trooper look. You may want to consider shortening up the back. Your kit looks like it's fitting you in a similar manner as mine did before I shortened up the kidney. In the graphic below, look at the lines where the butt plate/kidney and ab line up. This graphic is to illustrate the kidney notch size, but it's also good to understand the alignment with the front and back halves. The bottom of the ab plate and the meeting point of the kidney/butt plate are roughly parallel. Here's you (it's the other side as the graphic, but same principals apply): Can you see how the kidney could be reduced to bring up that alignment? You might also want to take a little off the bottom of the back plate in order to keep everything in proportion (a suggestion, but not required!). Anyhow, you can see I had the same issue in the pics below. Pic on the left is after my kidney and back plate were initially shortened. It still didn't look right to me. I shortened the kidney again, and that's what you see in the photo on the right. I know everything is duct taped together, but I'm wondering what you plan on using to connect the chest and ab. If you're planning on using brackets, you may need to reduce the amount of overlap between the chest and ab. Make sure that the chest ridge detail stays about where it is in this shot: It's difficult to tell if your chest is in the correct position because your shoulder bells and biceps are kind of floating on you in your pics. The middle of the chest ridge detail should line up around the middle of the shoulder bells. About the duct tape strapping... it's nice to use for a very general idea of how it'll go together, but your kit will go together differently once you have the real strapping installed. Installing the brackets terrified me. Other troopers at an armor party pushed me to install them, and I was so glad that I did it afterwords. It really helped me get a better idea of what needed adjustment. Take the leap and get your strapping mounted in there. Also, you may want to consider getting your garter belt together for the thighs at this point. I used industrial velcro on the belt and inside the thighs as a temporary fitting measure so I could have a more secure way to keep the thighs up. Works much better than tape! Once the torso was fully completed, I was then able to trim the thighs more easily because velcro holds things much more securely. After the thighs were trimmed to fit, I removed the velcro and glued in permanent elastic loops on the thighs. I hope I'm not overwhelming you with all this! You're making great progress.

It always feels more like 'armor' when you don't have tape all over it. Good job!

Welcome to the FISD, Alicia! Good to see you're on your way slicing and dicing plastic. Fun, isn't it? Based on your pic above, it looks like that shin could have a little bit more removed from the return. Hard to say with the lighting and all. I think I can see the ridge where you should be cutting on the top left part of the shin, but, again, could be a lighting issue. If it's 5mm wide on those returns, then you're good to go. Like Justin said, build to Centurion! It's not that much work to incorporate it into your build. About the e-11, I picked up a Hyperfirm for Centurion, but I troop with my Hasbro because it's got lights and goes pewpewpew. Still haven't been able to blast anything with it, though. Hmf. #troopergoals Trim the width and length of your shins while wearing your boots. Boots make a difference in how the shins will eventually fit you. And while you can easily fit the thighs to your size, save trimming the thighs down (length) until you've got your torso fully assembled and fit. I made this mistake of trimming the thighs where I thought they should be (well before I was done with the torso), and they ended up way too short! Ended up having to purchase another pair. Good luck with your build! I'll be following.

I did some batch ABS shaping today since I had a huge pot of boiling water out. First thing I started with is the shoulder straps. I was spoiled with the RS straps because they arrived already in a nice curvy shape. Not the WTF straps. They're flat as flat can be, and the plastic is super thick. Ah well, no worries! I think I can make this work. I dunked them individually into the boiling water long enough to soften them up, and then used a 3 quart pan as my jig to shape them. Once I was done with them, they had a nice enough curve that I will be able to work with later on. I attach a metal strip inside of them for strength (the metal strip also helps the strip hold a different shape if I need more or less of a curve at the shoulders later). So after these, I shaped the forearms and biceps. Gonna need to cut quite a bit of plastic off these. I'm shaping these before trimming in order to make the fit process easier. I probably won't need these forearms so narrow, but it'll be easy to modify this as I go. As I was shaping the plastic on the biceps, I realized something: the biceps are the only armor part that needs some of the front and back removed in equal amounts when shrinking to size. This keeps the halves relatively even (this is necessary). I had already glued my inner cover strips to the biceps, but it was very easy to remove them once dunked in the boiling water. Those ridges. Ugh. A challenge. My RS biceps don't have ridges at all. I needed to trim very close to those ridge lines in order for the biceps to fit (my biceps are a puny 10"). The cover strips will look crappy if those ridges stay put. My first thought was to flatten out the ridges entirely. Nah. Too much work. Then I thought, "Let's cut 'em off." They will still fit nicely without any ridge. And since my RS biceps don't have ridge detail, then my WTF won't either. So there. I cut as close as I could along the ridge, and this is what it turned out like: There's still a little bendy lip in the photo on the right, but that's okay. I sanded down some of it, and have clamped it into submission with a new inner cover strip. Once both inner cover strips have cured, I'll get the biceps back into the spa to reshape (because they still need a little help). Taking the day off from building tomorrow because I'm gonna be out trooping in the evening, and I've got some TK maintenance to do to my RS kit during the day (charging batteries, buffing out scuffs, making sure I don't forget my socks, glove liners, e-11, etc.). Have a great weekend, troopers!

Yep, 20mm will do!

Hey Germain, Thanks for noting that (and I'm very glad to see you're checking in on me to keep me as accurate as possible! ). While I would have loved to keep the ab plate more accurate (as indicated in your pic), my body just wouldn't allow it. That area, if left untrimmed, would have subjected my hips to some serious armor bites. It was digging into my hips as it was, and moving the entire torso around in an odd way when I walked. I ended up trimming much more than in the photo you used in order to accommodate my hips. Hips are where the red line is. The blue line is approximately where the armor was. As it is now, I don't suffer any armor biting, and my armor stays put when I walk. Yeah, overtrimming the hips isn't entirely accurate, I know. But you can't see any of it when I'm in full kit because the belt hides it all. (spoiler alert: I'm the short one) And thanks for reminding me about the cod slicing gif! I thought people might be a little sick of it, but maybe no?