BDWC

okay start to sand down the ABS paste and I found several "pits" in the fill ....so I applied another thin layer of ABS paste, first kneading/mixing it well to try to work out all the air bubbles. Next day, sanded down well, minimum pitting, but for some reason the ABS paste fill (from the same trimmings no less) seems a little bit darker than the rest of the ABS. Is this just while it's wet from the sanding? I had sanded using 100->400->600->1000->1200 and it still looked pitted....so back to 100 and start over..ogh...this is going to take some time Anyway, the sanding has thinned out the upper gum point to almost braking through, so I'm putting some "back-up" ABS paste behind that to reinforce the area. I'll let that sit and try again tomorrow

Okay, I am determined to finish this, and hopefully soon retake my submittal photos in the next month or two (fingers crossed, knocking on wood, et.al.) It is just so frustrating that my ab plate popped out for the photos and the next day my back sent me to the ER. I do guarantee you one thing though, once all the dust settles and I have my operating number, I definitely will not take my 501st membership for granted! What started as a fairly straightforward armor build has turned into more challenges than I could have imagined. Outside of my current physical limitations, it's really ironic that I was so careful trimming out the armor parts so as to not have any stray Exacto cuts anywhere on the armor. I even waited until just before suiting up for my submittal photos to take all the protective wrap off the armor out of fear of it getting scratched up during the build process. Turns out that scratches on a thigh or butt plate would really mean nothing...so what do I screw up...the center of the face (I genuinely hate Murphy and his law) So, I am biting a huge bullet and trying to rebuild the damage. I disassembled the helmet (again), gave it a hot bath, and using used a form I made (from another ANOVOS bucket belonging to an awesome Garrison friend), I was able to restore the indents marked by the arrows and add most of the gum-line back in that center tooth area. This took four rounds of boiling, rubbing into the form and repeating until I thought it was as good as it would get. Below is the form I used: So, another leap of faith, I sanded down the remaining "rough area" and filled it back over with ABS paste. And here is where I am at now. You can see that the other areas are pretty well straightened out (not perfect, but about as good as it's going to get) Also, the tear on the right bottom gumline next to last tooth has been filled. I'll give this at least 24-48 hours to fully cure, then start the sanding process. Luckily my 1500, 2000, 2500 wet/dry sandpaper and my Novus 1-2-3 kits already arrived. (I bought all of that preparing for adding my ab shims, but looks like I'll be fairly versed on the process by the time I get to adding those pieces. To anyone who has read this far and has had any experience in the ABS filling and sanding process, please comment with any tips or lessons learned. I would really apprecite anything that could help me though my first ABS paste experience. (the nose...why'd it have to be the nose....deep sigh)

Just an FYI update, that although I am sooooo close (just need to resubmit a couple of photos, and I had hoped to do it this weekend) it will now be a few weeks out. Thankfully my back and hip kept quiet for the armor workshop, but I woke up not being able to walk today. Then this evening a disc decided to take out my other leg with pain like I have never felt before. So after an ambulance ride, 7+ hours in ER and various IV meds, I am now back home. So I will have to put my kit updates on hold while I get some of my own parts fixed ( I offered them E6000 [emoji12]) I'll be back soon, (optimistically with an operating # once I get patched up ) Thanks again for everyone's help on getting me so far on this journey [emoji4] Sent from my Imperial communicator using Tapatalk

Double post

I really enjoyed the workshop today thanks to my fantastic garrison troopers. A successful mission of troopers helping troopers and a great morale booster. Thanks to Jon, Josh, and Phil, I am back on track. Plus it was a great pre-4th cookout [emoji13][emoji894][emoji488][emoji631] Sent from my Imperial communicator using Tapatalk

I am looking forward to an armor workshop I am hosting this Saturday for several reasons: I get to meet my fellow garrison members in person I have not been able to travel to any of the recent other workshops due to health issues I'm going to be working on my armor anyway It's 4th of July weekend so whats better than a cookout with other troopers? (and some fellow veterans) Definitely needing the morale boost after the above tragedies

Well it would be easier if I had wanted to be an officer instead of an armored trooper, but I don't look good in those hats [emoji849] Sent from my Imperial communicator using Tapatalk

This side is still a little wonky after trying to fix it Okay after going the extremely dangerous route of trying to salvage this with a hot-glue gun tip, a heat gun, and some metal shims to help shaping, at least it no longer looks like a "nose dimple", but now it's a "smutty nose". However I jacked up the center tooth in the process. Can I say I just did this intentionally to make the frown look meaner?? On this side I was successful in smoothing out the dimple, but re- stretching the plastic caused a tear in the gums. This should be easy to fill, but I'm not so sure what to do about the other two 'deformations'. Sent from my Imperial communicator using Tapatalk

Well I tried to fix the indentation with metal backing shims, a heat gun and a lot of nerve, but not much change. At least now I think it looks more like battle damage than a "punch in the nose". I has taken all day to get out of the slump this has put me in, and I don't think I am going to try to mod anything this weekend, just so I have time to process If I am going to continue this journey or not. If so, I will be setting the bar low. I had planned to drive forward with upgrades to meet Centurion requirements and to eventually add all the fans and sound electronics. Right now, I just can't see doing that for a fouled up ugly helmet (I can't put $200-300 into this to replace the helmet at this point) If anyone know if ANOVOS is open to selling spare parts yet (I have not heard any word of this on their social media yet) or if anyone has any links to threads that have resculpted the face around the frown, please let me know. oh yea, gotta re-"hot bath" the biceps and shoulder bells....again...possible shins too...again Thanks to all my brothers out there pulling for me; I'm gonna need it For now, I need to rest and think

Well, I guess I rushed myself too much to try to get my application in.... I had contacted my local garrison officer and I was all set to suit-up and take submittal photos this morning, but.... First thing this morning, I noticed that I had forgotten to reinstall the mesh in my near perfect helmet; after trimming eyes, ears, browlines, replacing to screen accurate screws, and repainting the frown and trimming the teeth. I though "oh, ANOVOS had it originally hot glued in, so I'll just hot glue it back"...WRONG Two issues, I forgot that my glue gun was a hi-temp hot glue, and secondly, I forgot how thin these ANOVOS helmet are. So now I have indentations above the center tooth and at each end of the frown. When suiting up I noticed that I need to remove some more return edges on the thighs and the shins, especially the left side for some reason (???) I coerced the wifey to help me suit up and to take the pictures. Even though I fought and fought with the biceps, they still fit poorly and tend to pull my shoulder bells down (or maybe I just need larger shoulder bells). Then after all the photos were taken I noticed that my abdomen was sticking out over my chest plate. So all for nothing. In fact I'm thinking about posting this armor set for sale now...I'm just too tired to fix it all now

Velcro installed, and finally pulled off the "saran wrap" Ready for basic submittal!!! Remaining TO-DO items: 1) make snap plates and swap out Velcro straps for snaps 2) upgrade to TKittle canvas belt and swap out ammo boxes (EIB reqt.) 3) add latex hand guards (Centurion reqt.) 4) add ab-to-kidney shims (EIB reqt.) 5) add ab and kidney rivets (Centurion reqt.) 6) add felt to inside of shims to protect boots 7) add fans to helmet 8) add UKswrath Hovi tip mic and speaker kit ....plus other foam adds, trimming tweaks and 100 other items I will discover while trooping

Okay, now with the shins mostly sorted out, I thought I'd go ahead with the sniper knee plate install I first noticed that I needed to do some more trim work, both on the return edge removal edge and smooth out the top also. I figure touching up some of the edge details now would be much easier than after it was glued into place. When I did my dry fit, I noticed that the right side went past the shin armor corner in the return edge so I looked back on Ukswrath's tutorial section for this. What I found was that his trim measurement turned up maybe 4 to 5 mm shorter than mine. It also looked like both end sections looked vertical, where my right-hand "too-long" side was angled up and back. After correcting these trim edges, tie sniper plate looked much more in line with the shin armor return edges. Yes it "looked" in line, but the flare angles just didn't match my shins well. I tried some hot bath soaks on the sniper plate to try to adjust the angle, but there is just not enough flexure in the piece to change it much. the hot bath made enough of a difference that I went ahead and glued the center section, and then I will tackle the end sections once the center is anchored into place. too much movement for magnets, switching to clamps.... Can you really have too many clamps?

Welcome to hot bath day! The front cover strips went on fairly well, considering the curves on these pieces. However,I could tell right away that there was some twist issues with the left assembly that would need "coaxing" out and the right assembly had a very large overlap on the back side that needed some relief if the Velcro is to work and the connection not pinch my calf muscle. The wife's roaster was the largest pan we had on hand. so had to make the best of it. and after using some "persuasion techniques".... ...the end result was pretty good This worked for both shin sets, and any "non-straightness" of the rear joint was then sanded out for very nice closure (once I get the back strips glued into place)

Shin #2 in work I can already see that there are s several hot water baths in my near future Sent from my Imperial communicator using Tapatalk

Finally had some time on this long weekend to actually commit to my shins. Bit with that killer curve, I only had enough magnet to glue up one at a time Sent from my Imperial communicator using Tapatalk

So glad to hear thisThis makes so much more sense and makes the shimming more straight- forward as well

Yea, I felt kind of weird pointing out the "wonky-ness" of this bucket to my family ...and then they started to see it, and it was like watching a sunrise

Are these screws right? They look to have a raised section around the hole. The teeth look to have too much gumline and the Hovi tip mesh looks to be too course. I would have assumed that the 501st would have had input into the screen accuracy of these buckets, but seeing this one in person has me confused, but then I don't know so much about the Hero version. If I'm way off on these notes, please just enjoy the photos

If you countersink the ear screw holes just slightly by hand they will sit much more flush If you want to, I did this for my rebuild and the screws sit almost flush Sent from my Imperial communicator using Tapatalk

I think you had these " anatomical curves" laid out in your build thread didn't you ( for those that may only be following this thread)

My start on the weathering. Scope done, now onto the rest of the blaster! Sent from my Imperial communicator using Tapatalk

Okay, got around to gluing in the inner barrel, re-attaching the nose piece, and cutting off the cap screw head and gluing that in place as well. Here it is all put together and base coat painted. I used gloss on the inner barrel to make it stand out against the satin body. Sent from my Imperial communicator using Tapatalk

From some reference pictures of the Sterling that the E-11 is based on, it looked like it had a socket head cap screw on the barrel flash nozzle. Does anyone know if this looks correct? I am planning on cutting off the head of the cap screw shown below and gluing it in place on the barrel nose after I install the inner barrel

A couple of more items I updated: The front screw hole is recessed and not only hard to fill in, but almost impossible to sand smooth without using a end mill, spotface, or other fancy precision cutting tool. Soooo, having been an air-frame mechanic for some time age, I still had several sorted aluminum rivets laying around in my tool box. It looked like a #20 ST-type rivet had the right size head to do the job I used a coping saw to cut off the shank Then I took the head and glued it into the recess using a dab of the trusty E6000 After a day or so of curing, here is what it looks like after a coat of paint I think this is just the look it needed

I think you can see in one of my posts that I also sanded off the molded d-ring, but left the lug. After a few rounds of Bondo and sanding, it looked "square enough" to move on. I got some packaged D-rings from Jo-Ann's fabric store. I measured the thickness of the wire and drilled a hole through the lug just a slightly larger diameter. I used two sets of pliers to open up the D-ring, and cut off some of the ends with a Dremel, leaving just enough to hold it in place once bent back into shape into the lug holes Here's how it turned out: I'm not entirely happy with the "bump" that resulted from the bending ( this was some strong metal and hard to shape!!), but I do have 3 more chances since they came in a 4 pack. I like these since they are true D-rings and not the oval elongated attachments I see so often on these that are more like rifle sling attachments and not the D-rings used for tactical weapons that use a single point catch,..... and not really a 'D'. However I am pretty sure either shape are acceptable