fragarock

Good news!! Just got my 501st approval. I am now TK 92111 ready to start my patrol with the Great Lakes Garrison. Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Definitely going for Centurion. Just waiting for my 501st approval. I was having issues with the ab pulling down too far from the chest but I tightened up the strapping. I know in my front photo it looks like there's a gap but it's just the shadow. I'll check it again. Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Hi Guys and Girls, How long should it take for the GML to review 501st submission photos? I submitted my photos almost a week ago and was quickly told the review would be done by Friday. It's now Sunday and still no approval and no response to emails. I'm trying to be patient but I don't like that I'm getting no response to my communications. Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Thanks for the cutting instructions A.J.. I'll give it a try. Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Hi, I'm making tweaks to the inside of my bucket. What's the best way to cut down the length of the various screws/bolts that keep poking me when I put on the helmet? I don't want to spoil the threads on the cutting process. Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Hi, Having just finished my RS build I can tell you that the ABS sheets that RS sent with your kit will be enough to do your outer cover strips. I have about half a sheet left over. I did buy a generic ABS sheet for my inner cover strips. The right and left shins are identical so don't worry about mixing them up. Good luck on the build. Fun times ahead. Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Armir looks great. Congratulations Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Hi Troopers! Friday night I did a bit of work on my thighs. I took about 1/2" off the tops and made new return edges. Then I was painting the last few bolt heads and realized I was near, very near the end of this build. It kind of snuck up on me and I thought, "Well now it's time to take some pictures I guess". So I spent several hours Saturday cleaning up the holocaust that was my basement build area and my workshop. It had been about 7 months since I started modifying my E-11 and about 6 months working on the kit. I figure I spent about 2 hours a night for almost every night over those months. That was a lot of missed sleep but when you have kids that's when most of the work has to be done and looking at the photos my wife took for me today I'm really happy with the way this RS kit came out. Not to say there aren't some tweaks I need to make but I think my goal of building towards Centruion and with attention to detail paid off. So, I'll submit my photos to my GML tonight and hopefully have a TK number soon. Here are some photos from today. As always, thanks for tuning in and for the support. And keeping an eye on the kids while enjoying a beer on this unusually warm Michigan day.

Hilarious. Glad you're getting to use your kit and make your neighbors just a bit perplexed. Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Good call on painting the rivet heads. I totally forgot. I held off painting all those rivet and bolt heads until the end, figuring is scratch them up during the build. Guess it's time. Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Hi Guys, I've been working on my helmet on and off over the past week. Here's what I've done. Started working on the lenses. Put a piece of paper behind inside the helmet behind the eyes to trace the shape. Then added 20mm extra around the trace lines. Transferred that to the lens material and cut out each one. Another trooper (can't remember who it was....sorry) suggested using a hockey helmet repair kit to mount the lenses. So I ordered one and it comes with a receiver that I glued into the helmet. I had to shim these up to the correct height using some ABS scraps. Then cut a little hole out of each lens which you can see in the photo above. There's a bolt that goes thru this hole and mounts into the base inside the helmet. Pretty simple. Once I had the lenses worked out I masked off the helmet and prepared for the plastidip coating. Next I installed some rock climbing helmet pads. Ultimately I realized these don't do much as the top of my head doesn't reach the top of the bucket...even with the padding. So I may have to try something else, maybe a hat insert or something beefier. But for now I'm rolling with it. Next I looked at my mic. I pulled out the metal wire piece that goes over the head leaving just the mic section. I simply used industrial Velcro and stuck it inside after gluing in the mesh over the teeth. The rest of the voice changer and amp I put aside for later. Next I looked at the Ukswrath hearing assist system I ordered. I removed the ear pieces and bored a hole thru each side using my dremel. Here's part of the system which includes the small mics, control board, and battery case. The speakers are separate piece that plug into the control board. This is the bit I used. Here's the mic installed thru the helmet. I used a bit of E6000 to hold it in place. Here's the inside installation if the mic. To mount the rest of the hearing assist pieces I used Velcro, putting the soft side inside the helmet to limit scratches while putting it on. This is the control board which has an on/off switch and a volume knob. The speakers are mounted up higher in the helmet just below the padding. I had to do this as putting them too close to the ear mics caused feedback. I wasn't good about photgraphing the rest of the install. Guess I was more concerned about cramming all the stuff inside the helmet. I also added Ukswrath cooling system which has (2) fans and a hookup to a USB power supply which I happened to already have. So I velcroed the fans into place, higher up in the bucket where they'd blow on my face. The USB power supply is mounted low in the rim of the bucket. The system also comes with a wired on/off switch which I guess I'll run down to one of my hands while trooping. The other thing I crammed in here was the icomm board to which the voice mic would plug into. There will be a PTT (push to talk) wire that also runs down my arm to my hand so it can be turned on/off with the push of a button. There will also be another wire that feeds from the icomm to the amp which will get mounted inside the chest piece. I still need to do a bit of wire management but I got it all to fit. As I was installing these parts I had to trim away more material at the helmet opening. I just couldn't get my big dome inside with some of these items blocking the way. So, I ordered a new neck S trim as the previous one I had cut is now too short. I decided to see how everything looked on my mannequin. Here's the kit so far....getting close to being done!! I do need to go back and trim more material off the top of the thighs. I think this will improve my mobility and add a bit of gap above the shins which looks better. Right now they look a little bulky sitting atop the shins. Question: You can see the PTT cable coming out of the helmet. There will be this and the fan on/off switch. What is the best way to run these? Do you just slip them down under the shoulder and down the forearms? Do they go beneath the undersuit? What about the icomm cable to the speaker located inside the chest? That's it for tonight. Let me know what you think. I feel like I could start the process of submitting for 501st approval. Seem plausible at this point? Anything look wrong?

Here's the next installment of my helmet build. I cut and fit the S trim around the neck opening. Does this get secured to the helmet in an way? A couple drops of E6000? It seems like it could come loose in a few areas. Next step was to paint. Here are the colors I used. Started with the vocoder. Here are the pencil lines I drew to mark the paint boundary. Then I painted around this line to set the perimeter and then filled in the are in between. I let this dry and the next day worked on the gray ear bud things and teardrops under the eyes. Again I painted around the perimeter then filled in. Next day I painted the traps. I thought it safer to let the other parts dry before I manhandled this trying to paint the traps as I was holding this in my lap and turning it in all directions to get the best angle to paint the lines. Also had to pull down the brow trim to paint those front traps. Once these were dry I trimmed around with thin black lines. Sorry no pics of that. Painted the teeth. I left a small white gap at the top and bottom of each tooth. A lot of the reference photos were like this so I went with it. Did I get the corners of the frown correct where you have to paint the last tooth? Another day went by and I painted the black stripes. At the tears and traps I used a template that I got from Trooperbay. it worked pretty well. There were a couple spots where the paint bled under the masking template but once dry I just covered it up with some more gray paint. Also used template on the tube stripes. You can see my French Blue was pretty thin. I intentionally put it on thin to reduce the change of beeding under the masking template. I put (3) coats of paint on eventually. When I removed the mask I found some bleeding. Luckily it's easily scraped away with an xacto knife. Here's the completed paint job. Next thing to tackle is the interior. I'm thinking about cutting the lenses out individually for each eye. May make a foam border around the lens, actually two foam borders with the lens sandwiched in between then bolt this assembly into the helmet so it can be removed with a screwdriver. What have others done to mount the lenses?

Glad you guys are finding my build useful, even the mistakes. Without other people's build threads none of us would learn the skills to complete our kits so if I can help just let me know. I'm still figuring things out too, even though I'm nearing the end. Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Hello, I've spent a few hours each night over the last week working on my lid and figured I should get back to updating my build as well as get any input you may have. So here we go....brace yourselves, this is gonna be a long post so get your snacks and go to the bathroom before reading. Let's start off with some reference pictures of the RS helmet. I started off by watching all the Trooperbay videos on helmet assembly. Basically I tried to trim the pieces down to get them to look like what I saw in the videos. The face plate was trimmed by removing the top portion all around. I kept the trim line as parallel as possible to the brow line over the eyes. This was about 1 3/4" above the eyes. Cutting with scissors seemed to work just fine. Then I trimmed off what seemed to be the extra pull material from the bottom of the face plate. Eventually I trimmed off more but to start I removed along the line shown. I cut this material away with my Xacto knife. It was pretty thin. Then it was time to work on the eyes. I traced a pencil line around the area to remove. There's no clear line where this cut is supposed to occur so you have to look at reference photos and then wing it a bit. Just cut a little shy of the line so you can trim more later if you need to. I drilled out a few holes around the perimeter of the eye, kind of a connect-the-dots approach. Then I removed some material with this gnarly bit, it makes an awful racket so I took off just enough to get my xacto in there. This is the other eye but you get the idea, trim around with the knife. Here's my initial trimming. You'll see that there's a bit of a ridge around the eye opening. After getting some advice I decided to trim this some more to get a cleaner eye opening. Here's the final trimmed eye sockets. Once trimmed I sanded down the edges. On to the teeth! Here are the tools I used. Drill, xacto, various small files (some with rounded sides and some with flat sides), and sandpaper. Same process as the eyes, drilled a hole in each tooth gap. Then used the xacto to cut lines around the gap to be removed. Take care to stay away from the edges of the teeth. You want the teeth to retain their return edge so they appear to have some depth. When you look at the stunt version of the teeth, they are cut out a little roughly with some jagged edges. The hero version are much cleaner. Although this is a stunt build, my OCD forced me to make the neat and clean cuts. Just my preference. xacto cut out the teeth then used the files to fine tune each side of the tooth opening. Then sanded the back side of the teeth to remove any remaining burs. Here are the final cut outs. So now the face plate was done. The back of the lid had a crack in it which I quick fixed with some CA glue. Guess I didn't take any pictures of the trimming on this back piece. Sorry about that. I started off by removing the extra thin material all around the sides and at the brow line. Eventually I removed more as I was fitting the rubber brow piece and fitting the ears. It took several rounds of trimming. Here's the right ear with the pencil trim lines that came from RS. I trimmed a little shy of these lines but later discovered that I took off too much material. I suggest not trimming these at all until you've got the front and back of the lid attached which will allow you to place the ears into position to see what really has to be removed. I took some time to review the movie and see how ears actually fit around the helmet and see how the brow trim was installed. There were a lot of gaps between the ears and the helmets. Brow trims seemed to be either flat across and parallel with the eyes or slightly arched with a small high spot over the nose. Here's one with the brow slightly arched. This is the look I went with. Here you can see how the bottom part of the ear piece is angled backwards and the top center of the ear is roughly aligned with the end of the painted trap above. Once I had a plan I placed the brow trim, saw some areas where it was uneven, trimmed off more ABS and re-fit the brow. You can use magnets or clamps to hold the back of the lid to the face plate. Take note of the giant gaps between the front and back of the lid. I don't know if all helmets are this way or if it's just the RS version but these pieces do not align at all, not even close. Maybe it was just mine...a weird pull that day in the RS shop, who knows for sure. Once the front and back were stuck together with magnets I then placed the ears on top and traced out where I thought they should fall. This would give me an idea how to trim the back piece. Here you can see the pencil line of the ear tracing. I started by cutting along this line. Eventually I discovered the actual cut lines would be behind the point where the front of the ear meets the face plate. Repeated the process on the other side. See the flared out piece at the bottom. That piece is a real pain and made it impossible for me to fit the ear on that side. So I heat gunned it and pushed it into position. It was the only option. Here's the trimming. If you saw my earlier posts you know that I had some trouble with the pop rivets. Initially I placed one in the existing dent on each side of the helmet. This didn't work at all. While everyone acknowledeged that the pieces don't perfectly align, they also said that 1 rivet should be enough to hold this in place. I can tell you it wasn't on mine. With one rivet in this area the ear was never going to fit. The back piece flared out so much, I couldn't even place the ear over the lid to trim it. So I pulled out the rivet and the placed 2 new ones on each side. That did the trick. The left side was a lot better than the right. Here's the left ear. The RS piece has dents where the holes get drilled. I used a 1/8" bit and bored the hole slightly bigger. Next was the tedious task everyone stresses about. Slowly trimming off excess material to make the ears fit the curvature of the lid. I took me a couple hours to get the left ear fitted. I used the dremel, the xacto, and 180 grit sandpaper for fine adjustments. Don't worry too much about the bottom. It will get pressed into place with the bolt you install down there. Once I finally had it fit, I traced the profile of the ear onto the helmet. That way I could located where the pop river at the bottom should go. Prior to that I had to pop rivet the bottom pieces together. Here's the fitting. Note that I countersunk the bolt holes in the ear so the heads sit flat. I did the same fitting and tracing process on the right side. Also riveted the bottom as well. The gap between front and back on this side was bad. Also, I had overcut the right ear which compounded the problem. So this side was really difficult to get to be passible. Here's the right ear. You can see it slopes backwards relative to the helmet. The bottom of the right ear was a real problem I installed the bottom bolt but the alignment was off as you can see in the photo below. So the next day I decided to make an adjustment to improve the fit. I took out all the ear bolts and removed more material from the bottom of the ear. The more I removed the closer I could push (force) the ear to fit along the curve of the face plate. I also made a new hole for the bolt which would allow me to compress that bottom of the ear against the lid better. It's not perfect but it's good enough. Once this was done I trimmed off the bottom edge of the back piece. Here are the hovi mic tip areas. There's a marked area for the holes. The ones that came with the RS kit have a bolt that will fit thru a 1/8" drilled hole if you bore it out slightly. I placed them in with the washer on the back side.This area of the face plate is thin so I'll reinforce it with some ABS paste later. For now I just wanted to see what the mic tips looked like. Here's the basic assembled lid. Here's a closeup of the mic tip. I know the interior is supposed to be hollow and white along with that white outer edge you can see in the photo. But the casting of this is really rough on the outer black face and there's white paint on the mesh. Is this a problem? I bought alternate mic tips which have a better/cleaner casting but aren't hollow or white on the inside. Does anyone have a better mic tip supplier? Or do I just live with the RS ones and swap out the mesh? Finally for reference here's a screen helmet for comparison.

The left arm has 11 indents, the right has 12. Good luck and go slow. Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

So when in doubt use brute force. I'll give that a try. Thanks. Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Hi, You're about the same size as me. I'm finishing up my RS kit now and have a build thread. Also check out Cricket's thread and Diana's threads. Only place I left the returns off was the wrists and bottom of the shinns. Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Clearly I'm a moron and simply forgot how to use the pop rivet gun. Total operator error. I did figure out what I was doing and got everything attached only to realize the back plate was nowhere close to aligning with the face plate. It flares out too much. I heat-gunned it a bit to reduce the misalignment but it's still not good. I can rivet it back in place but the area around the ear is never gonna lay flat. Should I just CA glue it down? If it's not flat I don't see how to install the ear piece. See how much it flares out? And this is after I bent it inwards a bit to better align with the face plate.

Help, I'm having real problems securing the back of my lid to the face plate. Trying to use pop rivets but they just keep breaking off prior to be setting fully. They worked fine on my belt drop boxes but I can't figure out what the problem is. Any ideas???? Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

The rectangular button parts of the control panel will be on the bottom and the round button on top. Mine had the same bent corners and work in wonkiness to it as well. Just clamped it down best I could. Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Hi Stephen, Screws look good just paint them black. Your end caps are correct at 20mm. Take a look at the photo reference gallery http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/gallery/category/7-general-stormtrooper-reference/. The first category is the TD which shows the overall length which I believe is between 185-190mm. Also the RS Suit category has good photos of the TD with measurements. When I built mine I failed to align the clips so they were touching the end caps which is a good idea if you want EIB or Centurion. To do this I had to move them which was easy enough. I noticed your tube has printing on it. I believe this is allowed but if you're gonna have to move the clips like I had to, you could paint your whole tube prior to reinstall the clips. Not needed unless you want the printing gone....I think some have sanded off the print as well and the re-polished the tube. I'm referencing your helmet work as I start mine.

Hi, Late night for me as usual. I've started trimming the helmet face plate and have a quick question. Looking at the photos below, should I trim off a little bit more material around the eyes? It's hard to tell where the trim line should really be around the eyes. You can see here there's a smidge of material left that may get removed...or maybe not. Also, should I leave the cut lines a little jagged or make them nice and straight? Seems like nice and straight would be more appropriate for a hero build, not the stunt.

Decided to do some trimming of my thighs and butt which were hitting. I started off by trimming the top of the thighs where the interference occurred. Here's the original condition. Basically took a pencil and traced where the butt was overlapping the thigh on both the left and right. I trimmed off the excess using the dremel grinding wheel. It just seemed easier than trying to cut with scissors. Then I made a new return edge in the areas of the cut. Here's the fitting test. Some improvement! But, the fit could be a bit better so I trimmed some more off the butt. Overall it looked kinda bulky so trimming seemed appropriate plus the return edges seemed a little too much. Same process as the thighs, trim then make a new return. Here's after the trimming. I decided to try the kit on again with my wife's help which made getting dressed so much faster...and less painful. Another thing I did which I didn't bother photgraphing was too tighten up the elastic loops between the butt/kidney and kidney/back. I also put new "white" industrial Velcro on the torso to hold on my belt as the RS snaps don't work well. Here's the new butt which fits a bit better now that I tightened the loops. Forgive my lack of TD...so embarrassing. Maybe I should trim a bit more off the sides. What do you think? Also I still haven't mentally committed to trimming the back of the knee...need to convince myself with some ANH watching. Here's the current fit-up. I need some foam on the side of my left thigh down by the sniper plate...its' drifting inwards. The belt weight is still pulling down on my ab sometimes creating a gap at the chest joint. Need to fix that with a strap or something...need to brainstorm. I look half asleep in this picture...bad timing. Also added on the white elastic loops at the shoulder straps. Let me know what you think about the trimming and general fit. I wanna make this as good as it can be so any input you have is appreciated. Tomorrow I'll paint the various rivets and bolt heads white and start researching helmet build info. Thanks !!

That's awesome you got to visit their shop, what a treat for you and us. Thanks for sharing the pics. Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Excellent photoshopping. Looks like I'm standing there with a cocktail in my hand.....maybe a White Russian like The Dude. I gonna trim the thigh a bit to miss the butt plate. Do you think I should start off by cutting a notch out of my shins for better mobility then if that's not enough, cut the thighs too? Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk