TK4205

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My belt broke so I vac formed a new one last night. It's only styrene, but it will work untill I get some ABS. Looking forword to forming a whole TK suit.

I think a disk with pics is a great idea, though HD format is pushing it; not everyone has HD players yet. TK409 offers a disc of reference pics for ten bucks. Good deal for gathering pics and offering them in one place. Matt, maybe you could post some in a small format to give us an idea of what you have to offer.

Rob. Thanks for stopping by and sayin hey. As I've said before your armor is one of our favorites and it's always been a pleasure dealing with you on the business end. I for one am honored that you came to see your fans here at the FISD and fill us in on some armor history. Thanks. Wyatt.

Greets John:) I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say I would love to see pics posted here.

Well that depends on the pictures

Don Post statue I saw one standing at the Timothy Zahn Bantam banquet. Sollid as a rock. At first I thought it was a buddy of mine. I wondered at the time if it could have been cast into any of the fan stuff we wear today. Quite possible.

I can hear the lol in that post joey Yeah, joey can bear witness to my disaster with plaster moulds. It was an all around cluster in the basement. I found some text books on line and crammed as though it were finals. I knew the basics from being around a plastic shop, but I found a nice trouble shooting guide. OMG I LOVE GOOGLE

That depends entirely on your taste. Fancy or functional. I posted some pics in this thread:------------

I see a lot of tutorials on building a vac table. The table is the easy part and it seems that the secrets that are mostely gaurded are the production and service of moulds. Your moulds need sharper detail than you want in your finished product. Bend allowance; You have to allow for whatever thickness of plastic you're forming. I've experimented with several mould materials and have had luck with only a few. Wood is OK, bondo works, but chips easy. The best I've found so far is fiberglass resin. Even parts with "undercuts" come out of the plastic well. Fiberglass resin softens just a bit when you pull your hot plastic over it, allowing it to pop out easy. In this pic you'll see the fins on my hovi mould. These have undercuts that usually wouldn't come out of the form very easy, but the fiberglass resin gives me no trouble. Remember; Every mould needs a skirt. A 45 degree angle works good. This keeps the webbing of your parts. It also help to vac form an even number of parts related to mass. In other words you want to stretch your plastic evenly. The use of plugs (false parts) can help in minimizing webbing. Everything you need to know to start vac forming is in the pdf at the top of this thread. I can't believe the joy it brought me when I pulled my first piece of plastic. The possibilities are endless.

Thought I'd start a thread to talk about vac forming. Here's a great pdf to start with: FormechVacuumGuide.pdf

moving right along....... ----------

I think that thread enlightened a lot of soon to be troopers. I almost went that rout untill I found a kit, which is a whole lot funner. In hindsight I would not have obtained an FX, but at that time I had no way of knowing the difference in kits.

Digital pics would be fine........

You have some very good points Bernard, and a wise man would heed them. I know a couple of troopers that went through 'Got Armor' for custom built suits and still had to mod them to fit better.

That is the key element here. For starters you have to still run down all the other parts even if you get a cheaper set of armor. The guy might have a grand into this kit, depends on the sound system, boots and pauldron. Pluss the guys time. You also have to ask what shape the armor is in. Has it been trooped in more than it should have been. FX isn't the best for everybody either. you might want to compare brands before purchase. If you don't have the skills to build one and no one here gives you a better deal, then go for it.

It would be great if you posted pics here. At the price of the romFX it should come in its own package:/

aside from being an uber star wars fan, TK's were one of my favorites along with fett, which I plan on doing at some point. As far as the trooping aspect goes, I love doing TK especially when lots more TK's roster. The more the merrier. I'm just one of a very cool large group. I think that being fet or a vader is different in that at many troops you only need just one. Then you're scramling to roster before the other Vader/Fett does. I have seen favoritism when it comes to these costumes but the TK's seem to be exempt from this. There's always talk of who has the best Vader in the Legion. We're stormtroopers; they can't tell us apart.

Next question: Does romFX riquire a powered mic?

Thank you for the links. OK, I am reasonably certain that I could use a romFX in place of my amp. But I can't guarantee and warantee the amp once I put it in Bommar. I would also have to charge the 200 for Bommar and add the price of the romFX on top. That makes it one spendy kit.

I've never toyed with a romFX or Hyperdine, so someone please school me on this. Can you buy a romFX and use it as is, or do you need to hook it up to an amplifier?

As far as I know you can hook up the romFX already. Bommar has in and out jacks. From what I understand though, you need a powered mic to do it. The price just went up again My question is this: Why would you want Bommar if you have a romFX ? Is it the package that Bommar comes in? I could design a kit that makes a romFX setup look sweet.

I also need to design it a certain way that I can extend Bommar for FX buckets.

I think it's head size. Ed's head wobbles when you bump it

A turning point is the best place for a fulcrum. I can scale Bommar down another quarter inch, but that's about it. Any smaller and the price will go up. I'm also looking in to a smaller fan. Interfan makes a nice 25mm fan with low dcb's and high airflow. Interfan uses the sealed bearing unit which out lasts sleeve bearing fans 3 to 1. Kind of spendy though. Thanks Paul, but if I'm able to scale it down I shouldn't need a model. I'm thinking once I make the low profile chin switch assembly, Bommar will be good to go. This is not an item that I will take orders for. I will post them up once I have ten or so in hand. Too many things can happen when you're setting on someones money. I doubt I'll have any problem getting off of them. I'm contemplating making a video on instalation, though it's pretty simple.