revlimiter

NICE!! We have a Christmas parade coming up too and I'm working on a candy cane.

When this one appeared from today's troop, I couldn't help myself. I had to follow Morgi's lead.

11/18/22 - Star Wars Art Con Friday Night 37th TK troop, 6th as a HWT, 34th for the year CDZ-5435 - troop 13 TI-50597 - troop 6 This was a troop to support Lucasfilm's artist Christopher Clark. It's a traveling art show that's in town for 3 days. This was the opening night. I got another family troop in, which is always the best thing in the world. We got a huge introduction from the event organizers and trooped into the twin ballrooms in style. Unlike many troops where they're forbidden, they asked for blasters at this one, so I dirtied my armor up again and hit the HWT train. These two didn't appreciate me stealing their spotlight outside the ballroom. Christopher was just a wonderful person. Happy to chat and clown around, even though he was feeling under the weather. And his art was gorgeous. He was signing and personalizing paintings at no charge for the show. In the above, the ONLY Star Trek painting in the show can be seen. My daughter (out of Jawa to the right) was watching him paint and noticed this. She called everyone over. We posed. All of the troops eventually caught on. I couldn't help but give a salute. We spent kind of a long time clowning for this one photo. The crowd loved it, as did the guy who bought the painting. And this gentleman was the new owner of the painting. I had to get a selfie with him. Too much fun. I bought several paintings myself and came home with a bunch of complementary prints. The walls of our Star Destroyer will get some new decorations soon. 11/19/22 - Peter Mayhew Foundation UNM Children's Hospital Donation Troop 38, 35 for the year, 7 as HWT This was a last minute emergency troop with vague details. Something about the Children's Hospital and the Peter Mayhew Foundation. Masks and COVID cards required, absolutely no weapons. I signed up right away. This is the kind of thing I live for. The details emerged. A truck from the Mayhew Foundation was touring around the western US, dropping boxes of toys for kids at hospitals on their route. Albuquerque was due for Saturday delivery sometime after 1pm. We helped unload boxes which we thought we'd be just handing over to the hospital staff. Nope. Our strong Imperial backs were put to work. We brought the toys all the way up to the kids ward. Delivery made. I missed every one. ( Notice the lack of backpack? Since no weapons were allowed, I elected to just leave the pack at home. And since I didn't have time between last night's troop and today's to clean my armor again... ) We each received a Peter Mayhew coin for participating in the troop! None of us had any idea this was coming at the end. It'll have a place of honor in my collection. And this little one is my very favorite part of today's troop. When I saw that she was captured by our fantastic handler, the room got dusty. See, she was VERY small and wrapped up in a blanket. Couldn't have been more than 4. She was more than a bit scared of the plastic space suits. I gave her the little finger wiggle waves and got one of my TK trading cards out of my chest pouch for her. She shyly took it with a smile. And that was it. I was then her very favorite plastic spaceman in the hospital at that point onward. She kept looking at me and waiving. I asked if I could come down and take a picture with her, which got a big nod. I knelt down next to the girl and her mom and took a selfie with the mom's camera. The little girl had such a huge smile on. It was only eclipsed by my own, hidden under my mask and bucket. It was a small moment, but... well... little tears. They can't see you cry inside the bucket. I don't know what challenges were on that little girl's shoulders, but she was happy for a few moments today. She put quite a few happy bucks in my own pocket as well. It's been a very good weekend.

EPIC! I don't think this troop pic could be topped. Lovely weekend of trooping also. You're all doing so much good.

Thanks!!! And whew, the 75 badge.... I hadn't thought. If the calendar is kind to me, I'll get it! Thanks Morgi!!! This next year can only get better with my newfound sitting and kneeling powers. I gotta try laying down soon. I've burned both ends of this year's candle to the best of my powers. Soon we will troop TOGETHER!!!

HELL YEAH BROTHER!!! Very exciting. I've got the Jimmi R1TK kit in a box ready to build... just gotta start a thread. Will follow with great interest.

11/11/22 - Deluxe Design Re-Opening 36th TK troop, 33rd for the year, and my 1 year Trooperversary CDZ-5435 - troop 12 TI-50597 - troop 5 On Nov 13th, 2021, this was me. Shiny and fresh. Never trooped. Barely knowing the joys of wearing the white armor. 11/11/22 - here's me after 36 troops in one year. Thumbs up. Waiting in the hot sun for a ribbon cutting. A bit dirty. Far more smiles than a trooper ever deserves to have in a year. Got another one with my whole family (that's my wife bombing in the middle). Family troops are possibly my favorite thing in life. If you look carefully you'll notice I'm holding my daughter's hand. That's to keep her from stealing each and every E-11 down the line. WHO STOLE THE E-11s?!?!?!?!?! Yes, she has an arsenal under that robe. Some selfies hit different. This one really captures that ominous feel of a bunch of Imperials waiting to create some smiles. With Gus, who was there on my very first troop a year ago. One of my favorite people in the world to troop with. With the boss. That's Jeff Vader, that is. Ready to force choke and blast a whole hot dog stand. This IS the hot dog I'm looking for. Hot and tired, but ready for this dog. Note the COMFORTABLE SITTING!!!!! A billion thanks to @Morgi for sharing the dark arts of advanced TK sitting and mischief with me. What a year. Best year I've had in my 45 on this planet.

Seriously incredible armor, build, and photo set. To say "Easy approval" is a huge understatement.

I guess if someone waived $50k under my nose I'd be building myself a new set of armor while they walked away with my old one... but DANG. such feelings.

My current fitness could be better, but I've been in great shape. Thanks for asking! We walked about 70 miles last week (no kidding) in Disneyland. My feet are begging for mercy but I'm feeling good. Gonna get back into the gym swing shortly. verrry very slowly gaining weight even, which is good. My Crohn's disease is in remission again.

VERY nice work!! If I may humbly suggest, the bucket could use a few more chips in it to match the screen used trooper. Gives it more character.

I'll just leave these here... Heavy Weapons Trooper!!! We even get to be a little yucky. We just can't get sandy.

10/29/22 - Boo at the Zoo 35th TK troop, 32 for the year. Good morning troops! It's 33* (1*C) out at 0800, I'm in a park full of duck poo at the zoo, and I'm wearing my winter underoos. Gonna be a great day!!! (and it was) This was our group for the yearly Trick r Treat at the Zoo. A good showing! I'm, of course, kneeling, because I'm addicted to it now. There were over TEN THOUSAND folks in attendance. I got some pix with the cream of the crop, including this tiny Master Chief... These EXTREMELY tall people.... (they were amazing!) Edward Scissorhands... (she was incredible) And we ALLLLLL had to get in on this mermaid photo. They had basketball, in which I totally made every shot.. yes... every shot. Very accurate you know. And a blow up skee ball in which I DID actually get a ball or three into the hole. We visited the reptile house to get out of the frigid outside temps and found this ice cave. I got nice and warmed up in the next foyer. A 10/10 day. Would troop the zoo again!!!

Just top notch all the way. Truly beautiful work.

10/26/22 Make A Wish Trunk R Treat TK Troop 33 (30 for the year, 6 in my HWT) CDZ-5435's 11th troop I'll be honest, I see "Make A Wish" on a troop title and I sign up. I'm not sure how this one was a MAW troop, as it seemed like a regular trunk-r-treat, but it was still a very good time. Lots of super-done-up cars, tons of candy, and many very happy kids. Yes, I missed. Missed again. Then my daughter made me pick it up. Even APD had a trunk in attendance. We posed. I knelt. I'm addicted to kneeling now. It was my first troop with the pack in full Kenobi mode with the lights and blaster and antenna My Jedi buddy James agreed, it looks super cool. I *felt* super cool. Having the pack I really wanted is super satisfying. My daughter and I clowned around all night. We gave away candy, she stole it back and re-gifted. Lots of smiles. My favorite bit of the evening didn't get a photo. There was a little FOTK and a little Vader in attendance. We escorted them around for a while. They seemed to super enjoy having their own TK and Jawa escorts. I did my standard thing of "MAKE WAY FOR LORD VADER!!! DARK LORD OF THE SITH COMING THROUGH!!! YOU DO NOT WANT TO GET FORCE CHOKED!" and got lots of laughs from kids and trunk workers alike. Though I couldn't see, I know Vader had a huge smile under his bucket as the trunks HEAPED candy into his bag. I sure had a matching smile under mine. --------------------------------- 10/28/22 - Haunted Death Star Halloween AM TK Troop 34 - 31 for the year, and back to my ANH Stunt setup A school across town had a Star Wars theme for their Friday Halloween festivities. One of the teachers is a member. We had seven (Celina as a rebel pilot taking this pic and another teacher as white dress Leia who was not RL) in our group. We welcomed the kids to school at drop off, inspected their pumpkins and deserts, hassled the parents for their identification, and generally made an Imperial nuisance of ourselves. Tons of smiles, photos, and fist bumps. A couple of the class pumpkin projects that kids were carrying inside past us. The little pine cones in the Falcon clamshell are wookies. Super adorable. One class did baby Yoda punkins. They got the blaster. Then we visited classrooms for most of an hour. SO MUCH FUN!!! I brought a bunch of stickers and handed them out to the kinder and first grade classes. The more well mannered classes got to come up, give high fives, and take class pix with the funny plastic spacemen. One class had a little Vader. I *love* when there's a little Boss to pose with!!! My TK heart grows 10 sizes. The above shot is one of my favorite troopy pix ever. Kneeling, y'all. It's the next level after Centurion. Though it doesn't seem like a huge and important event - just welcoming kids to school and going in some classrooms - but it was SO much fun. It was up there with the best troops I've done in the past year. I'm so happy I got up early today to do it.

@Sly11 @MaskedVengeance @TKSpartan @Doggydoc @Chemi Thanks for the kind words y'all!! HA!!! I should have an Antenna Trigger Warning on the thread. Sorry in advance Joseph.

I FINISHED IT!!! I've got a bunch of pix to put up and will try to sound coherent whist being excited to have the HWT pack I saw on Kenobi. (totally geeking out here) I sourced all my parts from amazon. I know there's better places, but this was the easiest for me. I work a lot so just getting to hit an order button on one site really helped. I couldn't find everything in 5v, so I settled on 12v lights. I figured I could make the power work easier than finding 5v pilot lights and toggles. LEDs are easy but those pilot lights are a pain. Pilot light: The "Keenso" red 4 pack is a match for the lamps used in Kenobi. 12 volt, about $6.50. They bulbs are not held in those metal housings very firmly. I added a bit of glue to each internally. Toggle switch: I absolutely hate the ones I got, but they match the screen used pack. This is the "Twidec" 8 pack SPST. 12 volt, about $10. If anyone else builds a Kenobi pack, try to get a switch that has a screw mount on the back. Mine clip on and would not stay in place on my thick radio box. I had to cut off the clip mounts to keep the switches from pushing themselves out and glue them in place. Easy, but annoying. LEDs: Any white LED will work. These are 3mm "Edgelec" in a 20 pack for $7. Pre-wired, non-flashing, 12 volt. All the white ones in my parts bin were 5v, so I had to buy these. The Kenobi pack has a whip antenna, so I needed one too. Metra 14" universal. It's not lightweight either, but it seems to be the exact one used. (About $19) I removed my printed blocking plate and used the round one that came with the antenna. It's a lot more sturdy than my printed one and covers all but one hole. I set the printed one aside in a bag with the screws for reinstallation in the future if I needed. And yeah, the base got sanded to match the pack shape before I finished the project. I held the laser cut fascia on with just a few dots of E6000 so that I could peel it off later for this purpose. I glued some speaker cloth over the radio face. I have tons of it from my daughter's jawa kit and like the look of the radio having a speaker element. This isn't on the Kenobi pack, but seemed like a worthwhile small addition. Er... the dremel slipped and I cut a bunch. Oops. Actually, this was planned. I want sound to be able to escape from the radio box, so I cut some ports to be hidden by the speaker cloth. Speaker cloth and fascia reinstalled. Switches!!! installed. And I figured out a decent mounting method for my Disney Parks radio knobs. I want the knobs to still be able to spin like the 3D printed ones could. A 2" machine screw is long enough to let the knob mount to the radio surface. I double nutted the screw near the top so that the knobs could spin without unscrewing the hardware. Inside the case, the screws are held in with nyloc bolts to prevent loosening. Three LEDs per knob. Overkill? Very likely. But I have all of these LEDs and I need to get enough load to prevent my power supply from shutting down by itself... Nine LEDs on the radio itself will help that. I drilled things and made a wiring harness for the inside of the pack. This connects the red lights on top of the vent and button box as well as the two white LEDs on the drop siphon. I glued it in place along the outer edges of the pack to prevent the straps from bothering things. Near the internal LED connection, the wiring harness has some metal worm clamps holding them in place. Here's the finished internal radio box. I spent WAAYYYYY too long running these wires, but I'm nearly as proud of this as I am of the whole pack. Nine LEDs worth of wiring and the pack's internal wiring harness all got neatly sorted and tucked, allowing the radio box to be opened without being a rat's nest. The power pack is a "TalentCell" 12v 3000mAh tiny guy from amazon. It weighs 400g and can power both 12v and 5v. It has an on/off switch (hiding behind the plug in this shot) to turn the pack on and off. It should run the pack for a couple days before needing a recharge. It was about $28. I've also got a little Bluetooth speaker velcro'd inside. It won't live in here permanently, but I wanted to see how it works. Spoiler: AMAZINGLY!!! The hollow interior of the radio box gives everything a slightly more tinny sound. The TK Chatter loop sounds super authentic coming out of this. Stupid loud too. And lastly, I added expanded metal to the face plate cut out holes. Whilst wiring things up I nearly put my stupid finger through that speaker cloth at least five times. I know it would have been punctured accidentally on a near-future troop. Some mesh protection seemed to be in order. And as a bonus, it looks super cool from the front when the light happens to hit it. The last bit I needed was the Imperial Cog for on top of the wipe box. I lasered this tiny 40mm guy out from the same acrylic I used on the radio face plate. It's delicate but securely glued to the top and away from harm. Hopefully it won't shatter right away... or ever? And here it is... my finished Kenobi pack. Daylight with power off. Blaster side. I used 3 strips of velcro tape to keep the blaster from moving around. Top. You can almost see the wipe bottle cog and my reshaping of the antenna base. In the dark garage with lights on!!! I wanted this since July. It's SO satisfying to have it. And with that, I think this build is complete. My first troop with it is tomorrow evening at a Make-A-Wish trunk or treat. If I get a good photo, I'll post.

That knee glue/repair/fix looks great! Mine also cracked when I clamped and manhandled it into position and I also had to hit it with ABS paste. It should be fine forever once repaired.

It's not at all required for approval, but your plastic hand armor will fit WAAAYYYY better and be more comfortable if you completely remove the return edge. Make it flat. Then heat it up and form it to the back of your hand. I did this (maybe stupidly) with a heat gun while wearing it. If you're gentle, you won't burn yourself and you won't deform the armor. And yes, that knee may get push back from your approval staff. It isn't supposed to be riveted on for ANH armor. Your ammo pack knee/thigh needs to be rotated up a bit so that it meets the cover strip on that thigh. Pretty easy to do with a little E6000. Your blaster and bucket look fantastic! As does the whole armor kit. I'll bet you get basic approval quickly!

Congrats Jonatan! That's fantastic. Looking good too!

I want to have a pack mounted E-11, but don't want to use any of the ones in my armory (of which there are three)... so I took an unloved Rubies blaster and painted it up. I didn't manage to take any in progress photos. Sorry about that. They start out looking like this. The thing weighs about 5 oz, so it fits the weight requirement for me. I don't have a Rebels E-11 in my collection yet, so it's not a duplicate for me. And if it gets destroyed on the side of my pack... I can just get another. Perfection! This is mine after paint and weathering. I sanded the seams and filled the holes (visible on the other side). I also put a screw in the side of the grip. No other mods. The grip got a coating of gloss clear while the rest is painted in matte. The ejection port is done with brushed metal foil, which the phone totally blew out. It looks a bit nicer than the bright blob in this pic. I weathered it a bit heavier than my usual taste so that the details would be noticeable from 10 feet away. I gave the front of the scope a small epoxy covered black dot to let it catch some light and look better than a piece of hollow plastic. And the back got a counter sticker and a printed holofoil scope decal - also better than hollow plastic. Not that these will really be visible on my pack... Just needs some velcro strap tape (on the way from amazon) and it'll be mounted up. I also added a couple latches to the side of my radio box to allow easier access than removing the 4 corner screws. The factory radio corner screws got removed and I glued (JB Welded) matching screw heads in their place. Now all of the boxes have the same mounting hardware, which satisfies my OCD. Gotta say, the latch details on the sides also make me happy. They look quite period correct for a 70s vintage piece of Star Wars tech.

Thank you all!!!! Seriously over the moon about this.

I GOT CENTURION TODAY!!!! My pack build was approved! Huge thanks @Chemi @TKSpartan and @justjoseph63 You guys made me very happy. And I'm specifically mentioning you all because... I'm now changing my pack. See, I wanted to build a replica of @equuspolo's Kenobi pack when I started this. Step 1 was getting the pack built and Step 2 was reaching Centurion. Because Ardeshir started out with a Centurion pack before modifying it for the show, I wanted to start from the same place. It makes sense in my head anyway... So. No disrespect meant to the DOs at all by my modification of an approved pack. Thanks for declaring my build Centurion Quality! I just am moving onto Step 3 - Recreate the Kenobi HWT Pack. I was SO excited when I saw these two run onto the screen. Seriously. I liked the Heavy Weapons Trooper pack and CRL before, but seeing it on the screen, even if just for a few seconds... it ignited a fire. I started buying parts for it that same week. This was the best screen grab I was able to do myself. It shows all the lights, the E11 mount, and pack config. I will not admit to buying software just for this... I used it on my E-11 ANH Leia Leveller replica build also!! So I already had the screen enhance software laying around... heh. All photos below were taken by and shared publicly by Ardeshir. They are not mine. Ardeshir shared these photos with the FISD staff and on the Facebook HWT group. Ultimately, it was decided against having a CRL for the Obiwan HWT... but I still want to build the pack. So I'm gonna! Very close to its roots. It just has some extra lights, switches, and the beautiful Disney drink bottle tops. (photo by equuspolo) Cog on the drop siphon, nice weathering, oval Meguiar's wipe bottle. I believe that's a battery box glued to the side of the radio box. (photo by equuspolo) Mortar tube side - pretty stock looking over here, just with the lovely weathering. (photo by equuspolo) The blaster side - I will likely paint up a Rubies E-11 because I don't have a Rebels one in my armory. Nice use of velcro tape! Also, Kenobi confirmed the existence of velcro in the SW universe (close-up of Leia's gloves). (photo by equuspolo) And LOOK AT THAT!!! That's the pack lights at night. Note that the blue lights are in fact white LEDs. It's a camera white balance making them appear blue. (photo by equuspolo) I cannot wait to have this. It will be mine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Or at least there will be another one in the universe made out of my own pack. (photo by equuspolo) So that's the next step in my HWT pack build - lights, an antenna, some switches, and a pack mounted E-11.

Absolutely beautiful work.