revlimiter

Congratulations Centurion Cupcake!!!

I do love me some good counter obsession. Beautiful work!

Alright... I've now had three (3!!!) heavy weapons troops. I did two troops on the first day for a total of about 5 hours with the pack. Five hours. These little straps were TORTURE DEVICES. There are no words for how much pain my shoulders were in with these little 1" guys. And as a bonus I had the buckles right up on the front of my chest. It's four days later and I still have bruises. I skipped a morning troop and redid my straps. This is a 50oz Camelbak hydration pack. It's the smallest Camelbak I could find. I bought it with the idea of wearing it under my actual TK armor on extremely hot troops. I did a test fitting and with the bottle full, I can't get my armor to strap shut. It's honestly a very small hydration pack. I thought it could fit inside the OII, but it's still just too big, so it has been sitting in my closet for about 3 months now. Then I had the death march with those terrible 1" straps. Then I started eying all the backpacks and padded laptop straps laying around my house. I noticed this guy just waiting to go into service. SCORE. The camelbak came with this sort of strap connection. Not at all a quick release. I sliced the old buckle free and installed my own. It was quite easy with an X-acto knife. Held together with pop rivets like most of my pack. I'm not sure if the DOs will be happy with this for EIB and Centurion, but I can always paint them black. I liked the little pop of metal on the strap. The new straps are 1.5" wide vs 1". Not a whole lot wider, but it's honestly enough. I strapped the empty hydration pack on and had my daughter climb on it to see how the straps felt with weight. Uncomfortable due to the bruising but not at all painful. So... I hacked the holes up a bit more in my oil can. And there it is installed. It's a thing of beauty. Note that the chest strap extensions (loose 1" webbing) are still there if, for some reason, I figure out how to have a chest strap on this rig. The buckles are also nice and low near the bottom edge of the pack. This makes it much more comfortable and much easier to strap myself into. I actually did a full solo suit-up on my third HWT troop. The little plastic buckles are also still present. Their purpose is to hold the hydration pack hose in place on a shoulder. They hide under my armor and are completely invisible when worn, so I'm leaving them in place for now. My wife sewed some hook-side velcro onto the webbing at the shoulder rub zone after some test fitting. I've got cheap paintball helmet padding velcro'd in place to give my shoulders a bit of extra padding. And it's WONDERFUL! I can dance, run, jump around, and troop happily for hours even with previously bruised shoulders. The hydration pack storage pouch is still accessible if I want to try having water in my HWT pack. It would be a bit of a chore to wedge in there, but I think it could be done. And there's a hole in the side of the oil can to let the hydration hose come out of and into my bucket. All closed up under the velcro & jersey liner.

Curved lexan scissors can really save your sanity. I believe this is the set I bought ages back. https://www.amazon.com/Hobbypark-Puncher-Scissors-Straight-Trimming/dp/B088X1M5VM/ Long straight sections can be scored with a razor blade and snapped off, but curved fiddly bits like the biceps really benefit from those little curved shears. They make quick work of things.

Contrast with that dark pack could certainly be a lot better. Sorry about that Glen.

I think it's the first Denix metal replica to be brought forward for approval, so I wanted it to be as perfect as possible.

Looking SHARP Gerald! Good luck!!! Not that I think you'll need it. I think you hit the bullseye.

Thanks @Doggydoc @MaskedVengeance @justjoseph63 and @Nairy They're always shot in my garage. I bought that big sheet of wool-like material at the fabric store and just magnet it to the back of the garage door after ironing. I have a really well-lit garage.

That's an outstanding repair. Well done!!!

The forum is displaying my portrait-format photos in a rather small view on my screen. Please click for full res. Each is nice and large at 800px wide. Landscape-format pix are 1000px wide and are displaying correctly.

Name: Adam Wolf Height: 5'11" Weight: 146 lbs Armor: AP Helmet: AP Blaster: Denix / Blaster Factory / Self Boots: Imperial Boots Canvas Belt: AP Hand Plates: Rubber (AP) Electronics: Ukswrath (Hovi-tip Speakers, Hearing Assist, & Fans) Neck Seal: Darman's Props Pauldron: Trooperbay Ammo Pouches: Ebay seller Luckyline1945 (full leather) Pack: Garageboss / Self 501st armor link: https://www.501st.com/members/displaymember.php?userID=34307&costumeID=122 Pack Build Thread: Previous Centurion Thread for base armor: Note: beyond weathering, there's no change to the base armor config. All photos re-shot anyway. Full Body Photos: Front Back Right Right Right Detail Left Left Left Detail Action Shot Armor Details: Ab buttons Cod Interior strapping Shoulder/bicep strapping Wrist opening Ab/kidney rivets Shoulder bridges (hidden when suited up, so I did these pix) Other shoulder bridge Shoulder bridge rear (also hidden when suited) Sniper knee front and support Sniper knee sides Ammo pack knee and split rivets Helmet Details: Front Left Back Right Interior and lens color Vocoder and Hovi Tips Accessories: Neck seal and thigh garter Pauldron and chest pouch Pauldron weathering, pouch attachment snaps, and foam filler. Belt and pouch front (New belt created for HWT, still AP sourced) Belt and pouch rear Belt and pouch detail (hopefully) showing alignment. Pouches have foam filler. Rubber gloves Boots Pack Front Base - Garageboss Button box, Vent box, Tombstone box, radio knobs, and drop siphon are all printed in ABS. All lines sanded and smoothed with acetone. Wipe box - Meguiars Radio box - plastic junction box with laser cut acrylic fascia Mortar tube - PVC with AP shoulder strap and TD end caps. Pack Rear: Shoulder straps - Camelbak 50oz hydration pack Galaxy's Edge bottle cap Jersey velcro cover Blaster: Right Left Details. Base - Denix metal replica (18 lbs) T-tracks - Blaster Factory Disk - Blaster Factory Right Side Cover Plate (small): Blaster Factory (printed) Left Side Cover Plate (large): Self fabricated (aluminum U channel) Thank you for your consideration!

Don't be afraid to sand the blob down with your Dremel tool. When you get it closer to flush, switch to sandpaper. But there's no reason to punish yourself with sandpaper before it gets closer to flush. You're doing great with that fix!!!

This isn't a troop, but I wanted to include since many of our folks worked all day. This was Saturday. We SHOULD have had a final morning balloon troop, but did not. It was cancelled due to the weather on Friday night. See, our Garrison policy is to leave at sunset for balloon glow. That means we don't usually get evening pix with the balloons and aren't on the field for the glow. It's a bit of a shame, but it's for our own safety. That policy saved our troopy butts last night. At about 30 minutes past sunset the sky just opened on the poor Balloon Fiesta field. We were driving home when the floodwaters unleashed. They got roughly 4" of rain in 30 minutes. Four inches. Ten centimeters. If you've ever experienced something like that... you're basically under water. Everything is instantly drenched. Windshield wipers don't do much anymore. And these special shape balloons can be ruined by such weather. They have a lot of folds and excess material. Once the rain let up and the teams could leave, all of the special shapes went to a covered sports field to get quickly inspected and rotated through a bit. The crew was up till 2am. They got a bit of sleep and then went back to work the next morning. The next day, the balloons were invited to the ABQ Railyard Shops to get dried out. Dewback Ridge deployed to help. Yoda being dried where they once serviced steam locomotives. Vader on the other side of the boiler shop. Ever see the first Avengers? This is the same room/spot/location where Hulk lands and turns back into Banner. It's just chalk. But funny chalk. World record for most balloons dried indoors in a single day? We have that.

10/9/22 - Balloon Fiesta Balloon Glow Day 7 30th Troop, 3rd Heavy Weapons Troop I skipped the Friday morning troop due to a sick daughter, a car that needed puke cleaned out of it, and armor that needed an overhaul. Which is a shame because Friday morning was apparently epic. Vader and Yoda both flew and the crowd and trooper staff was huge. Alas, there's next year. Thighs - I realigned my garter system to get the thighs ever so slightly higher and rotated correctly. I've lost about 30 lbs since I did the garter the first time (didn't lose the weight by choice) and the straps were in the wrong place. Easy fix that took a while to find. Now the ammo pouches aren't catching on the thigh armor edges anymore. Bucket - redid the padding. I had my iComm and amp up high touching my head. This was fine for an hour or two, but after 6+ hours of trooping in a day, it was very not comfy. They both were moved so they're not in contact with my skull any longer. Pack - I abandoned the 1" straps and hacked the pack up to accept a small Camelback. It has 1.5" straps to which I added padding. Infinitely more comfy. I can dance and jump around in it, even with heavily bruised shoulders from the stupid 1" webbing. My build thread will be updated with that stuff soon. Weathering - I used up all my eyeshadow. My belt and legs were just too light and my bucket had lost much of its weathering. I'm really happy with how it came out. Daughter - now feeling better!!! Car - cleaned and 99% less puke smelling. Friday Squad! My buddy Gus, who is usually a scout, signed up to handle and take photos for the event. He's got a great eye. All of the Friday pix are epic. Love this shot. If you could hear it, you'd know that my pack had a little bluetooth speaker shoved in the wipe bottle with Imperial March BLASTING on loop. Good times. "No, I'm not taking my bucket back off." Rolling out. Dirty squad! They kept trying to convert me to the sandy side. We found Fett and trooped around with him a while. I love being HWT. I don't need to point out which one I am anymore! lol I can be found like this rather often... and lastly... I FOUND THE DROIDS I WAS LOOKING FOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can see the huge smile under my bucket, right? So dang cute.

10/8/22 - Balloon Fiesta Evening Balloon Glow Day 6 29th Troop, 2nd Heavy Weapons Troop 2nd troop of the day too. First troop required a 2am wake up to meet at 3am. The 2nd troop had a 2:30pm meeting time. Short nap between. A squad of happy nerds getting fried alligator and other bad for you food. E for Empire Our evening herd. They do two special shapes balloon glows per Fiesta - Thursday and Friday. This was Thursday. They picked 5 of us to walk to the VIP pavilion. Han, Leia, Mara Jade, Sandtrooper Nick and myself. We walked a conservative 1.15 miles before starting the 2 hour troop. I got picked because my bluetooth-speaker-binocs were "friggin awesome" and Nick got picked because he matched me nicely. That HWT pack with the little 1" straps dug into my shoulders. My stupid right thigh was getting clunked by the right ammo pouch every step. And my bucket was digging into my skull. It was unpleasant. It all got rebuilt on Friday morning. We still had fun. We took over the band area in the VIP booth for a minute. Mara has some pipes. They wouldn't give me a guitar... Then we joined the other troops who DIDN'T have to walk an extra mile. Quality trooping antics were had. We entertained the crowd all night. Himhaer (guy in the middle) is a 501st jawa who had to work a booth that night. He still came around for pix. My favorite pic of the night. The little guy had a little trooper who was reportedly his favorite toy. I gave both kids trading cards and have never seen such pure joy. They hung out with our troopy trio for a while that night. At the end of the night, I got my Fiesta challenge coin. We had to do a photo challenge of 3 pix to get it, one of which had to be a silly shot. As a trooper so inclined, this was not a hard task. The coin is just a beauty. It's my favorite in my collection currently. Note - there was no balloon glow that night. The wind was high and balloons couldn't inflate. We were all the entertainment for the crowd that evening and everyone was invited to come back Friday night with their Th night ticket. So Friday's crowd was set to be huge.

10/8/22 - Balloon Fiesta Morning Mass Assention Day 6 28th Troop, 1st Heavy Weapons Troop! We had only a small gathering for the morning launch, but we were ready to support the Vader balloon. UFO? Nah, we want the boss! There he is!!! This was my only photo with Vader. I managed to not get my pic taken with the big guy whilst holding back the crowd. Me and Nick trooped together the whole day. I thought my weathering was a little heavy until I stood next to him... lol Note - Nick is indeed a little tall for a trooper. I'm OTTK height at 5'10". He's 6'3". Together for the first time this year. The Fiesta officials didn't let Vader inflate till Thursday... I made the news. I also got interviewed by French TV. Not sure what channel or services, but I had to wrestle my bucket off to chat with them. Good times!

Congratulations Gerald!!!

I have many feelings about this.

Very cool idea! I struggled to come up with a sig design and did the not-at-your-post thing to fill space in the meantime, but it stuck. Glen's still impresses me.

It was indeed A BLAST. I've got a backdated pic from Balloon Day 1 that was missed. Me, Randy (Vader), and Allen must have posed for 15000 photos that day. I, of course, do not have any on my own camera. I was thrilled to have this memento. (27) 10/2/22 - Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta Day 2 Getting up at 2am is not good for the brain. This is day 2. I'm posting this on day 4 when my sleep was more caught up. I'll be trooping on day 6 (Thursday) and plan to do FIVE troops in three days, all of which start at 2am. Chant and light incense for me plz. Anyways, I'm next to Vader. A rare bucket-off pic that I liked. Can't say no to Yoda balloon pix. With my own camera! THIS little guy, named Wesly, hung out with Vader and me for crowd photos. He was amazing. A joy to troop with. Dancing around, making the crowd laugh, and teaching this old trooper the joy of LIFE. Though I'm not in this shot, I had to share it. Big salute to the tiny Magma Scout. When next I update, I will have trooped in my HWT pack! Much excitement.

May as well share my bin in this thread too. Almost a year of service and it's one of the best armor additions I've done.

Tiny update - I modified my rolling bin to allow the pack to strap on. This is a $7 truck bed bungee from Harbor Freight cut way down. I can roll it, I can tip it. I can even open the lid and the pack stays right in place. I'm gonna suit up on Thursday for my first HWT troop. EXCITED!

Congratulations Jonatan!!!

Wow Gerald. WOW. Beautiful armor and submission. And that sniper knee. WOW!!!

26th TK troop - Balloon Fiesta 2022 day 1 I woke up at 2am today. I've never done that in my whole life. I've been awake through 2am many times, but never set an alarm for 2. I would barely recommend it. But my bothers in white were equally tired, cranky, caffeinated, and excited. It's the opening day of the 2022 Balloon Fiesta and we had over FIFTY troopers and twenty handlers in attendance. I hung out with Vader most of the morning, acting as TK backup for the endless smiling kids and young at heart eager to take a photo. It was THE BEST trooper assignment ever. Will be Vader backup any time I can. I tried to catch one, but missed as you can see. Because, well... TK. But with my buddy Allen's help, we got it. Some troops just hit different. This one will be a high point for a long long time. Until tomorrow when I get up at 2am and do it again.