revlimiter

Lastly, weathering! One weathered pauldron as promised. It looks so good! Hopefully this still counts as light. It's got some grime airbrushed on and then partially wiped off for that used look. This is how I'm attaching my chest pouch. Madness? Perhaps. I figured if I needed to, I could replace the one section I added the snaps to without TOO much pain. Maybe a little, but better than doing snaps in the puffy segment. Huge thanks @TheRascalKing for your chest pouch guidance. I got mine as low as possible and it doesn't limit my head movement at all. It also doesn't limit arm movement and looks, IMHO, to be a perfect match for the game model placement. Here's the pack in it's weathered glory. This is, I think, still "light" weathering. Anything grey or white got some junk airbrushed on it for flavor. Anything black got steel wash and edging. It looks like a lot from up close, but any less weathering is invisible from 5 feet away or greater. And how about that oval wipe bottle? With a velcro strip. I scrubbed the black acrylic to take off the shine. The black painted radio box also got some scrubbing. MMmmmm. Junk. I didn't neglect the buttons. And I got the airbrush nozzle up into the vents and sprayed, then let the wash start to flow out a bit before wiping away. Weathering is so much fun.

You've convinced me to Scotchgard. I hope the finger gets better quick. Now for updating the pack build. Here's my completed pack just after I got it all screwed together. I used hot glue on the various items to get them temporarily in the correct spots and then used self tapping screws from behind. I used the same slate grey paint on the pack that I used on my thermal detonator. It's a decent medium grey that seems to match the game nicely. And it made my inner OCD happy to use the same color of paint on another Imperial weapon. Here's the radio box showing off its hinges. Since the box came with it, I lined the lid with rubber weatherstrip (the light colored piping) before closing it up. I may add some clasps to the side later. Round wipe bottle - yuck. Before I did the padding, I wanted to see how the pack and OII fit together. Probably I should have done this much sooner, but better late than never. With just the circle cut out, the GarageBoss fits the TK back plate perfectly. Shockingly perfect. Here's my protective padding. It's toolbox liner. It should work very well for this and keep scratches at bay. The one downside is that it likes to remove the paint from my bin top. ... so, to protect the bin, I grabbed some extra jersey material left over from making a Jawa hood and begged my wife to sew some velcro to it. Velcro FTW! Also less squeaks when carrying it on my back.

GAH! I did forget to weather the pauldron. Gonna go do that literally now. thanks for the kind words y'all!!! Caleb: If you use the eye shadow weathering technique the boots clean right up. I dirtied the heck out of mine when I did a desert shoot and they wiped clean with some soap. No lasting effects. Though I still looked shiny compared to my Sandy buddy.

I jumped ahead with the build again. Sorry. I'll post the rest of my pack build pix in the near future. But I suited up for basic approval today!!!! I flat out hate the standard wipe bottle. I just hate it. I'm hoping to use the Meguiar's oval wipe bottle for my whole approval through centurion. I hope. It's heavy. It's hot. It's clunky. I LOVE IT. I have a week of LFL troops ahead or I'd be weathering this and going for Centurion. I need to be clean to still troop my ANH Stunt for the Balloon Fiesta events though...

All of mine is velcro mounted. My inner bucket is basically lined with loop side (soft) velcro. My electronics mostly have hook side stuck on. The industrial Velcro brand with the stick on liner from amazon is my choice. Painter's tape would get free inside the helmet. Sweat would make a mess of it.

HA!!! Well done! I had my Centurion on my 2nd troop. Gonna build a Heavy Weapons Trooper for a Centurion trifecta?

Well done Centurion.

I hope my armor looks close to that good at 100. You're an inspiration sharkbait.

I bought the new belt mostly due to past advice that it's gonna get YUCKY being on the HWT armor. I'll do removable weathering so I can go back to ANH Stunt if and when desired, but yeah... it just seemed like having a yucky belt and a clean belt would make life easier. As for mounting the ammo pouches without punching holes... gotta be belt straps on the pounches for the solution. You could probably repurpose those angled ones that most of the ammo pouches come with. Slice those off and then redo them straight as high as the material would allow. Since I'm crazy with my rivet gun, I'd certainly rivet them in place instead of sewing. DM'd you the radio box specs. If anyone needs a rivet gun suggestion, I've been really happy with the blue Quinn brand one I got from Harbor Freight for about $18USD. A pack of 500 1/8" aluminum rivets was on the shelf nearby for about another $10. Perfect for this kind of light work.

I cannot tell you how much I was sweating this task - getting the belt correctly built and fitted to my armor. See, when @Scimitar and I were building my armor, he did about 95% of the belt work himself. It's really a one man job and not something that allows room for error. But I didn't really know exactly what he did... so I made things up as I went along and very carefully measured 8x and cut/riveted once. The belt sits at Centurion height just like my ANH Stunt belt. I got the snaps set at the right height and the rivets installed correctly. And I still can't get over that plastic match. Slightly angled downwards, but the plastic and canvas line up correctly. WHEW! Yeah, my home gym room has a driving rig in it. Doesn't everyone's? Then I got the ammo pouches added to the belt. The game model has them sitting about as low as possible on that belt, so I copied. The pouches are held on with chicago screws. This gives me some wiggle room for installation mistakes. If the DO Team tells me to raise the boxes, I can still do so. Though there's not much room to lower them... Lined up! Kinda proud of myself here. And my last updated bit for the day - the radio. I was looking on the HWT facebook group for some inspiration and noticed the Dave's Darkside Depot pack. It featured a non-cardboard radio box with a hinged lid and interior storage. And did I mention it wasn't cardboard?!?! I went into research mode and found this conduit box on amazon that looks similar to the one on the DDD pack. It's a bit thicker than the radio cardboard, but not horribly so. Honestly, if anything, it's more accurate to the game model. The radio box in the game is THICK. The cardboard radio box has been bothering me the entire build. It's the most flimsy part of the pack by far and seems like just one good knock could flatten it. The plastic box is a good bit heavier, but will stand up to some punishment. It just needs to be painted, hinged, and get a new faceplate made for it. BAM. Painted and hinged. I propped it open so the inside could get a bit of black spray as well. I installed the hinges with rivets. I'm riveting darn near everything on this pack (the tube mount arms and tube are riveted). Might as well keep at it. Then I measured the box and drew up a new face plate. My laser cutter is making quick work of some 3mm black acrylic. And there's a radio plate. I cut some extra square shapes to spruce up the lower area a little. Not sure if I'll go through with that, but I'll at least have the option handy without extra work being done. That's me caught up. The radio box paint is curing at the moment. Once that's done I'll get the new box assembled and start final mounting of boxes to the oil pan.

Here goes the backlogged pic post. All of this was before I got the pack to the above state. I ordered some goodies from Mark at AP - belt parts minus the drop boxes, a set of shoulder straps, and some spare thermal detonator parts. I figured it would be nice to have the TD stuff on hand as well as an extra shoulder strap. Pre-cut to Centurion spec for my pleasure. Thanks Mark!! I am still in disbelief about this one. Look how close a match the new plastic is to my old stuff. That arm was formed in 2017!!! It's not an exact exact match, but it's 95% of the way there. Just incredible. Anyways, I had the belt goodies. Next stop was painting my printed boxes. I gave all of the printed parts a very healthy coating of silver metallic paint. I think this cured for 2 days after spraying. I wanted to have a metallic layer underneath the black top layer for that extra bit of realism in weathering. And if I weather it a bit too much, it's just black plastic underneath, so no problem there. Then I painted everything black again. Everything. The white caps, the grey vent and the grey button panel... alas. Oh well... it's just a little extra work to spray those the right colors. This is the mounting method for my drop siphon - rivnuts. I may add 2 more in a + formation. I won't rivnut most (maybe none) of the other boxes, but I know I want to be able to remove this one in the future for drilling and adding the lighted top ala Ardeshir's Obiwan HWT pack. One shoulder strap pre-mangled. It seemed like it deserved the photo. Heated and formed onto the tube. It got sanded a bit to even up the edges after this. And I think that catches me up to the present.

I believe I'm at 23 troops with this bin now. It's been incredible all year. Some early morning troops are coming up that'll have me suiting up at 4am in pitch dark fields. I added a little rechargeable camping light to my bin for those mornings. The lantern has 4 brightness settings, 3 color settings, and claims 72 hours of contestant use. It can even be used as a power brick for phone charging if needed. It fits well in the remaining lid structure and is riveted in place.

YAAAAASSSS!!!!! Congratulations on your first troop Gerald! Looks like you had a fantastic time! I want to do a blast-a-trooper SO badly.

Looking sharp Jonatan! And that sniper knee looks amazing. Good luck!!!

I hit 25!!!!

Double troop post!!! (24) 9/23/22 - Tailgate Party TK troop 24 CDZ-5435 troop 8. This was a troop at a high school tailgate party. Kinda odd right? One of the cheerleaders was a past Carrie Tingley Hospital resident (possibly with a spinal issue) who fought hard and is now a regular girl out in the world living her life. She asked if some white armor and jawas could attend the tailgate for some quick pix. Yes. Yes, we can provide some white armor and a jawa. It was a last minute troop. We had five of us with Juno Eclipse doing double duty as handler. My daughter as the jawa. I believe this selfie was indeed our official troop photo since it was the only one that got all five of us. It was fun. Low key and chill. TONS of cheerleader selfies and Be Reals. Lots of snacks and cookies ,which my jawa can stuff under her mask and get into her hungry mouth. I never figured out exactly which kid was the one who called us there, but they were all happy to see us. Good times. (25) 9/25/22 - Railyard Intergalactic Day TWENTY FIVE!!!! I'll be requesting my badge after I hit the post button. #9 for CDZ5435 #2 for TI-50597 This is part of the Albuquerque AT&SF Railyard Shops. It's an amazing structure that is basically the reason Albuquerque is the big city in this state and not Santa Fe or Las Vegas (yes, NM has a Las Vegas). I've spent many hours of my life in this place, most of them illegally. I used to be addicted to urbex photography and the railyard was my favorite subject. The Railyard now houses a weekly farmer's market and fair. It's been incredibly cleaned up since the abandoned days, but most of the charm remains. The mismatched and broken windows, the beautiful light, the huge interior spaces. Love it. I haven't been many times since my daughter was born and it was wonderful to roam through again. Family troop pic! Yeah, I did the pauldron again. I couldn't help myself. Brandon's armor is now out of my garage and on his body. I helped him redo the strapping. Looks good and was able to troop all morning with no suit failures. Life is good. White armor takeover. Sweet sweet revenge for all the photobombs the jawas have done to me this year. Muahahahaha!!!

Not a deployment officer, but I had the exact same issue on my AP thighs. About 60 seconds of careful heatgun application had both sides flat and equal to each other. I followed it up with trimming to make them equal and ABS paste to fill the gap.

Welcome to Expert Infantry Jonatan!!! Looking good! And looking like you might be one afternoon's work away from Centurion?

Welcome to FISD Jake! Without putting them on blast, you might research SDS suits and the issues required to get it approvable. Do some searches with the forum search function. It's much more work than other suits, even after you have a fully built one in hand. You mention not having a lot of time... and that suit will require a lot of it. Search for Shepperton. I know there's at least one current build by Oldracer. And though I'm not 100% sure on this, I think it's very hard to get in the US as I don't think they ship directly here. You might need a middle man in another country to send it your way. There's a number of makers who will do you up a kit to your measurements. Hit the thread Mario linked above and see what there is to see. Off the top of my head, I know AP and RS Propmasters do custom builds. However, like every suit, it will still require some work on your end for final fitment and approval.

Congratulations Gerald!!! And well done on persisting and getting over the fitment issues for approval. Lesser troops would have washed out. Wishing you huge smiles under your bucket.

I owe a lot of updates. I've got pix, I just haven't had a chance to put them together and upload. That'll come soon. I spent a good bit of time trying to build up the drop siphon bottle. I spent $15 on a right-size Baby Yoda drink bottle at Target, had a perfect cup to function as the lower part, got it riveted together.... and the last rivet cracked the whole thing beyond repair. It just shattered. I guess it was too brittle plastic and too much force. Literally a couple weeks of searching and off/on work on this ONLY piece I didn't want to print... gone. ugh. So I printed the bottle too. Here it is, fresh off the printer after a little sanding. 5% infill and 4 perimeters. It's basically a bottle. Eric's 3D print files are really fantastic. 1/8" rivets even fit in the holes and pop correctly without damaging any surrounding plastic. I put some riv-nuts in the back for mounting the bottle to the oil can. First time I had everything able to be stacked on the oil can. VERY EXCITE! I've got some painting and sanding still left, but it's nice to have all of the parts together at last.

That jacket and tie! My goodness. And the dress. You three look dapper AF!

Jealous that Christoph got to meet Morgi

You'll be trooping before you know it! Yess!!! It was really fun. The scouts and jawas had a blast swinging and playing and sliding. The big rifle kept me from doing too many playtime activities... It might not come out for too many troops in the future.

9/17/22 Balloon Glow Troop TK troop #23 CDZ-5435 Troop #7 TI-50597 Troop #1!!! This was a neighborhood park troop before a balloon glow that was to happen later that evening. Not sure if the glow happened as we were sent home before the balloons were inflated, but we kept the kids and crowd entertained for the couple of hours before hand. We had a HUGE turnout for a relatively small event. Three new troopers in attendance including my wife's first troop! She's the lone TIE pilot. The other newbies were the rather shiny TKs. (I'm the "tall" TK next to my short Jawa daughter.) This has been a dream for a while now - trooping with my whole family. So many smiles under that bucket!!! It was also my first troop with the rubber DLT-19. It was fun but awkward. Jawa antics. She stole Baby Yoda from the scout. Whist protecting the play structure, this small gentleman came up and asked me why I was allowed to carry the big gun and not the General. After some back and forth about how it was in fact my blaster, I snapped to the general part. "Who's the General?" I asked. "The black one," he stated plainly. The Black One. My wife was apparently The General. I elected to escort her for a while. Bonus background jawa playtime. I'm loving life y'all.