wook1138

I had to make sure I wasn't imagining things. here is the pic. If the GML gives anyone grief...

For the screws showing on the kidney - this is how the original RS suit looks. It appears the screws got moved down during use (probably due to the weak return edge breaking). I'm not sure if this is ever seen in the movie - but the reference suit as seen in the Gallery has this same detail. It would be hard to argue that it is not passable, IMO. Curious RS does this by default.

lol. Copy that. Yeah, the only part of my armour that I can confidently say will be orange is the pauldron.

Where? Pinewood Studios? Just kidding. I didn't think to consider that. I looked up Ajim, and yeah, I see what you mean. The sandstones seem to be oxidized a bit. Good to know in helping me decide. I've read that motor oil and sand/dirt was used to weather the armor while in Tunisia. Is there any info out there as to how it was done once back in the studio?

Thank you, Dan! Yeah, the weathering is turning into a real conundrum. I'm not on board with most of what I see over at MEPD - I just find it too dark and with too much contrast (and that orange colour does not help one bit). But the final say for PO and SWAT (if I even go there) will be up to MEPD.

deleted. Double post

This weekend’s progress. I have been putting off the helmet. I had to do some painting on it, and trying to do that with young children in the house is difficult to say the least. Well, this last weekend the wife took the kids to see grandpa and grandma, so daddy had time to build. Tube stripes. All the painting will be done by hand. Here, I am measuring out the spacing for the stripes. First coat. Yuck, I hate doing these things. Oh, I also did the vocoder. I forgot to mention that I composited original photographs over photographs of my helmet in Photoshop to place the stripes and vocoder details. Had to place and drill the holes for the Hovi mics . The HOVI mics in the reference picture do not seem to match where the holes are marked for the AP helmet. So, I had to adjust. I also painted the tips of the Hovi mics white as per the reference picture. Taped off an area for the crack/paint run on the top of the helmet. The colour was supposed to match HDPE green plastic colour of the original helmets. But this is a bit dark, I will have to tone it down with some white paint. I also cut some tubing at some funny angle to help redirect the Hovi mics . It is difficult to get them to point in the right direction. Also final trimmed and sanded the legs and arms. I also added all the snap bases. For sanding, I use 220 grit, 320 grit, 400 grit, and 600 grit. All the return edges were sanded this way for comfort... especially in the upper thigh area. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ditto what Luc said. I'm intensely jealous of your work space. Talk about a work perk!

That's some nice looking armor. Congrats. I noticed a couple of minor things (aside for the bracket screws not being painted). You will probably have to paint the TD tube grey. There is writing on it. For better fitting, you could pull your thighs up a bit, they are riding a little low. If you can, slide your drop boxes out to the end of the plastic part of the belt. Your right forearm is riding a bit high - not sure if you will have to adjust strapping or not. The back of your shins are overlapping too much - or maybe it is the angle of the pic. at some point you may want to shorten the straps that attache your shoulder bells to your shoulder strap. Some of these are just dressing issues. I'm not sure if the writing on the grey tube (TD) will be an issue for basic approval. These are pretty minor fixes. I see basic approval happening very soon!

Thank you sir! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Weathering test number two. Airbrush. So, I tried the airbrush and repeated my mistake of putting the paint on too thick. Left is yesterday’s try and right is today’s. So I cleaned the piece. The airbrush paint is acrylic but it was much more stubborn to get off. That will help durability so that is good. I repainted with a grey brown colour and then removed all but a few low areas. Painted in the desired pattern with regular brush acrylics. Same as yesterday. I will spray two different colours of paint. The darker first (one on the right - they look the same in this pic. ). I’ll remove most of the paint between each layer. By the way, to get the gritty/sandy look to the airbrush paint, I'm using mismatched needles to nozzle sizes - I think I have a large sized needle and a medium nozzle. This makes the paint spit out of the nozzle a bit and creates very small splatters. Perfect for this weathering. Done. I also flicked some brown paint on. I may have overdone it with the light sandy colour. I lost some of the depth to the dark parts. Yesterday’s attempt is on the left. In sunlight In lower light. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm trying to make is look good for the camera and not terrible in person. I figure more people will see the armor in a picture or at a distance. So - I guess I'm making more work for myself than needed since something can look so different from one picture to the next. Doing it so it looks good in person might be a smarter idea (as usual, sir ). The funny thing is - we are trying to recreate weathering from pictures that are over 40 years old, taken with unknown equipment, have been through several editing processes and digital compression, and are now being viewed on non-calibrated monitors. The weathering should be open to some pretty loose interpretations, IMO. I guess that is why SWAT can be such a challenge... "eye of the beholder".

Thanks. The sunlight washes it out a bit. It is so hard deciding how the weathering should look - ie what lighting conditions do you weather for? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Weathering test number one. Although I like the look of the subtle weathering one gets with Fullers Earth, I worry about the durability and, more importantly, I need to be able to carefully control the pattern of the weathering. I feel I can do that better with paint since I have experience painting and zero experience with Fullers Earth. Try one is using regular art acrylics and a shop towel to dab the paint for texture. I used burnt umber, black, yellow ochre, and white. I started off drawing a pattern and filling it in with dark grey. Then I did a coat of brown. Then a coat of sand colour. After each layer I rubbed off most of the paint with a towel. Well, I wasn’t happy at all with that. Too dark. So I wiped the piece clean with some mineral spirits and tried again. Outline pattern. Paint in area. Dab with towel and spread some paint around. A layer of brown/tan colour and dab with a towel. Rub away some paint once dry. Flick some brown and yellow at it. Rub off some of the specks. I needed to use mineral spirits for the flecks as they were pretty stubborn. In sunlight at a distance. Sunlight, bit closer. Not terrible. I will try the same thing tomorrow but I’ll use an airbrush. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Great progress and a nicely detailed build, Daniel!

lol. Balaclava. It is a staple of any person's wardrobe in central Canada. Baklava is concentrated sugar and phyllo pastry - it gives me heart burn.

I don't have a hearing assist system but I do use troopertalk with an aker amp (1505). I use a wireless mic, but it is just regular RF. RF doesn't seem to have the latency issue. However, I have other issues that I haven't worked out yet with the wireless mic (completely lose pick-up for a bit and then it magically comes back - I haven't played around with Troopertalk lately to figure it out - but I think I need to tweak the volume on the mic itself in addition to fine tuning Troopertalk ). I haven't done all the tweaks in troopertalk or sound dampen my bucket to reduce feedback yet - another project for another day. Yeah, that cord running down the neck is annoying. I've tried to wear the headset - it just doesn't fit in mybucket - assuming I want my head in there too. So I had to mount the mic in the bucket and fight with the cord every time I took it off.

My experience with Bluetooth is that the latency is just too great for this sort of application. Maybe I buy crappy electronics - I don't know.

That's awesome! It think Walt (WTF - Walt's Trooper Factory) makes kid sized armor. You can find him on Facebook.

Nice job Jon! The only things that stood out for me was the black space (between the shoulder bells and chest at the front) and the sizing of the biceps and forearms. Like Dan mentioned, they look fairly loose (too much girth). I don't know if this will affect basic approval (depends on your GML), but it will hinder movement while you are trooping. That extra bit of paint on the frown (as per Dan) would not hurt either. As far as any dressing or alignment issues - yeah, you definitely want someone in the know to help with pictures. A few adjustments here and there before the pictures may solve a number of issues noted above (except for the belt - Nice catch, Jordan). My perfectionist wife helped me out during pictures - I pretty much owe my Centurion approval to her . Again, nice job on the armor.

Well, you certainly have the patience needed to build a quality TK. Congrats on your BBB day! Even at 1.5 years, the wait is worth it.

Yeah, I made one for my TK but I was hoping to avoid it this time around. That is a good point regarding the pack and other various accoutrements. I think you convinced me to do it.

It is funny how these things come together. After picking away at little things for what seemed like forever - I started adding some strapping and voila, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I just need to finish some arm strapping and the basic build is done. For various reasons I am not using the original bracket strapping system for the chest. So I glued in some snap plates about 4inches up from the lower return edge. Added snap bases near the top edge of the ab. Taped chest to ab to double check alignment. Realized I need to shift a snap base. Test fit. I’m trying to get the placement if the chest with relation to the ab to match the reference but still fit okay. I did need to redo one chest to ab strap. Reference Left side (mirror) pic. More gap than I would like, but not terrible. Right side mirror pic. I’m using a plastic reinforced nylon strap for the right connection. It doesn’t overlap but it does cause the two haves to offset like this. May need to revisit this. And back. The gap between the back plate and the kidney plate is a lot less here than on my first TK. I’ll need to hot bath the shoulder tabs at the back to bend them down a bit - they are sticking up about half an inch or more above my shoulders. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I happened across these guys when I was researching my first build. The armor looks pretty decent (as per their webpage). I believe the parts were sculpted / cast by a guy named Cal Pierce - who I believe went on to work for Anovos. But yeah, I agree with Luc, I think a person would be better off buying a R1 kit.

Looking good! Keep up the great work!