Bullseye

When you say heat, are you suggesting a low heat setting paint heat gun or a hair dryer? (Also, thanks!)

Now the right bicep. I got a little too excited about trimming the right bicep before I put this project into hibernation last fall. The issue here here again is return edge. How much do I need? I can get this on my bare arm but not on with an undershirt. It he’ll to get off so I know I need more room. So I’m going to have to add a shim in between the inside butt joint to add space. The shim is spare abs I’ve sanded into a 5 to 15mm wedge to run bottom to top. Should do the trick. Photos: top Bottom Inside top outer bottom return Inside ridge outside ridge Thanks everyone.

Progress on the biceps. I’ll start with the left, because I think this requires less input. Big question here is return edge and how much is required, if any. I can get the bicep on and off, but the shape is a little out of whack. I think when I trim down the sides a little more it’ll start to resolve itself. As you can see below, the current outside raised ridge is at 40mm in width. I think requirement is 20mm? Thoughts on additional trimming? Top Bottom outside ridge I’m not sure how much of the ridge/raised area I have to have for EID or how much return I need for EID or centurion. How much can I get away with trimming and what is the required width for the cover strips? Thanks!!

Seven months later...... To sum up my progress, it didn’t work. The forearms are still a mess. Discouraged, I put the kit away in the garage and thought about it sparingly. Then, wonderfully, Star Wars Celebration Chicago finally came to town. One of the best things about SWCC was the ability to talk to other builders and see how their builds turned out. That was huge for me. It took seeing the armor in the field for me to realize it ain’t going to be perfect. Just talking with other TKs reinforced that this is not an exact science and the best thing to do is get the job done so that you can enjoy it. To all the troopers I met and talked with, thank you. Since then I've gotten to work on a Rubies conversion E11, a 3D print full size E11, and worked on my chest, back, shoulder bells, biceps, and ammo belt. Photos and background to follow.

Thanks guys. Kinda what I figured. Was just glad to finally figure out why this just didn’t look right in my head.

Thanks again everyone. I’ve spent the last few days working on the biceps and shoulder bells so as to come back to the back and chest plates fresh. I took another look at them last night and I finally figured out why the angles don’t look correct. The left side of the plate is longer than the right. The back plate has been driving me crazy, and at least now I know why. Is is this something I should try to fix or say the hell with it and just use it as cut at this point? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks Tony. Looks like I’m close on those figures and this TK is a bumpy ANH version, so I’ll wager it’s pretty close to the RS Props version. It’s good to have some perspective on the dimensions.

Thanks Aaron. I took a series of photos photos that made me more concerned I may be comically oversized to be a TK. The back plate looks tiny when I hold it up, but I’m probably thinking too much. Anyway, here are the photos for the chest plate and then the back plate. I put a ruler in there so that people can quantify the size difference. Chest Plate The vertical on the right is roughly 4 inches The vertical here is almost 4.5 inches Back plate Here I just took a photo of the internal side of the back plate. I drew a pencil line on what believe to be the mold line. It’s not too clear. I think the back plate issue is at the pencil lines but I’m not sure. All thoughts are welcome.

Does anyone have/know the dimensions for the bottom side aspects of ANH TK chest and back plates? Specifically the vertical aspects of the chest and back plate below the cut for your arms. How long in inches or mm should the vertical straight aspect be? You can can see what I’m talking about at the bottom right of the armor in this screen grab. My build stalled when I started getting nervous that I’d cut too much under arm on the back and front plates. After SWCC I’m less spastic about it being perfect and simply want to get my armor built as best, and correctly, as I can. Want to to be able mark the vertical height of the flat aspect on the chest and back plates, and then cut the arm semi-oval area to blend to the proper height. There were not well defined trim marks on this armor, so I need to guesstimate. Secondarily, my shoulder bells are huge and I need to finish cutting them down. Is there a recommended length from the top of the bell ridge to the bottom edge I should be going for or is it dependent on individual size and preference? If it helps, I’m a trim 6’4” with long arms. Thanks in advance everyone. Bullseye

My thanks to everyone for their input. I ended up separating the forearms and buying a lot more clamps and magnets. As every suggested I popped out the internal strips and reset them on one side of the forearm, glued them down and then clamped the hell out of them. Behold! I probably could’ve put another clamp in there somewhere but that might be overkill..... oh wait... After the glue set I went back to trying to connect the two halves, one edge at a time. To assist I purchased a set of flat rectangle magnets to help flatten the ridge. Then, after the rectangles we’re down I put my additional magnets on top and below to help solidify the pressure, and eliminate any potential ridge. We’ll see tonight how they turned out. I’ll try to rejoin the second edge to tonight. I’ll glue, tape, clamp, magnet the hell out of it. Wish me luck!

That’s what I ended up doing.

Welp, more “progress”. My efforts to prepare my forearms have continued and I’ve actually been semi-successful at getting them to finally match up. I’ve managed to shim the interior of the forearms and E6000 them together. The problem I’m having is there’s still a bit of a ridge where the parts meet. I’m thinking I’m going to need to boil my cover strips (make them soft) to get them to sit right. I’ve tried to get the abs to sit flat (clamps, magnets, tape, etc.) but no luck. So I’m stuck with the ridge. Anyone have any better ideas? (Also, I’m either going to put a lot of E6000 in the gap or make an ABS slurry to fill the gap before placing the cover strip). Thanks in advance everyone.

Sadly my attempts to shim did not work out as well as I’d have liked.

Bourbon also helps. EH Taylor barrel proof (2018 release) was enjoyed while dremeling the forearms.

Right forearm: More tomorrow. Hopefully. DA Props. I’m still figuring out how screwy these original based molds were. Being 6’3” means they were not made for me.

After a long couple of days, some progress on the forearms. I initially, and foolishly, cut the left forearms to an 18mm combined width thinking I could whittle it down from there. Not a good idea. Despite being a wiry man, my forearms were way too thick at the elbow for that width and I couldn’t get my hand into the hand gap. The result was my having to plastic fuse the trimmed pieces back onto the forearm. You’ll see the obvious fuse lines. One thing that was very frustrating, and you’ll see this in my cut lines, was that having a straight edge was only marginally useful the way I apparently applied it. I think part of it was trying to use the straight edge while the original mold base curves were still attached. As I cut those off and began to remeasure, things got better, but not perfect. After the above I took a more “measured” (har har) approach to the right forearm. I whittled the right forearm slowly until it fit my hand and elbow. It needs a little extra trimming the mesh up, but it’s close enough I think I can put a scrap strip underneath for support. I know im supposed to do a 15mm cover strip on both sides. Will I get dinged for the edges not matching the cover strip? My thanks in advance for everyone’s help and thoughts. Left arm: Here’s the obvious trim fusing: Right arm to follow.

A friend provided me with some build guides for various unmarked-no line kits and that’s been invaluable. I’ll be posting cuts in the next few days.

I'm putting together my TK after almost a year since purchasing it. Unfortunately some parts warped a bit and I'm having a difficult time figuring out where to make my cuts. My armor set doesn't have clearly defined lines for the cuts, so I've got to eyeball them. Any help people can provide would be greatly appreciated. I'll start with the bicep pieces. Unfortunately the heat in the garage warped the thumbprint bicep. I've heard that boiling water works as does a heat gun (I've got a two stage heat gun that has a mild and hot setting). Not sure what to do, so I thought I'd ask y'all. Thanks in advance everyone, Bullseye Thumbprint Bicep: Other Bicep:

More progress. After a couple of nights off, I managed to find time to tackle the issue of the helmet base, as well as to start the paint process for the traps and tears. Pretty happy with the results. More to follow.

A little more progress last night. Ears are on. Front side looks alright. back side.... not so much. Had some issues with the bottom of the bucket not lining up on the right side due to the shorter face plate sides. Unfortunately, the brow is so high that the back of the bucket is too low, and that's giving me issues. As a result the right side ear base isn't sitting correctly. I can, and need, to cut the base of the bucket but I'm a little gun-shy right now. With the screw holes in and the bucket secured on the base, I can remove the ears and do the necessary dirty work to fix the back end of the bucket and then finish the sanding of the ears. (I'm also planning on finishing the teeth with little files, but that's lower on the priority list right now). At least that's my plan. If people think this is a lost cause, let me know. Or if I need to go Sandy, let me know that too....

Thanks Dennis. It's uploaded with photos now! More to come later. I managed to get the ears on last night.

Well.... I showed up here looking for information on building my own E11 from scratch. Then I started reading up on all the different providers, templates, costumes, and support from the community here. Now I’m building my very own ANH Stunt TK on top of my E11 build. Funny how this place just sucks you right in to the vortex, isn’t it. Now, on to the build. I haven’t quite figured out how to “host” photos yet so bare with me. Once I do, I’ll be uploading photos soon. I tried to break it down in stages for those who haven’t done one before and also for the amusement of those who have. Allow me to serve as a clueless guide into trooper building for those who haven’t done this before, and as a cringeworthy reminder of early follies to those who have. 1) IT’S HERE! IT’S HERE! - My BBB showed up al the way from DA Props in the UK last Friday afternoon while I was at work. All productivity ceased once my wife sent me a text that it arrived. Receiving that text was as close as I will ever come to being 8 years old again. I knew what had arrived, hell, I’d ordered it myself. But I was still a giddy mess. The only thing I can think of that comes close is a very clear memory of my birthday when I was about 8, and receiving the Tron lightcycle. It was blue. It was plastic. It was awesome. That feeling was back. 2) The initial assessment - I’m new to this so I didn’t really know what to expect. Good lord, there’s a lot of stuff in that box. After looking through everything I decided to start with the helmet. As an aside, and I had to be told this by the good people on this board and the amazing members of the UK Garrison, white non-capped abs is not gleaming white. It is more of an eggshell. But in daylight it gleams. In photos it looks brilliant white. Do not, under any circumstances, evaluate the color of your armor and helmet at night, in your garage, under fluorescent lighting. That’s just stupid. And it will mess with you until the good people on this wonderful board politely and patiently tell you you’re being a moron. Not that it happened to me.... I’m just saying.... for a friend. 3) Booze - Years ago I ran an American college football website dedicated to college football and beer. But in reality, our drink focus was anything tasty with a bit of bite. This carries over to my various projects ‘round the home. Beer, wine, and (in particular) whiskey are moderately consumed companions during my episodes of physical or mechanical labor. So it will be here. I did not have the opportunity to really begin work on the build until Sunday night after my boys were asleep. My wife and I opened a 2013 bottle of Giugal Cote du Rhône. The post-dinner remainder joined me on my first evening of the build. Let’s just say at $11US a bottle it’s a steal and a frequent visitor to our happy home. Twas delicious. 4) Bucket Time/Getting Started - Assessing and “easy” starting point I grabbed the back end of the bucket with the intention of trimming the brow and the ear and trap areas. I began trimming the brow of the bucket using my aviation snips that I purchased from Home Depot. I can’t put into words how clumbsy and awkward it felt. Unless you have very, very good (and relatively small) curved Lexan scissors, don’t bother. My snips were the smallest I could find a three different stores (and we’re basically an inch longer than my 4 year old’s school scissors), and I couldn’t get any flexibility in my cutting. The straight, hard edge of the scissors made it damn near impossible to cut or follow any kind of curve. I quickly ditched the scissors and grabbed the Dremel. I used the standard comes-with-the-box plastic cutting circular blade. You can certainly use a fancier (or smaller) blade, but this worked for me. I will say be sure you’re confident in your control of the Dremel before cutting. I’ve used mine on some woodworking projects before and feel pretty confident in my abilities. But even then, I nicked a spot here and there. So be careful. But if you are, it’s so much faster and easier than snipping. Marking my lines with with a pencil I followed the natural indentations of the mold. With that marked, I put the Dremel to work. I also went back over the spots where I’d mucked up my cutting with my scissors. I was happy with the results. 5) The Face Plate - if you’ve seen Ross Wambley (RWA) or Andy Rodgers (DA Props - Shed of Glittering Delights) videos on lid assembly you know that you take approximately 10mm off the ends of the face plate sides. Grabbing my metric ruler and a pencil, I marked that off and began cutting. Both sides came out fairly clean. I also used the Dremel to finish the front side of the brow of the bucket and clean up the nicks there from the uneven cutting. Again, on first glance everything looked good. I then went to the eyes. Again, following the indentations on the mold I pencil marked the lines for cutting, then went to work with the Dremel. This is why I mention being sure of your Dremel control. Cutting from the inside with a Dremel 3000 can be a little difficult as the size of the Dremel is just a hair larger than you’d like. I got stuck just a bit on the side of the lid and tried to power through it. Bad idea jeans. The result was taking a bit more off the inside of the left eye than I planned. Nothing catastrophic but enough to get me to slow down a bit. Completing the cutting of the eyes, I exchanged the cutting blade for a small barrel sanding drum and began to clean up the cut marks and even out any overzealous buzzsawing. With that complete I put down the Dremel and picked up Bertha, my trusty DeWalt power drill. Popping in the third smallest bit I have (3/32 inch I believe) I drilled a single hole into each of the teeth gaps in order to give my sander a little more purchase. Flipping the face plate to the inside, I used the Dremel’s Barrel sander to hollow out the teeth gaps, making use of the freshly drilled holes do get it going. Once i’d eyeballed enough off the gaps, I flipped the mask and used the Dremel on the inside of the mask while looking at it through the teeth gaps. This allow me to see the external visual effect of the sanding and judge how much more needed to be done. Satisfied I’d gotten the teeth to a sufficient depth, I put down the mask and left the fine filing for later. 6) Grape Job, Dumbass - Feeling confident that I’d followed the videos and build threads appropriately, it was now time to put the bucket together. Grabbing the rare earth magnets I’d purchased off of Amazon I clinked the face plate to the bucket and eyeballed the fit. Having seen the various builds, I wanted a moderately low brow on the helmet. A little white over the eyes, but not pulled down right over the eyes like a baseball cap. Humming along I thunked magnets to the ear sides and looked at my work. A slight problem emerged. Looking at both sides, the mask cheeks were not reaching the bucket sides. There was a 2-5mm gap between the cheeks and the bucket. This was an issue because the gap was exactly where the bottom of the ears are supposed to attach. Fiddling with the mask position, all while trying to maintain my preferred millimeter of white brow, I came to a painful realization. I’d cut off the 10mm I was missing from the sides of the mask as the second or third thing I’d done in my build. In my enthusiasm to get started and follow the online videos I hadn’t thought to, you know, actually put the mask and bucket together to inspect how they would fit before cutting. Grape job, Dumbass. Now I'm scared. Holy crap did I just piss away $100+ in ABS? Do I have to order another Helmet? Can I fix this? Why won’t it fit? Assorted cursing and self flaggulation (and not the good kind). After a lot of PMs with fellow DA Props kit owners and Andy himself, I began to come to the realization that this was indeed fixable and that the bucket would turn out fine. The bucket wouldn’t be as I originally intended, but it would still look awesome. Internal nirvana (or at least acceptance) achieved, I went back to work. 7) Drilling in the Name of.... - Pushing the brow down as far as I could go without bowing the plastic and while maintaining cheek and bucket contact, I drilled my ear screw holes on each side of the bucket and mask. Taking the cheeks and doing my best to keep them as close to the edge as possible, I drilled my bottom holes linking the cheeks and bucket. I managed to get the face plate and bucket to link, but with literally a millimeter of space left on the left side. The result was acceptable. A little more mask/bucket gap than I intended but still okay. The issue was the brow. It was high. A quick fix, however, was to pull the brow trim down as far as possible while still maintain some grip on the bucket. It worked. Frankly it looks pretty good. And it’s securely screwed together! <img src="https://i.imgur.com/AwIcbjF.jpg"> 8) It’s the Little Things in Building - No matter how much you read or watch you’re never really full prepared to build your first bucket. It’s like having a kid. Except without the crap, piss, sleepless nights, and screaming. Well, really, it’s nothing like having a kid. But it is expensive, time consuming, and scary. So they have that in common. A few few things to consider before starting your helmet build. First, at some point you’re going out enough magnets on the helmet to warp space time so that you can put the helmet on your head and get a visual. It will confuse you when something that large is difficult to put on straight. This is normal. You solve this problem by putting the bucket on sideways and turning it forward. I offer this because if you’re a type A control freak perfectionist, not having it fit immediately may throw you a bit. Just saying.... again, for a friend. Second, masking tape is your friend. Claps, magnets, drills, files, screwdrivers, et al are wonderful, but they will damage and scrape your lid. Before you plunk magnets anywhere, put down a 1 to 1 1/2 inch wide barrier of masking tape. Same with using screwdrivers. It’ll limit accidental nicks and scrapes. Third, before you do any cutting mock up the face plate and bucket so that you can pencil mark your targeted brow and cheek placements. It’ll save you a lot of cursing. That’s all for now. I’ll try and update this post with photos shortly, or at least figure out a way to post them in a separate post on this thread. Tonight I tackle the ears. More soon.

This is so amazing. I've got a DA Props stunt on the way. I'm going shopping this weekend to get it all together for when my kit arrives! Thanks to everyone who contributed and especially to Joseph. This thread saved me hours of research and headache.

The rum will definitely help. I build with bourbon myself.

Decided to throw my lot in with Andy at the Shed of Glittering Delights and will be ordering a TK stunt over the weekend. I've seen a number of Andy's TKs approved as centurion, but can't find a build guide. Anyone have a tutorial for their TKs? Also wanted to to find out if there are any mods I should be prepared to make or special instructions for putting it all together that are outside the usual realm of construction? Thanks in advance!