Freduster

Question time once again: I know that the RS shin armor is the same for left and right, but what about the thigh armor? They don't look the same, but I can't really tell which one belongs to which side .. Any hints?

Thought I should share an update here today: helmet paint will be finished tomorrow, and I have decided to move away from the original bracket strapping and do a button strapping instead which seems to be quite popular with essentially every legion member I have ever talked to, so yeah.. onto some more trimming and glueing, and then I can finally go into strapping more which will be the final step on my way to becoming a trooper

And another question I'm thinking about spraying a layer of clear coating onto the helmet to protect the paint. Has anyone done this before or does anyone have experience with this?

And a little addition: do you guys have pictures of your own shin parts? I would especially be interested in the shape at the bottom and the back in general.

And another question! :) I did some work on the shins today, and I found a problem. I trimmed the back of the shins so far that they fit together which left me with a quite uneven return edge at the back. According to other builds this is normal for RS kits, so I'm not too worried about that. My question is about the exact length of the shins. I guess the knee should be visible completely, otherwise the sniper plate won't fit, but how long should the shin be? Does it have to cover the ankles? I'm struggling with fitting the shins over the boots as well :( on the other hand I'm scared that I'll trim away too much of the bottom shin. Help appreciated :D

Well I'm not planning to do that at any time, but thanks for the warning and cheers for the advice, I'll consider this information when trimming and fitting the arms!

New question: is the bicep piece worn with the thumb print to the inside or to the front? I'm asking because I don't want to trim away the wrong return edges

Cheers for the advice again! Hopefully the tiny return edge won't keep me from reaching Centurion... Concerning the bucket, the stupid metal inside the mic tips almost drove me into madness, but I did manage to get there in the end. When painting the tube stripes i did make sure there was a pencil width of space, and it might really be the angle of the picture. Now I am just waiting for the higher quality lens to arrive and then I can finish the helmet. Now this should boost my motivation again (if it dies down until then at all)

So it doesn't matter if the calf return edge is not even? That does simplify things a bit @hollowbodies I am going to cut down the biceps a bit more so they should fit under the shoulder bells easily. Another question: are the back plate and the kidney plate connected at all? I just trimmed down the return edge on the back plate and then realised I might have made a mistake there Good news, I finished painting the helmet! So I am making some decent progress, and especially with your help I'll be finished in no time

Yeah I saw that in your build Dan, the problem with the RS kit is that it doesn't have the same little ledge (if that's the right word) inside where the mesh rests once you've pushed it in enough, there's just nothing there .. that's why I'm struggling with it

Thanks for the replies guys, it really helps a lot to see how many people are reading my thread and giving advice wherever I need some, cheeeeeers! First update in a long time: but I did get a few things done Worked on the thermal detonator to get it out of the way, that's what I enjoyed about my blaster build - you can slowly see all the smaller parts come together into bigger units until they eventually form the final piece. Here is a picture: However I am stuck with a couple of problems. The first is the horrible shape of the RS parts. This is what my front shins look like at the moment: And this is the back: Eeeeeeeeeeer, help? Next problem, how do people install the little metal mesh thingies in the hovi mix tips? I've seen a couple of video tutorials about it, but none could really solve my problem.. And last, some (hopefully) better news I started to put together the arms! First fitting picture here: Does this look kinda alright? I am planning to still tighten the biceps and definitely the forearm, but does the rest look alright? Cheers, Freddy

After all the paint dried and I was able to glue the wood pieces together that needed to be glued, this is what the display looks like finished: I must say I am pretty happy with the result, but I had to add an extra wooden wedge to keep the blaster in an upright position. I think the mistake I made was that I didn't cut out enough wood from the front leg which left the blaster in a quite unstable position. However, if you guys are interested in rebuilding this amateur work, I would be more than happy to measure out everything exactly. My last update will be one with the blaster display and the little metal plaque that I ordered from a German Garrison member, so this wasn't the last picture

Right, next update! First of all, thanks to Dan and Joseph for pointing out the little thing I missed when painting the helmet, I went ahead and repainted them. Next up is the armor assembly, but for some reason I don't really know where to start I also asked RS Props for help and got a short document with a couple of hints, but nothing too helpful. What was the exact process you guys followed when building your TK? I also feel like the fact that I got an RS armor which is far beyond symmetrical and stuff isn't helping Also, does this setup look alright or did I accidentally put armor parts where they don't belong? Cheers, Freddy

Helmet update: got a LOT of painting work done tonight, and seeing the lid come together just boosts my motivation more and more First, I sprayed the inside of the helmet black; mainly because I really liked the look of helmets that were black inside: Then I did almost all of the other painting except for the little black stripes in the grey helmet areas and the blue tube stripes, but I'm sure I'll get this done soon as well Tomorrow I will hopefully get some more done - and in the meantime you guys can help me out I hope: I got a package from RS yesterday with my strapping pack in it, and it's got random numbers on the little bags but no instructions whatsoever. Also, I don't really understand the process of putting together the rest of the armor, does anyone have a good build or even a video to recommend? Cheers guys, Freddy out

Update time again! Managed to get some work done on the display while the helmet paint outside was drying. Drilled the 4 holes into the base plate where I wanted the blaster to sit in the end and the pre-drilled the holes into the legs. Afterwards I just screwed it all together and voilà: I am still going to glue extra backings next to the legs to stabilise the thing more, so expect another update soon

Perfect, I shall shoot him an email instantly.

Thanks for this heads up Daniel, the pack arrived today and it did have a belt included Came up with another question though, where did you guys get the templates for painting the helmet from? Preferably from Europe, again Thanks in advance lads!

Hey Wolfgang, I had the exact same problem, and also the exact same doubts - but I decided to check what the helmet will look like with the help of magnets, and it looked alright. Then I punched in the rivets, and it looked better. And after screwing the ears on and tightening the screws, I was seriously overwhelmed by how well the bucket suddenly fits together! Plus, remember you can always unscrew the ears and adjust and correct them. Don't lose hope!

Hey FISD, me again! The spraypaint inside my helmet had to dry, and since everything else for the armor hasn't arrived yet, I decided to build a decent display for my E-11. Shopping list: three pieces of wood, one base board and two "legs" to put the Blaster on. On top of that, a calculator, pencils, paper for sketching AAAAAND, for the first time since Grade 8 at High School, a different kind of rotary tool - a pair of compasses. Oh yeah, and an E-11 of course.. I started by measuring how much wood I'd have to cut away for the legs, and I realised they had to be different shapes and different heights, due to the two spots of the blaster that I wanted the legs to hold, the back of the tube and the folding stock. So I started to calculate and sketch and ended up with this: I then whipped out the good old jigsaw and started to work my way along the lines, always leaving about one millimetre of wood on top of where the pencil line was so I could adjust the fit with the dremel later. That's what it looked like: First test fit looked quite good: However I realised the front leg was a bit too high, so I corrected that with the jigsaw. Then I realised the construction was everything but stable, so I used some of the extra wood from what I sawed out of the top of legs to create some triangular backings. Test fit still looked good: I finished the working day by spray painting one side of the wood objects black: Whenever I find some time this week I'll paint the other side and then probably screw the legs onto the base board from underneath and then glue the two backings on with some wood glue. Thought I'd just share this project, and perhaps I can inspire someone to recreate or evolve the display. And as always, critique and comments are always welcome Next update shall follow soon... Cheers, Freddy out

Haha thanks, in this case it was all on purpose of course RS messaged me recently as well saying they forgot to include the cover strips in my BBB, so no wonder I didn't know where to start.. I made the best out of the situation and ordered their strapping kit so they wouldn't have to post two things at different times. The neck seal arrived today as well, so the only thing I still need is the belt that I am going to order from RWA due to multiple recommendations from European and German members. So I'm getting closer to the point where I have all I need to complete the TK in one place, and this is where the real fun is going to begin Luckily I have a couple of spare days to do some uni work so I won't have to extend my studying time due to the big white thing in the basement

And here come the promised pictures - I also spray painted the inside of the helmet black because I thought it just looks a lot cooler and also darkens the inside of the helmet. Here you can see the rather big gap, and if you guys think it's too big for a Centurion helmet please let me know, or even better, hit me up with a way to solve this issue. If I find some time later today I might start with the armor trimming, so if anyone has a decent guide (ideally with lines to cut along) for trimming, you're more than welcome to share them

Update time!! After a lot of smaller units of working on the helmet I have finally managed to put the lid together Had to invite myself to a working session with a friend because he had the necessary rivet gun. So this was our workplace today as it was quite sunny: I decided to just follow Ross' video tutorials step by step as I found them quite easy to follow. So if you ever read this, thanks @Ross8008! First, we put the helmet together with magnets (strength 6 kg). Carried on by putting the first two rivets in: Then I realised that RS give you two extra rivets with the helmet kit, so we put them in where the face and the back of the helmet were quite far apart, mainly to give it more stability and to facilitate screwing on the ears later. Finally we prepared the ears and screws and drilled all the necessary holes, but sadly (well, actually I wasn't sad at all) I got so excited I completely forgot to take pictures, so you'll only get to see the pre-paint finished helmet tomorrow. One single thing that I am not happy with is the pretty big gap at the back of the right ear - what I did was trim the ears along the pencil line which was on the ears when I took them out of the box, and I relied too heavily on this line. So fellow RS builders, don't trust this line, rather check yourselves how much material you can cut off. However, since the RS helmets are really crooked and not perfect at all compared to the sanitized versions I guess it won't be a big deal, and hopefully it won't affect my path to Centurion.. That's it for today, cheers for reading! As promised, pictures of the helmet and the painting process will follow tomorrow Freddy out

Cool, Ill do that then. Cheers!

What do you think about these ones? ------------------They do look a little bit brown to me, but they're even cheaper, so that would be nice Thanks for the help anyway!