Infern0

Ok. I'll definitely sort it out before I go for EIB, but I'll try to get it through basic as is.

Thank you for all of the info!!! For these issues on the ammo pack, I know I kind of messed up the trimming on the corner - I was hoping it wouldn't be an issue... Any suggestions on how to fix it without buying a new ammo pack? I can trim it more, but I'm worried that it will end up too short to wrap around properly. Cheers!

So, with my armor pretty much done, save for any fixes, there is a troop this Saturday, and I want to try to get my bucket done in time to be approved to troop my TK at it! I have about 67.5 total hours until the troop, and have never done a bucket before. Can I do it?? We'll see! Stay tuned for updates!

I ended playing around with the classic shin strapping method, and then settled on this as suggested by @MoSc0ut with the straps on top and bottom and using bits of left over cover strips in the middle to make slots to slide the no cover strip half into. I may have made the slots too long - test fitting proved them not too easy to get on, but I'm calling them done for now! Added some padding based off of the test fitting as well: Sniper plate glued on: Painted screws/rivets - didn't get a picture of the abdominal -> kidney rivets but they are painted too: Painted abdominal buttons and glued on: Nearly done!! Here's a silly video of my test fit. I was so happy with it - was not expecting it all to look quite that good. Note that I was having trouble with the shoulder strapping, but this should be fixed now (and the bucket is my wife's Anovos ANH):

Man... was really hoping to get in there too, but doesn’t look like I’ll be done in time either. I’ll take 1002 I guess

At my last job I worked with a fair few other Star Wars fans, but people usually gave directions in our office using the giant floor to ceiling Hebrew OT Star Wars poster behind my desk as reference Also had a fair few figures and SW LEGO sets around my desk too which helped cement the image. Definitely got asked “so what did you think of <new Star Wars thing>?” all the time. When I left after eight years at that job, my boss said “when he came to us he was a huge Star Wars nerd, and he leaves us still as a huge Star Wars nerd” (he was actually an extra in Ep I plus worked at LucasArts back in the day so had plenty of SW nerd cred himself)

Yikes! Had something similar happen with my shins last month while doing a hot water bath with one of the elastic straps still glued to the inside Tried reheating, clamping it flat again and running under cold water, but it only improved by about 30%... Haven’t found a proper solution yet, but I look forward to hearing if you do!

First I gotta share this little guy who I bought a couple of months ago and has been a huge help with the ammo belts, drop boxes, and shins. ‘Twas a good purchase On to the shins! Rough trimmed with 20mm strips on the front: ... and 25mm on the back, with 5-10mm glued to the outside piece: Return edges removed and bottoms trimmed to the same length: Holes drilled roughly 10mm in from the edge with a 5/32 inch bit for strapping using the markings on the armor as a guide: Strapping next!

Recap of what I’ve been able to complete the past month or so: After a bit of trial and error size wise, I got the elastic for the hand guards glued on and Velcro glued on the gloves. I put a couple of strips on the hand plates so I can move them higher and lower on my hands. Belt was pretty straightforward and good to get done while waiting for glue on other bits to dry. RS is kind enough to have the rivet positions marked both on the fabric and the plastic, and I already had riveting tools from previous leather work, so assembly was pretty quick. Drop boxes are riveted to the strapping, and a dab of E6000 between the strapping and the belt holds them in place nicely. Finally I cut out back of the elastic around the belt snaps for a little extra screen accuracy (and ease snapping it to the abdominal plate). Please ignore the extra holes on the strapping... may have measured wrong there! On to the legs! Thighs: 20mm thigh coverstrips and strapping measured and glued in. I went back and forth a bunch trying to figure out how I wanted to trim the backs, since looking at reference every one is different. Went through a few iterations: Initial trim for both: Right (with cutout marked out): Left: Right final: Left final: I ended up focusing on keeping the back cover strips approximately the same length for both. I may need to adjust the right a bit more - I’ll see how it looks next time I do a test fit. Gussets added to bottom of the thigh fronts to keep under suit from showing through (and add a little reenforcement): Measured the thigh strapping with the belt on, and glued accordingly. Left a bit of room at the tops of the elastic on the thighs so that their pivot point isn’t right at the top. I’m hoping that this will make them hang a bit nicer... we’ll see. Sewed loops in the elastic to attach to the belt. Final trimming of the thigh and clean up of return edges done, plus gave it a nice gentle wash: As you can tell from the background, this leads to the thigh ammo belt... Ammo belt trimmed and corners rounded off as per reference. I think I cut a bit too much off of the beveled corners, but I don’t think it’ll be noticeable once installed... Drilled holes in the belt corners with a 1/8th inch bit. Lined the belt up evenly between the back corners of the thigh, and marked the outer rivet placement, then put the first rivet in and stuck the cap on just to test fit. Wrapped the belt around as tight as I could and marked + drilled second hole and put the second rivet in! The belt is fitted tight enough that it’s held in position by the front of the thigh as per what Rob does in the RS videos. I sanded the rivet heads here too so they’ll accept the white paint better when I get there. I’m pretty happy with it, but I’m waiting to pound the rivets in just in case anyone has feedback!

Loving this build thread! I’ll be starting on my helmet soon so this is going to be great reference too

Haven’t got as much done this month as I was hoping. Health has limited me to 3-4 hours per week, but it’s better than nothing! Got the thighs and shins in progress, and I’m measuring them up to final trim and assemble using the dimensions from the RS suit as a starting point. How does this look size wise? Note: shins will be a little low due to lack of boots. I think the thighs are maybe a tiny bit too large at the top, and I definitely need to cut out the backs a little. Shins might be a tiny bit too large, but it’s hard to tell with the overlap since I haven’t trimmed the back at all yet. Also, as you might have noticed, got the belt nearly done with help from my wife. Just needs a dab of glue to keep the drop box straps in place: And, puppy (helmet is my wife’s btw)

All good I know I’m odd doing an ESB build... love those hand plates and that holster though

Thank you kindly! It’s been a fun learning experience, but I’m pretty eager to have it done so I can troop with it (even if it’s just walking around the neighborhood!). Re: hand guards: No flexible for ESB

Wasn’t quite happy with the fit of the shoulder bells, so decided to do a hot water bath and try to widen them a tiny bit more. Left went pretty well, but I ended up warping the back of the right bell a little bit! This was annoying, but after getting some good tips from troopers on the FISD Facebook page, especially from @Rat, I managed to smooth the warping out a little bit. It’s not perfect, but neither is any other part of the armor so I’m happy enough with the result! Been debating glove options for a while and I finally decided to go with the rubber glove/elastic strap combo for the hand guards, since it’s allowable in the CRL and I think it looks nicer. Got my chemical gloves from Amazon last week. and with those + some other fit adjustments popped the armor back on to see if the arms were looking better proportionally. Not happy with the gap at the wrists, but that’s partly because the hand plates kept slipping down. I’m thinking either Velcro or magnets to keep them in place on the back of the gloves...

Good to know!! I think I’ll just stick with e6000 and single snaps as per the screen used for now, and then revisit once I’m approved and happy with the armor’s fit and look. As far as the magnets, one of our Cloud City Members here, Dave Mahoney, has a brilliant setup with neodymium magnets for his shoulder bells -> bridges that I’ll be looking to emulate down the road. He can kit up himself without assistance and it’s pretty durable!

Cool, good to know! I was planning on eventually using magnets for the shoulder attachments as I’ve seen a few TKs do. Would you say the two snap is preferable for durability?

Thank you sir!!! This is very encouraging to hear, and I’m totally on board to get it looking as symmetrical as possible! Re: the biceps, the lower shoulder bell strapping wouldn’t hold them up, so I was struggling to keep them in place for the photo, hence the unevenness and twisting (I’m guessing probably because of how far down I had to pull the arms/biceps to align with my arm length).

@TKSpartan thanks for the pointers. I’ll definitely have to do some level of this trimming at some point. Tried on the torso plus arms with most of the strapping in place. It was pretty cool to get all of this on. Don’t yet have any strapping in to keep the arms from falling down though. I had to squeeze my arms in to keep them for falling down all of the way! Not sure if I should make the biceps smaller or just get some elastic in there shoulder > bicep to keep them up. Also, I think the shoulder bells can come in a tiny bit more...

While waiting for glue to dry on strapping on arms/biceps/shoulder bells, I did a test run moving around with the torso, and have a couple of concerns to address at some point. 1. The armor feels a little too large for my waist... Or I’m just not used to it. If I do the belt up so it’s snug, the ab and kidney end up overlapping as below though. Should I trim the abdominal plate to fit better and redo the strapping or does it look ok (and approvable) as is? 2. I think I did the chest-abdominal strapping too tight - in its current position the front of the armor feels too long for my torso, and ends up choking me if I bend forward even a tiny bit. If I try to pull it down the ab plate ends up too low for me to walk properly... Aside from those concerns, pretty happy with it so far. Looking forward to getting the arms done so I can see the upper half all together!

@justjoseph63 ah, phew! thanks, and glad it gets your approval @ukswrath thank you so much! Your build guide continues to be incredibly helpful.

Fair enough, I appreciate the attention to detail since I’d like to go for centurion straight away! The rivets are ~10mm from their respective edges as shown below (if you can’t read the display on the calipers they’re set to 10.01mm). Ab plate: Kidney plate: W/O calipers:

Thank you! The outside looks pretty good to me, but your opinion may well differI’ll try to get some pictures later today.

Thank you! Yeah I think don’t think the integrity will be effected too much, but I will redo them at least for asthetic’s sake once the rest of my build is finished since it’s bugging me.

Happy Friday and thanks all!! Your kind words are keeping me super motivated After finishing gluing the reinforcement pieces for the brackets I drilled holes for and installed ab/kidney and cod strapping. Holding all of the bits in place to hammer the split rivets definitely wasn’t the easiest task! Ended up cutting the elastic for the ab/kidney a bit short too as shown... we’ll see how long it holds up for! Might redo at least the middle one if I have any elastic left over at the end! I also gave the rivet heads a quick sand prior to installing them to help the paint stick... not sure if that was clever or unnecessary, but I accidentally sanded all of the rivets including the non-painted one for the cod so maybe not that clever after all! Next, the rest of the torso strapping! I used the super glue method for these, and it went pretty well over all. Using Zap CA plus kicker it dried in no time and it was pretty exciting to see everything come together! Once that was done, got out the e6000 again and finished off the day by adding the right side torso strap and gluing the shoulder straps into place. Pretty happy with this progress so far! I’m a little concerned that I did some of the strapping a bit too tight in - it seems to be pretty stiff in some places, but I’ll revisit that later on if need be. P.S. I keep checking out @Ruffalo’s submission pics as more reference since they are gorgeous! Hope mine comes out half as stunning as yours is sir!

While best saved for later/another build thread, I have to thank Jim yet again for his help with my blaster build! He’s been kindly 3D printing/manufacturing all of the components for me, both files he had on hand and the ESB greeblies that I modeled up and sent to him, and I can’t wait to pick them up and get started on assembling it!