Infern0

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!

Well, it’s been a few months, but I’ve managed to get a bit more done. Huge thanks to you @MoSc0ut! I really appreciate your help with everything so far. The big challenge for me was just figuring out where to trim everything to, and getting over the fear of cutting something wrong! With continuing to pour over all of the ref, Jim’s help, and the new TK build YouTube tutorial series from Rob at RS Propmaster’s, I feel like I have a good picture of where I’m going now. Spent a nice afternoon just before Christmas at @MoSc0ut’s house boiling armor, and got the shoulder bells widened out to fit. After showing me how, Jim was kind enough to let me take home his canning pot so I could make my kidney, butt, and ab plates fit a little bit better. After that, I finished trimming and gluing the arms and biceps. Next, I started trimming the shoulder bells that we’d shaped, but I’m a little worried that I trimmed them back too much in an effort to get them properly rounded, so I set them aside for now... Following the RS YouTube series, I next finished up trimming and sanding the torso pieces, got my 3mm drill bit, and drilled the holes and installed the brackets for the strapping. Once I had the brackets installed, I had to do a test fit with tape to make sure everything lined up Pretty happy with it so far! I thought it was interesting that RS puts the two outside top brackets of the kidney plate right in the bend where the return edge meets the outer face to minimize bending... Now, working on cutting/gluing some spare bits of abs to the return edges for reenforcement as I have been advised to do by several different troopers! Next up, getting the torso strapping sorted! Working on deciding how to approach the kidney to ab strapping in a more robust way than the screen accurate webbing. I’ve seen some good ideas so far from heavy duty strips of rubber to thicker more immobile webbing, but suggestions are more than welcome! I have some nice scrap leather lying around so was even debating using that.

My build has sadly stalled for the past couple of months for health reasons, but hoping to get back to it this week! It’s definitely a slow burn. While the current build is ESB, ultimately I’d love to be able to switch between ANH stunt, HWT, and ESB. Gotta be true to the OG stormie and guess 421!

That would be fantastic!

Thank you Jim! I’ll be looking at doing some hot water bathing for my shoulders, and maybe kidney and butt plates soon. Might need your help for this.

Thank you, I’ll just keep following the reference!! On to gluing!

Still dealing with health issues so haven’t made as much progress this summer as I was hoping. I did get to all of the armor parties and they were a big help (not to mention super fun!), thanks @MoSc0ut! It was great to meet you and Liam and find out that you guys live down the street! I’ll definitely be messaging you soon to beg for help Trimming is close to done now for nearly all of the armor except for the legs, getting cover strips cut for all four arm pieces while watching Monday night football, and just about ready to glue them together now. Before I do, I’m curious to hear people’s opinions about cover strips that smooth out the differences between pieces (as below), as opposed to the more screen accurate straight across edges... To bevel or not to bevel?

ID 44214 and hopefully soon to be TK 44214 requesting access please and thank you: https://www.501st.com/members/displaymemberdetails.php?userID=29309

New cut lines for the forearms. Do these look better? I know they don't need any return edge for centurion, but I think a little bit looks nice. Left: Right:

Ok, cool. So leave some return edge on the outer, and taper toward removing all in the inner section? Thank you for the info! I'll plot out cut lines and post them before I go ahead.

Ah, that makes more sense! Thank you!

Left forearm tops:

...and, I've started trimming the forearms. Left one is pretty much sorted and ready for sanding and gluing, but the right kept giving me pause since the inner piece was nearly inch longer than the outer. After watching many videos and reading many forums, it seems like there is no one answer, so I matched the reference and lined up everything as best as I could from the top, marked it out to try to match Locitus' RS reference pictures, and cut it like so. Does this look correctish and ready to finish/coverstrip? Also, apparently I have used my entire 512kb attachment allocation... How do people usually cope with this for threads with lots of pics? Thanks everybody!!

Well, it's been a long six months of tutorials (special thanks to @ukswrath) and forums, but I got my first troop in with my ID costume and went to an armor party a couple of weeks ago, and I'm feeling very encouraged!!! First off, over Christmas and my birthday in February, I managed to pick up a pair of boots and a holster!

Thanks Daryl! Health hasn't been too good the past couple of months, so haven't left the house much (ongoing thing, just got a little worse with holiday stress ), but I'll be coming out to meet everyone as soon as I can

I stand corrected

This is fantastic!! I feel like I have a whole squad behind me to help with this Yes, definitely going for Centurion for several reasons, but mostly because I am a compulsive perfectionist. (I have an Imperial Officer uniform that I've been sitting on for over two years because it just wasn't right and needed tweaking, and while it's still not done, I finally managed to force myself to submit for approval) I'll be taking my time and triple checking everything with you guys before doing anything rash. As I think most newbs are, I am slightly terrified of cutting/breaking/trimming anything to the point of ruining it - I can always get replacement parts from RS if I need to (I'd rather not though) - so I'll be VERY careful. Next stop will be pouring over ukswraith's and Wooks' threads, thanks again everyone!

You all are so kind! Gloves are sorted out now. I finally had a free bit of time today to unpack my BBB sans helmet and even had enough time to get started on trimming the thermal detonator pieces, so not a bad Christmas eve at all!

Roger that, I'll get my hands on some long cuff satin ones!

Thanks Matt! I know the feeling of hitting snags in builds and getting discouraged. I'm relying on this thread and an overwhelming desire to wear some white armor and do some good to keep me going

Thanks all! Slow going here getting everything ready, but I did have a question about gloves. I have these black nomex/leather Blackhawk flight gloves. Will they be admissible with the leather patches or does this count as " visible straps or logos/designs." as per the CRL (assuming that the Blackhawk logo on the back will be covered by the hand plates)?

Thank you Arthur!

Thanks guys! @daryldoak I sent my registration to the Cloud City forums, hope to join you guys soon! BTW, badass Dengar there sir. I might need to sort out a Bossk build at some point to complement it.

Hi there TKs! My name is Garrett Winters, and I've wanted to join the 501st with a TK build since I was 15 years old trying to cobble together a Jedi costume for Halloween, and stumbled on this amazing thing called the 501st, opening up a whole new world for me. After 16 years of research, procrastination, other costume builds (including nearly finished Imperial Officer and Royal Guard costumes), and chronic health problems, I finally purchased some ESB armor from RS last year, and I'm posting here as my promise that I'll actually start on the build (trust me, I really, really want this, but it's been hard for me to set aside the time)! I'd be eternally grateful for your help, support, love, and advice as I tackle this!