MintImperial

Sorry to bump this thread. Was this question ever resolved? I have the smaller one from my WTF armour and the larger size from Ezra. The larger looks closer to me, but I’d love to be sure.

Also here are all my E-11s in various stages. Top: Kassaraptor, which will be the model I use for approval once finished. I’ve dismantled it here to cover with glitter then spray black as I can’t buy Hammerite or Krylon wrinkle paint here in Hong Kong. I hope to install BlasterFX in here eventually. Second: Premier Props 3D print that I’ve used mostly to wet-mould my holster. Third: A repainted Disney Parks Stormtrooper blaster from Tokyo Disneyland. It has light & sound including a blue Stun mode. Need to repaint it as too much silver is starting to show through. Bottom: A Doopydoo’s one configured as a Luke blaster so the scope is M-19 (Kassaraptor again and hasn’t been painted yet) and no Hengstler.

Repainted vocoder: Touched up sides of Hovi-Mix tips. Still need to add screen-accurate wide mesh though. And finally got round to doing the tube stripes using TrooperBay’s hand-effect stencils. Left side came out quite well (but needs a little clean-up.) Right side however was not so good. ANd my clean-up made it worse as now the middle stripes are shorter than the end ones. It will do for my Halloween test-drive, but I’ll have to redo it before I eventually submit for approval.

[quoted photos and text deleted for easier reading] I'm going to take another pass at the vocoder. Looking at the references, most of the stunt vocoders seem to have bars 2 & 6 with higher tops, so I plan to address that soon. I will also paint more of the sides of the Hovi-Mix tips black as I believe there’s too much white showing right now.

Had a nice little package arrive from Ukswrath today. Helmet fans on bracket and the trooper hearing assist setup. It’s all mounted temporarily for now. I jammed some of the foam packing peanuts that it shipped with in the gap behind the fans to dampen the vibrations. They really stop the helmet from steaming up, but I was surprised how the noise fills teh helmet and stops me from hearing the outside world. Good thing I also ordered Tony’s hearing assist system (SHA). This thing is amazing. But the mics are so good that I had to find a place far from the helmet to avoid picking up the fan noise. After testing a few places, I finally settled on the sides of the chest plate. Here the mics don’t clatter against anything or brush against any soft parts of the under suit, etc. Again, mounting is temporary, held in place by sticky-back Velcro. Also managed to heat the ABS belt with a heating iron and attach it to the soft belt with three chicago screws. Next I will fix the square tabs over the chicago screw posts and locate where to put the snaps on the ab plate to hold the whole thing up.

Ab plate buttons painted and mounted. I used the Humbrol colours from TrooperBay (Admiral Grey 5 and French Blue). Button plates are not WTF but ordered from TrooperBay as I found the WTF ones to be too deep and not flat on the bottom. These are much flatter. (Same with the square buttons on the ABS belt, which I will also use in place of the WTF ones.) I got lucky with the colour. The plastic is a close enough match.

Thank you sir. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Question about the Han snap: Does this position look okay and should it be a ligne 24 or a ligne 20? This placeholder one is 24.

Not possible!

My mistake. You already answered my question before I asked it! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wow. Thank you for all of that. You’re so right about needing only three snaps, not six. I’m not smart enough to think that through and would’ve gone the whole way! I love the idea of the plastic plate connecting all six snaps. But do you think the stresses on this would be worse than separate straps as the whole plate would have to move together? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks again Glen. I do want it as screen-accurate as possible. At least from the outside. But, at the same time, I’d like to be able to separate the chest and kidney plates completely for easier storage. Did I see a build somewhere where the rivets go through the bottom part of three snaps? Or did I imagine that? Sounds ideal if it could work.

Added the 3 split rivets each to my kidney and ab plates today. 10mm gap from the edge, 20mm from the top and evenly spaced along the length. I reduced the 52mm and 53mm gaps to about 51mm because I previously had to shorten the kidney plates. I reamed the holes using an RC car hole reamer as it’s so easy to accurately position the fine point and gradually increase the size of the hole. Will paint these rivets white once I’ve strapped everything up. If I do it now, I just know I’m going to scratch all the paint off and have to do it again.

For shoulder bridges, I’ve filled the big square hollow and the first three narrow hollows with ABS paste to for more surface area contact when I glue them to the chest plate. Been trying to check references and I think that, in general, four thinner hollow/bumps were positioned over the chest plate tabs with the rest free-floating. Still trying to gauge the measurements for mine. Later I will cut the last square hollow off the back end. I’m not a huge guy. Pretty sure I won’t need it and I do want to be as screen-accurate as possible.

That’s a great idea. Thank you. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The biggest issue I think I’ll have is that the shins are quite short. I received three shorter pieces and one longer in my kit. I’m worried that my knee gap will be too large. I will try to set them slightly higher (without exposing the top of the boots and maybe set the thighs slightly lower to reduce the black. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Taking it for a test fit. Held together with masking tape and gaffer tape only. No strapping. And dressed by myself. (Don’t judge me too harshly!) Shoulders are a bit floaty as they’re held by one piece of tape running across my shoulders and they probably need a slight trim on the width. And gloves are just placeholders with ABS plates while the glue is drying on my rubber gloves with flexi plates. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Amazing. Thank you.

Hi Joseph. I took another look at the Dave M helmet. I feel I’m actually pretty close to it, eye-wise. There are a couple of areas I want to fine-tune but, largely, I’m quite happy. Would you mind taking a look at the images below and see if you stand by your comments? Thank you so much. (Temporarily installed lenses to test the effect.)

]I accidentally painted my helmet at the weekend. What I mean is, I hadn’t really psyched myself up for it and didn’t prep properly. Was just toying with the idea of doing it. Next thing I know I’d painted the frown and so I just kept on going. Still haven’t painted the tube stripes or the ear screws yet. And I have a LOT of cleanup to do on the black pinstripe outlines on the tears, traps, etc., plus some other touch ups. I also inadvertently pressed the vocoder up against my t-shirt while it was still wet, so I now have a great print on my shirt and a furry-looking underside on by bucket, which I will have to totally redo. Hideously wonky lines that are way too thick. I may totally redo this using masking tape. Have already started cleaning up some spills through the mask template, using a toothpick dipped in rubbing alcohol.

Thanks JR. Not hard-planning to do this. Just looking into the possibilities. Never heard of splitting the abdomen before. Very, as you say, interesting!

Awesome. Thank you. I will study again and get to work. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Thank you. I was trying to copy the rough look of the Dave M helmet, which is why I left them a bit jagged. Happy to clean up a bit if you think that’s the better way to go. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi Joseph. Here it is, all put together (from a few different angles):