LoudDragon

redacted

Centurion Level: feel free to use image.

heres some of the progress I've made: and in case the GML doesn't approve, I do also have my RS prop masters helmet to fallback on. my armor is an almost bleached white, while the RS helmet is more vanilla white, is this a big issue? this thread is mainly to address abs paste and where and where not to fill, so unless any one out there has problems, or recommendations about the shims having filling, then that closes the matter for this.

I have, as the title suggests, filled the shims and ears on my armor. some have turned out ok and others haven't, aside from the fact that I shouldn't have done that in the first place. the question I now raise is, wat can I do to fix this? then I have my abdomen that needed to be filled, because I had to shorten the cod piece. I ended up discoloring the area where I filled it, and it also has some splotchy and pock marks. currently all this has now served to do, is give me a headache. is this fixable? will it be able to pass level one CRL even? do I just need to start over at this point, and make this a example project?

I've yet to have been on a troop, or actually seen a full troop, but I do want to hear your experiences of them, and I do have some questions. How long do most troops last on their scheduled days? and I don't mean with everyone still there, but everyone thats still wearing their armor. is marching for troops something garrisons practice with their members? (so I'm still contributing to trooping ideas here, and not just taking up another's post) I have my abdomen completely detachable for ease of mobility and access if needed. I used one of those leather bank deposit bags to hold all my personal effects and some candy, and kept it under the abdomen. it worked well enough for me, but due to the lack of mobility it was very difficult to reach for when I needed it.

Special Thanks: Marc ABS80: providing armor and time for me. Mark TroopaCoola: providing blaster and helmet fans. Glen GMrhodes13: for his support, truly I don't know if I'm worthy of this mans time. thank you for all the resources Adam Revlimiter: for being the first :] RS Prop masters for the new helmet. and all the others for their input.

right now, I have to rework the strapping with the kidney plate, and now I'm filling in the mobility cuts. these are older pictures as I have already filled them in, just working on sanding them right now. also need to work on repainting the tube stripes, didn't like how they turned out. I'm closing this thread now, because everything I need to do has already been covered.

Hey so, I actually got my stuff in begging of this week, just didnt get to this yet. Im pressed for time, I have to leave home in a second. so sorry for not sharing any other pictures. are these ears acceptable? there is still more sanding needed to be done * ok, so the full situation is, I got some new ears, but i left them rather thick on the helmet and didnt try sanding them to the curve of the helmet. Thus there was a bothersome gap on the back side of the ear. I fully understand that having a gap is perfectly fine, and could have been fixed with the previously stated method, but i had decided to use some abs paste to fill in the gaps. I know this isnt screen accurate, but is this something some garrisons might reject? On that note, I am thinking of getting a helmet thats made of the original plastic used in the film instead. I did see an old thread about DA props having them but checking their store page didnt see any. Does anyone know any vendors that supply these helmets?

" a soldier of the empire cannot fulfill his duty without all of his provided gear, nor win the battle without his squad." -Some drill sergeant in the empire. I finally got my E 11, and have already assembled the SSMG, though im not very happy with how my sanding job turned out, not to mention I keep breaking pieces. But I do believe it will be passable once its complete. thanks to Marc/TroopaCoola for supplying the blaster. Im also now getting started on my final touches, truly this time, i plan on being done in june. I would have started sooner on filling in unsightly cuts or gaps with the abs paste, but i was waiting on some replacement parts, and I couldnt aford it then. But since then i did finally get my french blue paint (no longer Mr no stripes) and my painting skill still suck. I replaced the rubber U trim with the S trim. Crazy enough, the old trim had started to cause the plastic to react and begin corroding, this wouldnt be so bad if the S trim was wide enough to cover it. Once my parts get in (thanks again to Mark/ABS80) Ill start taking pictures of my entire kit. So until then theres nothing to talk about. :]

Knowing I have missed the glory days of FISD memes... I can only crumble to the floor in despair

I was going to guess you had a black series in the pictures, I'm scarred to see what the one that came with it looks like, but glad to hear your taking the time to make it work, especially since you got it for free. I don't know the full extent of your project, but it definitely is worth the effort.

ok, I'm definitely not one to talk about this with authority, but I have to ask, how much did you pay for this? also how much do you actually know about different armor kits, sets and such? I'm just curious to know seeing this is your first post on this site.

So im looking into getting some other bits for my armor, the shoes and blaster. Im looking at trooper colas blaster and i think those would be the best choice for me personally. I like the idea of a real metal cast blaster than say rubber or plastic. Then i also found my boots on keep trooping. What have been your experience with these vendors?

and NOW, time for the results! we start off with the abdomen and kidney plate, sharing the space beautifully, despite the cod and butt plate not agreeing with them. this left seam can get closer together with a little help from the utility belt. here's an inside view of one of the forearms, I still have some work to do with the shims on these, but they butt ends very well. and here is the one half of the plastic "slips" for the left side, while the right side is just glued to the kidney plate. once I get the shins glued again, I'll start making some abs paste for all the unsightly, nay, atrocities I've committed against my own armor. that will be the perfect time then to also address the mobility cuts which are too rectangular. I know I didn't say anything about this then, but I did also make it to the local Fun Con in July, I knew there weren't going to be any garrisons there, I had checked their schedule ahead of time. I was hoping to see another trooper there though, which I did hear about from ONE person, yet I never did see them. you guys probably hear this from newcomers all the time, but my first experience there was, a little tiresome. almost every other person who talked with me, asked me if my eyesight was bad, or something of the like. I'm grateful for the one man though who made TK 427 joke. I wish I had got some photos when I was there, granted, there were other people who got some photos of me. I really did enjoy talking with some of the vendors and guests appearances there.

ok so here are some updates on what I've been planning: so to try and mitigate the amount of shifting my armor pieces do when I'm trying to glue the shims, I'm now gluing tabs to the underside, to hold the ends together, then glue the shims on top, allowing me to get more precise shim positioning with less clamps. with winter setting in, I'm now more pressed to actually do some work on this before the glue won't properly set in the cold.

Ok, I'm giving the kidney plate one more chance, and adding shims to the ends. I've added two trips on each end, which will then slip into slots on the abdomen plate, and will have it hold by adding straps on the kidney end which will snap onto the abdomen end, thus holding the plates in place. I've started reworking my shins, and I removed the Velcro I had before since they didn't do a good job. Instead I added a spacer to the shim, and had one end slip into the other. I am considering doing this on each side of the shins, for ease of access when putting them on.

I am very sorry for the quality, I didn't bother getting on the proper under suit either and you can see the consequences. harness for thighs, though I may reuse them to hold the chest and back plate at their lower points abdomen plate. I need to remove the shims when I get the new kidney piece and rework the connection between the two. Butt plate needs to sit a little lower, and possibly be trimmed, though I think it might be fine. abdomen/kidney connection kept coming undone so I'm using the belt to hold it in place. cod might need to be trimmed thinner to help the thighs be center the overlap here is only about a quarter of an inch between kidney and butt. for "some inexplicable reason" the back plate is not sitting correctly, I did try this without the shirt on afterward and it did not overlap my kidney plate anymore, most likely due to the pants keeping them going any higher. yes, I still need to fix my square mobility cuts I used Velcro to attach my shoulder straps although they don't sit very well to work so I most likely will be gluing them on. this is the overlap of the straps, and how close my chest plate and back plate are connected. the sniper knee is connected to the- left shin. ok I have been looking at some other peoples sniper knees, and none of theirs has a tilt to the left as mine does I have detachable hand guards, I may replace these with the flexible guards later I think I need to trim my shins, right now this lowest edge sits around 3 1/2 inches from the bottom, which I have seen most others be at least an inch higher. again, these are not the boots I'm keeping. I think by adding padding to the backplate that will help it from overlapping with the kidney like it did earlier, adding more space to the NEXT kidney should help so don't feel sick, the strapping needs to be redone on the midsection parts, and possibly the arms, and then just finishing the rough spots in the armor, filling in joint seams and such. again sorry about the quality, if you spot anything I missed please let me know

I will be going on a hiatus for my armor since I have to wait for my parts to come in, but until then, I did go on my own "troop" at a friends graduation. when I had started this project I thought it might take about three or five months just to get where I am now, but because of the progress I was making, I aimed to get it somewhat finished before the party. I'm surprised that my armor held together so well. Although... my shins Velcro had started to peel off from the plastic. my ammo belt had started to fall apart. (I didn't actually expect it to hold together for long anyway, I just used some iron on hem glue to piece two cloth strips) and I got really hot. I danced through about three or five songs with the the entire suit on, though I took the helmet off after the first song since I couldn't really breathe. I lasted about three hours before I started to feel sick. so I had to take off the armor, then ultimately leave. When I get the kidney plate I'll attach pictures of my armors current state since I have made changes since the last time.

ok, just to make sure, so I wont have to fix anything else that I cut too far. I plan on cutting the Pelvic portion of the abdomen, so as to lower the abdomen plate on my torso. I have seen 2 different methods... cut right right under the ridge between the two sections, and either reattached to the main plate, or strapped to allow better mobility OR cut about an inch lower than the abdomen ridge, and using either of the previously stated attachment methods. I did notice here that the kidney plate at its edge should span the length of the abdomen at its edge, and I don't know if you can see it in my previous pictures, but because I had trimmed my abdomen past the original cut line, it's actually longer than my kidney plate now. cutting it at the ridge would correct the length but would lose the trim seen on the lower end. I id try looking through the CRL and of course it does have that trim across the ridge, but I didn't see anything about this here myself (correct my if I'm wrong)

Ok that settles it, I will be seeing about getting replacement kidney and some other parts that I need. I am considering trimming the abdomen plate a little further around the cod snap due to how much it digs into my thighs, I don't know if you can tell very well though in the included photos. for my back plate, I don't want to trim it because I didnt trim the chest plate and it would look disproportionate. I will be trimming the abdomen plate instead right along the pelvic line. while it does look proportionate in the earlier pictures, remember, the backplate was lifting my chest plate higher. so there should be about a 1 inch clearing between the chest plate and ab buttons. so I'll need to cut at LEAST an inch from the abdomen to keep proportions. I say at least since I am wearing jeans in this photo so I can't get the abdomen as high I want. this should solve my backplate overlapping. I am wondering, would I be able to just, cut off the entire pelvic portion, then reattach it on each end to the abdomen with rivets to allow it to pivot? thus allowing more range of motion? otherwise I'll just glue it back on like normal. also just some pictures of my strapping. shoulder bells have been readjusted, and I've made a simple snap for the shins to not rotate. the chest plate is a lot tighter to my body, and the backplate is just hanging off the chest plate right now.

so I have started work on my abdomen and kidney plates, and to try and remove the gap entirely, i'm just gluing them to each other with shims, while leaving the right side to slide open. I've noticed though its shape is narrower at the top than the bottom and heres the side slip I'm making, you can see better here the shim is narrowed. this is influenced due to how the gap on my TK appeared. (I'm finished..) I think now's the time to start considering replacement parts. on the plus side, I have started work on my paint. I didnt bother with the left ear since that needs to be replaced. and heres my thermal detonator all finished.

I forgot to ask about the mobility cuts, all of them are cut to about half inch from their corner, I still intend to trim these since they Really dig into my legs at the moment, but aside from that are they cut too far? Or something else to fix?

No those aren't the boots I plan on using in the long run, they are just the closet I could get. (albeit originally painted brown) what would you recommend to fix the abdomen and kidney plates for their short length? just a side note, I had trouble with these pieces since they felt like they flared out too far so I used a hot air gun to bend them closer in, along with the butt plate. I hadn't thought much about the shins tabs you mentions, I'll be implementing those. I'll be taking a look through those threads for the back plate fitting. The thermal detonator is correct size, I have measured it and trimmed it appropriately. I am going to trim the cover strips, I just wanted to make sure it looked right before I did anymore trimming. though it would be easier to trim certain pieces without them being strapped for instance the biceps. though I may take these apart to refit them like you suggested. (yes I do have straps under the shoulder bells) Thank you again for your input here, yours and the many other peoples comments have really helped me..