troopermaster

I think the helmet you are refering to was a hero used in ESB. There are not many reference photos as far as I know, so I would assume that it used hero ear caps, 3 teeth each side, flat green lens and regular ESB decals and paint work.

Do not trim it where you have marked. All you need to do is trim it to the where the flat edge starts, not over it. Make your joining strip angled to match the armour.

Well done Billy

Use E6000 for the adhesive, it really is good stuff. Don't worry about the 24 hour curing time, it's worth the wait Looks like your outer biceps are upside down so you might want to spin them around. Pull up your thighs too. Use a thin belt inside your armour and use 2" wide black elastic suspenders with a snap on each end. Then glue x2 snaps onto a plastic tab and glue that insde the top of the thighs to allow for some slight adjustment. Make sure your forearms are strapped to your biceps to keep them in place. Use snaps glued onto tabs and black elastic, works a treat. If you have the shoulder bells, biceps and forearms all strappped together, you can slip the full arm on in one go and connect the top strap using a snap on the strap 'under' the plastic shoulder strap that is connected to your chest and back. Do all the trimming as suggested by Nate and your kit will and feel much better.

Couldn't you just move the whole plastic section 1/2" to one side and make all new holes? That's assuming the last old hole will be covered with the plastic section. Any movement of the overlapping velcro section would not really be noticed and the 02 canister will cover it anyway.

Best to mark your holes for the snaps while wearing your canvas belt on your armour and placing the plastic ammo belt on top. You'll find that the holes are a shorter distance apart than when laying flat. My advice is to attach the ammo belt middle snap to the middle snap on your canvas while wearing it and then mark where you want the snaps on the canvas.

Look at the screen used armour Gary. You can try timming the backs in a kind of triangle shape tapering to the middle and see how that goes. I'm guessing you'll have to do both the thighs and the shins, but just try doing thighs first and then the shins to see how they feel. If that doesn't feel much better, trim out the whole of the raised section. Make sure the ends where you cut are not squared off but angled, it will look better.

I use Dylon white fabric paint--------

I use my tin snips then my dremel sanding drum to get close to my lines, then scrape off any crap with a sharp knife and sand smooth with fine sand paper.

If you are making two seperate forearms you will need four moulds, so the inner arm you have sculpted needs to lose one of the flat edges. Choose which arm this sculpt is for and smooth off the bottom edge as the original armour only had a flat edge on the top of the arm. The forearm muscle is not as pronounced as what you have there, they are flatter and the wrist opening is larger to allow your hands to get through. Sculpt a kind of semi circle on the end of the wrist to allow for easy mould removal and this will also reduce the chance of webbing when forming them.

There is a right and left arm and they are different from each other, not one mould for both. They are not mirror images of each other too, so don't try to make them that way if you are looking to make them screen accurate. Have you got any pics of your sculpts?

They look like AP recasts.

This suit may not have had the buttons upside down in ANH Mark. It's possible that the buttons fell off after filming ANH or maybe even during the filming of ESB and they were stuck back on upside down without realising. I'm not saying it isn't like that in ANH, I just have never seen it and I watch it frame by frame regularly It's believed by some that this suit was the one used to make the ROTJ but I disagree. The ROTJ suits as we know them were actually used in ESB so therefore it couldn't have possibly have been used to make the moulds.

That's interesting, but how long does it take to go yellow?

No it's not from age. Yellow foam used to be very common here in the UK until they changed the laws and they had to use fire resistant foam which is now blue to help identify the correct materials are being used. It's something along those lines anyway, so don't quote me on that though

Thanks Chef! That idea had crossed my mind actually I doubt it can be dyed properly because I don't think the dye will stick to man made materials. From what I've read before, dye only sticks to natural materials like cotton and leather, not polyesters and nylons. I'll give the food dye trick a go. At worst it will stain it and should give a better appearance than the pale yellow at the moment.

The samples arrived and they have two yellow foams, one is closed cell and the other is open. The closed cell foam is like the stuff knee pads are made from and open cell is like the stuff in couches which is what I ordered. The foam itself is perfect, the colour is not. It's a very pale yellow and not deep yellow like what used to be available, so I am still looking for that deep yellow foam and this pale yellow will do for now.

Nice pic! Thanks for sharing

I agree Steve. Hans chest looks to have no return edge simply because of the way the chest is flexing. It would not flex like it is unless it was attached to the ab plate using the return edge to hold the strapping on. These suits were much more flexible than any replica available and can flex just as easy with a return edge as without one.

I have these hooks on my personal suit. Just look at Billy's banner, you can just see the clip on the inside of the bicep.

Pentonville Rubber are sending me some samples of yellow foam and I will post photos when they arrive.

Well you know what they say "All good things come to those who wait" I wish I could recommend a good dye for the boots but everyone I have tried has peeled off. The dye I use is this one MAGIX DYE

Yeah 1" is too thick and makes it hard to get the helmet to sit right on your head, especially when you are using the leaf shaped foam. I've emailed the one in north London so with a bit of luck they will have what I want. Once I find some, I will post a link to wherever I bought it from and I hope anyone else will do the same thing if they find some

Good to see your putting in the extra effort with the black chelsea boots. This is one of the easier/cheaper mods to do with your armour to get closer to screen accuracy and something most don't even bother with. Good job Andy

Thanks for the links Thayne, I'll check them out Steve is right about the fire retardant thing. I remember a few years back when I went to buy foam from the guy in the market and he told me a similar story. Something about chemical restrictions in the UK and from a cretain date that only blue foam was available which was fire retardant and the yellow stuff was toxic or something along those lines anyway. The guys down at the tip think I'm a right tramp ripping the stuffing out of old sofa's trying to get a liner for my stormtrooper helmet