troopermaster

I would reconsider changing your webbing shoulder straps for elastic. The chest armour will choke you when you bend forward and may pop the snaps. Elastic is so much more forgiving and I always use it everywhere for the strapping.

The shins are assembled incorrectly. They are two inner halves on one leg and two outer halves on the other. Not a big deal since a lot of the screen-used armour was assembled this way and some armour kits do not come with four correct parts anyway (some have duplicate parts), but the back of the knees will not line up so well as you have found out. You can either leave them, trim the backs or disassemble them and reassemble them correctly.

Don't make me laugh. Regardless if Anovos scanned anything original, they still recast an RS. Every single tell is there, right down to the sculpted parts Rob made as well as the parts I gave to Rob, and I can see one of my tells in the photo above.

I just read that back and it looks like I could be saying it is an ROTJ, but it is an ESB MKII as Mark said and what CO owned all those years ago. I just wanted to clarify my comment about the suit being an ESB MKII *edit-spelling*

Are Sideshow connected to Anovos? This suit has a lot of Anovos tells as well as all the obvious RS tells, too.

Yes it is and is the same as what Cameron Oakley owned

E6000 works extremely well on fabric. I believe RS uses superglue to build their kits which is not the best. The correct fixing to use for the drop boxes are single capped rivets. The rivet in fixed to the inner half of the drop box before the outer half is glue in place. This could be troublesome for you since the drop box is glued shut, so you might be better off using E6000 and a pop rivet.

Exactly! But to be honest, I don't think the gap you have between your shoulder bells and chest is bad at all. I've seen worse.

I have lots of spare buttons and can send you a set for the price of shipping only. PM me if you want a set.

The size of the shoulder bells look perfect. Before trying to modify your back plate, could you try repositioning the shoulder bridges so the extend further outwards to match the back plate better?

The trials and tribulations of making a Stormtrooper. It's not as easy as you think, is it? Keep at it and you will get there in the end

If you cannot find any on ebay, I have a large roll and can sell you some.

Might be normal for an ATA but it's not normal for the original ANH armour. I just wanted to point that out in case people get the wrong impression.

Very nice, Mark I keep seeing these machines coming up for sale and I would snap one up if I had the space for one

Not my kit.

Congratulations

Good story, but it's the same old story. The fact that what you have made is an identical (albeit poor casting and vacuum job - typical of cheap recasting) copy of an existing set of armour is a complete coincidence?

The thighs are the one piece of armour that should be loose on your body. They are the most flexed muscles when you walk so leave a good 25-30mm extra room on the top and even more at the knee when you come to fix it.

With great difficulty

Just another recaster.

Shame as it looks like you had plenty of extra ABS to make them bigger before you assembled them. Now you will have to rip them apart and add wider joining strips to make up the distance needed. No shims are needed. Just use wider joining strips. They are a lot easier and less fuss.

This is how I do it.

Great job trimming out the eye sockets!

I see this question asked a lot and the trick is not to measure 11mm and cut. The best way to cut the joint (any joint on the limbs) is to cut your joining strip first and offer it up to your joining edge and mark the centre of the strip on the armour, making sure the joining strips does not go over the edge. You will probably find that if you use a 20mm wide strip, the bottom edge of the joint might be 11mm wide and the very top might be 15mm wide. The distance from the joining edge to the trim line measured in several places along the armour will vary because of the unevenness of the armour which is quite normal. It does not matter if the flat joining edge can be seen when the joining strip is in place.

It would have been so much easier for you to make wide joining strips on the outside instead of going to all that trouble. I don't know what the current craze is with all the ABS paste is? I would have used maybe a 30mm wide strip on the front and whatever size needed on the back. It looks much neater and is a lot less hassle than spending hours sanding and polishing.