ItchyNutsDesign

When it comes to painting a weathered effect on blasters, less is more. The best method to use is called 'dry brushing'. Take your brush with silver paint on it, and rub it over a dry sponge until the sponge has removed most of the paint (and the brush seems dry), then lightly rub the brush over the surface of your blaster to be painted. what Will happen is that the corners and raised detail will pick up a light coat of sliver which will look like wear. You can repeat this process with a copper paint for the sight and Hengstler. Also, don't be scared to paint some areas flat black (such as the 'T' bar and grip), as this will add the effect of different materials (such as rubber and plastic), used in the blasters construction.

And don't forget what a big deal going to the pictures was in 1977. Ths generation take it for granted, they've generally seen a movie on pirate DVD a month BEFORE it comes out at the pictures. Back in '77 we didn't even have video, so if we didn't get to see it at the pictures, we weren't going to see it untill the BBC showed it a Christmas three years (if we were lucky) later! It was a HUGE deal back then, it was the talk of the playground for ever! I remember strutting round with my 'Darth Vader Lives!' badge on I still have it pinned to the curtains in my workshop Happy days!

That one's easy... On its individual merits. The issue with the kenner isn't its finish (we've seen some lovely kenner blasters in this thread), it's the fact that no matter what you do to it, it's NEVER going to be the right shape and size. Assess the blaster in exactly the same way as a costume would be assessed for clearance. If things need doing to it, point this out to the applicant in a constructive way, offering solutions. Maybe for elite status, you should have applicants submit a left and right close-up of their blaster too.

Look on it as inside information Kevin we know stuff that most Star Wars 'fans' didn't even know. I've been a fan of the move since it came out at the pictures, and a fan of SF my whole life, I considered myself 'Hard core', until I got into costuming that is I never knew there was a diference between Stormtroopers and Sandtroopers, let alone the variations between movies. My first costume was Vader and some of my revelations included: The suit being different in each film (who knew?), the helmet being two tone (I always thought it was black), the chest box never had lights in ANH (I could have sworn it lit up). You'll be amazed what you find out when you start to dig. Did you know that there are at least ten different variations of the E-11 Stormtrooper blaster? There are eight identified variations in ANH, a new one in ESB (plus some of the ANH ones were re-used), and it changed again in ROTJ. You've entered a bigger world my friend

Sorry to be quoting myself, but I think a more pertinent question would be: 'Why is the Kenner even acceptable for 501st clearence, let alone Elite Stormtrooper?' I think that a Kenner should be heavily modded, just to get into the 501st! It should be an absolute no-go for the Elite. Maybe then, less people would waste their money on them in the first place, and would start with a cheap but more accurate weapon (Cushmans/pipe), instead An unmodded (and I don't really consider spraying it black to be moddng it), kenner should not be an option for ANY costume cleared by the 501st. I don't know how this acceptance of the toy as a valid addition to our £1000 costumes came about, but it's time it was re-evaluated. As a costuming club, do we not pride ourselves on our costuming excellence? Would you be happy trooping next to an 5'6" Vader, or a Rubie's Chewbacca? No? How about something the public wouldn't spot, like a TD with ab buttons and the wrong knee plate? Or what about an ANH TK with ROTJ hand plates? They'd be asked to change them before they got 501st clearance. So why go to all that effort when you're going to then try and pass off a naff looking toy as the 'real thing' I am not expecting the 501st to change policy on my say-so, but there's nothing wrong with us as costumers setting this standard for ourselves. Advise noobs aganst the kenner, show them the alternatives before they waste their money and set the bar high for the Elite! Show everyone how good a squad of troopers looks with decent hardware. As the Stormtrooper forum, you reach more TK's here across the globe, than any individual garrison could. It could start here. I don't know about you guys, but I felt kind of empty when I finally fnished my first costume (it was Vader), to find out that I could keep working on it, mods I could do to make it even better, was great news. For a lot of us, working on costumes is as much fun as trooping (which is why many members have more than one costume). From my point of view, seeing a truly great costume is an inspiration to get mine closer to the mark, and that should be part of the responsibility of the Elite. Say NO to kenner, we're the best and it's just not good enough for us! Feels better to get that out of my system for another day

I have seen some lovely Cushman and Sci-fire blasters, and some poor ones, and each should be judged on its own merits. However, they at least share the E-11 blaster as a starting point, and are at least the right shape! The Kenner does not! The kenner looks like it was designed by a bloke who had never seen one, just had it discribed to him, to the point where even a very well converted one (Kahler's beng a good example), still looks wrong. The question isn't 'How much work/money/love?' has gone into the blaster, but 'How good a representation of a screen used blaster is it?' I am also a member of the Sith Lord Detachment, and I can tell you now that there is no way in hell they would ever accept a toy lightsaber as an option, even for basic 501st approval, so why on earth would you accept it for an 'Elite' stormtrooper. I understand that the 'Elite are there to guide members to a more accurate costume, but surely this is the very reason why the Kenner should NOT be acceptable. There are plenty of tutorials and experts who would be more than happy to help members achieve their screen accurate blaster and 'guide' them to a higher level of costume accuracy. It's not even a question of expense as you can put a screen accurate blaster together for under £20 I really don't understand this unerring loyalty people hold towards this wldly inaccurate toy gun? Why would anyone use a kenner when there are so many better alternatives avaliable? Light weight- Cushmans/Pipe blaster Cheap- Cushmans/Pipe blaster Unbreakable (nearly)- Cushmans/Hyperfirm Move accurate/Realistic - Pipe blaster (especially the ones I make ) Displayable- MR/Pipe blaster (again, mine look nice lol...) Inaccurate plastic toy (with stupid sound effects) ........... Errrrrrrr...........KENNER!

Exactly And let's not forget... We are the 501st legion, we are the BEST, let's not rest on our laurels when it comes to our Elite, they should be something really special.

I agree, that's a great conversion. However the blaster still suffers from having a funny shaped 'toy' handle, the mag cylinders (or at least Kenner's aproximation of them), on the top of the weapon, the front sight too far back (where you've had to extend the barrel to get it closer to accurate), the funny square 'lump' on the back underside and in all fairness, you've altered a lot more of your blaster than most people do (replaced the sight, barrel fins, extended the barrel etc). Like I said, top conversion, but f you are going to go to that much effort, why not just build an accurate blaster from pipe? You would only need a couple of other components and some pipe. Why use a Kenner at all? I can't see how it would be any harder to build a 'screen accurate' blaster for Elite clearance?

As a blaster builder, I thought I'd throw my opinion into the mix Firstly, I don't see what the problem is with setting a very high standard for 'Elite', surely that is what the word means, if everyone had it, it wouldn't be elite. Secondly, the harder somethng is to achieve, the bigger the reward when you achieve it. It would really 'up' the status of those who have qualified, giving them a kudos that others could aspire too. There's too much mediocrity in the world as it is, there's nothing wrong with making something difficult to achieve. After all, this has absolutely no baring on whether a person is allowed to troop or not, these aren't 501st standards, no one is saying that they have to be met straight away, they are something to strive for. I do a toy conversion But I generally guide people towards my pipe blaster because of the accuracy issue, the Kenner is wrong in almost every way. I think that even with the best intentions, the toy still looks like a toy (especially with the 'donkey down a well' sound effects). This isn't a financial decision either, I charge more for the toy conversion because I have the added overheads of the toy blaster on top. I understand that the Kenner conversion is a cheap alternative for people to do themselves, that's great, get one, go troop, but if you have the skills to convert a kenner, you could get much the same parts, stick them to a bit of pipe and have an accurate blaster for less money (no toy to buy)! I think there's nothing wrong with expecting more movie accuracy for your 'Elite' troopers than the kenner can offer. I don't think we should be equating the Kenner blaster with the FX lid, a better comparison, would be someone turning up at a troop in a Rubie's lid! Just my opinion

If the folding stock is Resin, once it's gured, it's pretty much stuck in that position, although you might be able to slowly prise the ends appart, a little at a time over a period if days (if you try and do it too fast it will snap). The top piece in your photo goes at the back underneath I'm not sure what the other two pieces are, I've never seen them before (and I make blasters for a living, and own a real Sterling). My best guess is that one piece may go at the back of the folding stock as the hinge rod The only other thing they may be, is the twin cylinders that sit on top of the magazine in some ANH versions of the blaster Best of luck with the build, and feel free to shout if you have any more questions.

I've had several of these tools in a variety of different brands as I use them constantly and have burnt out several. In my opinion the Dremel is the superior tool by far, my current one has lasted me twice as long as any of the other brands I've tried and is still going strong.

Nice work Dave I've built three sound systems myself but none of them were ever really up to the job. I wish I'd seen this a month ago before I bit the bullet and spent ?130 on a ROM FX system, I'd have give it another shot. The ROM FX is a great system, I'd just have prefered not to have splashed out ?130