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You have been producing the best armor available and now on top of that we can finally do the one thing that hinders us all... SITTING DOWN! This armor is made of win! TM-FTW!

I just can't wait until I have the balls to repaint and weather my suite, TFU Commander FTW! I will definitely go for EIB on this one.... In time. Until then I still need to finish my ANH just for a TK Number to begin with, but then after that! Commander for the win.

I absolutely love the job you have done on this, I have been heavily debating going TFU Commander on my MRCE/FX Suit of armor. To help me decide I have been playing through The Force Unleashed for the 3rd time this year. Do you have any higher resolution pictures of the full suite of armor?

Someone from my local garrison recommended trimming an inch or so all around from the top of the thighs, that way the whole thing could be raised up a little bit without having to cut too much into the back of the knee area for movement. I don't know if I have the guts to try that yet but I am heavily considering it. I will throw up some pics of how my thighs are put together at t his point. And as for my mic setup, it was just some computer mic that I picked up from Radioshack that I pulled all of the plastics off of it to fit better. This is what it looks like when you buy it

Also, I made the belt from a 5$ roll of canvas that I found at Michaels Craft store. I folded it 3 times for thickness then I sewed it together with it Velcroed together in the back.

And now for the belt. I tried several things and finally came up with one that I am pretty satisfied with at this point. I am sure I will add Velcro or snaps somewhere on the ab piece to stop it from sliding down or something later but it feels like it fits alright at this point. I tried putting snaps on the ends of the belt then attaching the canvas belt directly to the cod piece behind a snap that the plastic belt attached to, but that meant the canvas was permanently attached to my cod piece and the plastic belt part kept unsapping and falling off when I walked. SCRATCH THAT IDEA! So what I ended up doing was leaving the front of the snaps at the front making the ends more accurate but removing the snap it's self, I put some plastic weld on the back to keep it in place. Then I wrapped soft loop Velcro around the inside of the ends of the belt like you see below. After that I sewed about 2 inches of hard hook Velcro to the ends of each side of my canvas belt that i made but with the second half of the Velcro on the inside with about 5 inches of extra hard hook adhesive free Velcro dangling off the bottom for my drop boxes like you see below. I also added a strip of soft loop Velcro behind my drop boxes. And then it is attached like so. And then repeat on the other side. Forgive the scorch mark, that is where I tried the snap and after I removed it, i ran a lighter over the hole to singe the material from fraying, that part is not seen once it is on.

Alright, here we have the shoulder straps, bells, biceps and gloves. For the shoulder straps with reinforcement I hand sewed an 8 inch strip of hard hook Velcro across the top of the shoulder strap that I used to hold the ab and kidney pieces together. I placed soft loop Velcro on the under side of the chest and back pieces so that they rest on top of the 8 inch Velcro strap on my shoulders. Then I added hard hook Velcro to the top of the same chest and back pieces so that the plastic shoulder crossing the top and holding the bells in place on top with more soft loop Velcro attached under that, giving me about 3 layers of Velcro and the shoulder straps themselves giving me extra reinforcement for long term use without damage to my plastic shoulder straps. As you can see, I have the bells and biceps attached to the shoulder piece using a snap that is glued to the under side of the shoulder strap. I am not very happy with this idea, it ads too much of a gap between the plastic shoulder strap and the elastic suspenders underneath. I will probably change this later with something else, i don't know. Then I have the bicep snapped to the bell. I did add an elastic strap crossing the bottom of the bell and around the bicep to held it all in place, they just aren't pictured yet. Then there is the gloves, I also hand sewed hard hook Velcro to the top and then attached soft loop Velcro to the underside of the hand plate.

If you don't mind my asking, what did you do with your thighs. I looked at thepictures in your previous posts and the thighs look great, nice and tappered in.

I tackled the thighs yesterday and I very surprised at how much trimming needs to actually be done for them to look right. I measured them a few times and then applied Velcro to it so far, I would hate to screw them up trying to trim them. I figured I would let them overlap and wear it a few times and if it feels like the measurements are right , then I will cut and glue. I will add pictures as soon as I get a chance. Also, for the suspenders, the metal clamps do not show at all. I was worried about that too.

After 12 hours of work Monday followed by 12 hours of work on Tuesday I found myself completely burned out on this project. I hit the marathon runners wall and could not push past it, tired and with my brain melted I passed out for a few hours and went out with my friends. Today on the other hand is a new day and I sit at work anxious as ever and can not wait to get back to work on this project. I will finish the straps and start on the ever troublesome THIGHS! Stupid FX thighs look like big barrels, flipping tedious trimming and tapering, how fun is this. Jokes a side, I am loving every minute of this! ONWARD!

I am just using two 1x1.5 inch speakers that I pulled from the inside of small Dell Desktop computers at work, they fit in the plastic caps perfectly and after I drilled the holes behind the aerators as big as I could without hurting the aerators, they are loud enough as far as I can tell. I will have someone else wear my helmet later today to see what it sounds like from the outside.

I will cover a few things that I have been doing differently then most posts I have seen. I will start with the straps for my Front abs and Back kidney peice. Then next I will post pics of how I did the straps for the Chest and Back with reinforcement for longevity. So first of all, I used heavy duty elastic Suspender straps with clamps on the end. I also removed the leather peice that crosses the suspenders in the back. I used Plastic weld to add extra ABS to the back of where I have attached these clamps for extra strength. Then I cut slits through the area where I added the extra ABS as you can see below. So far this seems to work great. But then again, this is all my first attempt.

And here it is, my first set of armor, bad lighting and a celphone camera but I haven't been this excited to unwrap something like this since I was but a wee little lad on a chistmas morn' haha. IN THE BEGINING AFTER 12 HOURS OF WORK

So far I am pretty ok with the stuff I velcroed in but I am open to new ideas, what exactly do you mean by windscreens?

It helped with feed back more then aerosol lids from paint cans and stuff. I don't seem to really have a problem with it.

ALRIGHT! My armor has arrived! So once I post these few pictures of my current progress of my MRCE then I will bust out the armor. Replacement lenses, widening of the teeth, filling the seam with silicone and adding screen behind the teeth will take place at a later date. So here is my MRCE progress. This the sound proofing I have put in over the the mic cables and between the speakers. This one is so that you can see where I have mounted my modded Radio Shack VoiceAmp in my helmet as well as my fan placement. This one shows some of the battery placement including a clip holding a spare 9V battery for the voice amp. I used 4 2xAA battery packs to power the fans, little did I know that the fans do NOT need this much power, so they spin fast and are pretty loud. I will remove one or two of the packs depending on how it feels. This last one is just an overall picture of my progress. Oh yeah I used a hard hat liner in my helmet.

While returning home from a quick trip to the local grocery store for some frozen pizza and RedBull something from the corner of my eye caught my attention and this is what it turned into. They could cost up to 50 Cents depending on your grocer haha. I wrapped the inside of the helmet with soft (loop) Industrial Velcro and the inside of the plastic speaker holders using the hard (hook) side of the velcro and then just stuck it in place and used a bit of pressure to secure it. So far so good!

I suppose at this point since I am going into the building of my armor I should move this topic to the "Assembly, Mods, and Painting (Discusson)" Board. Soooo if you want to follow my progress then jump this link and I will pick up right where I left off. My MRCE and FX Armor Build! , My first set of Armor begins.

While I wait for the mail man (aka my best friend for the day) to deliver my armor today! I will go through and work a bit more on my MRCE Helmet. Alright, I have started with my speaker system in the helmet using the Radio Shack voiceamp and Two 1x1.5" speakers mounted behind the aerator holes in the helmet using the half egg things from the 50cent machines at grocery stores. I wrapped the inside of the helmet with soft (loop) Industrial Velcro and the inside of the plastic speaker holders using the hard (hook) side of the velcro and then just stuck it in place and used a bit of pressure to secure it. So far so good! This is just a test fit for right now, I will be adding sound proofing from my friends recording studio to reduce chances of feedback.

While I wait for the mail man (aka my best friend for the day) to deliver my armor today! I will go through and work a bit more on my MRCE Helmet. Alright, I have started with my speaker system in the helmet using the Radio Shack voiceamp and Two 1x1.5" speakers mounted behind the aerator holes in the helmet using the half egg things from the 50cent machines at grocery stores. I wrapped the inside of the helmet with soft (loop) Industrial Velcro and the inside of the plastic speaker holders using the hard (hook) side of the velcro and then just stuck it in place and used a bit of pressure to secure it. So far so good! This is just a test fit for right now, I will be adding sound proofing from my friends recording studio to reduce chances of feedback.

Woooooo, I would like to get my hands on some AP armor. I suppose it's better that I start with FX armor, incase I mess it up. I paid for overnight shipping because my level of excitement can barely be contained.

My first set of armor arrives tomorrow and I can begin my journey to Joining the Ranks! My introduction to the 501st will begin with the MRCE and TK armor. As soon as my Armor shows up hopefully before noon I will start filling this post with pictures of my progress starting with my helmet. I have had a few ideas for the electronics in my helmet that may be helpful to others.

Nice, I bought a stand alone PC Mic and tore it apart but I am not happy with it. The mic seems to only pic up enough volume for it to sound ok if the mic is practically touching my teeth haha. Other then that I moved my fans up to where you have yours and it seems to be working better then where I had them before, so thank you for the help

Nice! What kind of mic is that! It looks like it might be doing a better job then mine. I have to have my mic pressed up against my lips before I feel like it is effective. Even though I generally have the interal parts set, it feels in complete (not quite good enough).

The speaker system is mostly done except adding sound proofing around the mic to cut out feedback. So following the wiring diagram from Degobah Swamp http://www.dagobahswamp.com/projects/stormtrooper/helmet.asp And I rigged up my fans using 4 2xAA battery packs that use the same 9v battery connectors so they are interchangable : ) After trying several locations in my bucket I found that putting the fans behind the teeth really do seem to work the best. I picked up two brushless fans, they are only test fitted now but they will be mounted soon. One of the 9v batteries is for my voice amp and the second one is just a spare for when that one dies.