LeMaxim's RS PVC ANH Stunt Build [*RS] (WIP)

[LeMaxim[TK]]

So. There I was, filing and cutting away on my kit, and suddenly I had a great idea for my TK number. Look and behold! It's still available.

 

I was trying hard to not have any favourites before the armour was done. Now I just have to hurry up.

 

No. I'm not telling what number.

 

=== And to general build news.

Been away for a few days but my right shin seems to have turned out ok.

I'm now braving the other cover-strip related pieces.

 

I also made a nice find. It turns out brass (looking) split rivets are readily available at my local shoemaker. Apparently they are the ones using them in Sweden.

The shoemaker didn't know exactly what to make of my odd request so he just offered me a bag at a reasonable price. 

Bought enough for a small squad of TKs in fear that they would magically disappear next time I might need some.

 

For what it's worth for other Swedes. Split rivets are called "klyvnitar" in Swedish.

 

Anyway. Back to my post. 

[PreD[TK]]

Looking really good so far   .

[SW1]

Keep up the good work mate and follow the original source for reference although tou cant go wrong with Rick's builds

 

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[LeMaxim[TK]]

Updates and question time.

 

First of. Split rivets galore. 

Since they were missing from my initial shipment I kept an eye out for split rivet source here in Sweden. 

Just as I was about to throw in the towel I found plenty at my local shoemaker (as I mentioned before). 

Now I just need to get washers and figure out a way to get the rivets split and folded nicely.

Not there in my build quite yet so I'm not researching rivet-bending-too much right now although pointer are welcome.

 

Prof.

(These are just 7 for one armour. The bag contained enough for a small squad. )

 

Update. 

After a weekend of curing (I was away) it was finally time to check my right shin. 

Looked and felt good so I quickly jumped on the left shin and started the trim-dance. Fit, measure, tape, fit, measure, mark, fit, tape, measure, trim, tape, fit, tape measure.... 

Left shin turned out to be less obvious than the right one. 

 

I didn't take any pictures during the trim-dance as they would offer no insight, consolation, or sense. 

Close to the end, just before applying too much E6000 and the front cover strip, I took one picture of the front and the back. 

The back shows, albeit blurry, to where the back sides outer piece overlaps the inner one if I try to make it fit my lower leg without slacking too much. 

I need to trim quite a lot there before I install elastics with hooks and cover strip. For now I'll save it as I did with the right side one so I have material left if I need any saving towards the end when everything has been test fitted properly.

 

  

 

 

E6000. E stands for excess. 

 

While the left shin was curing I started to tackle the right thigh. I'm not sure I started from the easy side... but my reasoning still feels sound.

“The shoe is connected to the shin guard, the shin guard is connected to the thigh guard...â€

 

The famous right thigh

 

Trying it on

 

 

I have no pictures of it, building while home alone, but the thigh really presents a challenge. I can almost wrap the outer part 75% round my thigh. 

I had thought: “Hey, I'm roughly clone sized (between TK model and Boba Fett in length and size) this should fit without too much workâ€. Need to rethink.

It's, however, very rewarding to feel I actually have to work to make this fit nicely. *happy thoughts*

 

 

 

After a night on the timing dance floor with the thigh I decided to put it away before I took a bite out of it.

 

Thigh questions:

Should I consider it normal that the upper part of the thigh stabs me to tears if I try to raise my leg towards 90 degrees?

How much should I try to taper the thigh towards the shin? Enough to keep a straight line, i.e. almost to the point of just being able to slip over my knee?

 

When the E6000 cured on my left shin I quickly donned my under suit and boots and fitted the two shins. They are, as mentioned, still with excess material and just taped in the back. 

 

  

Sorry for the poor image quality. Let's call the style artistically flattering, but I hope you get the, well..., picture.

Feels good to have one section semi-finished enough to wear. Still wearing them as I'm typing out this. It's getting warm and I feel a lot of “I think I need some trimming thereâ€.

 

 

So. The big question. 

I'm hoping to start with my bucket this weekend in an attempt to up the cool of my build a bit. 

 

I've been checking out Pandatrooper's tutorial for the ATA helmet trimming as some sort of official base line even though it's not the same make. 

I've also checked out several other builds. From what I can see it seems the rough trim I got from RS is very much to the point, so to speak. 

I cannot decide If I need to trim more or if it's enough to just sand and remove the roughness of their cuts. 

 

Any input and suggestions into this would be greatly appreciated. 

 

A> B>  C>  D>  E> 

 

F>  G>  H>  I>  J>  K> 

 

In picture F I did a small pencil-marking of where I want to round of a bit but apart from that and the general “roughly 1 inch above the eyes†in K i don't know what more to trim (if anything). 

 

There's also clear markings after the upper fastening rivet on both cap'n'back and faceplate (visible in A, D, I, J).

I'm assuming I can trust these to be the correct spots for the rivets ant that they aren't confusing artefacts from the mould process as is the case with the belt.

 

Shall I flag myself green for the helmet?

 

 

 

 

#Lessons learned this session.

- E6000 is forgiving but excess of it is bothersome and should be avoided. 

- Magnets shatter easily if not put together mindfully. And it hurts. 

- At some point you just have to put the ruler down and just cut.

 

[LeMaxim[TK]]

Any comments/pointers on my helmet question in previous post?

 

 

Update: Abs buttons 

 

Taking a break from cover strips and the trimming-dance I decided to tackle something smaller and much more straight forward. Abs buttons. 

 

Since the general wonkiness of the original suits is growing on me I decided to tone down my OCD a bit and just go for it. 

 

 

Abs of the Empire's finest. Wonkiness included.

 

   

 

 

  

 

Buttons plates untrimmed. There's a lot of extras here. 

 

Like a glove.

 

Heavily referencing the JoeR picture archive and drawing from memory of all buttons I've seen here on FISD I started “measuring†for a nice, authentic looking, fit.

 

From all the pictures I concluded that the plates should be trimmed to, between edge-to edge and halfway between buttons and edge (i.e. roughly 3-5 mm as with the belts).

I decided to go with the halfway alternative as it seems to be the more common in the screen used references I'v seen.

 

I started by measuring the plates.

    

 

And went on to draw cut lines. I drew the lines on both plates by using a 3mm thick ruler.

 

This method gave me this to work with

   

 

After first trimming I ended up with this

Imaginary straight lines and all. 

 

First test fit

 

Not completely convinced I decided to cut some more off. 

 

 

Looks about right to me. On to painting!

 

 

Paints - Check! 

Brushes - Check! 

 

“How do I clean the brushes after?â€

*checking Humrol webpage*

“Doh!†*facepalm*

 

Right. I'll get some paint thinner/cleaner tomorrow.

 

On to other parts. 

 

 

 

[Locitus[Admin]]

Thank you for not messing up the ab button trimming and using reference pictures!

[LeMaxim[TK]]

Thank you for not messing up the ab button trimming and using reference pictures!

 

Well... I try...

 

Want to build so I won't have to redo things for EIB and Centurion. 

 

Thanks for keeping an eye on me.

 

(more updates and OCD relapse to follow soon)

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Coming along nicely

[LeMaxim[TK]]

Ok. So my idea to keep to a few simple items I figured that the belt wouldn't be to much of a hassle. 

 

Then OCD and confusion kicked in. I'll try to step by step this. 

 

Ok. Considering the heritage of the RS armour I wasn't worried about anything being off, but in my research on the belt I reread the CRL update mentioned in the April 2013 FISD newsletter.

 

 

Changes to the Costume Reference Library, which is used for qualification of membership, is a Legion-wide affair. This is in part an effort by our active FISD community, who votes on the levels of quality and specification (language) for the Stormtrooper costumes. It is also an effort by the detachment staff to push these changes up to the Legion level for new applicants and GMLs to use as the guide for approval.

New requirements and revised language in the Stormtrooper CRLs is summarized here.

BELT

• ANH Stunt, ANH Hero, ESB, HWT, Deathtrooper: Vinyl or plastic belts are no longer allowable for basic 501st approval. The belt must be canvas. The width specification has been changed as well.
  • "The soft belt proper is made of canvas, or material with a canvas covering. Size must be 2.75†(70 mm) to 3.25â€(83 mm) wide and not wider than the plastic portion of the belt. The color is be white to off-white."

 

 

Ok. So. 

 

1: Width between 70 mm and 83 mm.

2: Not wider than the plastic part.

3: White or off white. 

 

 

 

Check, check, check! 

 

From earlier readings I knew that the edges (right and left side) of the plastic belt required some more research but the top and bottom should be offset from the "boxes" by 3-5 mm. 

I knew I read it somewhere and started to look for confirmation. 

 

I found this the below picture in the Lucas Film Archive - TKCaleb and would find many references to it in my continued reading and work.

 

 

Finally I found the source of the "3-5 mm" notion I had. It was in one of my reference builds where Locitus helps a friend to build a RS armour.

As I remembered it was one of Billhag's many diagrams. 

 

 

Yes three dimples which correspond to the black marks on the canvas belt. I have not attached mine yet, but the three dimples match the three black dots on the canvas belt where they tell you to put the rivets.

Paul I was going to use this as a guide (found it in another belt thread is this one wrong?



Based on this template, if I trim my RS belt to have an inch and a half between the last box and the edge, the dimple they have placed (and the black dots on the belt) is 3/4 of an inch in. Until I saw this thread I thought that made it correct...

 

 

Excellent! Confirmation. 

Or so I thought.

I then started reading the context of the post and got increasingly confused. 

I won't quote the entire discussion but Locitus had used the indentations in the belt to drill and rivet the canvas belt to the plastic portion. 

TrooperMaster pointed out that the placement was wrong. 

 

 

This is where you should put your rivets. I know it's too late for you but I hope this will help someone else before they attempt to attach the belt in the wrong place.

 

 

 

Troopermaster further referenced the indentations as possible being artefacts from the moulds rather than markers to follow for riveting. 

 

Hmm... So. Now I got really confused and started to feel my OCD creeping back.

 

In order to keep my sanity I started to use the Billhag diagram to map out how I should trim the belt and see where that leads me. 

 

I started by using my trusted metal ruler as a 3 mm distance as I had done with the abs buttons. 

As it turns out the boxes flare a bit unevenly and it didn't work as I had hoped. No surprise there though. 

 

 

As an alternative I taped the belt to the floor and just pushed the ruler against the row of boxes and then let it slide off. This left an offset of around 3 mm that I penciled in. 

 

    

 

Due to the uneven flaring and placement of the boxes this gave me a belt that was 90 mm wide on one side and 94 mm on the other. I decided to live with that for now. 

 

 

 

Following the Billhag diagram I ended up with edges like this one: 

 

As it turns out the indentation on the RS belt is spot on according to the Billhag diagram and left me with would be belt of 44 cm.

 

So. Relieved and increasingly confused I tried to understand what Troopermasters comment really meant. 

Looking for more reference pictures I found three (apart from the one above) that were of special interest. 

 

Two (1, 2)from the ANH Blu-ray detailed screen captures:

 

 

 

There's plenty more where that come from but they both point to the same dimensions of the Billhag diagram where the ends of the belt is roughly the size of the bigger spaces between boxes, i.e. (38 mm / 1.5"). 

 

To understand Troopermasters comment more I looked at one of his great builds. SW1's TM 1 mm weathered ANH armour. 

 

There I found this picture 

 

 

And based on my work I made my own reference shot:

 

 

From what I can see all four belt versions (RS, TM, Billhag and screen captures) are very exact and the comment about the rivets being miss placed actually was more about the edges being to long.

 

I think that the rivet covers of the RS might be a bit large too. I measure roughly 20 mm on top and 30 mm from edge to edge of the mould flare.

Testing different placements I found that they should cover the rivet (in the indentation spot) no matter if it's placed centre over the it or more towards the edge.

 

 

This is nitpicking and my OCD really gave me a hard time with this.

 

I also took some pictures of the infamous "black dots" on the canvas belt and the indentation (middle one, but the edge ones are similar).

 

 

 

 

 

 

It would seem the indentations is meant to be used as rivet guides and not, as I've referenced earlier in my build, a confusing artefact. 

 

 

I don't think this belt-investigation really offers any new insights into the finer art of armour building, but I wanted to share my experience with this detail and the confusion I got myself into. Maybe it is on interest to someone. 

The discussion between Locitus and Troopermaster was held about a year ago (2013-07-28) and it's quite possible that things have changed since. I now, however, feel more confident in my belt trimming mission. 

 

 

I will leave the actual trimming until tomorrow as it is late night here and to allow for more experienced builders to flag me down for any reconsiderations before I make the cuts

 

*edit: Troopermaster offered some insight into this below so read on if you plan to use this as some reference.

Edited July 21, 2013 by LeMaxim

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Nice research, well done

[LeMaxim[TK]]

Nice research, well done

Thanks!

 

Time to get cutting!

[troopermaster]

I would not use the markings from RS. Their ammo belt was not cast from their original armour so it is a custom sculpt and cannot be compared to any original belt. There are things on the RS armour that are not original cast and those that are have been altered slightly for whatever reason, so do not take everything as truly screen accurate.

 

Any information I post is to help people build their armour like the originals and this information has been gathered over many years. I keep reading about the RS armour and the issues people have with their kits and how that is how it must be because it was cast from an original. The truth is it was cast badly, parts altered and parts custom made, so the majority of it is not a direct, unaltered cast. I am not trying to bash RS but they are not trooper fans who have spent years studying original armour, they are just two guys who make armour.

 

My advice for your belt trimming is to cut off 40mm from the ends of your last ammo blocks and then mark top and bottom corners 10mm from the ends and sides 12mm and cut the ends. They corners are not 45 degrees if you look at any original belt.

[LeMaxim[TK]]

 

My advice for your belt trimming is to cut off 40mm from the ends of your last ammo blocks and then mark top and bottom corners 10mm from the ends and sides 12mm and cut the ends. They corners are not 45 degrees if you look at any original belt.

 

Thank you for adding more light to this Paul. 

 

This would add about 2 mm on each side in length from the Billhag diagram leaving the total length of the belt at 444 mm. Roughly.

 

Does that sound correct overall?

 

Also. Where would you recommend the placement of the rivet? The Billhag diagram sets it at the half distance between the edge and the last box, and this is what the RS indentation seems to follow. 

From your comment on Locitus build and your own belt that I referenced I would guess you more go for a 3/4 distance from the box (i.e. 30 mm) / 10 mm from the edge. 

Am I correct in this analysis? 

 

Thanks again for chipping in. I'll be sure to check your offerings for my future projects. Cheers!

[troopermaster]

That sounds about right. As for adding 2mm to the length, just leave roughly 40mm on the ends and trim close to the tops of the ammo boxes. I am not really one for numbers when it comes to building these kits and go with what looks right compares to the original armour. I would not worry if something is a few mm's out and no one is going to knock you for it. There really are no set measurements for each piece since the originals varied in how they were trimmed or assembled so just go with the flow and you will be fine

[LeMaxim[TK]]

After beating my OCD into submission I managed to add rough drawlines as per Troopermasters suggestions. 

 

 

“Rough†is the keyword in this as the general wonkiness of the belt is too much for my OCD. 

 

Heeding to Troopermasters, and other more experienced TK-proppers word, I decided to use the force and go with the flow. 

 

I'm sure this wasn't the flow I was looking for...

 

 

Some field triage later and the disaster was averted...

 

 

- Getting cut and shedding blood while building armour. - Achievement unlocked. Check! 

 

I soldiered on and behold!

 

 

We have a semi-finished belt

 

(Rivet covers are just mapped our for dramatic purpose) 

 

Realising I didn't have all the tools necessary for riveting I went on by trying the belt out by way of magnetic force. 

 

 

Seems about right.

 

 

I'll pick up the remaining riveting tools while I get the paint thinner.

[Locitus[Admin]]

Looks about right. Now you can add the cap rivets to hold it to the belt.

[LeMaxim[TK]]

Looks about right. Now you can add the cap rivets to hold it to the belt.

Cap rivets you say... not blind rivets?

 

Hmm... I guess I have enough cap rivets...

 

I'll have to look into the rivet situation of this.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

[Locitus[Admin]]

I suppose that when hidden from view it doesn't matter so much, but they used cap rivets.

[LeMaxim[TK]]

Right. I did not even think about that.

Cap rivets it is then.

Thanks for the pointer.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

[Locitus[Admin]]

From RS's belt

[LeMaxim[TK]]

Right you are. Makes so much sense. I had an excess of cap rivets by my estimates. RS sent me a bunch of them and now the amount makes sense.

 

Cheers!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

[Locitus[Admin]]

No problem

[LeMaxim[TK]]

Earlier this week I got the remaining pieces from RS. TD control panel and split rivets. 

 

 

 

 

Updated catalogue posts (td, extras) to include them. 

 

So now I have everything I need to complete my armour.

 

Comparison between the RS split rivets (nickel coloured) and my find at the local shoemakers shop.

 

 

I was initially surprised at the RS rivets as I had gotten into my head that all of the 7 split rivets should be brass. 

 

Echo kindly offered some calming clarity to the situation off-thread so now I have two sets of rivets to chose from. 

 

I still feel more comfortable with the brass ones. 

 

Eventually I need to find out a good way of splitting them into place. 

 

Any troopers out here with DIY tool-tips for splitting split rivets?

Edited July 26, 2013 by LeMaxim

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

I made a tool from a bolt, cut a groove about 3mm on each side and made the centre a V. I'm not at my computer or I would post a pic. All you are trying to do is open the rivet then bend the sides, you could even use a screwdriver.

[LeMaxim[TK]]

I made a tool from a bolt, cut a groove about 3mm on each side and made the centre a V. I'm not at my computer or I would post a pic. All you are trying to do is open the rivet then bend the sides, you could even use a screwdriver.

Thanks!

Sounds easy enough.

A picture would, however, be helpful.

 

Did you manage to get a nice curvature on the legs or was/is it enough to flatten them down?

 

I guess it will make sense when I'm actually there but I'm afraid that the legs might tear into the under suit, or worse, if they aren't curved.

 

 

 

 

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