CAP/CAP-West From the Horse's Mouth

[Scootch[TK]]

Greetings fellow and future Legioneers. For many many moons rumors and legends have risen about CAP and CAP-West, the men, the myths, the legends. But like any myth or legend fact soon gives way to fiction. Folk have been reading warnings of, "Stay away from ebay" and seeing words like "Recaster", many have no idea what it means, they accept it as truth. I have been witnessing for many years Legioneers in staffing roles giving poor advice to individuals regarding certain costumes they themselves are unfamiliar with. These days a prospective member has little knowledge of what may be screen accurate, legion acceptable, or otherwise. Questions arise and rumors are spread.

 Today's market value for Trooper Armor is based largely on the groundwork laid by men like CAP. Once upon a time trooper armor kits were selling at around 1K. In those days promises of "Three weeks lead time" were greatly exagerated, even to the point of 7 Months. There were guys taking money and never delivering! Many a trooper had been burned by guys who took money and promised goods but never came through. We were shedding our FX crysalis and moving toward a better future but we had obstacles to overcome.

 CAP began his enjoyment of the hobby with a 2005 TE Sandtrooper armor and correspondence with a fellow by the handle of "Meatsock". At this time many of us had been reading books by various authors, Thurston James for example, the book of molding and casting. Books on forming plastics. We shared in this enjoyment of "how things work" and we applied it.

 I will stop here and we will begin learning what CAP was and what CAP-West is.

 

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by gmrhodes13
photo updated gmrhodes13 2021

[Scootch[TK]]

There are many materials used to make forming bucks. Some guys use Bondo, some use Plaster or cement, they can be wooden or plastic or resin, even metal. Sometimes bucks are made of materials depending on what the project budget will allow. CAP's bucks of the TE Sandtrooper were poured in Hydrocal and glued to MDF bases. Here is the original CAP Ab plate buck

 

Below  is a photo of my Thermal Detonator cannister and Mortar Tube parts bucks. CAP used a Crashmann Mortar tube keypad, It was made to fit a 2" pipe which worked back then but isn't very accurate in size. I made a new longer 2" mortar tube keypad for Sandies, and a new 2.5" Thermal Detonator keypad for my stormie. In the photo you can see the ones I made from plastic pipe, washers, and terminal blocks. I then pulled plastic over these and cast them in resin. (The white ones). The end caps are blocked pieces of pipe. This solved the "recast" issue with the CAP Thermal Detonator.

 

CAP wanted to do TK's and it was no trouble finding someone who would donate the necessary parts for that to happen. He was given a TM kneeplate and button strips to make his TK. In the photo below you will see at left a TE Tour Suit (ROTJ) knee plate cast, and at right the cast of the TM kneeplate.

 

In 2010 the TE ROTJ forming bucks were brought to my shop. The larger bucks were made of Bondo and had been damaged in shipping. Some of the work was doccumented in another forum non 501st. I repaired these bucks, the owner and I pulled several kits from them. I made bucks for him and in return he gave me permission to "Use whatever you need from my kit".  I am now using the knee and the button strips from the TE ROTJ tour kit.

 ROTJ in my shop

 

 

Here is a photo of the TM button strips next to bucks made of plastic and rivets. There were toothpics on the black one but they got smoked. Not to worry, half the fun is ruining stuff.

Edited January 15, 2021 by gmrhodes13
photo updated gmrhodes13 2021

[Scootch[TK]]

So I guess now we can look at the actual CAP armor.......

 

Legs

 

Shoulders arms and hands. These shoulder bells in the center are more CAP bucks, I am told they are SDS. The rest of the parts are from CAP's 2005 TE kit except for the ROTJ hand plates.

 

Here's CAP lid, breastbone, CAP-W sandtrooper ab plate, CAP-W belt and button kit for sandie and for belt.

 

 

 

As mentioned before, bucks for the belt, bando, drop boxes, and belt buttons were first made of wood, then molds were made of these and resin bucks created from those molds.

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by gmrhodes13
photo updated gmrhodes13 2021

[Scootch[TK]]

2.5" Thermal Det parts

 

 

 

 

My trooping kit:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by gmrhodes13
photo updated gmrhodes13 2021

[Scootch[TK]]

 In 2007 just after CV I was putting together a sandtrooper kit for my 15 year old son. It had been about seven months since I had paid for a kit and was told I'd have it in three weeks. SEVEN MONTHS, and still NOTHING. We had found a kit on ebay, someone had already stuck the lid together and I had a heck of a time with the lid until finally I decided to find another. I checked ebay and found exactly what I was looking for. It was CAP. That's how we met, through ebay.

 It wasn't long before we were corresponding via telephone and the best part for me was that I had finally found someone who was good for his word. Naturally my "three week" kit arrived after eight months, but my TE stuff NEVER came. I had been hosed like so many others. CAP was handling things very well, nobody I knew of had been took.

  Eventually I was invited into a forum where a lot of guys were doing casting and molding, and a lot of other guys were funding it. This was Before DIY. It was an okay forum, lots of secrecy and all. Something happened between CAP and a couple other guys. It really set him off and that's when he started the DIY and was handing free info out on how he cast his kit. For me it was cool, a lot of other guys liked it too. Soon there were operations springing up and more people becoming nutty over it all. For a better explanation of "nutty" just go read the "armor History thread" for a few pages. To this day I can't make sense of half of it and really could care less.

  CAP was burning out and decided to walk. Before he did he wanted to leave a legacy behind. CAP was hugely instrumental in getting ATA started up. The only other person who had direct permission to cast the CAP kit was Mike Appling. Yes MTK did have authorization to cast the CAP kit. Shortly after ATA got rolling CAP sold me the original stuff. I work with a production company and the equipment has enabled me to keep more of our work "in house". The CAP trooper is just sort of a hobby.

  I've seen some wierd stuff in this costuming world. Guys coming down hard on other guys for "recasting" or whatever, and then in secret these same guys are buying the "recast" stuff on the down low. I have seen enough of that to make me laugh every time I see that word. I've had friends of certain guys bring their stuff to my shop and ask me to "recast it", I've seen members take CAP lids and CAP helmets and sell them as TE's and TE2's to other members. I've seen enough. There aren't very many "honorable" thieves out there, and even less "friends". 

  I don't care as much about authenticity as I do about looks. So for me a helmet and armor that looks good to the public is better than an exact replica. Even though I have both in my own collection.

 To date I have sent a few CAP kits off as museum displays. There are lids on display in certain businesses and art shops. It's fun. If it weren't fun I would quit.

  Some lids built for fellow troopers:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by gmrhodes13
photo updated gmrhodes13 2021

[Scootch[TK]]

As I was saying, I have worked with a traveling haunt for many many years. We once won Travel Channel's best haunt! I sit with the owner in January and we bounce ideas, sketch, and come up with the themes for our next production. I've known this guy since we were in High School,,, that's the early 1980's !  For the next few months we have sculptors, artists, tailors.... all working on stuff for the next throw down. He likes to do the rubber and resins, I like to do the carpentry, so most of my stuff begins as wood or other familiar building material, and later some becomes forming bucks. I almost always replace my wood forms with resin when I achieve the finished product I desire. It's expensive up front but in the long run well worth it. So by August we are trucking the trailers to the next site and construction begins! The owner and myself are the ONLY carpenters, to give an idea of the scope of work we do, the entire attraction / attractions are built on a sea of panels.... wood panels everywhere. Then we stand the maze, an elaborate series of mazes with ambushes and freakyness at every turn, I'm the pick up carpenter so once we get around 2500 square foot of maze built I drop back and begin building the sets. The owner and a helper continue on ahead. The way it works is once they finish standing walls and bracing, I am far enough into the maze that they can come back around and begin painting. Usually the small attraction is around 3000 sq ft, and the larger is almost 3 times that.  So after paint we prop it out, and finally I move over to costumes and makeup where I help with things like forming masks or parts, gluing the fingertips onto gloves..... etc. Oh the fingertips? metal, for making awful noises inside the haunt. Now this is a production company, we also do concerts. So we have concert lighting, concert sound, plus the lighting and crazy other stuff we utilize in the attractions. Ours is truly disturbing. It's so much that it throws you off and from the time you enter the maze your senses are overwhelmed and never recover until you are back home. Crazy. We pride ourselves at making our own sets and props, many haunts these days are "store bought" as I like to call them. They literally buy all their gags from some Halloween shop. If you're lucky enough to have a good haunt in your area please go out and support them. It's a fun time and we love having folks come out.

Edited May 2, 2014 by Scootch

[Scootch[TK]]

These days I reflect back on the past, all the arguments and aggression, all about something no-one doing the arguing has any business with in the first place. Talkin bout Star Wars, and costumes, and where it comes from. While I think it's great there are folks on the lookout for bad stuff and willing to warn others of where bad stuff comes from, when we enter into argument over who made what and what can be done about someone who copied it? well, the company who owns the characters... the "intellectual property" whatever you want to call it..... THEY are the only one with "rights" to this, and they will allow things to be reproduced according to their guidelines, which usually means licensing and that leads to Chinese mass production of whatever was ok-ed by some guy from that company. To say as an example that some guy who has forming bucks for a kit "owns the rights" is stupid. Think about it, ponder it, it's stupid, so shut up already. If the guy copyrights it and lays that out??? well then that is reality, anything else is just a bunch of dorks arguing til it gets so loud mommy comes in and takes it all away from everybody. It will happen.

Edited May 2, 2014 by Scootch

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saved for pics and comparison photos, pic intense carry on

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saved for comparison photos and historicle evidence  move along

[Daetrin[Admin]]

I'm curious to see how this thread progresses. As you said, there is a lot of mis-information out there.