Khazid's ANH Stunt - MTK - 1st Build

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Sadly, my build has hit the wall. Work is in over drive for the coming season and that has me putting in consistent 20 hour days, five days a week. Then add in family time on weekends and my TK is crying.

Next week is our annual vacation to celebrate our anniversary, so the next two weekends are out too. Looks like my next available build day is 8/15.

 

I am so close now...the bucket is coming along nicely; I cannot wait to share the mod I am doing to provide better air circulation. Just a tease of what is to come.

 

I am still here though, just not moving forward very fast. For those if you following my journey, do not rush to finish. Let your build progress as time allows.

 

It's alright brother. We'll be here when you get back. Let us know if you need anything. 

[Chills[TK]]

This is just a small delay, Brandon. You'll be finished with your build before you know it. 

[Khazid[TK]]

Build Log – 7/13-9/6 – Nothing, nada, zip & zero

Yes, the subtitle is correct, there was no building going on at this time. Life came around and a myriad of little details kept me from being active both here and with my build. It happens, but I’m back in the saddle and it is time to get this TK finished!!

 

​

[Khazid[TK]]

Build Log – 9/7-9/13– Bucket & Details

Let’s do this! Several updates to mention and this week I have been putting in some hours to try and get this TK done. This meant some jumping around in the areas of the costume trying to knock out those little details.

 

First up is posting the completion of the knee plate. Here is what it looks like now that the clamps have come off. This first view is a bottom shot, looking up from the base of the left shin.

  

Front view

Side view (from outside of the shin)

Side view #2 (from inside of the shin)

While it is not as perfect as I would like it to be, this is where the plate naturally wanted to sit on the armor so I just went with it. I like how it came out overall.

 

Moving on to the thigh ammo pack, first up is the front view.

Side view (from outside of the thigh)

Side view (from inside of the thigh)

The outermost box is a little wonky, but I am happy with the overall finish of the thigh pack. If it comes down to it, I can use a little heat to get that box bent in a more natural lay. It warped when I glued down the pack to the center line on the front.

 

Now I could mop up some of the details on the fitting before going back to my bucket. First up was adding moleskin to the bottom of each shin to protect my boots.

Fit my garter belt system together and got it working with my thighs. The belt is 3” webbing with 3” industrial elastic for the front of the garter and 2” industrial elastic for the back. The elastic is sewn into the belt and attaches to the thighs via velcro. This way I can adjust the tension on the thighs as needed.

The male snaps are now installed in the butt plate.

The split rivet is now in the cod and the male snap is in the right side of the ab plate.

 

I then moved on to making snap plates. Taking spare ABS I cut them into pieces of 20mm x 25mm then used my tabletop sander to round off edges and the tops to reduce the chance of snagging my under suit. Thirty two in total in a tray ready for the next step.

 

With my drill press set up for depth I took some scrap strips of wood to make a temporary jig. Here you see one of the snap plate blanks ready to be drilled.

 

The bench is all set for me to assemble the plates, I will be putting Tandy Line 24 male snaps into all the drilled holes.

​

Edited September 14, 2015 by Khazid

[Khazid[TK]]

Considering it was too late to go banging a hammer against my anvil to set the snaps, I went back to my bucket. First up was making a template for my frown mesh out of a piece of heavy card stock. The pencil shape is the rough shaping of the external frown, so the template allows for overlap inside the bucket for adhesion.

 

After trimming the mesh to fit the template I prepped the inside of the bucket for the epoxy resin. Glue does not like paint.

 

I used a craft stick to brush the resin into the sanded down areas and held it all in place with blue tape. The resin I like to use is a two part mix that sets about 5 minutes and fully cures in 20 minutes.

 

Once the resin was cured I removed the tape and completed the installation of the lenses. I then took the time to clean up any areas missing the flat black by repainting those areas.

 

I checked the lens installation to make sure that there are small gaps to allow for air flow when my fans are blowing, this will help reduce fogging. The first picture is a view from the top, the second a view from the bottom of the lenses.

 

Here is an audience view of the front of the bucket. It is starting to look like a Stormtrooper!

 

Moving on to my Mic Tips; they needed to be painted externally with satin black and the mesh installed. The white areas around the base are to keep the threads from being covered in paint, making the final installation extremely difficult.

 

I now had to lay out my electronics plan to make sure that I was moving on the right path. Here is what is planned for the build:

1 - I-Comm – will be installed in the chest plate.

2 - Headphones – these will be disassembled and put into the bucket to work with the EAS system.

3 - Evilboy Fan Kit – I am going to remove the battery box, but will keep the fan setup to integrate into the bucket.

4 - Voltage Regulator – the Anker puts out 9v, but the electronics can only take 5v, this chip reduces that voltage and will allow for the system to function without causing issues.

5 - Blank circuit board – final circuit integrating the switch, regulator and other various components will be put into a piece of this.

6 - Capacitors – various sizes will be used to clean up the power supply coming into and out of the regulator. This will help prevent line noise from the fans bleeding back into the EAS via a ground loop.

7 - Microswitch – will allow me to switch on the fans and EAS after putting on the bucket.

8 - Power coupling – the Anker external battery will plug into here at the back of the bucket, providing power to the system.

9 - 20mm Fans – going to use these as exhaust fans to remove warmer air from the top of the bucket.

10 - Power cord – runs from the Anker to the bucket.

11 - Anker Battery – External battery that will provide a longer life than other rechargeable packs. Supplies power at 9v, which I will regulate down to 5v. On preliminary tests of the circuit, this battery will run all 4 fans and the EAS for approximately 11 hours before needing a recharge. Should be long enough to cover even the longest of troops.

12 - EAS system – will allow me to hear what is going on outside the bucket. I will have a little line noise from the fans, but with some tricks I figured out from other electronics hobbyists, I should be able to reduce that noise to a faint background hum.

13 - Aker booster – The I-Comm and throat mic will be plugged into this for that TK sound for the audience.

14 - <Not Pictured> - LED for current draw on battery, throat mic, various wiring etc. for the installation.

 

With that in mind, it was time to put together the exhaust system. My plan is to hide the exhaust vents within the painted rear stripes on the rear traps. This meant I needed small fans that would stay quiet, but move at least a little air. I decided on 20mm box fans. This mod is NOT for the faint of heart. If my camoflague fails, it will ruin the bucket and kill my chances of both EIB and Centurion.

I used a pencil to outline the rear traps and a rough outline of the box fan. I then took my paint templates and using a sharpie, drew in where the final stripes will be painted within the shape of the fan.

Here is where the delicate part came in. Using a model pin vise, key hole file and hobby blade I was going to now cut very thin slits within the shape of the lines. The key was to not take up the entire width of the stripe, shooting for about 0.33mm of width at most. Taking a tiny bit, the pin vise was used to perforate the section.

The hobby blade would connect the dots, and then using the key file I gently worked length of the incision, completing the “vent”.

Once that was done, I put down the rear pad that will be in the bucket for the back of my head and then created a template for the fan box using heavy cardstock. To help me keep perspective, I used pencil lines to draw the shapes of the rear traps. The second picture gives a zoomed in look on the template.

To make the fan boxes the templates were traced onto 2mm scrap ABS. 1mm styrene was cut on angles and installed into grooves that I dug out with a Dremel to make ledges. The fan will be installed onto the ledge, but will leave the center of the box open to allow for air flow.

Here is one of the completed boxes, waiting on the next step.

A little fine tuning with a hobby blade on the ledges and the nuts for the bolts can be installed. These are just glued in with a little CA Glue. I later added Magic Sculpt to fill in the gaps between the walls and the nuts.

This is a terrible picture, but here are the completed fan boxes. They are ready for final installation.

 

And that is all for this week. It was a good push and I hope to keep pushing now to finish this over the next few weeks. Let’s look at what I got through this week:

 

Updated Final Checklist:

• Add Velcro to boots. Going to use the hooks on the boots and the loops on the inside bottom of the calves.
• For sections of the calf at the bottom not getting Velcro, attach moleskin 1/16” from the edge.
• Install split rivets in left joint of Kidney & Ab plates
• Install split rivet in cod plate.
• Install “Han” snap in right hand side of Ab plate
• Install male snaps in the butt plate
• Glue shoulder bridges to the chest plate
• Make snap plates for strapping.
• Strap armor to fit.
• Paint rivets on armor.
  • Ab & Kidney rivets
  • Thigh ammo pack rivets
• Assemble Bucket
  • Cap attached to Front
  • Ears Attached
  • S-Trim attached
• Install Bucket Interior
  • Install lenses
  • Install Frown Mesh
  • Install Fans
  • Install EAS
  • Complete electronics to external battery
• Paint bucket
  • Traps
  • Tears
  • Vocoder
  • Ears
  • Interior
• Submit photo’s for TKID, then EIB and lastly Centurion.

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Brandon this is awesome. Nice to see another techie try his hand at the Anker battery supply. And the vent fans, you're doing what I've only dreamed of. Cool!

 

Very nice build so far. Great detail 

[Khazid[TK]]

Brandon this is awesome. Nice to see another techie try his hand at the Anker battery supply. And the vent fans, you're doing what I've only dreamed of. Cool!

 

Very nice build so far. Great detail

Thank you Tony, I love the Anker thread in the electronics forum and it seemed natural to go for it.

The vent fans scare me. Progress is good, but I am still nervous about it all stating camouflaged.

Your encouragement means a lot.

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Thank you Tony, I love the Anker thread in the electronics forum and it seemed natural to go for it.

The vent fans scare me. Progress is good, but I am still nervous about it all stating camouflaged.

Your encouragement means a lot.

 

Well if you have any questions feel free to contact me.

[Khazid[TK]]

Build Log – 9/13-9/27 – Strapping & Bucket

Picking up right where I left off it was time to finish the snap plates. In their current condition, the snap itself prohibits the plate from making contact with the armor. To fix this, I used the tried and true method of a heat gun. I quickly made a press by drilling a 5/8” hole in a scrap piece of wood trimmed from a 5 gallon paint stir stick. A piece of scrap oak was my heat barrier to the workbench with a folded over piece of painters tape to hold the snap plate in position while heating.

  

Apply heat to one plate at a time until a sheen is just visible on the outside edge. Use the stir stick scrap to press down and flatten out the plate. Transition to a cooling plate, which for me was the back of my tabletop vise. Here is a picture of a treated plate (left) versus a plate that was just assembled (right). The treated plate will now sit flush against the armor for mounting.

Snap plates were now installed in the kidney, back plate, crotch and shoulder bells. It was also time to add in the elastic to hold the biceps in place. I used a cloth measuring tape to get the length of elastic needed. This was measured with the bicep in its place. I then added 2 inches to this measurement, giving me 1 inch per side to mount into the shoulder bell. The mounting position was traced lightly in pencil so that I would know where to stop when gluing. For photo taking purposes, I used a sharpie for one edge so that it can be seen easier.

Glue both sides in with E-6000 and clamp in place for dry time.

Snap plates were aligned on the bottom of the back plate and the bottom of the kidney using the Cohag diagrams. Each plate was positioned about 1” from the return edge. Here is what the back plate looked like (this is the inside view).

I repeated the above for the bottom of the kidney plate (butt plate edge) and for the crotch. Then all of this was left to set.

After the try time had passed, I used painters tape to hold together the back to kidney, and kidney to butt plate. I was then able to mark the armor on where the opposite snap plates will go for even alignment. I don’t have a final picture of that drying, but here is how I lied the three pieces up.

Now it was back to the bucket. First up was installing the cap and front plate with pop rivets. The MTK kit comes with the needed rivets and washers. Here is each side with the riveting completed. I decided to use 2 rivets per side to hold the edge close to tube in place.

An interesting side note. Once the MTK cap and front is installed the right hand side does have a gap. I would have panicked, if a fellow squad mate that already has a completed MTK didn’t warn me about this. A combination of the ear and then the S-Trim cover this up sufficiently. Mike, if you are reading this and can change that buck a little to give a better pull it would sure help the builders out.

Now for the dreaded ears….I will not bore you with how I did this, instead find Gazmosis’ Tutorial. It saved me a ton of work and I am extremely happy with the results. Yes, there are gaps on each side, but I like the gaps and I tried to keep them as screen accurate to some of the screen shots we see for the death star TK’s. In total, I spent just a little over an hour on each ear to get to the following.

Rear Right

Front Right

Rear Left

Front Left

Rear View

Front View

With the ears done I could finally install the Hovi Mic Tips. Getting closer now, the bucket is starting to feel mean.

I now needed to shorten the screws for the ears. I used a sharpie inside the bucket to mark each bolt for trimming.. Make sure that when you do the actual trimming to leave enough length to start the nut on the bolt. Here is one of the bolts in my vice ready for trimming with the Dremel cutting wheel.

I made sure to keep track of each bolt on where it would return once I was ready to do the final attaching of the ears. The bolts were then pushed into a cardboard box so that I could prime them with a satin white metal spray paint. Here are the bolts after priming.

After primer dried the bolts each got two thin layers of gloss white paint. I took the opportunity to paint the thigh ammo pop rivet heads as well. I did not prime the pop rivets. Sorry, no picture of these steps. I did get a picture of the velcro being clamped to my boot straps. I do this to give the adhesive time to cure, which takes about 15-30 minutes depending on how hot/humid it is.

I wish I could say it is getting close enough to set a dead line, but it just feels like all the details are taking soooooo long. However; each brief piece of progress is one less thing to be done. I even get to mark some things off this week.

 

Updated Final Checklist:

Add Velcro to boots. Going to use the hooks on the boots and the loops on the inside bottom of the calves.

Install split rivets in left joint of Kidney & Ab plates

Glue shoulder bridges to the chest plate

Make snap plates for strapping.

Strap armor to fit.

Paint rivets on armor:

Ab & Kidney rivets

Thigh ammo pack rivets

Assemble Bucket:

Cap attached to Front

Ears Attached

S-Trim attached

Install Bucket interior:

Install Fans

Install EAS

Complete electronics to external battery

Paint bucket:

Traps

Tears

Vocoder

Ears

Interior

Submit photo’s for TKID, then EIB and lastly Centurion.

​

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Nice work Brandon. I know the progress can appear to be endless but your doing great and moving forward. Soon enough you'll be trooping with the rest of us.      

[spacebrew]

Looking great brother! can't wait till you start trooping with us

 

 

 

Sent from my TK comlink via Holonet

[Khazid[TK]]

Build Log – 9/28-10/23 – The Final Steps

Yet again I find myself making an update to my build by having to start with an apology. Nearly a full month has gone by with no word from this thread. However; I got myself into a serious groove and I have completed this build, yes that’s right, completed!

 

Earlier tonight I submitted my application to the 501^st and while waiting the next week or so for a response, I thought it would be time to get in these final updates to the build. Sadly, I forgot to take some photos along the way, but the progress is definitely documented in the final scope of the build itself.

 

So where did I leave off…..oh yeah, strapping and completion. I had made my way to the ab/kidney plate and it was time to get in the Centurion notch. One of the big benefits of MTK’s kit is that the kidney notch is already pulled for you.

I purposely waited until this moment to finish it on the off chance I would have to trim the kidney and the notch pulled in the armor would not be of the correct size. That didn’t happen, so I was able to follow the original pull to get the final result.

Once that was done, it was time to put in the split rivets. Three for the ab plate, three for the kidney plate. First up was getting the alignment on the ab plate. The rivet placement here will dictate where the rivets go on the kidney plate.

Using blue tape, I taped the two plates together to make sure my placement was even and would align properly once drilled. Looking good!

Even though blurry, here is the final installation.

Now it was time for snap plates. Lots of them to glue into place, so I tried to cover as much ground at the same time as possible. The far right of this shot are the plastic hand plates getting their elastic straps. I will use these with nomex gloves when not in Centurion deployment. The chemical gloves make me sweat a heck of a lot!

And here is where the first tube E6000 fell silent, giving its last drop to some snap plates.

Next up were the shoulder bridges. I first test fit them so I could label where they fit best. They were marked were ultimately I would apply the E6000.

Now they were clamped to the chest plate to dry for at least 24 hours. The sachets in the lower part of the plate are the interior snap plates. I wanted to do as much work as possible, so figured what the heck. Have multiple parts drying simultaneously.

For the right hand side of the armor (ab to kidney) I decided to keep the Han snap functional, saving myself one snap plate. To help support the bottom of the joint I went with elastic, which should give me a little movement while kitted up.

Elastic for the strapping was first measured, then cut and singed to seal the elastic to prevent fraying. I then used a white crayon to mark where to put the female snap.

A scrap piece of 2x4 with a 1/4” hole drilled gives me a space to poke the hot soldering iron through. The iron cauterizes the hole, again to help prevent fraying over time. This technique was used on all the strapping positions in the armor.

Now it was time to get back to the bucket. First up was taking the cheap pair of Amazon headphones and taking them apart. The ear covers came off super clean, just had to remove a few screws. What is great about these is the wiring does not run through the headset, so once removed I had clean oversized ear buds.

The squirrel fans were then put into run into conduit which I had already measured for the internal diameter of the bucket. Also pictured is the initial cutout of my circuit board, the master switch and the power input from the external Anker battery; which will be installed into the ab plate, just below the chest plate connection.

Next was joining the rear exhaust fans onto a single wiring circuit to eventually punch down on the circuit board. All these connections were soldered and then covered with heat shrink.

Here is the rear assembly. Exhaust fans, EAS system from Active Armor, scavenged headphone buds and mic tips.

I then started on the circuit board itself, doing all the work outside of the bucket of course.

The completed board was put into its casing, awaiting final installation.

Test fitting the installation.

I think it is important to note at this point that I have some work to do on these electronics. Once the installation was completed I was doing some test runs and sadly, the regulator is overheating causing the chip to spin down dropping the voltage way below the required 5 volts to run the fans and the EAS. I am going to take the assembly apart and install a heat sink using some scrap aluminum from my TD clips. I also am getting some pretty terrible bleed of fan noise into the EAS system via what can only be a ground loop. I already have a suggestion from a fellow member of my squad (Thanks Drew!) of putting a diode into the circuit to isolate the fan noise. I don’t have any experience with diodes, but some research showed that it is theoretically possible. These will be upgrades at a later time to fix these problems. Until then, sadly I have no fans and no EAS. I just have to suck it up, literally. LOL!

[Khazid[TK]]

Ok…back to the build. I then moved on to the cheesecloth installation. I cut up small squares (~2”x2”) in size and then glued them to the interior of the bucket using Elmer’s glue dabbed in just the corners; leaving most of the cheesecloth floating free.

I left the Maker’s Mark as visible as possible.

Two coats of plasti-dip were then applied using chip brushes. I did not want to use the spray version. Now…if you thought E6000 was strong, try working with plasti-dip. I had to use my respirator the stuff is that strong! Thankfully, the smell completely dissipated after about three days of curing, with a fan running 2 hours a day to promote air exchange. Here are two shots of the finished product. The first is with flash, the second is without.

I am very pleased with the final outcome, and the cheesecloth definitely adds a create texture to the inside of the bucket.

 

It was now time to paint the details. I quickly armed myself with my favorite #2 and #0 brushes some nail sticks, a rag for cleaning and the Trooperbay templates.

I first masked off all the areas that would be getting gloss black and covered those areas entirely. The reason for this is I wanted a consistent underbase of black. This made the next steps of adding grey much easier. First, it gives you a nice consistent base for the grey to lie on top of. Second, grey really likes to have a darker base coat; it comes out richer in the final product. Especially when using thinned paints, which I always use when doing modelling. For the bucket, I thinned my paints at 12%. Every 10cc of paint was 8.8cc paint and 1.2 cc airbrush thinner (Testor’s brand, will not harm ABS). When painting with thinned paint like this it takes more coats, but I find there is more control and it allows me have a clean surface with little to no brush strokes visible.

The next shot shows you the tube stripe template. I used a chalk pencil I had laying around to help me line it up with the cheek for proper distance.

After four coats of the French blue I was able to lift the templates, clean up with nail care sticks dipped in Mineral spirits. Here is the right hand side of the bucket, now painted complete.

Here is the left rear trap. Can you find the exhaust vents??? They are almost impossible to see, the striping within the traps completely camouflages them. That was a victory for me there, until this very moment; I had no idea if that mod was going to be able to be pulled off.

Here is the left side of the bucket.

And the front, the vocoder and mic tips are painted in satin black. I was very happy with the vocoder layout. I was able to get this painted essentially free hand. Little clean up with the nail sticks was needed. I just got myself into a good groove and pulled it off. Of course, it did take five coats of the satin black to get to this saturation.

From here I just moved on to the final touches. The split rivets on the Ab/Kidney joint were painted white. I installed both the brown trim and S-Trm in the bucket. And then…then I was done.

 

Updated Final Checklist:

Install split rivets in left joint of Kidney & Ab plates

Glue shoulder bridges to the chest plate

Strap armor to fit.

Paint rivets on armor:

Ab & Kidney rivets

Assemble Bucket:

S-Trim attached

Install Bucket interior:

Install Fans

Install EAS

Complete electronics to external battery

Paint bucket:

Traps

Tears

Vocoder

Ears

Interior

Submit photo’s for TKID, then EIB and lastly Centurion.

[Khazid[TK]]

My journey to become a TK is now ended and the adventure of being a part of the 501^st has now begun. I look forward to every step and every blaster bolt.

 

I promise to post pictures of me in full kit soon. The first round that I took did not turn out well and will be redone. I hope to have them up in the next week or so, a lot is on my calendar right now.

 

Until then….

[Airborne Trooper[501st]]

Great work! Congrats on finishing. I'm sure you'll have your TK # soon!

[Khazid[TK]]

As promised...and sooner than I thought, here are some detailed photos of the entire kit being worn by yours truly.

[Khazid[TK]]

Great work! Congrats on finishing. I'm sure you'll have your TK # soon!

 

Thank you Jason.

[Khazid[TK]]

Woke up to an e-mail in my inbox that my costume has been approved by my GML. Just waiting on my official TK ID from the legion now. If anyone has comments for improvements to make before I go to EIB they would be appreciated...otherwise, EIB within the next week, maybe two.

 

So excited now...

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Alright Brandon 

[Khazid[TK]]

TK 19725 reporting for duty. 

[The5thHorseman[TK]]

Congratulations, and welcome in the 501st!

[starsaber25[Admin]]

Congrats Brandon. Another great example of a MTK kit. Great job!

[Trogdor[TK]]

Congrats!  Hope to join you soon.

[Khazid[TK]]

Build Log – 11/6/15 – EIB Repair#1

During the review of my EIB application it was discovered that I had incorrectly attached the ammo pack to the inside of my thigh. I have no idea what I was thinking when I did that, but it is wrong so it is time to get it fixed.

 

First up was to gather the tools for the repair. The speed rivet (or cap rivet if you prefer) must be removed so I can move the pack attachment down onto the ridge of the inner thigh. To do this, I will use a flat head screwdriver, end nipper pliers and a shop rag.

 

I used the screwdriver to loosen the rivet from the inside of the thigh. This way any surface damage would be on the inside and I won’t scratch the ammo pack. Once it was loose enough to get the pliers under the cap, I used the shop rag to protect the surface and snipped off the head of the rivet. It should now be loose enough to push through the armor and release the ammo pack.

 

Now it was time to repair the hole. I will use scrap ABS to patch the inside of the armor, glued on with 2 part epoxy. ABS paste will then be used to patch up the hole.

 

I used a small paint mixing vial to create the paste, layering on just enough pure acetone with a syringe. Stirring with the craft stick to get a nice even consistency. Add acetone as needed until all the ABS chips are dissolved. Do not over stir as this will introduce air bubbles, which will not make for a clean repair. I went for the consistency of maple syrup.

 

Apply the paste to the area with the craft stick. As the ABS will shrink slightly as the acetone evaporates, layer up the mixture.

 

Then wait patiently for it to dry. If you want to accelerate that process, wait at least an hour for a primary skin to form on the repair and then you can use a hair dryer on low from a distance of at least a foot to blow warm air over the repair. This will speed up the drying time.

 

Once dry, I used a file to sand down the repair to the surface, then progressing grits of sandpaper from 220 to 320 and finally 1000 to sand to the surface. Novus 2 and then Novus 1 was then applied to finish it off.

 

It looks like I introduced some impurities into my paste, which are showing up as dark flecks. From a distance of a couple of feet though it is not noticeable, and since this is the inside of my thigh, it is highly unlikely that this little dot will ever be seen.

 

All that was left was to drill the position properly for the pack, attach a new speed rivet and then paint it. Repair completed, hopefully this will get me over the hump for EIB.

[Jaren[TK]]

Looks good!