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48" FOTK kid's armour with blaster conversion


Shrapnel

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So I found one of the 48" Battle Buddies in January sales for €79.

After seeing a few of the build threads on here, I figured it's time to do the same for my 7 year old son Finn (and no, I haven't asked if he wants the bloody handprint yet!).
That's Finn hiding behind the Battle Buddy - you can just see his blond hair behind the helmet. Perfect fit.

And the BB taken apart.

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Next up was the easy part.

I used my jig-saw to carve off the neck, shoulder joints, thighs, knees and feet.
I was able to cut really close with the jig-saw, which meant there wasn't a lot of extra plastic to sand away with my Dremel.

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Shaping the body parts was fun.
Cleaning out all the internal structure was a real chore (as previous posters have quite rightly pointed out).

But the armour looks pretty good once done.

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Next up is make shims for inside the right shoulder and right forearm. They are held together with screws, some of which I've had to remove to make room for my son's arm.
The left arm is one long single piece, so easy to cut up and shape.

 

Then I've got the thighs and shins to do. Looks like the thighs will also need shims to hold them together as I've had to remove all the screw posts.

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BLASTER CONVERSION

The BB comes with sound effects electronics mounted on the inside of the chest/torso armour.
This consists of an activation button, small speaker, battery pack, control board, an on/off switch, plus motion activation sensor.
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After playing around with the parts, I realised there was a good chance it would fit into the F-11D that came with the BB.
The F-11D is child-sized, but still not a bad toy. Adding sounds would definitely make it cooler in my son's eyes.

 

The hardest part was the battery pack. Using the Dremel, I shaved off as much as possible of the battery box walls until it fit inside the central part of the F-11D.
I also removed support plastic from inside the central part of the F-11D, but tried to leave as many screw mounts as possible.
The speaker sits behind the battery pack.
I cut off the motion sensor parts as they won't be needed.

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I cut a hole for the on/off switch on the underside of the body.
I wanted to make the trigger functional, but the activation button is fixed on a board which didn't fit in the space available.
So I compromised and cut a hole for the button on the side of the trigger. Still works pretty well.

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And the finished product...
A good friend 3-D printed Tony's (shenphong of the GGG) great-looking handgrip, which we've added in the photo below.
Then when the armour is finished, we'll repaint the blaster so it looks a bit more accurate.

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Edited by Shrapnel
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Beautiful start, and that F-11D is brilliant!!

 

I wish I'd have thought to do so with my son's before I glued the handgrip to it.  That's an awesome idea!  Keep at it!!

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Here's one myself and a friend made for her little girl (8). I did the rough cutting, taking out all the innards, trimming the component parts etc, she got it spray painted, joined it all together and made various other tweaks etc... came out nice! I'll be trooping together with her at a local charity fundraiser on Saturday :)

 

IMG_1350_zps9aoxhvow.jpg

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Here's one myself and a friend made for her little girl (8). I did the rough cutting, taking out all the innards, trimming the component parts etc, she got it spray painted, joined it all together and made various other tweaks etc... came out nice! I'll be trooping together with her at a local charity fundraiser on Saturday :)

 

IMG_1350_zps9aoxhvow.jpg

 

Wow, looks great!

What helmet and shoes does she have?

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Wow, looks great!

What helmet and shoes does she have?

It is actually a Rubies adult helmet! The shoes are just little (sorry, not sure what you might call them) 'plimsoles', or school gym type shoes with elastic at the side, painted. The moulded chaps on the battle buddy had to be removed as it was constricting the ankle, so her mum made her little craft foam replacements.
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  • 2 months later...

So I finally got around to finishing my son's armour.
Next up was the thighs, which were full of support plastic and took some time to clean out.
Because all the screw posts were removed, I used shims to glue to thigh halves to each other.

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The shins were a lot easier to do - there was a lot less plastic to clean out.
I also decided to leave the knee plates attached to the shins - we're not going for screen-accuracy here and leaving the knees attached to the shin armour means 2 fewer pieces to worry about losing.

I didn't use shims to join the shin halves. Instead, I glued 40mm elastic strips inside. This allows the shin armour to 'hinge' open, making the shins easy to put on and hopefully allowing for some growing space in the coming year or 2.

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As my son doesn't have any white shoes (and as it was the night before his first troop), I quickly made something from white craft foam to cover his shoes.
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Lastly, I picked up a Rubies child helmet on eBay. It's actually not a bad helmet... for kids!

Left: the original toy helmet; Middle: Rubies child helmet; Right: Anovos standard ABS helmet.

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At the start of April, I took him on his first troop - the opening of a Star Wars Lego exhibition at a museum. It was the perfect first troop for a 7 year old :)

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I did the same thing for my son two years ago. cca679491c68f81b8977a0de9f73f742.jpg

This is him the last time he wore it just two months ago. It's going to go through one more upgrade in hopes he can wear it for The Last Jedi showings and Troops.

You can see the whole progression at https://m.facebook.com/pg/DravensTotalCustoms/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1066385786758960&ref=page_internal&mt_nav=1

 

 

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Looks great, guys!  Can't wait until my little guy gets big enough to wear some. :)  I'd start on the armor now, but at the moment I kinda like the Stormtrooper keeping guard in my garage, LOL

 

The white Keds are a great idea for inexpensive TK boots.

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Looks great, guys! Can't wait until my little guy gets big enough to wear some. :) I'd start on the armor now, but at the moment I kinda like the Stormtrooper keeping guard in my garage, LOL

 

The white Keds are a great idea for inexpensive TK boots.

We have him wearing the leather slip-on Vans. The leather has that nice shine and I colored the sole rim black with plastic-dip.

 

 

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  • 10 months later...

Very intersting and has prompted me to make one for my son as we are going to a Comicon in Blackpool in May 2018 (UK). Just a couple of questions if you still remember this thread.

1. What glue(s) did you use ?

2. The Helmet I have got the same one and wondered what you used for the eye pieces and also the mouth mesh piece as it currently has 3 holes in. I`m just wondered whether to cut it out and replace it altogether.

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Very intersting and has prompted me to make one for my son as we are going to a Comicon in Blackpool in May 2018 (UK). Just a couple of questions if you still remember this thread.
1. What glue(s) did you use ?
2. The Helmet I have got the same one and wondered what you used for the eye pieces and also the mouth mesh piece as it currently has 3 holes in. I`m just wondered whether to cut it out and replace it altogether.
I used E6000 glue. Limo tint for the eyes and mesh from Halfords for the mouth.
Where abouts are you based?

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On 3/2/2018 at 11:46 AM, Ilnino said:

I used E6000 glue. Limo tint for the eyes and mesh from Halfords for the mouth.
Where abouts are you based?

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Ah right will try that thanks. I bought a motorcycle black visor insert for the eyes and in the garage I had a couple of sun screens for the kids I dont use anymore and if I overlap the mesh it looks perfect for the mouth. My new multi-tool came today so I`m nearly ready I think I just need a sheet of white plastic to use to stick the two parts together. Also going to paint the lot when its done as its not glossy enough. Not looking forward to doing the Rubies helmet I think its going to be a PITA to stick the two halves together.

 

 

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On 3/2/2018 at 10:16 PM, Varkanoid said:
Ah right will try that thanks. I bought a motorcycle black visor insert for the eyes and in the garage I had a couple of sun screens for the kids I dont use anymore and if I overlap the mesh it looks perfect for the mouth. My new multi-tool came today so I`m nearly ready I think I just need a sheet of white plastic to use to stick the two parts together. Also going to paint the lot when its done as its not glossy enough. Not looking forward to doing the Rubies helmet I think its going to be a PITA to stick the two halves together.
 
 

I'm near Warrington. I posted something a couple of years back on my build. If you need any advice pm me. I had mine primed and finished with car paint.

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3 minutes ago, Ilnino said:

I'm near Warrington. I posted something a couple of years back on my build. If you need any advice pm me. I had mine primed and finished with car paint.

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Thanks I've been searching and got 4-5 threads of others that have done the same to use as a guide. I was thinking of the same paint too.

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When I made the one for my son I used the Rubies two piece FO helmet. I used good old CA glue to put it together. The paint I used was Krylon Fusion Bright White. I’m glad to see that this mod has kept going. It all started with a simple YouTube video that inspired me to take what they did to the next level.


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I’m doing one too, biggest problem I’m having is getting the inside surface smooth.


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That’s the pain of this build. I used different rotary tools to gut the innards as well as a body saw.


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I lined the insides with white gaffers tape.  Looks great, stays put, and keeps things snag - free.  

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