TK-9921 Requesting ESB Stunt Stormtrooper EIB Status [RS](1066)

[evnltr[TK]]

Thank you all for the feedback!  It helps tremendously!  Belt cuts and cleanup are done.  I thought I might share how it came out.   I will be moving on to the thigh pieces to fill in the small gap on the back side with white sugru next.  I'll post here if I have any other questions on those.  

 

 

[evnltr[TK]]

I'm now moving on to the thigh gaps.  I got small ABS pieces added inside to be a back side to the sugru.  I added the sugru following one of the guides on the forum.  I took two shots to show how it looks.  One was with the flash inside and the other outside.   How is this looking?    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[evnltr[TK]]

It wasn't listed as something to fix on my EIB thread, but I thought for peace of mind I better ask.  The right is covered up by the small ammo belt, however does the left side need to have the sugru too?  

 

[Chemi[Staff]]

hace 46 minutos, evnltr dijo:

It wasn't listed as something to fix on my EIB thread, but I thought for peace of mind I better ask.  The right is covered up by the small ammo belt, however does the left side need to have the sugru too?  

 

 

 

Yes, add a little bit, it will look much better! 

 

Everything looks great! Thank you for all the photos you're posting. They will be a big help to future Centurions!

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

When in doubt always check the gallery references 

 

     

[evnltr[TK]]

I've begun work on the sniper knee plate.  Watching football during Thanksgiving let me have something on in the background to pass the time.  It took about an hour to remove and I took my sweet time.  I took the exacto knife with cut resistant gloves (as a safety) and slowly cut along the adhered spots of glue and got it to pop off.  I was happy I did not damage the knee plate.  I had one close call of a slip but I luckily miss cutting the armor.  Just going super slow and taking breaks for my hand worked.  

 

So that was part 1.  Part 2 is clean up.  Part 3 is gluing the plate back on in the proper position.  Let me ask about Part 2.  So after the plate is removed, RS had their spots of where they glued it before (and their pencil line).  A portion of the residual glue spots would be visible once I put the plate back on.  So the old glue needs to go.  My question is what is the best way to do it?  They are rock hard.  More slow cuts?  Use a file?  Once the glue is gone it needs sanding and polish, right?  

 

 

 

 

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

With some acetate/super glue you can submerge in warm salty water and soak, same thing happens when get glue on your fingers, it's the warm salt/sweat that helps soften the glue then you can use something to scrape off. I have also heard but not tried leaving the part in the freezer, then pry off the glue free. 

 

Worst case scenario would be to sand but that also includes a lot of fine sanding wet then compound and polish to get the shine back. 

 

Just one of the many threads on removing glue

 

[evnltr[TK]]

Thank you so much for this information!  I'll take a look at that thread too.   I'll post back when I have new updates.  Cleanup make take a little bit on this one....

[evnltr[TK]]

I tried a couple of the tricks like WD40, dip in warm soapy water or dip in warm salt water, and I had very little luck to get the prior CA glue off.  My Unbonder just arrived.  I'll be using it this week and posting results.  I also bought the Novus kit of heavy scratch, light scratch, and polish after I'm done.  Hope to have some updates soon.  

[evnltr[TK]]

Prep for the Unbonder.  Not going to lie. I'm a little nervous.  LOL.  I put electrical tape all around the glue parts.  That way the runoff doesn't hit any other plastic.  Unbonder is very thin liquid.  So it will run.   I'll have warm soapy water next to me to wipe off as soon as the glue comes off.   I'm going to post some trooper hacks like my time catching watch ring tonight on the forum.   Then I'll come back to this Unbonder part.  

Edited December 9, 2025 by evnltr

[evnltr[TK]]

Note:  Do not use black electrical tape for this or on the armor.   Lesson learned.  The black tape left some black residue when I took it off to do a test placement on the knee piece.  I had to use goo done.  That worked fine and got it off but it gave me a scare for a minute.  

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Our Goo Gone here down under will eat plastic so it may have a higher acid base. With anything it's always best to try before you apply. 

 

Once I found I had a couple of black marks on my boots and tracked it down to the microphone, had some rubber on the ear section. luckily it did rub off with some elbow grease and polish. 

[evnltr[TK]]

I wiped down the armor after the goo gone with warm water.  I try to always do a wipe off rinse any time I put anything different on the armor.  I'm glad you reminded me though!   Never considered the acid content in goo gone!  

 

I've started my prep to try Unbonder, but first I think it's better to get my planned placement of the knee piece.  I can then pencil that in and reference that once the old glue is off.  How does the position look here if I use this placement for the knee piece?  

[evnltr[TK]]

Shin piece update.  I got the glue off.  I tried the freezer and that did nothing.  The thin residue was not coming off in that manner for anything.  So, I went Unbonder.  It did nothing with 2 min of carefully dabbing the glue spots.  When I let the Unbonder sit 5 minutes, it helped some.  I was able to get a flat exacto knife piece under the thicker parts and pop them off.  But the Unbonder just wouldn't remove the thin residue glue. I also wasn't willing to let it soak a long time to risk any staining.   My last resort was the dremel.   I had to use really small sanding heads and carefully sand off the thin residue.  Then I hand sanded the rest.  After that was done I did 3 rounds of Novus Heavy scratch remover, Light scratch remover. and the Shine/Protect.  I did 3 rounds of that.  The sanding took 8 hours total over the weekend.   Yowza!    The results are below.    Now that the glue is gone, I put the knee plate on again to pencil mark placement before gluing.  How does this knee plate placement look?

 

[evnltr[TK]]

I've got my Sniper Knee plate trimmed.  I think I got this pretty good.  I just drew a little pencil line on the angle I wanted and then sanded it by hand to get the angle.  I had a firm folded piece of sand paper so it would go a little quicker.  This did not take too long to do.   It's no longer curved and not too sharp.  Here's my question for when I glue the sniper plate back to the shin.  What are the thoughts on using CA Glue again or using E6000?  I'm leaning towards the CA super glue, but I wanted to see what might be best when I reattach this piece.  

 

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

1 hour ago, evnltr said:

Here's my question for when I glue the sniper plate back to the shin.  What are the thoughts on using CA Glue again or using E6000?  I'm leaning towards the CA super glue, but I wanted to see what might be best when I reattach this piece.  

 

Personally I would use the E6000, yes takes longer to dry, especially under any strain (ie: using tape to twist or pull into alignment), I like to leave clamped for 48 - 72 hours.

 

I know a few troopers that have cracked their sniper plate, one broke a corner off completely and needed to replace, CA glue would give you all the same issues you've just encountered, if you're not going to be as rough with your kit as these troopers then I guess go with the CA glue

[TikiTechie[TK]]

On 12/17/2025 at 8:11 PM, gmrhodes13 said:

Personally I would use the E6000, yes takes longer to dry, especially under any strain (ie: using tape to twist or pull into alignment), I like to leave clamped for 48 - 72 hours.

 

I know a few troopers that have cracked their sniper plate, one broke a corner off completely and needed to replace, CA glue would give you all the same issues you've just encountered, if you're not going to be as rough with your kit as these troopers then I guess go with the CA glue

I would 1000% second using E6000 for adhesive. I have never had any issues with anything failing and since I had issues with a too-narrow shin, I was able to separate and remake it twice(!).  I am not as patient and had fine luck waiting < 24 hours for glue to cure. Usually doing it after inner and then unclamping pieces the next morning-ish.   I am way to unskilled to glue something once forever. :). 

[evnltr[TK]]

Hi all, I've finished my knee piece over the holidays.  And I think I have a problem that got me upset at myself.  I've never had this happen before, but I got "clamp dents".  I always put thick foam between the clamp points to avoid this, and it's never been a problem before, but I did let the clamps stay on the armor a little longer than I normally do because I was using E6000.  So, two questions:

 

1.  Does the alignment and placement of the sniper knee now look good for Centurion?

 

2.  What do I do about these little dents (little one on each side and one on front sniper knee plate -essentially the gluing contact points)?  I don't even know how to go about fixing those.  Or are they so subtle that it wouldn't block Centurion?  

 

 

[Chemi[Staff]]

Hi, Justin. The alignment looks fine to me. I have no problem with the space between the knee and the shin.

However, those dents worry me a little. We will definitely discuss it at the DO office, and the three of us will decide whether it is valid for Centurion level or not. Please give us a little time, as these days are complicated...

 

Thank you!   

[TheSwede[TK]]

If the DO team is happy with overall placement then in my opinion (as a former DO) I would say those small marks should not prevent L3.

[Chemi[Staff]]

Hi Justin. Good news. The DO team thinks those dents are not a problem for Centurion level.

 

[evnltr[TK]]

Thank you for meeting and discussing this on my behalf.  I would do what you all request, but I won't lie I was sweating your decision.  I hope that my efforts and examples will help others in the future to watch clamp dents.  Oddly after I took the clamps off, the dents lessened just a little.  It had to settle I guess.  But I will move on to the next parts.  Again, thank you for the quick posts to let me know so I don't get myself freaked out or working harder than I need to.  I have a few more Centurion updates to do and I'll be posting those here soon.  I'm on holiday break this week, so watch for more updates and questions.  This trooper is moving forward.  :)

Edited December 29, 2025 by evnltr

[evnltr[TK]]

I'm working on the next two items on the list.  

 

1.  The space gap of armor to the Han snap.  To me, it looks like just about .5".  I did a pencil line first before I was going to do a cut to make sure I'm in the right place.  So the first question, is do I have the right amount to cut off?   This pretty much cuts where the return edge is on this side of the ab plate.    Is that ok?  And do I need to balance the other side of the ab plate and cut a similar amount off or just this one side?   I plan to put the armor on and put it on tight to see if I can still close the shell tight and not have a gap by the Han snap.  I'm a pretty slim to medium build guy and I've only gained a couple of pounds this year which is unusual for me, but I don't think will affect the closure much.  If it does, I'll be back to the gym and doing crunches!

 

 

 

2. I'm going to look at my kidney and posterior plate alignment too.  It was mentioned for my Centurion recommendations that I may need to use a V-Tab to help make them align.  I was hunting around on the forum for examples of these.  Does anyone happen to have any good pics of these?  I wasn't too sure of exact size, position, number, and placement of these V tab pieces to get those to help that backside alignment.  I assume these get velcroed or glued (E6000) in place? 

 

 

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Vacformed plastic is very difficult to heat without warping, especially with pieces that have details or corners/angles, that being said I've had success with other troopers armor by using blocks of wood either side of a distorted area, gently heat the area then clamp the wood together (I use MDF as it's smooth and doesn't leave grain marks. Not something you want to attempt without a lot of practice, luckily you won't have to with the DO's allowing it.

 

Sounds like you have space to trim that piece off, but if you don't want to remove that piece next to the han snap you could always remove the snap, glue a piece of plastic behind the hole then fill the hole with ABS paste, sand and polish then drill a new hole.

 

 

V Tab info

With a heat gun you bend strips of ABS plastic into the shape of a V, only glue one side and the other remains free to allow movement when you bend. Just helps stop the butt plate from pushing back from the back plate.

 

 

 

A couple of builds with V tabs

 

 

[evnltr[TK]]

Thank you Glen!  I'm going to work on the V tabs.  Colin's thread had the measurements and visuals I was looking for.  Much appreciated.  I'll drop pics once I build and try them out.

 

I'm struggling with the Han snap and my options.  I'm on the fence for both options.  I'll think about those some more.  It feels like the cut would be the easiest for me, but then I'd be .5" off balance from the other side and those rivets are in the right spot there.  So I can't really take from it to balance the cut.  I'm come back to this one.