pandatrooper

My thoughts are with you, at least everyone in your family is safe! Hopefully the worst is over and you can rebuild. Stay strong buddy!

You'll pretty much need a heat gun to do it. Warm up the plastic over a large area, keep the gun moving and don't use a smaller tip / funnel. Keep it a pretty good distance away and keep it moving! You'll slowly soften the plastic, so that you can shape it the way you want. Try to avoid using your finger tips to bend the plastic, as you may leave depressions. You might also want to wear some cheap cotton gardening gloves to protect your hands and keep the bending smooth.

It's funny, at all of my local stores I've seen tons of these. But almost no stores had E-11 blasters in stock, I was looking for an E-11 for months, so I ended up buying one on the Bay. Then on Sunday, I found a white E-11 at wallyworld so I bought it.

I don't have one, but personally I would suggest hand washing an item that might be fragile or needs to retain it's shape. Throwing it in a washing machine with jeans and whatnot is going to beat it up. Just hand wash it in a small plastic bucket with a couple drops of detergent and cool water, rinse thoroughly, hang to dry. That's the safest for anything. Extreme washing and drying will break down the elasticity of Lycra quickly, so you don't want to do that. It looks like it's made of Lycra, which is synthetic and shouldn't shrink. Cotton and wool shrink, but Lycra doesn't. Have you considered contacting Oiftanker for a neckseal? I know he was making some a little while back. Might be another option for you.

Thanks guys for the feedback. Many interesting points. Dmian, it's funny you mention that people can see more colors. I'm an artist / designer / art director by trade, so I always refer to colors in hues / values, etc.. I looked at my armor and thought "that doesn't look white at all!". but I guess it does match the hues of the movie armor. Pictures, film, post production and lighting can be very deceiving. One of my first jobs out of college was working at a animation studio, and in post production it was my job to evaluate colors and catch "single frame mistakes" caused by the animators in Asia on the cartoon. Nowadays, I use the same skills in my day job (video game design). It's good to see that others understand these principles too!

Looks cool. Another thing you can use is paintball goggles, they make replacement lenses in different colors and chrome and iridescent finishes. Look up companies like Vforce, Dye, etc.

Warm up the old velcro gently with a hair dryer (keep it moving to soften the glue). Peel the old velcro off, and clean the surface with Goo gone or some safe emulsifier for adhesive. Clean the surface to remove any oil, and use heavy duty velcro instead. Either that, or go with the snap plates method.

I know this must be a subjective question, but I've noticed that different types of armor are different shades of white. AP to me looks "white". TM and others look very bright white in some pictures and almost "warm" off-white or "eggshell" in others. I've seen some that look almost cooler grey. I know a lot of people paint their armor depending on the material, but what color is a true ANH style armor? In ANH, everything looks bright white (due to lighting?), but photos of the actual props after the shoot look almost a light tea with milk colored beige. I also notice a lot depends on lighting, where a photo was taken etc.. For "today's" armor, I usually look a TK's boots. If the boots are Caboots (which are glossy and almost pure neutral white) you can tell if the armor is warmer, cooler, more grey, etc.. So I guess my question is, should the armor be a warmer color to look like the actual movie prop, or plain white?

Just make sure they're not the style that's like "modern" Italian inspired, where the toe is really long. Might throw the trooper proportions off.

Thanks Tiffanie, looking forward to seeing the tutorial! I'm also looking into paint methods, as I forgot a Used to use special paints for airbrushing fabric, and I found that some are designed for use on leather. I might try this out, pending your results! Thanks in advance.

Hey Tiffanie, I have a question for you. You seemed to have worked with leather before, so you might know. Even if you deglaze a black boot, will you get rid off enough of the black to actually dye the leather white? Most black jodhpurs that i've seen that were "dyed" didn't turn out that great. The better ones have been painted, since the white paint is more opaque than leather dye, is it not? Also, the Feibings white leather dye is spirit based (which I assume grabs better than water based paints). Would you still need to sand the leather first? This is all just based on what I've read so far, so any insight you can offer would be great (to a person who's looking at getting some jodhpurs and dying / painting them). Thanks!

Looking forward to seeing the results / tutorial. I've been reading up on all the threads about dying / painting, as I probably need to head down the Jodhpur / dye / paint route. Thanks for the info so far!

Black Jodhpurs are easy to find. If you're looking for white TK boots and Caboots has them in stock in your size, I would buy them now. You might get stuck with no boots like me when they run out!

Looks pretty good to me. The sole looks like a dark brown and underneath it looks black. Might just need some black on the sides / edges? Looking at the bottom, the toe might be a little round / squarish, I think Chealsea's were ever so slightly pointier, but that's a minor detail. I think the only thing that might help more is a slightly taller height to the boot, depending on how your armor sits. If the boot is too low sometimes it might get "un tucked" from the shin armor. For other US options, try looking up "paddock" boots for horse riding / equestrian. Great find tho!

Hey Steve, I bought E6000 from Michael's craft stores. I've been to the stores in Burnaby and Richmond, they both have it. Michaels also has Tandy leather snaps and tools if you need to make snaps. I'm not 100% sure on hard hat liners being sold separately, but I have seen hard hats at Home depot and Rona. I've also seen cheap hard hats and safety shields in green (visor) for sale at Princess auto. Great deals there!

Yeah, I think I'll have to do that for now. BTW: see update above.

I've been trading e-mails with Caboots for the last week or so. If you look on their site, they have no smaller sizes in stock, and do not expect any for some time as their supplier (they didn't make the TK boots themselves) went out of business. They've just been selling what they have left. I asked when they might expect the boots to be restocked, and all they could say was "in the future" with no ETA. I asked for at least a vague ETA but haven't gotten a response back yet. *** Update: I got an e-mail from them, they said 3 months - possibly more.*** I did also ask what it would take to make a custom pair in my size (I'm looking for mens 8.5 TK boots for what seems like forever now. Well at least many many many months!) and they gave me a quote of $300. It sort of surprises me that no other manufacturers make these types of boots for more reasonable prices. I've seen other items come out of Asia or India with good quality for much cheaper, and yet there's not many choices available. Sigh... I guess I might need to go the Jodhpur / Chelsea dyed leather route. I know it's authentic, but also more high maintenance than I wanted the solution to be.

Shoe goo was originally developed to repair shoes. It's very durable, and cures with a slight thickness and remains flexible, that's the key. If you're gluing on soft plastic, you need a flexible adhesive. I'm sure the troops here can suggest other adhesives, but that's what i use on anything that needs to remain flexible. Have you considered sewing loop velcro to the elastic straps, and then applying some hook velcro to the plate? This way, the velcro attaches the plate to the strap, but you won't need to put velcro on the gloves since the strap holds it on.

Shoe goo works great on flexible materials. I used to repair RC car bodies (very flexible). I would spread some onto the plate, then some on the elastic strap, and hold them down with clothes pins or clamps (not too tight). Stick some wax paper between the elastic and clamp to prevent the clamp from sticking to the elastic. Just have one strap wrap around your wrist, and another at the base of your fingers.

I've tried mailing them at the e-mail address on their site a few times on separate occasions with no reply. I just want to check on their stock status and how much shipping will be. Does anyone know them or how to get in touch with them? Thanks

I'm working as hard as I can, I'd love to make it into the EIB 100. Finding boots that meet CRL requirements in my size is the key! Argh!!!

Thanks for the feedback, I'll probably do something similar. Your blaster looks great BTW! Does anyone know if holes and slots in a blaster will affect EIB at all?

You're so lucky. I'm an 8.5. They haven't had any in a looong time. Check my thread in the WTB section. I've been in touch with them and am contemplating getting them to custom make a pair for me (price unknown).

I noticed most people that mod the Hasbro blaster for a sound board (Hyperdyne, Plecter, etc..) pretty much mod the blaster with a resin kit, and install the sound kit. But with the extra resin parts glued on (especially the Hengstler counter), do you find the volume is decreased? Has anyone drilled extra holes or modified their blaster to allow the sounds to come out better? I have an idea of what i want to do, just want to see if anyone else has done something similar for advice before I start drilling holes in my blaster! Also wondering if this would affect EIB status at all? Thanks!

Awesome, congrats Steve! Can't wait to see it, make sure post some pics! I'm working some suspenders / garter things as a harness for the torso, and building snaps for my armor build. I might have a different way to do the snaps, if it works out I'll post my findings. I also got my crappy $30 boots from Fleabay (yes, I know they won't pass for CRL, but it's all I can find for now in my size until caboots can make some more).