gazmosis

I am puting the final touches on my DLT 19 and need the measurements for the battery box (if that is the right name for it) if not....the box that covers the belt feed slot. I will post pics after I find these measurements and build the box. This is sweet!!!

Been there....done that. In order to guarantee that your next paint job won't wrinkle, you are going to need to sand it anyway. Give yourself some time and get some 600 grit, wet sandpaper. Don't really "get after it" if you know what I mean. Just sand it evenly and use a lot of water. Depending on how many coats you need to sand off will determine how long you will be sanding. But you will need to get down to the original surface in order to remove whatever messed up your paint job in the first place. Don't risk your lid to save a little time with paint removers. Nothing is more heartbreaking than seeing your lid SLOWLY melting. After you sand it down to the original surface, wipe it down with an alcohol pad to remove any oils or other foreign fluids. LIGHTLY hit the helmet with primer. Let this set up for about 15 min. Lightly sand the primer coat and wipe down again. Then go ahead with your top coat. Less is more. Take your time! Even, light coats are better than heavy. 10-15 min between coats. You shouldn't need more than 3 or 4. I don't know where you are in the world, but if you are in a warm area( over 70 degrees F in the day) set your lid in the sun and let cure. Do this for several days to assure that the paint has cured. Unless you are a professional painter, you probably will have some small overspray spots that will appear duller than the rest of the helmet. This will rub out. Start with your 600 grit and a butt ton of water. Lightly begin to sand down the helmet with light circular strokes. If you have one of these dull areas, do the same with a smaller piece of the 600. You will see the water you are sanding with turn white. That's ok just don't sand with pressure. Let the sand paper do the work...you are just holding it against the surface. After a bit of sanding, move to 800 grit. Do the same. Then move to a liquid or a rubbing compound for clear, auto finishes. The gloss on your lid should be rather mirror like at this point. Lastly, apply your favorite wax and marvel at your work. Using these steps will actually confuse people into thinking you armor is ABS. But you need to donate the time. I know how you feel wanting to complete the armor and troop around But, you get out of, what you put into it. Good Luck!!!

Since you are going to need to cut the "vents" out of the decals anyway, cut the entire decal out but don't peel it off the backing. Carefully cut the vent slots out. Position this over the trap on the back of your lid and lightly tape it in place. with a sharpie, draw in the vent slots onto the lid. Rmove the decal and this will then be your guide for cutting out the slots. Then just position you decal over this for the final application. Hope this helps!

TK 4702 is a hero for building these clips!!!! The biggest difference between tk4702's and the belt clips from tandy leather is that the end of the tandy clips bend outward. This means heavt scratching to the kidney or butt piece. Tk4702's bend inward avoiding that. Spend the few extra $$$ for these. It's worth it!

I will say it that I am a big supporter of devcon plasti weld. It has a fast set time so make sure you know where you want it to go and where you don't. But if done right, 4 minutes and the piece is done.

This is how things spiral out of sorts. I know I am getting off track from the fan subject....... I don't have a local garrison because I have tried to become a 501st member but cannot because I can't provide a photo of me in my armor. I can't fit in it. Guess I'll just need to put p90X back in the DVD player.

Once the helmet is on, the vent slots are so thin that it is impossible to tell they are slots at all. Unlike the frown holes which you can fit a pencil through. it is obvious if they are not screened. So the answer is "no" I did not screen them. The electric draw on these fans are close to nothing. I Have tested these to run for several hours before showing signs of petering out. CONFESSION TIME!! I have never been to a trooping event. I am still too heavy to fit into any armor without it looking totally rediculous. I enjoy building and sharing info with others. I don't know how long an actual trooping event goes. How long is one actually in their lids?

I appreciate the info on the batteries that makes a ton of sense!!

Before my AP build, I had read many entries discussing cooling fans but nobody ever mentioned about getting the inevitably hot air that travels to the top of the lid out. Here is what I did. On the back of the lid are simulated vents. With a cutting wheel on my Dremel tool (and a steady hand) I made them functional. This might be challenging if you were using decals but I was painting my details so I didn't need to worry about that. I bought several different micro fans most of them measuring 3/4 inch thick. This turned out to be too thick for the back vents. I found 1/2 inch fans and that was the ticket. I have a small mellon so I have a little room at the top between my head and the fans. I still needed to put some screen over it so my hair doesn't get into the blades and stop them. I mounted them with a little hot glue and made sure they were facing out before doing so. I did the same with the mouth fan except this is pointing inward drawing fresh air in. There are two, 9V battery packs on the back. One pack has a single 9V for the mouth fan, and the other has 2-9V wired together (for 18V) for the back vent fans. All fans turn on and off with the single switch. I was told that I was the first one to do this. With all the brilliance I have read so far I find that hard to believe but this is my 2 cents.--------------

Now all I need to do is drop 45 lbs. to actually fit in a set of armor. That day will be glorious!!!! Hope to see you al some day!! TK too fat to be a TK

No packaging just a label on the rake that says: AMES est.1774 our tools built america 30 in. poly leaf rake I was at Menards a couple days ago and saw that they have similar rakes with similar fingers. Most were red but if you are going to paint the blaster as I did, it wont make a difference.

O.K. Troopers!!! Here are the pics of the finished E-11 using the rake t-tracks. Hope you like it!!!

I will try this....AGAIN for the UMPTEENTH X 36 time. I HOPE this will finallt show the rake, the comparisons to the blastech track, the "rake"track on my unfinished blaster. NOTE: the track is not yet glued on the blaster.

Sorry guys!!!! I am fairly new to posting and was so psyched to get the info out I posted withoout pics. I will get them up ASAP.

I am building a PVC blaster and needed t-track. I have some rubber, Blastech track left over from a previous build but not enough to do my new blaster. I wanted plastic anyway. I searched through all hardware and hobby type stores in my area. I stumbled upon an unlikely source. In the garden section of Home Depot, a brand of lawn rake called Ames 30" lawn rake. All the "fingers" are t-track shaped, black and plastic!!! After you cut them out, you will have 26, 6 1/2 inch pieces of t-track for $11!!!! Here's the bad news, though. They are CLOSE but not perfect in the accuracy department. A side by side with Blastech's show blastech is 1/2 inch wide and the rakes are 7/16. Also with the rakes, it tapers slightly from one end to the other. Both the rake and Blastechs "t" is 1/4 of an inch tall but the rake's taper to 1/8 at the end. I know this may be a turn-off to some. But there are those who say that close is good enough. Perhaps other rakes might offer better. Keep a watch out as more rakes come out for fall raking season!!!!

Devcon plastweld all the way. There is n o aspect of building trooper armor that should not be dry fitted 3-4 or 20 times before final gluing. If you are that careful, you will have as good success with a glue that sets in 24 hours or one that sets in 6 min. Just remember that with any glue, you need to mask off all gluing surfaces if you paint your armor parts prior to assembly.

The stuff I used is a metal mesh available at hobby stores. It is used to form mountains for train diaramas. It costs about $5 and you get enough to make about 1000 hovis.

I just inished my hovis and I am damn happy with them. I referenced the hovis I bought from "keith" overseas. They are black with a white insert. The screen is sandwiched between the outside of the insert and the inside of the hovi for a clean look. I bought a set of hovis with no screen, insert or hardware. Here's what I did. The Hovi mic's inside diameter is exactly 5/8 of an inch. This is the same OUTSIDE diameter of white PVC plumbing pipe. First, I carefully drilled out the hovi with a 5/8 forstener drill bit. This is a woodworkers bit that drills flat bottomed holes. But any 5/8 bit should do. The pipe then fit perfectly into the hovi......too perfect because it left no room for the screen. I took the pipe to the bench grinder and ground down the outside of the pipe until it fit in the hovi with a little room to spare. IT DOESN'T TAKE MUCH. I then determined how much pipe I wanted in the hovi. There should be a little room in the hovi between the insert and the end of the tip. I cut the pipe to length, sanded the end of the pipe flat to get rid of any rough edges, wrapped my mesh around it, and carefully pressed it into the hovi. I was left with an opening at the bottom of the hovi where the screw post will be. I took a small piece of 1/8 inch thick plastic, drilled a small hole and inserted my screw all the way down. I then took this to the bench grinder and ground the edges down intil it fit into the opening at the bottom. Placed it in and epoxied it. DONE!!!