revlimiter

My back sprain seems to have not been a sprain at all. It's just weak and in bad shape and I guess I strained it too much by diving into heavy exercise a month ago. I've been doing more PT style exercises to strengthen the weak lower back area. I've also been rolling around on the foam roller and some tennis balls. The balls let me hit pressure points and relax tense areas. It's made a world of difference. I also managed to dig a hole in the middle of my right hand while working on my car. Too much screwdriver pressure in the center of the palm, lol. Several layers of skin peeled up. Very yucky. It kept me from really grabbing much last week. It's mostly healed now. Stupid hand... So I've been jogging since I couldn't do much else. My dog LOVES it. I hate it. I'm not at all a fan of running, but it's been keeping me in workouts and raised heart rate. Overall health is still much improved over a month ago. Just some weakness in the body that's slowly getting addressed.

7/30/22 - School Supply Givewaway My 19th TK troop This was a huge school supply give away put on by a half dozen organizations around ABQ and held at a church. The scale of this giveaway was staggering. There must have been 3000 kids and each of them got a backpack, papers, pencils, binders, crayons, etc. It was incredible. 2.5 hours of trooping. 501st, Mercs, Rebels, Ghostbusters, and NM Avengers were all in attendance to entertain the families in the huuuuuuuuge line. Did I mention it was huge? Hours of standing in line. Mr Pool had the right idea for a costume abbreviation. I'm a little jealous. About here is where a kid said "aww, the Star Wars is taking a picture with Spiderman" and we both nearly fell over. One of two togruta mercs in the world. His armor was stunning. They had a concert and food event at the end once the school goodies were given out. The troopers were invited up to play.

Long long ago, Nikon had a really unique point and shoot with a rotating lens. I keep thinking how much fun it would be to hack one up and make it work in the electrobinocs. Coolpix S10 if you're wanting to search for it. It had a 10x optical zoom also.

If I'm telling you the obvious here, my apology. But that's the wrist comm pad molded to fit on the back of the TIE bucket. I'm about 98% sure that's right. Not many of the original buckets had that feature and none were on screen but yeah. Almost certain that's just the comm pad. I remember seeing it in the big TIE pilot helmet thread on RPF. I'd link it if I could find it, but that thread is eluding me right now. If you're asking where to get a comm pad molded to fit the helmet like that, I'd have to plead ignorance. I bet that you can get a flat vacuum formed one to work on the back of the bucket with enough glue, heat, and love. -edit- Found what I was looking for. https://www.therpf . com/forums/threads/original-tie-pilot-helmet-roll-call.328895/ remove the spaces from the URL. It wasn't letting me paste. ... and now I'm wondering if I'm breaking rules by pasting an RPF link.

So... I took circuits I and II in college as well as machine language and a few other such classes... and the old me that took those is embarrassed by this me who built the blaster. I could not find a really cheap chip. Nothing blank. No cheap ALU or anything. The best I could do was about $1 each from amazon. Not the most expensive prop addition ever, but also nowhere near as cheap as it should have been. They're 16 pin decoders. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CHTJZVM $10 for 10. 16 pin socket. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SWO3U1C $8 for 40. I'm sure somewhere else has 14 or 16 pin chips for much cheaper, but I just wanted the easy button lol. And all the 14 pin chips I found were much more than $1 each.

Thank you all! This was such a fun project. I hope I have the heart to install the BlastFX and reduce the accuracy...

Whew, over a month passed. I guess I've been putting off this update since I didn't wanna be "done" and put the blaster on the wall until my BlastFX kit comes. But DONE comes for us all... so here's the Leia Leveller's most screen accurate form that I am willing to achieve. I got the banana bend in the rail and totally reshaped the nose to fit nicely in the barrel. It didn't take a whole lot of effort, but a bit more than was expected. I also got the greebs from Joseph installed in their spots... though I suspect the rear one fell off for filming and was originally farther back. Starboard side. I just love this thing. So pretty. So satisfying to hold. The port side beauty shot. I'm very satisfied with this. And I'll be even more satisfied taking it all apart again to put in the BlastFX guts. and lastly... My daughter put on my torso and arms and posed for me. She's 10. The plastic was uncomfortable and the blaster was heavy. I didn't get the rubber gloves out. But having this shot fills my heart with happy little laser blasts.

Front raises are super super rough on rotator cuffs. I would never suggest those to anyone. There's many other ways to get upper chest activation. Definitely be careful if you want to do those. I do side lateral raises. Same thing, but directly to the side in a T formation. It's more for trap activation though.

My own week update: I sprained my back... no. That's not right. My back got sprained last Thursday. I have no idea how and there was no sudden twinge when I was bending over or anything. It just started to slowly hurt while I was sitting at the desk and then it hurt a whole lot. I've been lurching around like Frankenstein's Monster for most of the week. Not great. I stretched for over an hour yesterday which helped a lot and was able to do an abbreviated workout today. Not a lot of weight or cardio effect, but it felt good to work out. Fortunately, not much in the way of side effects from 4 days of sedentary life and then today with a small workout. Crohn's still on the ropes and scared of my newly found health.

Dumbbell exercises I like: Overhead press - it's a much more natural motion to do with dumbbells instead of a barbell since your head can fit between the dumbbells. Keep your shoulders back so that you're not cheating and lifting with your front shoulder (anterior head I think) and risking rotator injury. Bent over row - I prefer no bench for this. Get your legs in a front leaning stance and rest your elbow on your front knee (you'll be bending almost all the way forward to do this). Then grab the dumbbell and row with the free arm. Switch after 45-60 seconds. Tricep kick backs - basically the reverse of a bicep curl. You're leaning forward like with the row and straightening your arm. Gravity wants to make your arm bend into an L. Go slowly on the down stroke to get more out of it. Dumbbell squats - pretty simple. Rack your dumbbells on your chest and then squat. Dumbbell bench press - you can use the floor if you don't have a bench handy. I also like this more than using a barbell because your arms can naturally rotate on the down motion, which a barbell henders. You also can get a squeeze at the top for more chest activation. (Literally touch and then squeeze the two dumbbells together at the top of the motion.)

Dank farrik that's beautiful.

It's from Denix and it's really something. My metal E-11 came from Blaster Factory. I highly recommend it!!!

Congrats on your first troop Jim!!

As Mario said, step by step. You got this James! Any and all inches down are good inches. As for my own update, I'm still doing well. I've stepped the workouts back slightly because I was sore all the time and risking injury. I ride the bike and do core stuff on rest days and don't do heavy lifting days every other day. I'll do about 2 heavy lifts per week and the other lifting day with more cardio style. I also now own an EIGHTEEN LB (eight kg!!!) all metal DLT-19. It's ridiculous and insanely heavy. I want to be strong enough to troop with it someday. It's a goal. I can carry it about 10 minutes before I wanna put it down.

YAAAAAASSS!!! Looks so perfect.

YES!!!! Looking fantastic! Almost ready for your post. For inner elbow armor bites - try something like these cheap paintball helmet pads. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PGF4CTH One of the smallest ones up high on either the front or back edge should eliminate the bites. It'll either bring the armor super close to your skin and eliminate the bite, or bring the armor away from the skin and give clearance to eliminate the bite. My own armor has a pad on the inside for one arm and the outside for the other. It just happened to work best that way. And as a bonus, the larger pads work great on the front of the shin to keep the sniper knee spaced out. For back of the knee bites - scissors. Give the shins the mobility cuts.

Your sniper knee looks great!! And yeah, definitely E6000 on the ammo knee.

Your sniper knee looks good! That's just about how mine is. I boiled and reshaped that outside side a lot to get the top to sit flat, but yours looks quite close already. For your glove, get a thing of Plastic Bonder System. https://www.loctiteproducts.com/en/products/fix/super-glue/loctite_plasticsbondingsystem.html It worked perfectly on mine. A bit of sanding is required on both the glove and silicone but that's about the only trick.

That one bit of info is absolutely key for getting the AP sniper knee to align well. Boiling it helps reshape it correctly and get rid of the leaning issue, but that bottom edge needs to float above the cover strip. I filled mine in with 4 layers of cover strip plastic to give the knee bottom a base, just as Glen said.

Since the canvas holes match up with the ab plate holes, those are certainly for the snaps. You'll need to poke new holes to pair the ABS belt and canvas belt. And since they're already in your ABS, it should be quite simple to create the new holes in your canvas one. Try to pre-bend the ABS belt to a nice curve before you pair them up. You don't need to heat it or anything. Just give it a bit of curve to help it conform to the armor. A flat-built belt won't sit as nicely as a pre-curved one. DO NOT DRILL HOLES IN THE CANVAS! It will snag the material and rip. You want to poke the holes mechanically. I use a soldering iron. It makes a brown mark around the hole, but you'll never see it. Not sure what Mark used to make those beautiful, non-burned holes. It's possible (and not too hard) to fix holes drilled in ABS. It's much much harder to fix holes in that canvas belt. And also, I'm super flattered you're referring to my pix for Centurion.

YESS!!! Congrats Brit!!!! Well deserved as you built a hell of an armor set. Don't forget to request TK status here:

I'm positively beaming at these comments. Thanks for the kind words y'all. @Daetrin I keep my own phone hidden just behind my thigh armor. My DSG compression pants have a pocket for a phone right there that hides it perfectly, and between the thigh armor and holster, it's not at all visible. I can quickly slip it out for selfies and song changes though. It does just barely fit though since my thigh armor is quite tight. However... having a dedicated (and smol) older phone for music duties is a very good idea. When I snap a pic, the music either pauses for a second or totally stops. Then I have to restart it or repair the bluetooth... which really sucks at times. Something small in my chest pouch or HWT pack would totally solve that.

So it turns out I do have an update for this little build. I really didn't think I'd have anything more once I got the binocs sealed up. I made a little carrying case. This is a cheap 50 caliber ammo box from amazon. It just happens to be the right size to house a set of bincos. I painted and weathered to match my TK armor box. Of course there's a little plaque on top. I modeled this after vintage military plaques for similar gear. It reads "A unit of stereoscopic sights and enhanced magnification." The serial has my TK number in it, the bar code is my TK number, and it is, of course, property of the Imperial Stormtrooper Corps. All of this exists to protect the delicate volume knob. The resin holding that in place is super thin in order for the knob to mount and spin. It seemed like that could be damaged in transport to and from troops... so a case was in order. This was my first attempt at padding the inside of a case like this. It's adequate but not too pretty. Foam wrapped in black cloth. It should last a long time though, since no foam is being touched directly when taking the binocs in and out. also... the factory put out a 2nd binoc unit. The left set of binocs belongs to @Daetrin . They're also made by @justjoseph63 and got a nearly identical bluetooth modification in my hands. Paul has taken delivery of these, so these pix aren't spoilers. I was holding off posting them till he had them in hand. Paul asked if I could do a 2nd pair, Joseph sent me a fresh electrobinocular, and the magic happened. Aside from the extra weathering, the only big difference between mine and Paul's is that his should be able to open if needed via the 5 screws on the eye plate end. Mine is epoxied shut. I also moved the red light into that grey area. It fit extremely nicely there. And, of course, Paul's set also got a transport case. I didn't want to mail it with any lesser level of protection. Enjoy the binocs Paul!!! They're set 2/2. No set 3 will ever be made... unless my daughter demands one. heh

An internet outage has meant I couldn't update my troop log easily... or do a lot of other stuff easily. But here we go! Troop 17 - 7/9/22 - UNM Children's Hospital Our first troop was good!!! We brought smiles to kid's faces and behaved ourselves. That meant that other groups could visit the sick kids and we were invited back this month!!! And I got to sign up for the 2nd post-COVID UNM children's hospital troop. This was the only pic taken by any of us 4 troopers and served as our official troop document. Just the elevator selfie. But it was enough. The nurses posted this to facebook a few days after. Good times. And yeah, a black pauldron. I own pauldrons now. I'm collecting stuff for HWT after all and have to try out the goods. (it's amazing how much heat that stupid pauldron traps!! omg) TK-89400 Troop #18 - 7/16/22 - Buckets and Bowling 6th troop for CDZ-5435 This was an unofficial troop, but I was one of the few in full armor so I'm still counting it here. Why? We armored troopers got MOBBED. Dozens and dozens of kids wanted to take pix with us. They were not shy either. Tons of questions, comments, clowning, and armor hugs. It was full on. It was also Vader's debut day. My buddy Randy wore the black robes like a champ. Why buckets and bowling? There's not many troop opportunities or requests here in New Mexico in the apex of summer heat. We scheduled this a couple months back when there was literally nothing on either side of the troop for a long while. An excuse to get together, wear armor, and have a good time. annnd... few wore armor. But I love my white plastic dearly and couldn't not. And Vader needed at least 1 trooper. The arcade was ripe for playtime. My academy training came in handy. I helped. Really. I definitely got that bonus. Snowboarding with the daughter. Being in a desert garrison, neither of us were too sure what to do. The arcade asthetic tho. My armor just gleamed. So vaporwave. Would "bowl" again.

I've had crazy network problems here which knocked me offline for several days. Painful but things are working again. And I haven't stopped working out. Over 3 weeks straight. I feel so much healthier than I have in so long.