revlimiter

https://www.loctiteproducts.com/en/products/fix/super-glue/loctite_plasticsbondingsystem.html This is what I used and I think it's what you're after. I picked mine up at the local Ace Hardware. The silicone and rubber are extremely bonded on my own gloves.

Congratulations Matt! Welcome to EIB!!

Definitely positive criticism and something I'd noticed. I had the banana bend... hmm, at some point. And I don't think I took a photo of it. It was created naturally by putting those M19 bolts in the opposite order I have them now. The large/long bolt needed to move to the back, I think. That bolt placement sucked the front end down and gave it the rail a proper bow out.

Okay. Here's my first attempt at figuring out what's going on with these scraggly wires. I don't think I quite have it right, but think I'm on the right track. I tried a few things to get it even this far. I first thought it may be a braided wire. A roll of 1/8" braided wire was something like $30, so I braided up some of my own by hand and was instantly happy I didn't spend that money. The braiding was far too wide and large. The original blaster behind Leah definitely just had some fraying on the end, making it poof out. The original blaster also has a wire helping secure the power cylinders around the clip receiver. I don't have that on mine and don't intend to replicate that detail, but it's pretty interesting and only something I noticed when mine was in hand and I noticed that a "step" was missing behind that receiver. Same thin wire they used to hold the counter in place. Also also, the gun behind Leah is missing the right hand far bottom T-track. That's the only way that light would show through the bottom row from this angle - if that T-track wasn't there. But I digress. Back to the wires. Mine isn't quite right compared to the screen one. It's too long, making the wire go down and across in a rather square shape instead of down at a diagonal angle. But I think this is what was going on - black tape or something similar holding the wire in place on the counter. My theory is that the wires got PAINTED black just like the rest of the blaster. I don't think it was insulated wire due to the fraying you can see in the screen capture. The foreground wire takes an immediate U turn coming out of the counter and the goes toward the power cylinder. The wires seem to go straight underneath the power cylinder and connect near the resistors. Connecting wires to the backs of the power cylinder centers gave a different look than what was present in that original screen capture. Mine are just floating in place so I can move them all about and reposition as I notice new things. The original was apparently a functional gun shooting blanks, so the clip release button would have needed to function. And in order to get to that clip release, the wires need to move out of the way. In the act of pressing that clip release, moving the wires out of the way exactly as seen in the screen capture is the most natural way to do it. The one nearest the barrel gets a bit closer to the barrel and tends to go straight down. The other wire in the foreground gets shoved and does this U turn thing to give thumb room for the prop person to change the clip. And here it is from behind. Not such a strange routing due to the need to press that release button downward. I need to fiddle with this more and think about it more, but I feel like I'm nearly there.

It may not sound like it, but removing the padding from the very top of your bucket and beefing up the padding on the sides makes for the maximum amount of comfort and sight ability. I think I could do a handstand and not have my bucket fall off or move with how I have the padding around the base of my neck and ears. No chin strap required. I also don't have the dexterity to mess with a chin strap once my arms and gloves are on.

My post is classified.

On the shot showing the right ear and the front frown shot, it looks like two of the larger teeth have paint going into the lower gum. It's very subtle but maybe worth cleaning up. The left ear shot doesn't seem to have any teeth with that problem. Fantastic work on the vocoder paint. I have the same bucket and really had to guess at my paint. The pull on my own was very faint there. Yours looks similar in terms of pull definition. Also, nice Mr No Stripes.

I too noticed quite a few ANH-TK in episode 5. Cloth belts, no raised TD-holding panel in the mid back, no side stripe. Very cool. Someone spill some beans!

I use the full face version of that mask in my daily job and am very familiar with it. You definitely do NOT want any sort of wire going into or through the mask. The wire could create a breech in your protection. The idea of having a bluetooth mic in the mouth area is also not very appealing to me. I get in and out of that mask as quickly as possible and dinkling with bluetooth pairing, arguing with something right by my lips, and even just struggling with a micro on-off switch would be annoying. It's very tight in that mouth area, at least for me. The mask also tends to smoosh your lips together a bit which would distort your speech even with the mic. Not that you couldn't get good at turning things on and working out bugs. I mean, I have 4 switches in my stormtrooper bucket alone. No issues for me getting things all powered up and ready to troop. But it's a lot easier to stick a hand into the helmet than slide a finger deep into the mouth recess of that respirator. My humble suggestion: a throat mic plugged into an Aker style amp. I know you suggested some extra fat around the throat might be an issue, but I do not believe that could be the case. The mic just wants to pick up vibrations next to the skin. As long as you have nothing between the skin and the mic, there shouldn't be any issue. Many overweight gamers use these daily with no problems. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0819TNF5L My daughter has one of these in her Jawa kit connected to a sound glove. It works extremely well connected to a mic also. Cheap and good are a hard combo to beat. Pair that with a good-review throat mic and you should be golden. Hope this helps.

That looks fantastic to me! I'm not the most knowledgeable, but yeah. Amazing work. And the angle looks spot on. I do know that many of the screen-used ones had nothing like this nice an ear fitment.

That LOCK screw is so annoying. On this handle it tightens fully at FREE. Since I have to put electronics in it and wire stuff up later, I'm not gonna Loc-tite it on LOCK just yet. As for that red wire... not sure if it's correct, but it sure looks right compared to the screenshots. Trying my best to make this screen accurate. Onto an update! I got the power cylinder JB Welded into place. No going back now! But I can change out various parts of it. Next step was some T-tracks. I've never had to do these on any blaster before, so this was pretty fun for me. I snipped to 5x 6.5 inches and 1x 7.25 inches. The measurements worked well for this Fieldmarshall build. Work area. The snips help to re-angle the track cuts as necessary. They need a pretty sharp cut and most of mine were done too wide at first. Low heat while spinning to evenly heat all three spars of the Tee. If only the bottom gets heated, it won't bend... and will lizard-skin the bottom side. I used a small screwdriver to help shove the pliable plastic into the hole and it worked amazingly well. I was able to get a very sharp bend on all the tracks and most don't need glue. The top one looks a little loose because that's how it is on the screen version. You can see a little light between the barrel and T-track behind Leia. I tried to replicate that here while still keeping it in place. All starting to come together! The T-tracks and counter just add so much. I've started some light weathering to match the screen version as closely as I can as well. For the time being, I have the counter held in place with a screen-accurate wire. It's also supported by some strong double sided tape. However, the wire attachment creates the perfect height, position, and angle by itself. So very awesome to not struggle at the counter positioning. None of my other blasters have extremely sharp molds at the top of the scope. The accurate white crayon lettering is just chef's kiss. I also got the chip installed on top of the scope. I tried the socket only version first and then compared it to the height with a chip installed in the socket. I think the chip + socket is most accurate. Now I just have to figure out those wires running from the counter to the power cylinders...

6/5/22 - Run to Break the Silence 15th troop for TK-89400, 5th troop for CDZ-5435 What's cuter than a Cadet jawa? A cadet jawa with a bubble blaster. This event was a charity run put on by Presbyterian Hospitals for the deaf and hard of hearing community. The focus was research and cochlear implants. My wife and daughter are both hard of hearing, so this one really hit home and was something I didn't wanna miss. The adult run started at 7am (!!!!!!) but we were there for the 8:30 kids fun run. They had a huge course and we were to stand in the midst and give high fives and encouragement. I brought four bubble blasters. Amazingly, no one was afraid of a TK with a bubble blaster. Even the little littles who often are stand-offish didn't care about my white shiny plastic. They were happy to get sprayed with Imperial Bubbles. This one grabbed the scout's glove and dragged him over to mom for photos. So cute! A pretty good Mando Merc showing with three in attendance. Sadly their weapons were outmatched by the Empire's. Bubbles FTW. There was face painting and balloon animals. The clown looked a bit shifty so I took them in for questioning. Well, I tried anyway. And there was ice cream sammiches for all at the end of the event. A kind citizen gave me a hand with it.

and now that I'm not on mobile, I can share a link more easily to said paste. If the acetone is hard to get Down Under, Joseph has an excellent tutorial for using Sugru to do the same basic things. It's for thigh ridge gaps, but works the same for hole filling.

Holes aren't actually that hard to fix on our armor. Look into ABS paste. You can make some easily with spare armor scraps.

The hacked apart Sony headphones I put in those pads have worked flawlessly for me since install. I'm about to do another set in my wife's TIE bucket. The isolated mics in the ears work amazingly well too. No squeaks or annoying noise. Just some wind noise if it happens to blow right in the holes.

I got some parts painted. Preliminary assembly with some paint. It looks gooooood. I used hammertone on the main body pieces. I sprayed some areas purposely thicker and some thinner. I didn't want fresh wrinkle finish on this blaster. Wrinkle paint takes a long time to wear down to a nice "used" looking level. Hammertone goes to that level almost out of the can. It gives some of that variation in tone that the real guns have. Thinner on the barrel and a bit thicker on the folding stock. No hammertone on the guard, inner barrel, scope, or various other pieces. I also wanted to black out that center gold stripe on my vintage counter, but I didn't want to paint. It's also very very thin clearance inside, so a piece of electrical tape won't fit. However, a piece of clear scotch tape fits fine. I colored it with a black sharpie and that takes care of the gold inner counter problem. Moving onto the power cylinders! I wanted a little bit of crustiness inside the main capacitors/insulators/whatever, so I gave them a bit of a white acrylic wash. Nothing really awesome, just something to show that it's not plain copper inside those little side slits. Decently successful. The one feature the Fieldmarshall cylinders is missing is these outer wings. I snipped some extra from the T-tracks and glued it in place. It's slightly blobby but a really tiny and hard to see detail. And it's really on there! This may survive a couple troops. Inner capacitors! The nose holes needed drilling out slightly to allow clearance for the wires. I angled the outer capacitor so that METALMITE would always be readable if you knew where to look. Seriously, this kit is so very much the Easy Button. Almost nothing to change to make it perfect. It feels like cheating to build. I don't have much fabrication or alteration. Just smooth sailing. The included red wire is a perfect size for those rear capacitor leads once you remove the inner copper. It pulls out with a needle nose easily and any left over comes out by itself when you shove the cap lead into the red. And here's my first pass at a screen accurate power cylinder. Weathering is easy, but that red speck at the back required a bit of thought. The angle proves it isn't one of the center power wires. There seems to be an extra red power wire coming out the back rear of the outer insulator. You can also (barely) make out the presence of an extra flat feature on the outside edge from that rear view. Here it is from behind. Pretty similar shape overall. (Also, I'm happy with my wiring and resistors.) More thought and comparison with my in-hand replica vs the screen grabs made me realize I had the wire angled backwards. It should arc down and back instead of back and then down. And it seems to have a segment of black painted wire or a resistor at the end. It's rough and ready. It's used and abused. It might be old and tired, but it's my power cylinder. And I *think* it's decently accurate. Rear view with painted wires. It was hard to make myself paint over the pretty capacitors and wires, but that's how the original was and that's how this one needs to be.

Look at the sight guard on those. And the folding stock area around the grip. Both are quite solid. Definitely rubber E-11s.

Congrats!!! I was wondering if you'd finished in time. No doubt that beautiful armor will sail through basic approval.

Take special care to not rivet it on upside down. I speak from experience. I put mine on upside down at first... Curved back edge closet to your boots.

Welcome to the board Matt! TK research is definitely a huge mountain to climb, but it's a fun one.

I've been slowly working on the blaster. Initial painting and weathering. I got a little bottle of Aluminum Black and started etching some items. The mag release button is chilling in there in this shot. It's just a tarnish that's pretty easy to wipe off, so it's not suited for something that will be actively trooped with. However, I think it's gonna be perfect for the bolt and some small screw type items. I gave the bolt about 10 weatherings with this stuff, wiping it on and letting it sit, then dunking in water and drying, then repeating. I sanded in between several weatherings. The result is a lovely darkened bolt that shouldn't stick out quite as much as a non-weathered one. It looks quite dark in this shot with the unpainted aluminum around it, but it reflects light nicely in person. I think the etching will be juuuust right. I sealed it in some wax to preserve the weathering. I was really hoping this would be more like anodizing than dipping in ashes, but it's a lot more like ashes. Still, I got these small hardware pieces decently blackened. I'll apply some wax to help protect and then just use to let them age naturally should give a beautiful finish. I hope. I mean, I can always paint these things if I need to. I also sanded off casting flash on any metal parts that had it. The mag receiver (above) was pretty filthy with flash. It's now beautifully smooth. The scope and folding stock needed a bit of sanding as well. And here's the real working Hengstler 400 from @T-Jay It's glorious. No eagle, but it has everything else. I gave the tan cover a little paint and thought some disassembled pix would be nice. Being a pleb who's never seen a real one, I was geeking out. The little white bit at the bottom goes between the reset stalk side and the body keeping the reset stalk from pressing. Quite genius. I also really dig the zinc coated interior finish. 24 volt coil. Tino pre-set my TK number on it. Not sure how he did that... hopefully by rolling the digits by hand and not by letting it count 89400 little 24 volt pulses. Here's the Fieldmarshal replica on the left vs the real 400 on the right. EXTREMELY similar. I'll be honest, I wouldn't mind that open frame on the original... not sure if I could make it fit though and I haven't yet tried. I did mask off that original sticker from paint though. And the number side. The Fieldmarshal is a lot more rough and ready looking. The original 400 looks more refined. I just have the replica numbers wedged into place for these pix. They'll come out later. So what am I doing with both of these (very nice) counters? I plan to temporarily mount the real one to the Leveller with my best guess at the original wire fastener. Then, when my BlastFX arrives, I'll remove it and install the screen in the replica counter. It'll then be held on in the modern way, with screws on the scope rail. I'll keep the original on a shelf to fondle and ogle. It'll lie in wait till I have a new project for it to live with. Thanks again for the counter Tino!!! It's such a beauty.

My garage cabinets are STILL covered in a fine layer of lil plastic... like 9 months later.

Gosh. I probably could do that if supplied with another of Joseph's excellent binocs...

The strap is lovely and super soft too. Like I said in the video, I take no credit for the beauty of these binocs. That's all Joseph. I tried to keep them as "stock looking" as possible in my bit of repainting after sealing it back up.

Had no one else seen that front greeb on the stock in this scene? DID I FIND SOMETHING NEW? lol! I'm beaming. For the wire situation on the blaster, this is my take. I am totally prepared to be wrong and get corrected, but I think this is what's going on. I've spent far too much mental resources on these wires. The easy place to start is this one without a whole lot of detail. It looks like 2 wires to me coming from the Hengstler nose. And then there's all of this. The back view and bottom view match up nicely with the side view to give a good path for that wire (yellow) that seems to be holding the counter onto the rail. It's quite thin. I think it's just black electrical wire. It could be a mega-thin zip tie, but... I mean really really thin. The replica pix from Playfulwolfcub show his wire path (green) and I think it's quite close. I believe the wires are a bit thicker than the ones on his blaster and dip down toward the power cylinders and kinda overlap the red power cyl wires. Maybe. That's my theory right now anyway. And also I noticed that the Leia Leveller has no "OFF" text on the clip.