TheLorelei

Gotcha! Still wrapping my head around the fixability and changeability of this kit. In other words, still, like Shasha, scared to death of doing anything that might even accidentally turn out to be unfixable. Yes!! *hurries to work on shins so she can sign up* Turns out I did get another picture last week, and it's a "look, everyone was right [again]" shot from trimming my neck. You know how everyone says not to just trim the same amount off of every side, but rather to preserve the original curves? Well this is what the neckline looks like traced and moved down. A far cry from taking the same amount off every edge! Imagine how wide the neck would have become.

It's just so *visible*. And iconic. Percentage left to do? I have no clue. 20? Maybe less. It seems like it could all fall into place quickly, or I could discover so much more I didn't even know would need to be done. It'll definitely be a bit before I can go EIB and Centurion because I have to fiddle with my E-11, but basic approval shouldn't be tooooo far off. I think others would agree that maybe, just maybe, we like you anyway, Frank. SO helpful to see your torso strapping. Thank you!! I have mild scoliosis, like you, and I'm a bit generally concerned about the top - hanging even, not hurting, etc. I just need to see how heavy it ends up being. But if you say the normal strapping has worked fine, I'll just stick with that for now and modify down the road if need be. Sketching in snap plate attachment points now! Did you guys have to re-place your snap plates ever? I'm thinking I can just use ca glue to attach them and save much time and angst about them sliding around but of course e6000 is removable...

Hey thanks, Dave! Look, Frank, at least SOMEONE isn't out to ruin my day. (still 100% kidding.) But, but, imperfection... *cringes* But really, you're so right. And as soon as I muster the courage to pick up my bucket again, I will implement your wisdom. In the meantime (please picture this on a T-shirt), I did a bunch of work and all I got was this stupid picture. These past two months have warped by suspiciously quickly. Between jetlag, a new jigsaw puzzle (my kryptonite - why yes, I am secretly an old lady with the quilting problem to prove it), and Sithmas prep, I've had less armor time than I'd like. I did, however, hot water bathe *everything* and should only have to revisit a few pieces! I got some surprisingly good elastic from amazon, and used the for-sale-sign snap reinforcement method to make all the 2" elastic bits I'll need. I was quite glad I had my snap press. Once it's snapped together I'll figure out how I want to strap the torso onto myself - I've seen some way cool suspender systems that have me thinking! Some things left to do, in order of "AAAAAHHHHHHH!" to "I got this" -bucket. -shin closures -torso strapping installation -shoulder bell trimming -making holster Don't you love the inconsistencies between the lists so far? Don't worry, I'll pick an entirely different format for the next one. Stay toasty, y'all (minus the y'all of you in warmer climates to whom I say BOOOO), and happy thanksgiving to all.

Thanks, guys! Except for Frank. You rain cloud. See I was just gonna show up at Roddie's in armor and have him approve me on the spot... entirely kidding, of course. I'm not really worried about an approval deadline but I'd really, really like to have at least my bucket done by Sithmas. A Christmas TK just sounds so dreamy.

I'm baaack! Despite the beautiful sights and the fun and the delicious food, I was missing Smudge by the end of the trip. I've clearly got a problem. But I did get my Star Wars fix while I was out there, which was nice. So while I'm laid out with yet another sickness (travel does *not* agree with me), I'm strategizing. I had a pipe dream of finishing my armor in time for approval by the thanksgiving day parade but that's looking a bit challenging and I don't want to rush things. I mean I DO want to rush things, but I know I shouldn't. Probably. So here's The List (in no particular order, and with soft bits excluded): Bucket: -trim ears -polish -install lenses/mesh -coat bucket interior -paint exterior Legs: -heat form shins -trim shins -install shin magnets Torso: -install (applicable) strapping -trim ab/kidney connection accordingly -make belt to that size Arms: -heat form forearms -assemble forearms -glue handplates onto gloves Thermal Detonator/O2 Canister: -redo, shortening pipe (I will likely leave this til I finish the rest of my armor, as it's ok as is) General: -fill seam lines a la AJ -install strapping -outer cover strips -polish Really I need to order my 2" black elastic already. I'm not sure how I haven't yet. Without that, on days when I don't want/have time to stand over a pot of boiling water for hours, there's nothing to do but sit and agonize over ears. WHICH! I worked on tonight. The left one is now downright passable, if I do say so myself. The back is a hair gappy but not gappy enough for me to freak right this second. Maybe later, though. Who can say. My best right ear looks super lopsided, but fits fine when it's on because the right side of the bucket is also super lopsided. Oh well. The lumps are the beauty, the lumps are the beauty. Here's the top of the best-fitting right (but I overtrimmed the bottom back so don't go thinking I can use it. I have two MORE new pairs of ears in hand [plus an extra right due to shipping errors] though!) And there I am for now. It seems like everything is waiting on everything else to be sized - what a weird puzzle this armor is - but I know if I get the shins and forearms heat formed I'll have more gluing and resizing to work on, so I'll aim to do that tomorrow. Over!

Hey Adi I haven't trimmed my kidney yet, and it's looking like I might not have to. I'm going to put my strapping in so everything can really hang how it's going to hang, and then decide. Are you absolutely sure you need to trim your kidney? A good bit of length can be made up for visually by bending the back plate's shoulder tabs downwards (by water bath) and the butt plate's lower tab upwards to curve under you better (if space allows). Just my two cents. ... Or wait, just my two Yen - my apologies for the delayed reply, as I'm in Japan for a few weeks hopping about, feeling close kinship with every Star-Wars-merch-wearer I see. I am appropriately labeled in our galactic alphabet in case one of these domestic Japanese flights should land us in another galaxy, worry not. Be back in a bit, and keep an eye on the Emperor for me 'til then y'all.

Ok, HOW did I miss those? Gazmosis' especially. Pinned and all. Thank you! Helped immensely! I still may have to order an extra set as I think I overtrimmed my second right ear but that remains to be seen. My third set should go swimmingly though at this rate. What a learning curve.

Thank you, Luc!! It does help! Been working away at them with much more success using that method (slightly modified in that I used some small axles instead of screws because that's what I had around).

You guys, this is the worst. Ears. They hate me. I hate them. I've spent hours on the right one alone. It's finally looking almost acceptable, but my goodness what a ridiculous lot of sanity I've lost to get it there. I'm going to try the compass trick to get the curve onto the left ear, but does anyone have any other groundbreaking tricks or tips on fitting the ears that they've been keeping under their buckets til now? Much obliged. Pictures once I hate the right ear less.

THE FORUMS ARE BACK THE FORUMS ARE BACK THE FORUMS ARE BAAACK! My goodness it's awful spending a day without them. Especially when I do something like this! Meet my flower child, Smudge. First I got his brow sorted out using just my exacto. I've taken to sorta whittling the plastic for general reshaping (wearing cutproof gloves) as it means I don't end up covered in white dust. I smoothed it a little more and then placed my brow trim. I marked the angle with a pencil and cut the trim with scissors while holding it spread open. Testing the trim... Thanks to gazmosis' tutorial I knew to trim the wearer's right side very generously to allow for overlap with the face plate. That does necessitate reshaping the side of the bucket to curve over the face properly. I used a heat gun (oh, the horror) and a thin canning jar. It took many patience, but I eventually got it lying along the face better. Nothin' a little ear can't cover up! I think. Positioning the face using magnets was super convenient and remarkably secure. Threw a few doubles along the brow and ears and adjusted away. When it got to looking good, I stacked a bunch more magnets on... ...checked the alignment a few dozen more times... ...and drilled a few holes to tack everything in place. It's looking pretty great to me!! More tomorrow. Ear work. Dun dun dunnn.

Ergh. That's a good consideration. I'm a little disappointed with how the caps are on there anyway, so I might disassemble and go down to 7 1/4". Yes, definitely!

Well it better be, Mr. Imperial Attaché! Just saw the news in the newsletter, congratulations!

Forgiven, it did look long, thank you very much for noticing it! I'd much rather you all keep me in line than sugarcoat things and let me end up with a subpar TK.

Gotcha. Thanks for sharing! Nice clean helmet interior you have, too.

I've also heard good things about Imperial Warfighters, also based in the UK. Ryan makes both resin and rubber E-11s and can be reached by Facebook messenger as well. I ordered my blaster from him.

Imperial issue.

Thanks, Tony! It's 7 1/2 inches, I promise. Maybe even a hair under. (Literally.) Of course it's quite possible for me to pop the pieces off and size it down if you think it looks too long. But take a look below first... It looks weird in pictures but I kept the caps to 3/4" and the gap between the caps and the control panel (?) to 3/4" and the overall length to 7 1/2" which left me with a slightly under 4 1/2" control panel (?). Speaking of looking weird in pictures, check this out. My boyfriend's new iPhone, unlike my oldie, has this optical zoom thing and look at the difference having that turned on makes in the perceived size. Nothing in these photos has been moved. So there you go. Maybe it looks like a more reasonable size in the last picture, Tony? Yeahh. It's a fun quandary. Pretty sure ShaSha trimmed hers on both sides, but Christine did not. I'm going to keep the front ridge the same in the interest of keeping things largely undisturbed. Thanks for the well wishes. Side note. The untrimmed shins are about the size of the trimmed thighs! Tiny TKs Inc.!

I'm undecided on the mic, and will likely base fans off of my chosen mic and its necessary position (condenser in top of helmet, lav on sternum, etc) but that does sound tough. So you power the TK-Talkie separately from your other elements, right? I'm planning on making my own hovi mic tips and riddling out power supplies.

Great walkthrough Mark, thanks for posting! I'm in the same boat you were, not fond of the size of the iComm or having to worry about running wires to an iPhone... did plenty of research on the TK-Talkie but haven't taken the plunge yet. Which is fine because I haven't even finished my bucket. Ha. It's great to know pitfalls to avoid when building this. Thanks again.

Been hacking away at various armor pieces, keeping my eyelids propped open with toothpicks after work this week. When my Honorary Dad is out of town I sorta run the store and boy does that tire a body out. But I have progressed progressively, and in that progressive progress I have come to realize that... A. I should have trusted myself more on my initial cuts. I chickened out of scoring on my pencil trim lines for the fronts of my shins and scored a couple mm out and of course they ended up being those few mm too wide and there wasn't enough scrap left to snap then so I had to use Lexan scissors and then the seam was a total mess and blah blah blah. I should've just trusted my first, well measured cut lines. This is the better of the two. B. I should have trusted myself less on my initial cuts. When I slid the brow trim on my bucket, I discovered (or whatever the sickeningly awful counterpart to the generally cheerful "discover" is) that I had overtrimmed Smudge's brow. Like Move-Along level, except more. And wonky. I failed to keep the brow line straight across with the bottoms of the traps. Fortunately it won't be visible, so I stuck an ABS scrap on with some ABS paste. Reshaping to follow. My thighs are in one piece (...two pieces?) and looking absolutely fab. Trimming the rear cover strip ridges off resized them plenty. I'll make the outer rear cover strips vertical which will mean they're NOT centered over the seam due to whatever silliness happened in trimming, but I have faith in the wide inner rear cover strips (which ARE centered over the seam, somewhat obviously). You can see below approximately where the outer cover strips will lie compared to the seam. This thing is done: I seldom take photos of my pieces when they're all clamped up - seems indecent - but my shins looked so festive I had to snap a shot. I was unsure how sizing those would go, what with the all-or-nothing business that is trying to resize with the ubiquitous ATA rear cover strip ridges getting in the way of mid-level trims, but curving them in a little with these front inside cover strips on, it looks like slimming them down will work fine. The rear ridges aren't THAT pronounced. I'll be sure to do the sizing with my boots on, yes. Soeaking of resizing, this is how much my forearms will have to come in. I feel like even if I keep the halves symmetrical, the detailed bit on the right is going to be so far off center in its half it'll look bad. But we shall see. Today I'll be prepping parts for my magnetic shin closures, and - maybe - reshaping the ab yet again. Here goes!

The torso is fitting a LOT better than expected. I've modified the widths on everything but the chest so far. The kidney sits away from my back a good bit due to differences in build between me and your conventional TK, but when I taped it to the posterior plate it was fairly content to hover. I can pad it out if needed. I was most surprised to find that the entire torso back wasn't insanely long on me. In shock, I compared my measurements to those of the back armor pieces (all butted right up against each other) and they're pretty much the same. Sooo, I don't think I'll be trimming the kidney... I'm feelin tall, y'all! How does the chest plate/ab overlap look? It slid down ever so slightly during fitting so technically you'd be able to see more ab. I think the chest looks like it should sit higher up, not for the ab's sake so much as for the arm hole's sake. I've seen some shorter troopers trim out the neck hole. Any thoughts, @Cricket ? Would you recommend that over trimming the lower edge of the chest, at least as a first step? I'm liking where the cod sits. It's about even with the posterior. The posterior may need to not wrap around so far though. I'll see where the drop boxes hang and consider trimming the sides. I will plot out cut lines for the ab/kidney and bathe the ab again (new off-center center point) before I make those cuts. Then it's time to install snap plates so I can stop it with all the tape everywhere. Oh also, my thighs are in one piece now!! (The blue tape is purely decorative.) Taking off just the back raised cover strip portions (ATA has those EVERYWHERE) was plenty to bring them down to size. Hot water bathing them in a pot was tough, but workable, area by area. I may have to take some off the tops, but we shall see.

REAL quick before I go play Mario Kart - another dry fit this evening. I have thoughts on it of course but I'm curious if anything glaringly awful jumps out at anybody (other than the kidney overlapping the ab, and other obvious test fit, er, idiosyncrasies). I know, you mistook me for a real live stormtrooper in that last one. Just me. Just me.

I figured out my kidney orientation based on the methods previously suggested (especially how it meets up with the ab) and immediately penciled in "up ^" before I started any shaping. I can't tell you how many times I've searched for that little pencil mark. Once you figure it out, mark it, even if it's just with a piece of blue tape! I'm in the same boat as you when it comes to not having enough return edge for the bracket system. I think snaps and elastic/webbing will be just fine regardless. I was hoping to set in ornamental screw heads a la bracket system, but will likely only get to do that on the chest. And yeah, no notches in ATA! I will likely put them in (and reinforce the corner) once I get my ab/kidney connection sorted (soon!). Anyway, looking good! Glad you got more advice on return edges.

Oh YEAH? That's neat! Hadn't heard that.

Joseph posted this one for me which shows the back plate being cut pretty far in. I ended up cutting that piece from the outside/right side because the proper spot seemed to be in the middle of the ridge on the backside.