TKModder421

I recently recovered my son's Disneyland E11 blaster that he was about to sell in a garage sale and decided to mod it with a Doopydoo's conversion kit to make it a little more accurate looking and use it as my initial trooping blaster. Eventually I'd like to do a full kit and do an accurate ANH build, preferably one with a working folding stock, inner bolt and ejection port. But in the meantime I wanted to post what I had done with this conversion. Here we go... Here's the toy my son was getting rid of

Good to know! Definitely applicable towards me, having skinny legs as well. Fill the gap? Such as adding some foam padding?

Gotcha, well I appreciate the advice Joseph. You guys have trooped and have the experience, so I’m open for all the advice I can get from the pros. Especially advice that will prevent me from having to go back and change things drastically later Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ok, awesome! Thanks for your advice Daniel! I'll give it a go and report back

Thanks Daniel, so you also recommend I take off the return edge on the upper thigh? Yeah I can definitely cut down the return edge with my Dremel, I think Joseph's concern was that it would then change the fitting of the thigh. The return edge I currently have is approximately 7-10mm, so if I take off most or all of the return edge without refitting it's going to add a gap of anywhere from 14-20mm at the top of my thigh. On my left thigh, I already took off the front cover strip so I can just cut off the return edge and then do a test fitting. But my right thigh is finished, do you think maybe I should Dremel it down and then see how that fits and then decide whether I need to resize from there? If I'm going to do that I'll probably start with the finished thigh, so if I decide it fits fine then I wont have to do any resizing

Oh really?? Shoot! I wish I would've known this before. Trimming these thighs has been a pain lol. I think that would've made things a lot easier. I do already have the back strip on the right thigh. Second to upper level approval, comfort is my next priority though. You suggest taking that one apart and taking the return edge off both? Just the inside of the thighs? Will it look strange having return return edge on the outside of the thigh and not on the inside? Do you have any images of how it should look when I do this?

Yeah I agree! Thanks James

Yeah, that's the width mine are as well. But since my right thigh is already glued and looks good I feel it would be better to bend it a little than to trim them both down

Would I be affecting my chances of EIB or Centurion approval if I cut down the width of the cover strip?

OK, thank you! I'll give it a try and see what I can do. Thank goodness for E6000!!

So after 24 hours I removed all the clamps, magnets and tape and the right thigh turned out great! The left thigh didn't turn out as great though I didn't notice when I was clamping down the cover strip but the ridge where the cover strip rest on has a curve to it. I put a green dotted line on it so you can see it a bit better While normally I wouldn't worry too much, when I was trimming I made the ridge 10mm on both sides all the way up, but I didn't take into account that there was a curve. So now when the cover strip lays on there flat, I end up with this ridge being exposed on the right and a slight overhang on the left side of the cover strip. I'm aiming for upper level approval so I'm gonna rip it off and try again. But I'm wondering what would be the best way to fix this problem. I've noticed on thigh reference pics that a lot of the cover strips have a bend to them to follow the cut lines I assume. Should I attempt to heat up the strip and add a bend to match the ridge or what I should do?? Help!!!

Attached the cover strip to the right thigh You can see my magnets are off center near the top, that was to press down the strip where there was a gap Here's the left side

Borrowed a giant stock pot from a friend. Worked perfectly for the hot water bath on the thighs

I'll definitely take a look at more inexpensive options Yes! I'm actually asking friends right now. We'll see what I can come up with Thanks Jose!

Right, I'd probably have to buy one.

Like a deep stock pot like this? No, unfortunately I don't. Is that the best option for big pieces like legs?

Yeah, thank you, that's what I was thinking. I really risk warping them badly or causing damage. I only mentioned I had one in case someone had some advice on using it and getting the results I want

So, I trimmed a tiny bit more out of the top, but they still feel about the same walking around in them, there's just a little less flapping around at the top, so that's good. One thing I am concerned about though is now that the thighs are trimmed down they are fairly narrow, so the butt joins aren't going to be flat for the cover strips. I ran into this problem when trimming down my forearms but I was able to give them a hot water bath and got them to be round, which provided a much flatter surface to glue the cover strips to. Should I do the same for the thighs? The hot water bath I did before was in a pot on the stove, so obviously these aren't going to fit in the pot. Any suggestions? I mean is this even the correct route or should I just apply the strips and force it flat? Or would that make for weak joins? PS. I also have a heat gun that I could use, I'm worried that I risk messing up more with a heat gun though

OK! thank you Andrew and James! So just for clarification, about a 3 inch gap front to back should be ok?

Haha Andrew, I laugh when I put on the under suit because of how much more skinny they make my legs look! Ok! so I did what you suggested. How much play should I have in the top of the thigh? I'm not sure how much more I should trim down. I don't want to risk cutting them down too much and making them uncomfortable or even disproportionate to the rest of the armor, but of course I don't want them flopping around looking funny either. Comments? Suggestions? Here they are on... As you can see here at the top front of the thigh I still have a good gap It's still wide front to back but, side to side isn't bad

My next moves are gonna be on the thighs. My concern is that the thighs are awfully large... well, tbh I've got really skinny chicken legs How much should I be trimming them down? Any good threads on fitting for thin legs?

Alright, time to update this thread I finished up the cover strips on the forearms and biceps as well as added some to the inside to further reinforce the joins Biceps Inner cover strips Arms all done!!

Ok, so after letting the glue dry and cleaning up my giant glue mess it looks pretty good. But I have a concern... So my concern is there's a little gap running up along the front side of the cover strip. It's kind of hard to get a good pic of it, but here's a few... up in there real close! You don't really see it unless you get up in there. But is this normal? Something I shouldn't worry about? Or should I tear it apart and try and get better contact on the edges?

Haha I know, I know! Yeah I was definitely wanting to add inner cover strips but I wasn't sure exactly what scraps I could use. The way I trimmed all my pieces I'm not sure I actually have any scraps that are long and wide enough to be usable as cover strips. I may have to just buy some sheets of white ABS that I can cut into inner cover strips. I did give the forearms a hot water bath, they were far too oval prior. before after I was considering a heat gun if I've got spots that aren't flat enough to get good contact with the cover strip, but so far it looks like I should be fine

Alright, back to the build! So I did the necessary trimming and have started gluing the coverstrips on the forearms. Started with the front side of the right arm This is my first go at trying this and I got a little messy with the glue LOL. Thank goodness E6000 peels right off!! Gonna let that dry and give you an update when I move on to the other side.