troopermaster

I use my tin snips then my dremel sanding drum to get close to my lines, then scrape off any crap with a sharp knife and sand smooth with fine sand paper.

Thanks again! All the kind words makes all my effort worthwhile Well John, I think your name was mentioned once or twice, though Gary H got some stick too Looking forward to the next Mem and meeting you all again and meeting new faces too.

Thanks for the compliments everyone I've managed to upload a short clip onto youtube. Sorry for the poor quality, it was done on my phone.

When I found out there was going to be another Memorabilia event at the end of march a few weeks ago, I had already started work on my sons mini stormtrooper moulds to make them bigger and better, and I really wanted to get a new kit pulled for this event. I thought "Yeah, should be no problemo" but was I ever wrong! It took me up until the last week to get most of the moulds done and I formed them. I got the main parts of the armour assembled with only a few parts left to form, which I managed to form on Thursday. Getting it all finished off in time for the event was a nightmare. I was working until 11.00pm every night last wekk and even gluing the legs together Saturady morning, the day of the event After a two hour drive we finally arrived at the Birmingham NEC and got my son Luke kitted up. We stepped out of the changing room (toilets ) and he was an instant hit. Everyone was asking to take a photo of him. People was coming up to me saying it was the coolest thing they had ever seen. While I was talking to people, I looked around and Luke was stood alone and there was people all around him taking photos, talk about a little poser To say he was a star is an understatement. It made all my hard work and stress worth it. He hardly ever took his helmet off the whole time we were there. It was great to meet all the UK Garrison and I finally got meet them personally when I was invited back stage. We had a good chat about armour and a few other things, really good to meet you guys at last I hope to see you all there again at the next event. Here's some photos....

If you are making two seperate forearms you will need four moulds, so the inner arm you have sculpted needs to lose one of the flat edges. Choose which arm this sculpt is for and smooth off the bottom edge as the original armour only had a flat edge on the top of the arm. The forearm muscle is not as pronounced as what you have there, they are flatter and the wrist opening is larger to allow your hands to get through. Sculpt a kind of semi circle on the end of the wrist to allow for easy mould removal and this will also reduce the chance of webbing when forming them.

There is a right and left arm and they are different from each other, not one mould for both. They are not mirror images of each other too, so don't try to make them that way if you are looking to make them screen accurate. Have you got any pics of your sculpts?

They look like AP recasts.

This suit may not have had the buttons upside down in ANH Mark. It's possible that the buttons fell off after filming ANH or maybe even during the filming of ESB and they were stuck back on upside down without realising. I'm not saying it isn't like that in ANH, I just have never seen it and I watch it frame by frame regularly It's believed by some that this suit was the one used to make the ROTJ but I disagree. The ROTJ suits as we know them were actually used in ESB so therefore it couldn't have possibly have been used to make the moulds.

That's interesting, but how long does it take to go yellow?

No it's not from age. Yellow foam used to be very common here in the UK until they changed the laws and they had to use fire resistant foam which is now blue to help identify the correct materials are being used. It's something along those lines anyway, so don't quote me on that though

Thanks Chef! That idea had crossed my mind actually I doubt it can be dyed properly because I don't think the dye will stick to man made materials. From what I've read before, dye only sticks to natural materials like cotton and leather, not polyesters and nylons. I'll give the food dye trick a go. At worst it will stain it and should give a better appearance than the pale yellow at the moment.

The samples arrived and they have two yellow foams, one is closed cell and the other is open. The closed cell foam is like the stuff knee pads are made from and open cell is like the stuff in couches which is what I ordered. The foam itself is perfect, the colour is not. It's a very pale yellow and not deep yellow like what used to be available, so I am still looking for that deep yellow foam and this pale yellow will do for now.

Nice pic! Thanks for sharing

I agree Steve. Hans chest looks to have no return edge simply because of the way the chest is flexing. It would not flex like it is unless it was attached to the ab plate using the return edge to hold the strapping on. These suits were much more flexible than any replica available and can flex just as easy with a return edge as without one.

I have these hooks on my personal suit. Just look at Billy's banner, you can just see the clip on the inside of the bicep.

Pentonville Rubber are sending me some samples of yellow foam and I will post photos when they arrive.

Well you know what they say "All good things come to those who wait" I wish I could recommend a good dye for the boots but everyone I have tried has peeled off. The dye I use is this one MAGIX DYE

Yeah 1" is too thick and makes it hard to get the helmet to sit right on your head, especially when you are using the leaf shaped foam. I've emailed the one in north London so with a bit of luck they will have what I want. Once I find some, I will post a link to wherever I bought it from and I hope anyone else will do the same thing if they find some

Good to see your putting in the extra effort with the black chelsea boots. This is one of the easier/cheaper mods to do with your armour to get closer to screen accuracy and something most don't even bother with. Good job Andy

Thanks for the links Thayne, I'll check them out Steve is right about the fire retardant thing. I remember a few years back when I went to buy foam from the guy in the market and he told me a similar story. Something about chemical restrictions in the UK and from a cretain date that only blue foam was available which was fire retardant and the yellow stuff was toxic or something along those lines anyway. The guys down at the tip think I'm a right tramp ripping the stuffing out of old sofa's trying to get a liner for my stormtrooper helmet

Does anyone know where I can get some yellow foam for the maple leaf shaped helmet liner? It looks to be roughly 20mm or 3/4" thick from what I can tell. The only stuff I can find here in the UK is blue foam which is no good, so if anyone knows where I can get some (or can get me some ) I would be very grateful. Cheers!

Thanks for the link Pete, I just bought a pair to try I usually use heavy duty snips for cutting plastic, but I have to admit that cutting curves is very hard and these scisssors look great. I actually like my Dremel and use it with the sanding drum to sand away the plastic after I have cut close to my pencil lines with my snips. I then scrape off any excess with a razor blade which usually gives me a nice smooth finish. If not, then I use some sandpaper to make it smooth.

The Humbrol grey is terrible. Every tin I buy is the same. It's thin and streaky, and you really have to mix it well to get any kind of good coating. I mix it up with the handle of my paint brush, stirring it really fast, then scrape of any thick stuff into the rim of the paint tin and use that to paint with. Most of the other colours seem fine, and only need a quick stir to get a nice covering, though I have had a similar problem with satin black.

Can you remember what you were wearing 30 years ago? I know I can't (probably because I was 6 at the time ) We know for a fact that actors in the OT have got details wrong in the past. I doubt for one second anyone thinks that these people are lying, just mistaken. People want to believe them just because they were there, but the evidence is out there which goes against what they are saying. Now, if this person has photos of leather belt, that's great and would back up what he is saying. Like I said, there may have been the odd leather belt knocking around but the majority, if not all the belts were canvas.

The belts are canvas, no doubt about it. I suppose it's possible a few 'may' have been leather 'if' the costume department ran out of canvas while making the belts. Your friend in ANH could easily be mistaken as it was over 30 years ago. I've asked questions to ANH stormtrooper actors at the cons and they don't always give me the correct answers. Even though they believe they are right in what they are saying, I have evidence to the contrary. It was just another acting job to them and I doubt they took that much notice to the costumes they wore.