troopermaster

The problem with replica armour is that everyone connects their biceps to their shoulder bells which pulls on the white shoulder elastic. The real armour didn't have their biceps connected to their shoulder bells so the bells just hung from the white elastic. You can try doubling up on the white elastic and sew two pieces together using a zig-zag stitch. This will help it stretch somewhat but still be quite solid. Another option is to sew black straps to the edges of your neck seal and use these to hold your biceps up. I did this on an old set of armour and it worked extremely well.

Most of the time rivets pop because the ammo belt and canvas belt have been connected laid out flat, causing the plastic ammo belt to bend more than the canvas, creating tnesion on the rivets and ultimately pop. There are two ways to correctly install the ammo belt without creating tension on the rivets and with both ways you have to start with the middle rivet. 1. Snap your canvas belt to the abdomen and place the ammo belt on, bending it to form around your abdomen plate and marking the holes. When laid flat, the marks will be short of the holes by a few mm's or 1/8". Your ammo belt will be bent slightly like a Mcdonalds 'M' with tension on the ammo belt. This is not a problem for flexible ABS like 1.5mm that the original armour was made from. 2. Lay the ammo belt on top of the canvas belt and mark out the holes, then add a few mm's or 1/8" outwards of the marks and rivet. This will make the canvas belt under the ammo belt slightly longer but it takes away the tension once the belt is snapped to your abdomen plate. Both ways work extremely well, whether you rivet the ammo belt short or long of the marks when laid out flat.

You're more than welcome It's not often I get a chance to talk about original armour and I have enjoyed sharing my knowledge with you.

The helmets I have seen are all in private collections and they all have the climbing liners. Considering the amount of work needed to install the liners, I doubt the costume department would go to the trouble of fitting them after a much more simple (and comfortable) foam liner. The liners were readily available back then and were fitted when produced. Here is an unfinished production helmet. Going back to the shoulder bridges., they were riveted to the chest plate in ROTJ. They had Velcro glued to the inside of the bridges and Velcro tabs glued to the top of the back plate for them to fasten to. I guess they learned from the ESB MKII armour that Velcro on both side was not good enough. In fact, the whole strapping system they used on the ESB MKII armour was not really practical and they used a more simple set-up in the ROTJ armour.

The armour on starwarshelmets.com is incorrectly labelled as ROTJ when in fact it is an ESB MKII owned by John B. It is my understanding that the ROTJ armour was made at Elstree studios and the original helmets that I have seen photos of all had the climbing helmet liners. I would imagine that if any liners were changed to foam or anything else, it would have been done on location when the armour was shipped out from the UK. I have never seen an ROTJ helmet with anything other than the climbing helmet liner inside. The armour and helmets used in ROTJ were specifically made for the movie. I believe a dozen or so ESB KII suits were made for ESB but they were never finished in time for filming, with only one suit appearing clearly on screen, two sets were actually used and they are the ones cuffing Chewie. The trooper helmet you have highlighted would simply have the climbing liner and chin strap. Nothing special about it and it would have just been uncomfortable to the actor laying in that position. The Scout helmets have 3M welding visor liners inside them as standard and the stunt helmets had skateboard helmets inside them. I am not big on the Scouts but I doubt they had the same liners as Stormtroopers since the Scout helmets have flip-up face plates which is why they used welders helmet liners.

The armour and both helmets in the photos you posted are of ESB MKII suits. As Mark already said, the ESB MKII suits were made from haircell ABS with the texture being on the inside and smooth on the outside. They were assembled differently to an ROTJ armour that was basically held together with elastic and Velcro glued directly to the inside of the armour, where the ESB MKII was similar it also used braces/suspenders to hold up the abdomen and butt plate. I doubt there were any major differences between the studio armour and location armour used in ROTJ. Some of the boots on Endor appear to have grips instead of a smooth sole. This may have been for the stunt guys only. I know the stunt guys had flat lenses to make vision better and some had rubber legs, but the majority of the armour just looks the same.

The way to glue the forearms (or any parts that has curves) is to glue them first. The top side of the forearms have a flat ridge that makes them a lot easier to glue the strips on, so glue the backs first and let them set of a good 48 hours if using E6000 and you will find the joints will bond much better.

Just line up the inside of the knee plate tab like you have done with the outside tab,. Even thought the knee plate will be slightly lopsided. it's totally fine. It's one of those trooper quirks

My advice is to have the knee plate laid flat against the joining strip and let the sides taper to the ridges of the top of the shins. If you look at the original armour, the knee plates look lopsided from the front and the sides rarely meet up perfectly. They never follow the angle of the top of the shins like the Centurion requirement so get the plate sitting as flush as possible and trim the return edge to follow the tops of the shins, the best you can.

Red lines look good.

My advice is to make the joining strips as wide you need them. 20mm wide strips is not uncommon to see on the original armour. Make sure the armour fits you properly and as comfortable as possible and cut the strips accordingly. No point having the armour cutting into you just to have a 15mm strip. And I agree with Greg. Chances are that if you need wider strips on your arms, you will need wider strips on your legs, so go with 25mm wide or wider if you need to. I'm a firm believer of making the armour fit you a priority, rather than trying to confirm to the CRL guidelines if it means making the armour uncomfortable or hacking it to death. Obviously the guidelines are what you are aiming for but not everyone can achieve this and some modifications are necessary.

TM ANH Hero. They don't get much better than this

That's a left shin you're wearing on your right shin.

Your bells look too big overall. Try trimming them down so they curve to fit closer to your chest and back plates. They look as though they are trimmed flat and that generally prevents them from a snug fit up against your chest plate. The max they should be is 12" along the ridge and 12" circumference on the lower edge and make sure they are not flat.

Go for the hot water bath. It will help match the parts up. See how they look on the RS that has two outer parts that don't match up properly.

The 'wonkiness' of the right shin is due to the fact it has an outer left mated up to an outer right. The WTF doesn't have the correct inner right shin part. You'll find the same wonkiness on an RS and Anovos that have doubled up parts.

1mm is very thin but that doesn't mean it's fragile or cheap if you use a good grade of ABS. People approach me and specifically ask for 1mm ABS because they want that super-flexible armour. Getting into that position wasn't easy, trust me. It's not a case of what you sit on but how the armour reacts when you try to sit down. Using a flexible ABS allows the armour to bend much more than rigid .80 gauge, especially when using the original strapping system that is prone to cracking where the brackets attach. My armour did not suffer from any cracking while sitting down, Flexible ABS can take more stress but that doesn't mean it's unbreakable - just more resistant.

Correct. You can see the white paint coming off on this armour worn by Peter Diamond as he stumbles through the blast door. Rubber legs also make an appearance in ESB, and ROTJ.

Hi Daniel, Not currently using the 1mm but I could order some if you're interested?

No, they were made from regular gloss ABS like I use. The problem with most of the 501st armour is it way too rigid and they like to use 2mm or thicker ABS for some strange reason. If you use thick plastic and webbing strapping systems with interlocking hinges and whatever else I seen used, you'll never get to sit down without cracking your armour. The movie strapping works extremely well with the correct ABS and I highly recommend it to everyone

I can sit in my 1.5mm ABS armour with original strapping without it cracking.

That's really unfair, in my opinion! Lots of folk want to achieve Centurion with their armour and some types of plastics don't work well with the paste. I think if you do a neat job like Kman has done here, that should be more than good enough.

Make sure to leave the helmet alone for a few days to allow the paint to cure properly before you start the detailing. I know it's hard but it will be worth it in the end.

That depends on your height. The original ANH shins were not the same length left and right, with the smaller left shin having the sniper knee plate attached, so you won't really notice the difference. That is unless they are much different in length, not just 10mm or so. I have never handled a WTF kit before so I really don;t know how long they are.

This is how they are supposed to be assembled according to the original ANH armour.