LeMaxim's RS PVC ANH Stunt Build [*RS] (WIP)

[The5thHorseman[501st]]

Swedish approvals go fast! Congratulation!! Nothing better than a good news and a cup of tea at the same time 

 

Back of thighs. Right again. I just wanted to keep as much as possible of the "original build" to try out before trimming. I will most likely find that and many other areas pinching and in need of a good dremmel-down in a near future.

In fact, i wasn't really thinking about pinching but more in term of accuracy:). Most of the original thighs i can see have their cover strips cut this way; not all but seems like the majority to me.:

Edited November 14, 2013 by The5thHorseman

[LeMaxim[TK]]

Thanks again everyone for your help, comments, cheering on, and congratulations. I'm still very stoked about this

 

As it turns out I'll do my first troops this weekend in support of the relief efforts in the Philippines. Time to hit the ground running.

This is what we signed up for.

 

I have a busy day today but have more pictures coming along this evening. In the meantime I'll offer this as a start.

 

 

I have, sort of, kept this build-project a secret for my non-legion friends. Time to come out of the closet now.

 

More to come.

 

[Clamps[TK]]

CONGRATS TK-74210!!!    

 

[Rich330[TK]]

Looking good, trooper. This video might offer some additional help with visualising the biceps-forearm connection if you haven't yet addressed it. Otherwise, you can rely 100% on what Paul (troopermaster) tells you. Just follow his instructions.

 

[LeMaxim[TK]]

It's interesting how, once you get your approval, the build thread seems to take a long step back. 

 

I'm sure I'm not the first new trooper to experience this. Legion, Garrison and Detachment access to various forums and a new world opens. 

Troop sign-ups, Historical discussions, merchandise... So many new things to read.

 

But while I have been away from this thread for a few days I have not forgotten about it. 

 

Thank you all again for your words of encouragement, advice, and congratulations. Now the real adventure begins.

 

I have about 6-10 trooping events planned for the coming month and will, no doubt, find many things to attend to on the armour.

A pinch here, and a sharp prodding pain there. Some "lightly scuffed" applied, and in-field mods done, then I'll be ready to revisit this and prepare for EIB and Centurion. 

 

I got the opportunity to get my first troop done on saturday last week, not 3 days later than my approval, and had a great day. 

 

Three TKs (TK-54321, TK-12020, and myself) and one certain rebel spent the day outside the local SciFi-book shop and collected money for the relief efforts in the Philippines while posing for pictures, high-fiving kids and fending of overly “cool†teens.

 

It felt like a very worthy first troop and it felt great to be part of it and having finally joined the ranks of the Legion. 

 

The local weather was good and the locals were generous.

I'm not sure if the numbers are official yet but in about 4-5 hours we collected the rough equivalent of a fully built and kitted RS armour (using this as a measurement as it's numbers I can compare with).

Felt like a good start of the trooping-career. 

 

Nordic Garrison did similar troops in a number of cities for the same cause at the same time and from the total collected (which was split between a number of relief organisations)

$800 was given directly to the Philippine Outpost for their Operation New Hope.

 

(Nordic Garrison FB Coverage of the troop)

 

All in all a good start. 

 

Finally. First picture of TK-74210 on troop. 

 

(L-R: TK-12020, TK-74210, That Rebel Scum. Picture credit TK-54321) 

 

Big hat tip to Nicky (TK-54321) for coordinating this event and the Garrison efforts for this cause. 

 

 

Oh. And finally. Why 74210?

 

As I was building I kept a list of possible ID’s and significant numbers that popped up… After a while I found a great one and I started to stress about it getting taken before me. Fortunately I got it. 

So. 74210 is a combination of several numbers. Let’s start from the left. 

7 = Always a good number.
74 = In Star Trek, as some of you probably know, 47 is a reoccurring and special number. So special and used, in fact, that they started hiding it away a bit more with the reversed 74.
4 = The number of my favourite classical Doctor (Tom Baker, the one with the long scarf). Also the current Doctor at the year of my birth (1978)
42 = Well. Apparently it’s the answer…
421 = I really shouldn’t have to tell any of you why this is a special number.
2 = “There’s always two…â€
210 = The TK-ID of Legion Founder Albin Johnson. Because he really started something good here and I’d like to honour that. 
1 = Refers to “The One Ring†in Lord of the Rings.
10 = The number of my favourite modern Doctor (David Tennant) and the Doctor that really got me whooked.
0 = Apparently everything is nothing with a twist. So that covers the rest. 

There’s probably a lot more there too… but I didn’t want to over think it.

 

Yes. I like numbers and quite a few other things. 

 

 

(edit: typo. "Rebel Scum". Not "Rebel Sum". )

Edited November 23, 2013 by LeMaxim

[Echo[TK]]

Congrats Maxim on approval and your first troop. Love the numerology around your ID. Have fun, it looks like you have a busy month planned

[Cantina Security[501st]]

Really nice work. Looks awesome.

[SCTrooper[TK]]

You wear your armor well! Great build thread. Congrat's on your approval and have fun trooping.

[LeMaxim[TK]]

Thank you Troopers!

 

Sorry for not posting any updates on mods or anything here for a while.

 

As a high ranking (highest in fact) member of FISD just recently pointed out... How come I'm not going for EIB already?

 

I will. Soon. 

 

Fist of all I wanted to properly troop in my armour first to get a better feel for it. 

 

Due to ill timed flue-knock-out and work the 10 planned troops became 5. 

    

Can you spot me?

 

(Well. I did manage to squeeze in two birthdays for kids of friends too but they fall outside the official count)

 

Secondly. We are doing some redecoration at home and since I work off our floor I have decided to put trimming off for a bit. 

 

But soon. Very soon. 

 

In the meantime I will share some mods I've done and other troops along the way. 

 

Hmm... Is it customary or not to put post-approval mods and EIB-mods in the WIP? 

It feels logical, some how, since an armour always seems to be a work in progress. 

 

Anyway. I hope 2014 have started of wonderfully for you all. 

 

Cheers, 

Maxim v.2014

 

[Darth Aloha[Admin]]

 

 

Hmm... Is it customary or not to put post-approval mods and EIB-mods in the WIP? 

It feels logical, some how, since an armour always seems to be a work in progress. 

 

 

 

It's totally customary to put post-approval mods in your build thread. I think a lot of people don't always end up coming back to FISD after they get what they need out of our community, so it may not happen as often as we'd like. I certainly posted stuff after I was approved. 

 

 

And no... you're never done. 

 

-Eric

[The5thHorseman[501st]]

Can you spot me?

 

Ok, i like to play this game  , so i'll give it a try :

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And yes, that would be interesting to see the Post-build modifications you've made since you began to troop .

[LeMaxim[TK]]

Ok, i like to play this game  , so i'll give it a try :

 

[pics removed]

 

And yes, that would be interesting to see the Post-build modifications you've made since you began to troop .

 

Oh wow! That's 5 out of 5. 

 

Who says TKs can't hit a mark? 

 

 

 

Thank's Eric and Germain, then I'll continue building towards comfort, Centurion and general TK-ness in this thread. 

[LeMaxim[TK]]

Before I start documenting the mods to my armour I thought I'd just fill in a blank from my build. 

 

As I used the bracket system for my torso I needed to make the elastic hoops. 

Every time I thought about sewing I got sweaty hands and a slight anxiety episode. (textile workshop at primary school really seems to have damaged me.) 

So I needed a way of putting the hoops together without relying too much on my very limited skills as a seamstress.

I thought for a while and got an idea, “Hey! I've got all these magnets lying around here.â€

 

Long story short. I decided to enlist the help och glue and simply add some manual stitches after. 

 

My idea was to simply wrap the hoops around a thin metal object and have them held in place with magnets while the glue dried. 

I had lots of magnets, elastics, and textile glue. The problem was finding a metal object thin enough to allow the short elastics to be wrapped around, 

and wide enough to allow for the magnet to keep it in place. 

After searching for a suitable object I again found something from the Swedish Embassy (IKEA).  Grundtal stainless steel rail.

Since I live by those rails and have a lot of them for hanging things on I actually had a few I still had not put up. 

As it turned out the diameter of the rail was perfect for wrapping the elastics. 

I used one of the wall-mount-brackets of the rail to keep the rail from rolling around. 

So. Here's what I did. 

 

1. Cut elastics to length.

 

2. Apply textile glue to joining edges.

I went for the circle shape instead of the, as far as I know, more accurate drop shape.

 

3. Let glue rest for a moment before joining the edges together as per the interactions of the glue. 

While waiting I had time to apply glue on all and let them rest. I let them rest on the magnetised to the rail. 

 

4. Wrap the elastic around the rail so the edges overlap. Push down. Apply magnet to hold steady while glue dries. 

Repeat with each elastic as they had rested enough. 

   

 

5. After glue had dried I simply removed the magnets and slipped the hoops out. 

 

6. Stich glued area for extra strength for the hoops. (as a side note the hoops were very strong even without stitches)

 

7. Attach in brackets. Dress. Troop. Live the dream.

 

 

It's not like the hoops are the most difficult thing to manage, but I had a fun time exploring this solution.

 

 

Next post will be about protecting your eyes from nasty rebel projectiles while trooping.

[Locitus[Admin]]

So where are your EIB and Centurion requests?

[LeMaxim[TK]]

Yeah. Well. As someone pointed out. My biceps needs to tighten a bit (i'm not that strong) and my thighs are a bit roomy and makes it look like I have no butt.

 

Cannot have that. Want to look proper sharp. Getting there.

 

I also want to do some comfort-mods. For my own sake. 

 

I'll be returning here with some questions over the next few days to get me started. 

 

I have a troop next friday and would like to do the mods after that. Don't want to cut and glue things before that. 

Edited January 11, 2014 by LeMaxim

[Locitus[Admin]]

Bah, that's like a week left. Plenty of time

[LeMaxim[TK]]

True...

But we just redecorated and got a new sofa. I think we'll try to keep the smell of new sofa for another week before I mix it up with PVC shards and the smell of E6000. 

 

Ah! The woes of compact living.

[Locitus[Admin]]

Fair enough I suppose.

[aifia]

Very nice thread! I'm from Sweden to and in the process of buying a build set, most likely from RS.

Still keeping my mind open for other alternatives, but buying from UK is preferred.

You like the PVC as material?

 

By you pictures it looks like decent hard work - mostly on the detail work.
May I ask you how long time it took? Kinda interested in the 200£ option to get it assembled..
An estimated of total work hours from scratch to final result would be of great appreciation for making my future decision.

 

Thanks in advance.

Regards from Umeå.

[LeMaxim[TK]]

Very nice thread! I'm from Sweden to and in the process of buying a build set, most likely from RS.

Still keeping my mind open for other alternatives, but buying from UK is preferred.

You like the PVC as material?

 

By you pictures it looks like decent hard work - mostly on the detail work.

May I ask you how long time it took? Kinda interested in the 200£ option to get it assembled..

An estimated of total work hours from scratch to final result would be of great appreciation for making my future decision.

 

Thanks in advance.

Regards from Umeå.

 

Thank you for your kind words Daniel. Sadly this thread have been a bit neglected for a bit. Have had many other projects and things going on in my life and I have simply been needing to give myself some room.

 

I'm not sure if your questions are still relevant to you but someone else might read and have the same thoughts. So. To get you started. 

 

I was building for about 4 months. Most of the time spent on building was spent researching and as you can see from other threads (linked in my thread) it's possible to do the actual building in a weekend or two. The hard part is actually more about knowing how to do it and not so much the doing. (within reason though). But expect a lot of time researching. I often found myself sure about one thing until I actually got to the doing. I had to return and read more because new questions arose. 

 

I would say that £200 is a very reasonable price for getting it built by the maker considering the time you would put into it otherwise. It is, however, a very rewarding feeling to be able to say “I built thisâ€.

 

It's very difficult to say how much time went into the cutting, glueing and such... I researched almost every day and built mostly on weekends. I would guess 20 hours / week isn't far of the mark... but it depends on how focused you can be while building. I live in a small apartment and had to put everything back into liveable order between build-sessions and that took a lot of time.

 

From the UK we have RS, TM, and CFO depending on which variant you are going for. From my own experiences and from what I've heard and seen you cannot go wrong with those makers, kit or build for you. 

Depending on your body type there might, however, be other makers that would give you a better fit. Keep looking at build threads and, especially, EIB/Centurion applications to get a feel for how different makers armours look on different troopers.

 

And yes. I like the whiteness of the PVC.

 

Sorry for the long wait for response. 

 

If you haven't already done it you should register on the forum on Nordicgarrison.net to connect with the local garrison. 

 

If you have any additional questions please feel free to PM me here or on Nordic Garrisons forum. 

 

I hope to see you on a troop in the future.

[LeMaxim[TK]]

This thread have been a bit neglected while I'm sorting out other things. 

Don't worry. I'll get around to EIB and Centurion application mods.

 

In the meantime I'd like to share a modification I did for my first Blast-a-Trooper (BaT) duty. 

 

Since my helmet is built with original style lens and set up I was a bit concerned that a BaT dart might hit me in the eye. 

The lens material is rather flimsy and I didn't want to find out the hard way that it dosen't protect from projectiles. 

As an old tournament Paintball player I have a somewhat deeply rooted respect for the projectile-eye-scenario. I asked some more experienced troopers and they reinforced my concerns that the darts should be respected. 

 

So I started thinking. I didn't want to modify my helmet in any permanent fashion but I didn't want to miss out on all the BaT fun.

 

After thinking an rummaging through bits and boxes I found a, so far, unused photo-frame. 

 

(IKEA. Big surprise there) 

 

The frame had a plastic "glass" that was rather easy to bend. 

 

So I simply took out my lens from the helmet. Outlined it on the “glass†and cut it down to fit. 

Since the glass was shorter than the lens (A4 size) I had to use the diagonal width of the glass. 

In my case this fit the corners nicely between my ear-screws. This was what I was going for. 

 

 

After the cut (not the nicest, but hey, it was a quick mod) I removed the protective film from the glass

 

 

and test fitted the protective lens. 

 

 

Like a glove... 

 

I then reinstalled the lens and tried the protective lens again. 

 

 

It's not the nicest thing to look at and it would be easy to do this nicer but for what it's for it works nicely. 

The protection wedges in between the ear screws on both sides and the lens is kept securely in place.

 

It's very easy to install and remove from the helmet. 

 

I've worn this for BaT and at least once it have saved me from taking a dart through the lens. 

It worked so nicely that I didn't notice it myself. Someone actually had to tell me that I took one directly to the eye. 

 

So. In my case this works nicely but since we're talking projectiles and eyes I do urge anyone to use their own judgement if trying this. My way might not work for any helmet and please don't take any risks with your eyes. 

 

Anyway. I'm sure others have come up with similar solutions but I just wanted to share mine with you.

 

[Rezablad3[TK]]

Still waiting on that EIB application of yours :explodingemotie:    hahahahah

[LeMaxim[TK]]

Agreed. Me too.

 

Seeing that there is no time like the present but taking into consideration that I still don't have a good space for making my mods I might as well start by asking the community about pointers before getting my EIB application in. 

 

So. I haven't done any real mods since my approval pictures were sent (appart from replacing my RS gloves with a lovely pair from Karin). 

 

The build have been done with Centurion in mind and the only thing I'm concerned about is the fit.

 

Here's my approval pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next I'll post some pictures from a recent trip to a photo studio. 

 

 

[LeMaxim[TK]]

These photos comes from a serie for to be used for my trading cards but I figured they might serve as a better view into different angles and details of the armour when I'm wearing it. 

 

Had I thought things through I would have done a few EIB application pictures too, but... Well.. I haven't done any modifications yet... 

 

I feel I will have to modify my bicep and thighs for Centurion and was hoping to get everything done for that before going for EIB... but that might be getting me to put EIB of longer too. 

 

So. Please comment on things for EIB and for Centurion. 

If I should be good for EIB I'll start collecting info and photos for an application this week. 

So please help me along prior to putting up an EIB application thread. Since it will take some time before I can make mods I didn't want to do an application that will be hanging for too long. 

 

Some of the pictures might be redundant but I thought all of them would allow for some detailed look. 

 

For those of you who don't know / want to chime in on the EIB / Centurion questions... They might serve as a nice collection of pictures of the approved armour.

 

Here goes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So. Any thoughts? Ready for EIB or should I start working on Centurion mods before?

 

[Minuteman]

Wow!

 

These professional pictures are beautiful to look at.

 

For the moment my suggestion would be to get the biceps more snug. There is plenty of return edge at the bottom of them, take that off and then tighten the biceps up a little.

Or maybe you want to start bodybuilding in the near future and you should keep it as it is

 

I can imagine that walking is not a big pleasure for you when I look at the back shot.... the thighs will pinch the buttplate, won´t they?

But walking uncomfortably is accurate ;-)

 

You will not have major problems with EIB and Centurion

Edited April 9, 2014 by Minuteman