Punkers First Order Stormtrooper (TFA) build thread (TK-67000)

[Punkers]

I tried to update my post but it's broken.  I'll update in the morning. 

Edited August 22, 2015 by Punkers

[Punkers]

So today was the day to attach the resin detail to the chest plate. I reviewed some other builds and thanks to a few ideas, I came up with this idea.

I built two tabs to glue to the resin piece before gluing down the assembly to the chest plate so that I could mark the spot for alignment easily and then better secure it. The real trick was getting them glued down, because I was using superglue / CA to affix the resin detail to the chest, while using ABS cement to affix the ABS tabs to the chest plate ... all solo today!





And then there was one. Haha



Then I applied some bondo to it, and while waiting for it to cure, I attached the resin "nipple" greeblies.



Then some more bondo to build up a little more ... and be final result is this





During the day while waiting for things with bondo to cure, I also took a page out of Clint and Barcoder's books and decided to do the snaps on the spats mod. So I built little snap plates with raised tabs like Barcoder, and I drilled the same holes in the spat to accept a male snap more flush. Keep in mind that a 5/8 inch drill bit is too large for the female side of the snap (matches the outer max dime thins of the snap head) , but I didn't have a drill bit inbetween that would work and make it fit more snugly around the snap.



I also reinforced the yoke with some curbed ABS pieces and am also still debating adding fiberglass over the whole assembly too.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Nice work on the chest piece

[Barcode]

Sweet build!

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Way to go Tyler. Great job on the chest and yoke sir.

[Punkers]

Nice work on the chest piece

 

 

Sweet build!

 

 

Way to go Tyler. Great job on the chest and yoke sir.

 

Thanks to all of you    I really appreciate the encouragement.

[Punkers]

Today I continued from my progress yesterday and focused on anything I could do to move along the stuff I was already neck deep into, trying to get them closer to completion.

 

First I worked on the knee gaskets, trying to pinpoint the snap locations and align the gasket seams to the inside of the thighs. I soon discovered however that a trooper at the height of approximately 5'7" - 5'8" is going to run into the maximum thresholds of the gaskets, unless you have a tall torso and shorter legs (which apparently I don't).  So once I tested this and noticed where they will align at the boots, I decided to only have one to two ribs inside the thighs and calves, allowing for the maximum bend at the knee and to make the overall length as long as possible to cover the tops of the boots and not have super floating spats.

 

 

I slid them on, and with the calf closures still not installed (i.e. when the calves aren't closed in pre-troop suit up phase), I found that I should be able to put everything together on the leg armor and simply slide my foot through everything and slip it on like a sock   , which should make the dressing part super slick with exception of tucking in the boots and attaching the spats.

 

I finished both left and right leg assemblies except for attaching the knee plates, which I will be working on this week.  I plan to "counter sink" two little spots on the knee gaskets (one on each side of the knee plate) to affix the knee plates to the gasket with, which should make moving them to cloth or other future gasket revisions super simplistic.  This way I can also pop them on for approval or LFL / Disney events with the rubber gaskets, and then move them easily back and forth as needed.

 

Here are the planned snap locations that will be transferred over to the knee gaskets...

 

 

 

Then I moved on to the yoke and added snaps for the shoulder bells, as well as made straps to connect them. I also had my second try on of the day... I thought the shirt was rather appropriate today too  .  Wish I had snapped a pic of me wearing the thigh, gasket, and calf 

 

 

 

Then I started working on the AB plate some more.  I finished the fitting of all AB boxes and am sufficiently happy with the fit they will have once I do some work with exactly how I will be affixing them to the AB.  It was brought to my attention that to maintain the seamless look without completely taping off everything, it will be much easier to use the bolt on methods I've seen used in other builds, so that is precisely what I will be working with this week hopefully.

 

But for today, I decided to put in the snaps for the cod piece and wanted to put snaps in to hold the decorative belt up as well...

 

 

Then I took a short break from gluing on snaps and had some help from my buddy to sew my belt together. We created a combo belt & harness out of 2" black elastic, 2" nylon straps, & belt clasp, and then added 1" nylon straps to suspend the thighs with. It stretches just enough to allow more comfort than using nylon straps for suspenders.

 

 

 

Then I added snaps for the butt plate to hang from the inside edge of the kidney, added Velcro to the back of the kidney plate halves, and fashioned a 5" strip of ABS & hook Velcro to use as a closure rather than snaps / straps or a corset closure.  It fits quite well without anything suspending it currently, and even with it being somewhat tight closed fully, I AM able to slide it up my legs and over my hips to position.  I plan to loosen it a little to give myself some play, and then add two snaps to my support harness (pictures coming over the next week).

 

 

 

Then as the daylight faded and it started getting dark, I decided my last effort for the evening would be to attach snaps to the chest piece to accept the nylon strap that will cross the yoke and hold the chest plate in place vertically.

 

 

So here is an overall look at everything that I accomplished today or this week (other than I haven't displayed the fit of the AB boxes since technically i'm not complete with them   )

 

 

 

And here is another close up look at the snaps on the spats if anyone hasn't already seen it on Barcoder or Clint's builds...

 

Edited August 23, 2015 by Punkers

[ukswrath[Staff]]

What are most using to secure the knee plate snaps or velcro?

It looks like the snap idea on the spat is the way to go, which is a excellent idea. Liking your inner harness setup, very nice.

[Punkers]

I think most do Velcro or Chicago screws to attach the knee plates. I'm being adventurous and taking a chance that the snaps will work on the beta gaskets. The snaps on the spats wasn't my idea, but yes I think it's a great idea. I just have to make sure that before I glue anything down on the spat greeblie that it lines up well with the female snap and that it isn't going to take a ton of pressure to snap it in place.

Edited August 23, 2015 by Punkers

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Awesome

[Vertex[TK]]

Quick question about your cod piece. Is the top flushed with the bottom of the AB section (not the tabs at the bottom).

 

I see your 5 snaps - 2 black for what I assume is the cod piece and 3 white for what I assume are for the belt. Just trying to figure how you can have both the belt and cod piece connected unless the cod piece is not flushed with the AB armor and is maybe dangling with some straps. Hope that made sense?

 

It may be easier if you could just post a pic of your cod piece connected to the AB armor.

[Punkers]

Quick question about your cod piece. Is the top flushed with the bottom of the AB section (not the tabs at the bottom).I see your 5 snaps - 2 black for what I assume is the cod piece and 3 white for what I assume are for the belt. Just trying to figure how you can have both the belt and cod piece connected unless the cod piece is not flushed with the AB armor and is maybe dangling with some straps. Hope that made sense?It may be easier if you could just post a pic of your cod piece connected to the AB armor.

I actually haven't put snaps in the cod yet, still checking its height etc (hopefully this week), so the snaps were installed with the plan of having the belt over the cod and snapping down on the sides. I'll be honest I added the extra snap not thinking, but I will probably just have three snaps on the cod to make sure it doesn't fall off with bending over or anything, or if it won't sit flush I'll remove it

Edited August 24, 2015 by Punkers

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Yea I'm holding off on exactly how I'll be attaching the cod and posterior pieces until my soft parts get here. 

[Punkers]

I have an advantage of an Alpha in my Garrison , so I will be trying on their belt to see the approximate fit.

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Nice

[Mayday73]

Nice clean build and some good ideas, thanks for taking the time to post your progression, will come in very handy for me

[Punkers]

Haven't updated for a while because there were issues with the FISD boards, and I spent that week working with AB boxes, sanding, and greeblies.

 

Last week, I came to the conclusion that the best method to affix the AB boxes without making them appear seamless, would be to have them attached AFTER the priming and painting was done on the AB plate itself.  This means that I can paint the boxes individually to ensure the seams won't get filled in with coats of primer or paint, and maintain that seamed look that they are supposed to have.  So I tore into it with the advice of a few other troopers who did it before me (thanks Stephen and Dan)....

 

Here is the hardware that you will want to pick up:

 

#6-32 x 3/4" Bolts

#6-32 Nuts

#6 Washers

 

 

I fashioned ABS inserts to drill four holes (per box) and mount to the insides of the boxes, which I figured would give the tightest fit against the AB plate as possible. Once I had sized the inserts and drilled the holes in them, I used a countersink drill bit to ensure the heads of the bolts would not interfere with the outside surfaces of the boxes when the inserts were glued down to the inside of the boxes.

 

 

Then to test the fit, I rolled a piece of masking tape inside the box and pressed the inserts with bolts & nuts attached (thumb tight) into the box.  Once it was secured with the tape, I then used the tip of a mechanical pencil to apply some graphite to the bottoms of the bolts so that when pressed against the AB in the proper position, I could visualize the location of the bolt holes to be drilled into the AB plate on the corresponding AB box mounts, and then drilled the holes. (Tip:  ream out the holes a little bit so that you don't have a super tight fit and once the bolts glued down into the AB boxes that you don't have issues with them splaying out too much / little and not able to insert the bolts into the holes you've drilled)

 

 

Once I was happy with the fit and able to get the bolts into the AB plate, I determined whether the bolts were too long and used my dremel and a cutting wheel to shorten the bolts a little, and then put some loctite on the bots and tightened down the nuts on the insides of the box.  Then I glued the inserts inside the boxes and clamped them down for a bit.  For my build, i've used ABS cement anywhere that I am gluing ABS to ABS, but you could also use CA glue (super glue) instead.

 

 

And then it was time for a final fit ...

 

 

All boxes are now done and ready to be attached after priming and painting...

 

 

I am using two nuts and a washer for each bolt going from the mounting plate inside the box into the AB plate.  You may also want an extra washer to put behind the nut on the inside of the box if you notice it starting to crack or anything on the ABS mounting plates.

 

 

Then while waiting on some bondo to dry on repair work, and the inserts to glue down to the boxes, I started sanding my shoulder bells, cod, biceps, thighs, calves, and spats as I prepped for eventual priming. My point in doing this was I also was working with the greeblies on a heatgun purchase, so I figured why not kill two birds with one stone lol.  Once I Was done sanding the gloss coat off of the ABS for the biceps, thighs, calves, and spats, I pulled out the greeblies and started shaping them with the heatgun.  I put them face down on a piece of cardboard and then heated them for approximately 30 seconds and bent them carefully over a spray paint can to the desired shape.  Once I had a good fit, I glued them all down one by one with CA glue.

 

 

I also took some time working with the snap plates on the inside of the greeblies to match my female snaps that I put into the inside of the spats, and I am quite happy with the results. When I glued down the back end of the greeblies, I first snapped the male snap plates into the female snaps and slid the other end of the spat under the greeblie as I applied the CA glue and then clamped them down and let them dry overnight.

 

[Punkers]

This week I had a helper again, so I plowed through as much as I could to get the fit right.

 

I first started in on the shoulder gaskets as I wanted to get the length and circumference right on them so we can be sure they will fit inside the biceps, and then find the snap locations for my snap tabs that I glued into them.  After some tweaking and using the final bit of my Weir Stuck glue, I was able to get the fit about right and then attached some straps to pull it all together.  I went over to Walmart and bought some straps that they sell pre-made with slide clips intended for camping gear etc. in the outdoor goods isle, and cut them to the desired length, and glued them down with CA glue.

 

 

Unfortunately due to time constraints and simply just not thinking about it, I didn't take any photos to show the fit, but I plan to do that this weekend given the opportunity   .  But then the least expected happened...  while pulling the yoke off, the bondo cracked at the seam   so now I have more bondo work to do.  Can I just say that I really HATE bondo, and am super scared that after all of this hard work and painting everything that I'm going to have bondo cracking away and destroy my nice paint job...

 

 

 

Then I repeated similar methods of locating the snap locations inside the biceps for the elbow gaskets and tested their fit...

 

 

 

Then we worked with the yoke some more and determined the snap plate locations for the strap across the front of the yoke that the chest plate will mount up to.

 

 

And in doing so we discovered I may have to change the shape of the chest plate or the angle of the wings (with a heat gun) to close the gap between the chest plate and the yoke at the shoulders 

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Coming along nicely

[Zaphod[TK]]

 

Hey there Tyler. Nice build thread so far. I like what you did with the gaskets.

You may want to take a second look at the spats; I think the greeblies may be on the wrong way around

Check out the pics in the gallery http://www.whitearmor.net/forum/gallery/image/3788-spat-tk19191-2/

 

-Zaphod

 

[Punkers]

You may want to take a second look at the spats; I think the greeblies may be on the wrong way around

Thank you sir. After verifying this with the masters and screen reference, I have fixed this. Good catch. I feel like I failed hard

 

Edited September 10, 2015 by Punkers

[Zaphod[TK]]

Thank you sir. After verifying this with the masters and screen reference, I have fixed this. Good catch. I feel like I failed hard

 

 

NO WAY!

Your build is Awesome!

Troopers helping Troopers be as accurate as we can be.

 

-Zaphod

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Very nice job Tyler, coming along quite nicely 

[Punkers]

This weekend I did some sanding of the remaining parts I hadn't removed the gloss coat from, and then I did a fitting to show how my progress has gone so far. Just a few things left to do and time to start priming.

 

Edited September 13, 2015 by Punkers

[Punkers]

Hey guys n' gals !   Long time no talk due to the migration to private forums and most of this taking place via other outlets or offline.  But here it is, in all it's glory.... I have finished my build and submitted for approval!