After TWO YEARS of waiting...

[JawaJoe]

LBB (little brown box) day finally arrived! My Anovos TK helmet kit orderd in August 2015 is here in August 2017.

 

I'm not going to bore everyone with unboxing photos. Anovos appears to have taken some advice from 501st members during product development. Interesting things about the kit:

 

Pre-trimmed ears:

I'm sure these will require further trimming. This is the part I'm most concerned about dorking up.

 

Speaking of those ears, the screws for the ears are the proper countersunk screws, not the flat screws Anovos had on the original factory-built helmets.

 

 

Larger mesh for tips compared to what I've seen on earlier Anovos factory-built lids:

 

Also comes with hero grey bubble lenses and stunt green flat lens. The padding is black, six-piece ACH type padding.

 

My goal is to have a nice looking lid to display in my office. Who knows how long that will take me. I'm sure some of you troopers could have this done in a couple hours.

 

Woz

Edited September 5, 2017 by JawaJoe
made pictures smaller

[tydirium1[TK]]

2 years, ..........  they should not let people wait that long. I've been waiting 6 months for a TK kit. Realistically looking  at least 3 more months wait time. Anovos is obviously getting worse with delivering product.

That bucket does look nice though. It would be hard for me to make it into a display. Lol. I would have to put it on all the time.

[justjoseph63[Staff]]

Glad to see that they finally changed the mesh size.  The ears may be better than you thought and not need much trimming if any, Ken.  They do not have to sit absolutely flush with the helmet all the way around.  Here is a pic of a screen used bucket... note the gap on the left ear.

 

 

 

Edited December 16, 2020 by gmrhodes13
link not working, removed gmrhodes13 2020

[Dracotrooper]

Wish you all the best on your build! Good to know Anovos is upping the quality although their wait times are much longer than the rest.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Great news, good luck with the progress

[bpoodoo]

Same here, just got mine two years after pre-order this month too.  Complementing yours, here's my mini-review.

 

The Anovos original trilogy OT Stormtrooper kit looks good and is a complete kit and even includes the newly updated mic tips.  I don't see this available-for-sale anymore on the Anovos website, so if you got one this was probably a good buy.

 

 

It looks like the two helmet pieces are pulls from the initial Anovos molds, not their updated 2017 version, but I'm not sure.

 

Gone is the awkward hardhat-style head strap.  Instead the kit includes foam pads wrapped in black cloth you install inside the top and sides of the helmet .  This is a good update.

 

It includes A New Hope Style decals, though more screen accurate for ANH would be to paint them and not use any decals.  You still need to paint the frown in either case.

 

In addition to the usual rectangular flexible green plastic for the lenses to be installed across the eyes from ear to ear, it also includes molded Hero style lenses (though they are smoke gray in color not green).  The Hero version would have 3 rank bar bumps on the ears not four.   Only the 2 ears (pretrimmed) with 4 rank bars are included.

 

Very little trimming appears to be necessary perhaps just in the front corners of the cap and back , the eyes, and the teeth.

 

FYI, Page 10 of the V1 instructions I downloaded from Anovos could lead someone astray as the placement of the drill holes on the wearer's left side show them too far forward (one is shown located on the back corner of the tear).  I "corrected" this in the following photo:

 

[bpoodoo]

I should have said you still need to paint the frown and the ear bars and the vocoder even if you use the supplied decals.

[JawaJoe]

Hi, David. Good to see I'm not alone in uncharted waters here.

 

I've started putting the bucket together. Sorry, no pictures of the assembly. I figure everyone here has seen it a million times already. I will post a picture of the assembled tips, though, just so people can see the revised tips.

 

 

The completed tips look pretty good. The larger mesh is much better than what Anovos was shipping before.

 

I was disappointed by the amount of flare at the bottom of the tubes on the rear portion. I reduced the flare a bit by holding the offending corner in boiling water for 30 seconds or so and then gently bending the plastic back.

 

The ears, I feel, were trimmed too much at the factory. Granted, this is my first TK assembly, but after fighting with these ears for days, I still have a real nasty gap on the right ear. There is a radius on this ear which wasn't present on the left ear. I was able to trim the other side to get it to fit quite nicely. The right side though...

 

 

 

I'm going to complete the helmet with these ears, but I may see if I can order some replacements from one of the other vendors supported by the FISD. This must be done in time to hand out candy on Halloween!

 

I am using the supplied stickers for the helmet at this point. If I do the ear replacement, I'll probably pull the stickers and paint the details.

 

A word of warning, I had a thin spot at the bottom of the tube on the face which probably cracked from flexing during assembly. I know it was not there out of the box. The crack will be hidden by the S-trim, so I fixed it with some CA. The helmet shouldn't be subjected to much flexing any more, so hopefully the repair will hold.

Edited September 5, 2017 by JawaJoe
'Cuz I'm a doofus!

[bpoodoo]

If it were a Rogue One helmet I'd say yes you'd want to have no gap between the ear and the helmet.  But for OT helmets, having a gap is screen accurate.  So to me it looks fine as-is.  Compare yours to this screen capture from ANH; it's very similar.  

 

And yes the plastic is very thin at the base of the helmet at the front of the tubes.  Cracks forming there are quite common with the finished ANOVOS TK helmets also.  Overtightening the ear screws might add stress to that area.

 

You might want to reinforce that seam and the surrounding area inside the helmet on both sides.  Just be sure whatever you use is safe for ABS plastic and test it first on any scrap trimmings you have.

 

[Addertime[TK]]

On 8/30/2017 at 10:29 AM, JawaJoe said:

The ears, I feel, were trimmed too much at the factory. Granted, this is my first TK assembly, but after fighting with these ears for days, I still have a real nasty gap on the right ear. There is a radius on this ear which wasn't present on the left ear. I was able to trim the other side to get it to fit quite nicely. The right side though...

 

-------------

 

I'm going to complete the helmet with these ears, but I may see if I can order some replacements from one of the other vendors supported by the FISD. This must be done in time to hand out candy on Halloween!

 

I am using the supplied stickers for the helmet at this point. If I do the ear replacement, I'll probably pull the stickers and paint the details.

 

A word of warning, I had a thin spot at the bottom of the tube on the face which probably cracked from flexing during assembly. I know it was not there out of the box. The crack will be hidden by the S-trim, so I fixed it with some CA. The helmet shouldn't be subjected to much flexing any more, so hopefully the repair will hold.

 

They are not trimmed too much, in fact, they are not trimmed nearly enough. As Joseph remarked above, the "screen accurate" helmets were all over the map. But, with regard to the ear gap but the the ear disk is usually trimmed tighter... an 1/8" or just a little more. That change would make your ears fit much better. Try trimming just a tiny bit and see what you think. 

It takes a while to get it perfect. I put a lot of hours into mine before I was happy, about 30 on the helmet and the ears took three or four sessions at about 4 hours each. They got trimmed, bolted and re-bolted at least twenty times and even punched a few more holes to make them fit better. Paul (Troopermaster) gave me the tip he uses which is to trim the disk to a consistent height of about an 1/8" or so against a flat surface and then work the rest of it to make it fit. Mine got completely reshaped from my original cuts before I ended up with something I was happy about. I still feel they're too thick on the lower part and I'll probably go back in one day and reshape them again now that's I've done it a few times and am less nervous about it.  

 

Edited December 16, 2020 by gmrhodes13
link not working, removed gmrhodes13 2020

[allan1313[TK]]

That kit is pretty well trimmed. I know they take forever, but I still love the crisp pulls. I love my Anovos bucket. Thanks for sharing guys.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[JawaJoe]

Thanks for the tips, troopers. I'll remove those ears next week and try to get them to fit better.

[QuartZ]

Hey JawaJoe,

 

Would you mind answering a quick question about the newer helmet kits? Are the screws used for the ears the correct type/size now? Or do they still need to be replaced to be accurate to the screen used helmets? I have a full armor/helmet kit on pre-order and justjoseph63 reminded me that I should look into whether Anovos has improved that aspect at all.

 

Thanks,

-Dana

[JawaJoe]

QuartZ,

The screws with the kits are the correct type and size now. I don't know if they've made the change on the factory assembled units.

Here are the unpainted screws from my kit:

 

Edited September 5, 2017 by JawaJoe
make picture smaller

[JawaJoe]

I couldn't wait for the weekend. I had a few hours free tonight, so I decided to trim down the ears. After about an hour of cutting, sanding, and filing, I'm happy with the right ear now. I just need to clean up some of my pencil marks. Now, I have to move on to the left ear.

I'd like to post an image, but I'm out of space for posting images. 

[QuartZ]

JawaJoe: That's good news. Thank you so much for the quick reply and the illustrative photo. I hope they do the same for the full armor kits. Good luck with the left ear!

 

-Dana

[bpoodoo]

Here's my go-to ear trimming I use when I can't quite visualize where to trim and to get a decent first cut quickly.  A compass works great if you can replace all the sharp bits with plastic.  Attach the helmet with screws.  Set the offset between pencil lead and the spacer according to how much to trim.  Trace around ALL of the ear keeping that constant offset, ensuring the spacer is touching the helmet at the same ear trace point where you estimate the trimmed ear will lay.  This technique I find is accurate to within 1-2 mm, manual sanding afterwards to fine tune the fit.

 

 

[JawaJoe]

Just about done. I need to Plasti-Dip the inside yet then properly mount the lens. I did cut the ears down a bit, but liked the look of the thicker ears, so I stopped at the point you see here.

 

[Big Deal]

On 8/11/2017 at 1:47 PM, tydirium1 said:

2 years, ..........  they should not let people wait that long. I've been waiting 6 months for a TK kit. Realistically looking  at least 3 more months wait time. Anovos is obviously getting worse with delivering product.

That bucket does look nice though. It would be hard for me to make it into a display. Lol. I would have to put it on all the time.

I'm in the same boat. Although I guess they have until the 21st of this month to make their "deadline". 

[tydirium1[TK]]

Looking at their shipping schedule,  they seem to STILL be shipping the spring shipment.  I'm going to get one from WTF soon. When Anovos ever gets here I'll have two. 

WTF currently takes about 6 to 8 weeks. No soft goods but Anovos soft goods won't get you to centurion anyway. Gotta buy the better stuff. No sense in buying junk soft goods. I've been buying some stuff while waiting. So, more waiting.

[bpoodoo]

Excellent work JawaJoe.  Looks perfect to my eye.  You painted that 5th tooth the same way I did.  The ANOVOS mold is different at that location (more depressed) compared to screen-used helmets.

[Big Deal]

20 hours ago, tydirium1 said:

Looking at their shipping schedule,  they seem to STILL be shipping the spring shipment.  I'm going to get one from WTF soon. When Anovos ever gets here I'll have two. 

WTF currently takes about 6 to 8 weeks. No soft goods but Anovos soft goods won't get you to centurion anyway. Gotta buy the better stuff. No sense in buying junk soft goods. I've been buying some stuff while waiting. So, more waiting.

Looks like I'm now looking at December 21st instead of September 21st. For now anyways...

[JawaJoe]

21 hours ago, bpoodoo said:

Excellent work JawaJoe.  Looks perfect to my eye.  You painted that 5th tooth the same way I did.  The ANOVOS mold is different at that location (more depressed) compared to screen-used helmets.

Post some pics of your lid?

 

Before I forget, I wanted to thank everyone here at FISD! Y'all helped me get this bucket built so it looks nice.

Figuring out how I was going to paint that tooth took me a while. The left side (as you wear the lid) fifth tooth is little more than a dot of grey paint. This just seemed like the most logical way to paint it based on the surfaces provided.

 

I was tempted to airbrush the teeth and vocoder, but chose to brush it for three reasons:

1. I actually like the brush marks in the paint.

2. I wanted slightly uneven edges on the teeth.

3. I hate cleaning enamel out of the airbrush.

 

The black border on the ear ranks is tad too thick, so I'll probably paint some more grey on those to thin up the lines. The more I look at it, the more I'm tempted to pull off the decals for the traps and tears and paint them by hand. My success (as I see it) in painting the other features has made me cocky.

 

Also getting the itch to buy the full armor now. Or, I could buy the LEGO UCS Millenium Falcon for $800. Either decision would probably result in an extended stay in the dog house. My beautiful wife can only take so much of my geekery. Kid starting college next year, car payments, mortgage, yada, yada, yada...

[bpoodoo]

JawaJoe,

I bought the full Original TK armor (including medium soft goods), all sitting in the same big brown ANOVOS box it shipped in.  After waiting a year to get it, it's been sitting on my living room floor in the original untrimmed state.  I bought it at the low prerelease price mostly because I wanted the helmet that was included.  I'd already bought preassembled used AP armor from someone about my size, and it makes more sense for me to clean it up and modify it to fit me.  So long story short, I could sell you my original pre-order armor the medium soft goods and everything that came with it, just without the finished helmet, for a good price.  And of course it's in-hand and ready to ship.  (I may be violating terms of this site by offering it for sale in this thread; I may need to put this in the For Sale thread instead).

bpoodoo

[JawaJoe]

2 hours ago, bpoodoo said:

I could sell you my original pre-order armor the medium soft goods and everything that came with it, just without the finished helmet, for a good price.  And of course it's in-hand and ready to ship.  (I may be violating terms of this site by offering it for sale in this thread; I may need to put this in the For Sale thread instead).

bpoodoo

That probably is violating some terms of the site, but I'd be very tempted to buy for a reasonable price. The soft goods would be too small, but I hear they're not that great, anyhow. I thought about buying the Anovos armor and selling the factory-assembled helmet, but...waiting sooo long again? I don't know.