CableGuy[TK] Posted April 22, 2018 Report Posted April 22, 2018 WOW!! I’m a bit in awe of this thread, Greg. Amazing work thus far!! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote
wook1138[TK] Posted April 22, 2018 Author Report Posted April 22, 2018 Ah, thanks Dan! Truth be told, I'm taking my time with the helmet as a way to avoid all the tedious trimming that is waiting for me. 1 Quote
wook1138[TK] Posted May 3, 2018 Author Report Posted May 3, 2018 So, I may not have time right now for building - but that isn't stopping me from spending money. I just pulled the trigger on one of CrookKnight's #3 sandtrooper backpacks. He is having a Star Wars Day sale via his FB page, so... that was all the convincing I needed. 1 Quote
GilFran007 Posted May 3, 2018 Report Posted May 3, 2018 oh man.....why'd you have to put that on my radar..... LOL 1 Quote
ABS80 Posted May 3, 2018 Report Posted May 3, 2018 Great job so far! just realized this stunt helmet had only 6 holes cut out on frown. Mark (AP) 1 Quote
wook1138[TK] Posted May 3, 2018 Author Report Posted May 3, 2018 2 minutes ago, ABS80 said: Great job so far! just realized this stunt helmet had only 6 holes cut out on frown. Mark (AP) Thanks Mark! Yeah, I don't think the TK builders had really hit their stride at this point in production. Quote
wook1138[TK] Posted May 4, 2018 Author Report Posted May 4, 2018 Happy Star Wars day, everyone. Now, go buy your Solo tickets. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 3 Quote
TheSwede[TK] Posted May 5, 2018 Report Posted May 5, 2018 22 hours ago, wook1138 said: Now, go buy your Solo tickets. Trooping at the local Cinema so tickets are free Quote
wook1138[TK] Posted May 5, 2018 Author Report Posted May 5, 2018 Trooping at the local Cinema so tickets are free That’s awesome!!Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 1 Quote
wook1138[TK] Posted May 5, 2018 Author Report Posted May 5, 2018 Trooping at the local Cinema so tickets are free I had a troop at a bookstore last night. No free movie but fun nonetheless. Thanks to Giles Woodward for the picsSent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2 Quote
TheSwede[TK] Posted May 5, 2018 Report Posted May 5, 2018 6 minutes ago, wook1138 said: That’s awesome!! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk No but that Troop is AWESOME! You look really great 1 Quote
hollowbodies[501st] Posted May 10, 2018 Report Posted May 10, 2018 Great work as always, Greg! 1 Quote
wook1138[TK] Posted May 22, 2018 Author Report Posted May 22, 2018 (edited) Ok, long time - no posting. So I thought I would post the trimming process for the AP armour. So here goes. This is of course for new people with no experience with trimming the AP kit. I'm not really talking about measuring for fitting, just the rough trimming (for the most part) Getting ready. I use a combination of lexan scissors, dremel, and score and snap with a utility knife. Picked these up. Bicep There is no left or right for the arms. They are the same. So the trim lines are pretty good for most pieces. Red in the pic. The green is the return edge for the butt seam that gets the coverstrip. The blue just separates the two halves. Inside bicep. I used the score and snap method here. I don’t like using this unless the lines are straight and flat. The knife can get away from you pretty fast and you can end up cutting your armour or at least create a weak spot for a future tear. I never score towards an inside corner - I'm not great with the knife and tend to overshoot the corner - creating a weak spot in the armour. Cut to the corners with scissors and snap the the edges. For the butt edge the is lots of material. I only need about 7 or 8 mm (15mm coverstrip) for my edges. Using the inside is great for seeing return edges Biceps rough trimmed. Butt edges not sized yet. Forearms Elbow edge. I left return edge only because the particular sandy I’m building has some return edge. I’ll reduce later to better match reference pics. Wrist edge of forearms. More return edge needs to be removed Wrist return edge needs to go. The inside of the piece really shows the return edge well. Shoulder bells before Shoulder bells after Don’t forget to clean up the little return edge along the side if present. Arms trimmed and ready for fitting. Return edge left where possible for screen accuracy sake. I removed all return edge for my TK build. But this is a sandy and they seem to have return edges. After fitting I reduced all butt return edges to about 7 or 8 mm for a 15mm coverstrip. Had to trim the shoulder bell return edge so I fit over the bicep better - not done yet in pic. I sand the areas that I will glue with coarse sandpaper. This helps the glue stick. Use E6000 - can't stress that enough. Cut some 15 mm coverstrips and sand the rough sides. There is a shinier side - this is the side that faces out. The other side gets the rough up with sandpaper and glued. Ready for assembly. Edges rough sanded and all corners rounded off. Got some gluing done too. Forearms got their coverstrips. The right arm doesn’t get a full coverstrip. And yes, that is the inside seam by accident. Too long of a day - good thing it is E6000. Check it out below in green. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Edited May 23, 2018 by wook1138 Quote
wook1138[TK] Posted May 22, 2018 Author Report Posted May 22, 2018 (edited) More trimming of the AP kit. Shins Unlike the arms, there is a left and right to the legs. Shins are indicated as so. Since you will cut away that part, mark with marker. I use scissors for these cuts. I will rough cut with dremel but finish with scissors to get curves at corners. Sharp corners invite tearing. Unless you are good with the knife I really don’t advise the score and snap method for areas like this v Oh yeah, if you get confused about the shins, they are shaped like this. This is the left shin. Note the difference in the shape of the outer part (right side of pic) to the inside. The inside (left side of pic) has a tighter curve higher up the shin. Also, coverstrips will be 20mm - the seam will not be overlapping when you put it together. All sizing is done with the back seam (in my case) and most people will be good to just cut the front return edge down to 10mm each side. Thighs This is the right thigh. The inside part swoops down to avoid your... errr... bits. The right thigh also sucks. The return edge along the butt seam is not straight. I drew a straight line to act as a return edge. Trimming the front seam. The score and snap works awesome here. 10mm edge. When I cut the front seam I try to leave some extra material along the lower return edge detail. This will minimize the chance of a gap. This is the right thigh so it will be covered by the ammo belt, but keep this in mind for the left thigh. I forgot. Final trimming on shins. Ankle return edge completely removed. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Edited May 23, 2018 by wook1138 Quote
wook1138[TK] Posted May 22, 2018 Author Report Posted May 22, 2018 (edited) And more trimming. Torso and belt. Ab. There is no trim line at the ab to kidney seam. I put my cut line at the pencil mark. A lot of material to remove. I used the dremel and cleaned up with scissors. I rough cut the kidney along the pencil line. There is lots of extra material here if needed. I knew I didn’t need much and just trimmed off a bit to make fitting easier. Chest. Most of the trim lines were visible. I always trace them out with pencil. But I had trouble here. The pull was a bit rough here and at the shoulder bridges. Still doable. Rough area from the pull. Sized the ab and kidney parts and I only need 1cm from the edge of the kidney notch. Torso rough trimmed and sanded. I left a little return edge along the sides of the chest. The return edge along the shoulder tabs will help strengthen them. My left side had less return edge thanks to the dodgy trim line and me not paying close attention. Inner return edges are rounded so they won’t snag on things during fittings and what not. All torso return edges are about 10 mm to accommodate screws for original bracket system - but may reduce them a bit more once the screws are in. You really want to rough sand everything and make sure there are no sharp edges before the fitting and strapping process - this will prevent your undersuit from snagging and less chance of creating a tear in the armour. Belt and ammo belt took about one minute to trim. Turned upside down, scored the seam, used scissors to cut along the corners and snapped the edges off. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Edited May 23, 2018 by wook1138 3 Quote
GilFran007 Posted May 24, 2018 Report Posted May 24, 2018 Great progress on the body Greg...I like to check back into this thread as I'm interested in your bucket build I thought about your ABS paste approach for mimicking the paint drips but am leaning towards a different route....I did a test myself and will probably use e-6000 painted over with white enamel to make it look like a sloppy rattle-can paintjob. Once I blend the weathering in on top of that it should look like the movie helmet. The irregularities in the RS molds will lend itself nicely to this technique me thinks.....and if it doesn't work, i'll just peal it off....LOL Quote
wook1138[TK] Posted May 24, 2018 Author Report Posted May 24, 2018 2 minutes ago, GilFran007 said: Great progress on the body Greg...I like to check back into this thread as I'm interested in your bucket build I thought about your ABS paste approach for mimicking the paint drips but am leaning towards a different route....I did a test myself and will probably use e-6000 painted over with white enamel to make it look like a sloppy rattle-can paintjob. Once I blend the weathering in on top of that it should look like the movie helmet. The irregularities in the RS molds will lend itself nicely to this technique me thinks.....and if it doesn't work, i'll just peal it off....LOL Thanks. Interesting approach for the helmet. I'll be following that for sure. Yeah, the RS was meant for this kind of build. The ABS went on so well, I almost did a complete "paint" job of the helmet to get more random brush strokes and runs. That original helmet really is a mess... a beautiful mess. 2 Quote
wook1138[TK] Posted June 6, 2018 Author Report Posted June 6, 2018 I have not been working much on the armor these last few weeks - summer weather and young kids keeps a guy busy enough. I have managed to get a few things done. Tapatalk is broken so I have to see if I remember how to use imgur. So I have my arms glued together and ready for strapping. My thighs have the inner cover strip glued in. My right thigh needed some extra work so I glued the top half first and the bottom half is setting tonight. The shins have an inner cover strip in place and one shin has the outer cover strip glued on - then I ran out of magnets. Managed a little more work on the helmet. I painted the frown and started on the traps and tears. I will need to expand the traps and tears a bit - the return edge is tricky to assess on the softer AP helmet. Taking a picture with the flash really brings it out so it is easier to compare to the reference material. I broke off a piece from the upper left corner of the left eye (right corner in pic). You can kind of see it in the first picture above. I added some ABS paste and will sand it down tomorrow. Doesn't look like much in the picture, but I almost threw-up when it happened. Gotta love that ABS paste! I also started the tedious process of sanding my T-21 3D printed model. I'm using a rust coloured filler primer - I might use this with liquid mask to create a worn rusted look eventually. I'll see what I think then I actually start to paint. This is actually my second coat of filler primer. the pieces on the left have been sanded up to 600 grit. I will need at least one more coat of primer - probably two. 2 Quote
TheSwede[TK] Posted June 6, 2018 Report Posted June 6, 2018 Helmet is looking awesome - going to be mistaken for the original when completed 2 Quote
GilFran007 Posted June 6, 2018 Report Posted June 6, 2018 The bucket looks fantastic! One thing that I noticed on my RS helmet is that the right side tube on the face is somewhat collapsed when you mate it with the cape.... Hence the ear gap. Mine has a very uncomfortable ear gap, perhaps too large, but I like it and it's not too far off from the real deal. Have a close look at the screen bucket, that ear gap is quite substantial.And some smaller things I've noticed and echoed, which would be up for debate, is that the left ear is a tad thicker and set lower on the bucket. I just ran with those observations..... Swat designation be damned! Lol....Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk 1 Quote
wook1138[TK] Posted June 6, 2018 Author Report Posted June 6, 2018 1 minute ago, GilFran007 said: The bucket looks fantastic! One thing that I noticed on my RS helmet is that the right side tube on the face is somewhat collapsed when you mate it with the cape.... Hence the ear gap. Mine has a very uncomfortable ear gap, perhaps too large, but I like it and it's not too far off from the real deal. Have a close look at the screen bucket, that ear gap is quite substantial. And some smaller things I've noticed and echoed, which would be up for debate, is that the left ear is a tad thicker and set lower on the bucket. I just ran with those observations..... Swat designation be damned! Lol.... Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk Thanks! Yeah, I haven't finished fine tuning the ear gaps yet. The whole right ear is still fitting funny. The right tube is wonky - painting the stripes on it really highlighted that fact. I struggled with figuring out the ear thickness too. They do look different in some pics. I've decided to leave as is for now - it seems the angle of the shot (movie) really makes the ears look different. I'm glad to hear that I wasn't the only one thinking that. 1 Quote
wook1138[TK] Posted June 7, 2018 Author Report Posted June 7, 2018 Testing tapatalkSent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 1 Quote
Pyrates[TK] Posted June 7, 2018 Report Posted June 7, 2018 Oh no - what’s happening to the Tapatalk images?PS - Your TK goodie should be showing up in your mail any day now mate! 1 Quote
wook1138[TK] Posted June 8, 2018 Author Report Posted June 8, 2018 2 hours ago, Pyrates said: Oh no - what’s happening to the Tapatalk images? PS - Your TK goodie should be showing up in your mail any day now mate! Awesome! Yeah, Looks like Tapatalk isn't playing nice with the site. Boo. Quote
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