Cricket's Full-Sized RS ANH Stunt TK Build (for Mr. Cricket)- COMPLETED

[troopermaster]

You're welcome

 

Another trick you can do if you still have trouble with gaps on the lower 'tail' of the ear caps is to remove the lower rivet or screw holding the helmet together and push the tubes into place, then drill a new hole through the ear cap and tighten it up. This will bring everything together.  This is why I always temporarily screw the helmet together when I build one rather than rivet straight away, so I can make any adjustments if necessary then rivet when I am happy with everything.

[Cricket[TK]]

So I took the face/cap back apart.  I filled in the holes with some ABS paste and added some small pieces of ABS sheeting behind the repairs to make things a little more structurally sound in there.  Reattached things so the tubes were more in line with each other.



Then got to work on trimming the fronts of the ears down.  Much better now, methinks!  

 

Befores and afters:

 

 

I also removed some extra material from around the eyes.  I have the most difficult time seeing exactly how much to remove off of them.  I stare at the screen refs, and I still don't see it as well as I'd like to.  Seems okay to me?    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 

Thanks again to Paul for the suggestions for the ear fix!

[troopermaster]

Much better

[Cricket[TK]]

This weekend I took the time to wrangle up Mr. Cricket into his blacks and finally set forth with proper armor fitting.  It's one thing to make armor for yourself, it's something entirely different when you're building it for someone else!  

 

The right shin really was a PITA, and I ended up having to re-order a new one because I didn't like the slant lines of the first one I had assembled.  This delayed things for a few weeks.  I ended up tearing out all the magnets and made a new shin, trying to correct that weird angular line in the back.  There is still a little slant to the cover strip on the right shin, but it's a little less angular than the first one I'd built.  It's the best I can do with the RS shin. 

 

This weekend we spent a marathon session of 4 hours to work on tailoring the suit.  Lots and lots of "try on- mark trim lines- take off- trim- try on again, etc".   I had a goal of getting everything fit and done, but we both ran out of energy for it.  For example, once I trimmed the thighs so they were comfortable on him, he would notice another area of the suit that didn't feel right.  So I would trim that, then something else would stand out to him as needing adjustment.  It went on and on...  So we're not done, but very, very close now.  



Some of the things that immediately jump out at me as needing work:

• I still need to make some stirrups for his shins, so his shins were kind of doing their own things, but they're not all that bad.   
• Elastics to the belt boxes needs to be relaxed so they don't bind up as much to the belt (this is why they pop out a little against the thighs). 
• I need to hit the bracket screw heads and kidney/ab rivets with some white paint. 
• I think the backs of his thighs still need some more trimming.  
• Everything lines up pretty well along the kidney/ab, but it seems that the elastics I bought from Mr. No Stripes seem to be too long.  They really need to be shortened up about 1/8" to tighten up the armor piece connections.  I compared his elastics to the ones I've got installed on my Stunt TK, and my Stunt elastics are definitely shorter.  Which means that I'll need to remove all the elastics for a quick stitch-fix to reduce the gaps I'm seeing in the back.  (I'll take care of this when I've got my sewing machine out to build the stirrups.) 

 

Then there's the butt plate.  This was really giving me a headache!  Simply put, it still needs work; I need to reshape it.  The left side is fine for the most part.  But the right side- GAH!  It's popping out quite a bit on the right side - which tends to be a trait of the RS butt.  (Or at least that's what I've noticed on all three RS suits I've built.)  Once I reshape it, I'll probably install a few of those snazzy V tabs that were recommended to me by Glen (gmrhodes13).  I made some of these for my Hero TK, and they really help to keep that butt in line!

 

Then there are the arms.   They're not in the pics, but the forearms and biceps are complete and strapping has been installed.  Minor trims still need to be done.  I'll probably make some bicep hooks as well because they tend to make the arms look better.   I'm waiting to attach the plastic shoulder straps to the chest plate until the white shoulder elastics have been attached to the back plate.

 

The final pieces are the shoulder bells.  For me, these are such an important part of the suit to get trimmed correctly!  I don't want to fully trim them until I have the rest of the suit dialed in and fully fitted correctly.   The bells need to follow the contours of the chest and back plates with minimal black showing, and it's very easy to overtrim the bells if you aren't careful.  Once they're trimmed correctly, it's an easy matter of gluing in the bicep elastics and bell-to-shoulder strap connectors. 

 

We've got plans for a final big push to finish the suit next week... after I've made all of the adjustments I can make without putting the suit on him of course.  My punch list is down to a single page now!   

[Sly11[Admin]]

Sensational work on this build Christine, the finishing line is in sight.


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[Shanester[TK]]

Very nice work! Thanks for posting the progress.

[Cricket[TK]]

Furiously working to get this kit d-o-n-e!    We were out of town last week, so my plans to finish the suit then went completely out the window.  But almost there now.

First, to follow up on the issue I had with the elastic strapping for the brackets being too long...  can you spot which one of these isn't like the others?  That's the elastic from one of my own kits.  Much shorter.  With a quick pass of these on the sewing machine, I shortened all of them up.


And here is Mr. Cricket- his name is Chris (no kidding!).  Yeah, yeah, I know: "Chris and Christine".  We've been together for over 20 years and have heard it a gazillion times.    The strapping to the shoulders/bells was just taped together, and there were no elastics on the biceps/bells, so the bells look kind of wonky.  Everything was taped together for the chest/back connection with black gaffer's tape (my white tape had disappeared), so it looks kind of odd in the back, too.  But!  It's all coming together, and Mr. Cricket is able to move around in his suit with no bites reported.  You all know how it feels to get into kit for the first time like this.  So much WOW!      And he has great helmet hair, I must say.  



Here he is after seeing himself fully dressed for the very first time.  He couldn't stop saying, "Oh WOW!" over and over again.


And who can resist the allure of an e-11?

 

So after all the fun came the final work for me.  Cover strips for thigh fronts.  Strapping for the chest/back connection and bicep/bells to be installed.  Attaching plastic straps to chest plate.  I had to remove the sniper knee and add some plastic to pop it out away from the shin because we couldn't keep the plate from digging a bit into his knee (despite adding padding to the inside of the shin at the top).   Let's just say that there was a lot of final stuff that needed to be glued!  This is what it looks like when I use every single set of my magnets and clamps.  What a mess!

 

After all the glue has set, I still need to paint the white rivet/screw heads on the armor.  And that's that!

[Sly11[Admin]]

Firstly, Welcome to FISD Mr Cricket
You are looking awesome and are extremely lucky to have such a talented wife building your armour.
Great work Christine, not long now


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[ukswrath[Staff]]

Clamps, clamps and more clamps, true armor builder lol.

 

Fantastic build. Oh, and the armor looks outstanding also  

[Bazz[TK]]

Such a lucky husband 

[Cricket[TK]]

Okay, so we took a few minutes today and took submission pics.  We were all ready to submit the form, when Mr. Cricket suddenly realized that he needed to choose a TKID.  Annnd now things grind to a halt until he has time to look over that huuuuge list.  *sigh*  So while I'm waiting, here are the pics!

 

 

 

As I was taking the photos, we realized that we had attracted a small crowd of moms with small children on the street.  The kids were thrilled to spot a stormtrooper in the neighborhood!

Okay, so for self-criticism here... the shoulder bells are really giving me a headache.  Well, that and hubby's undershirt is too big on him.  The shirt issue can be easily fixed (thanks, Amazon!).  I don't have a ton of experience building suits for normal-sized troopers.  If I was evaluating this for EIB/Centurion, I would suggest shortening the elastic on the bells.  There is still room for the bells to come in at the top.  So I'm going to tackle that first.  

 

The other issue with the bells is that they are really 'pinchy' on him, which is adding to the bells wanting to shift out of place.  I'll be getting them into a quick hot water bath to see if I can loosen them up somewhat.

Honestly, I think I might have overtrimmed the bells a little too much at the top.    I mean, it's not a submission deal-breaker by any means, but still...  I know that there are many TKs in my own garrison that have much, much larger black space at the chest/bell area, but I think I could do better for sure.  So technically, I'm done with this kit, but in reality, I've got more work to do.  

[LTM[TK]]

If you need new bells, Walt's makes a larger set now that you could use to trim down. 

[Cricket[TK]]

Thanks for suggesting that, Lou.  Unfortunately, Walt's kits are bright white, and would really look odd next to the off-white coloring of the RS suit.

It shouldn't be a problem to get Andrea over at RS to help me out.  She's been awesome with getting parts to me in the past.   

[Cricket[TK]]

So I've been in touch with Andrea, and she's getting some new bells out to me soon.  Yay!  RS has the best customer support.   Love that crew!

While waiting, I tore the bells apart...  because that's the kind of thing I do when things don't look right to me.  First, I gave them both a quick hot water bath to widen them out to fit the width of his shoulders.  Next,  I shortened the elastic connection in the bells quite a bit.  Then I adjusted the white elastic straps at the shoulders connecting the chest to the back.  Those were also causing an issue of "bell sag" because that connection was too long.  By gluing the elastic to the back plate right next to the #10 snap connector, this gives a ton of support strength to the white elastic.  It results in a minimal amount of shifting of the arm away from the shoulder strap itself.   If you have too much white elastic in there at the shoulder between the chest and back, your bells will pop out and away, resulting in large black gaps that we all want to avoid.

Before and after adjustments:

I am quite pleased that I was able to make this adjustment for Mr. Cricket so he can look his TK best.  Now we wait for Basic Approval.   Fingers crossed that I don't need to make any changes to the kit!

[LTM[TK]]

I hope we will see him soon at a troop!  Most important question now, who gets the BFG?!

 

[Cricket[TK]]

The BFG is mine.  I earned it, dammit.  



I *might* let him borrow it, though.  Maybe.   

[TheSwede[TK]]

On 8/8/2019 at 7:20 PM, Cricket said:

Now we wait for Basic Approval.

Great build and Basic is a given Not too sure about EIB/Centurion though, the DO.s are quite picky….

[Cricket[TK]]

This kit is approved!   

Chris received his formal 501st approval for his very first costume this weekend.  He chose TK-10441 as his ID since it's similar to mine (TK-10401).  He is thrilled, and I've nudged him to get himself introduced here in the FISD and also at the Georgia Garrison forums.  I took some additional photos of him in kit on Saturday.  Unfortunately, I don't currently have access to the pics I took with the Fuji X-T3 (which looked amazing, I must say!), but I managed to snap some with my cell while we were wrapping up.

This looks like something you would see in a brochure of the Stormtrooper Retirement Benefits package.

 

And some extra shots of the kit.  I like to continue to evaluate the fit of the kit not only by watching how it moves when being worn, but also in candid photos after it's been worn for an hour or so.  These kind of pics help me really see where things might need adjustment. 

Overall, I'd say it doesn't look too shabby.  I see that the left thigh rotated out, but that's an adjustment of the elastic sliding on the garter belt.  And maybe I could loosen the elastics on the drop boxes by a few millimeters to reduce some of the tension that causes them to angle out slightly.  I might still shorten the forearms a tad, and trim the left and right of the chest plate a bit as well for comfort. 
 

Despite those things, I'd say this is a wrap.  Wouldn't you say that this new TK looks supah-happy?!   

 

His first troop will be at the DragonCon parade at the end of August.  I can't wait for him to experience all the awesomeness that is being an approved TK!  Thanks to everyone here at the FISD for your guidance and feedback as always.     FISD is Best Detachment!  

 

[LTM[TK]]

Welcome new Trooper! 

[TheSwede[TK]]

Congratulations and welcome to the Legion Mr. Cricket

[ukswrath[Staff]]

Congratulations and fantastic job on the build

[CableGuy[Admin]]

Great build!! And welcome aboard, Mr Cricket. :-)