Simes' ANH TK Build

[CableGuy[TK]]

Congrats Simes. Great news. :-)

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Congratulations trooper and welcome to the ranks

[simorph]

Thanks guys! TK16566 (almost) reporting for duty! 

[T-Jay[TK]]

Once you officially received your TK ID, don't forget to register for 501st access here to discover new sub-levels of FISD.

[simorph]

Thanks Tino, really appreciate that - totally missed it!

[LightBox]

Congratulations! Your armour and blaster look great. A lot of helpful ideas within the build, too.

[simorph]

Thanks guys!

 

First proper helmet mod - soldered up my own set of helmet fans, powered by a USB power bank (props to Dan's post on helmet interior - solved for me the problem of working out where to stash the power bank - it just wouldn't fit behind my head or above it - so stashing it in the 'pipes' area really worked)

 

 

I bent a small piece of aluminium and installed a bit red push button behind the hovi tips, having struggled with gloved fingers on my Mando kit that had a fiddly slide button.

 

Just taken a stack of supplemental photos for Centurion application.  Here goes...

 

 

[simorph]

Well, I passed EIB, which is cool.  And the guys gave me a stack of suggestions.  So, I took a swing at them...

 

 

Straightened out the brow ridge by trimming back the ABS edge behind the trim, and then applying a few spots of E6000 to stop it sliding back down

 

Made the mods to the Thermal Det...

 

The clips butted up to the plastic but the original bend on the clips wasn't quite round enough to hug the tube, so I removed the clips, carefully bent the tips and replaced.  There's a teensy gap on one side and I'm leaving it there as I can't pry the white plate off.

So more accurate, not 10000% perfect.

 

Trimmed back the cod...

 

Trimmed the final rectangle off the shoulder bridges, which takes nearly an inch off the bridges...

 

 

Trimmed the canvas belt (again) but this time took some Resolene (the acrylic top coat I use on leather pieces) and soaked all the way around the edge of the belt.

 

This means that none of those stray threads are going to come loose ever again (I did worry that at the rate I kept trimming it, I'd end up with nothing but a piece of string)

 

 

Trimmed back the return edges on the arms...which should give me more room to move!

 

 

Scuffed up the hovi tips...

 

 

Tightened the strapping on the ab plate by adding an extra snap to the elastic on the right...

...and making much shorter straps on the left....

Now the natural position for the ab at rest is with the plates overlapping - so the gap should be as narrow as possible now.

 

And then (thankfully, I kept the stencils!)  I added an extra stripe - took the spacing of the bottom edge of the stripes, but tilted the stencil forwards...

 

 

 

So hopefully more New Hope...

 

And finally, I took out the return edge on the shoulders so that'll hopefully close up the gaps even more and give more movement...

 

 

Still terrified at the prospect of tilting those ears back - the helmet's held together with pop rivets and prayer.  But can't do anything to it for at least a couple of days while the new tube stripes cure...

 

 

[simorph]

well, I gritted my teeth last night, unscrewed everything and went for it - I took 2-3mm off  both ear caps, swapped in small screws into the original top holes of the ear caps so my visor would still hold in place, trimmed back as much of the ABS under the ear region as I could without disturbing the pop rivets, re-sited, drilled and remounted the ear caps as tilted and in-line with the back of the temple/traps as it would let me without revealing the pop-rivets.

 

Only two bits of trauma - nearly drilled through a fan wire, and a small issue where the heat from cutting off the long bolts caused a screw on the bottom of the to pull through the ABS.

 

But that's as 'Hopey' as I think I can get.