Lord_Potato's Walt's Trooper Factory ANH TK Build (COMPLETE)

[TheSwede[TK]]

3 hours ago, Lord_Potato said:

So I will remove the bridges

You could try to use 5mm white elastic, that should be all that’s needed and as a bonus screen accurate.

[CableGuy[TK]]

Hi trooper,

Great work so far. :-)

If you are removing the should bridges again, here’s a little accuracy upgrade that you could consider.

As below, the original screen used shoulder straps had nice, square corners. This ‘could’ be a little tweak for you, if you fancied that extra nth of accuracy. :-)



This is not clearance related, just an optional upgrade. :-)

Best wishes
Dan

[Lord_Potato[TK]]

On 3/9/2020 at 2:13 AM, TheSwede said:

You could try to use 5mm white elastic, that should be all that’s needed and as a bonus screen accurate.

Thank you for the advice! I ended up removing them and im going to try and align them better. I agree that the elastic would probably do the trick but I would prefer to have the shoulder bridges align just a bit better without the extra aid. I still plan to use little elastic bands to enforce alignment and screen accuracy.

[Lord_Potato[TK]]

On 3/9/2020 at 2:33 AM, CableGuy said:

Hi trooper,

Great work so far. :-)

If you are removing the should bridges again, here’s a little accuracy upgrade that you could consider.

As below, the original screen used shoulder straps had nice, square corners. This ‘could’ be a little tweak for you, if you fancied that extra nth of accuracy. :-)



This is not clearance related, just an optional upgrade. :-)

Best wishes
Dan

I don't understand, I literally have an RS commission build I own and the shoulder bridges are exactly cut  as the reference image you sent me! why did I not see this??? I am so frustrated with myself. It must be me looking at various WTF builds and mimicking what others are doing VS me actually referencing screen images and my RS kit. Thank you so much

[Lord_Potato[TK]]

Right forearm was the last thing I did and now for the left side!

 

Inner cover strips installed:

 

I was not a fan of resizing this weird shaped piece. As you can see, it seems to be a nice fit until you get to the end (near the elbow) and its a little snug.....

 

Hot water bathed it and made it a bit more of an oval shape:

(There is actually a bit more space than what is shown due to the armor resting on my forearm. 

 

Not a bad fit. I am just going to verify the slightly modified shape holds its shape before I add my cover strips. tomorrow.

 

As I mentioned before: I did not like sizing the left forearm. I did my best to make it smaller in circumference and to make it roughly around the same size as the right.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Lord_Potato

[Sly11[Admin]]

Looks good, just make sure you do all your sizing wearing your under suit.

[CableGuy[TK]]

I don't understand, I literally have an RS commission build I own and the shoulder bridges are exactly cut  as the reference image you sent me! why did I not see this??? I am so frustrated with myself. It must be me looking at various WTF builds and mimicking what others are doing VS me actually referencing screen images and my RS kit. Thank you so much

Easily done, trooper. We can all be found guilty of looking at other builds (copies) sometimes rather than actual reference images. Anyway, you got this! :-)

[Lord_Potato[TK]]

Left forearm is almost done, just waiting on one side to dry. After that ill go through and remove all return edges from my limbs as recommended. 

 

I am again attempting to try and install my lenses. I have failed the past couple times.....I bought some lenses from trooper bay and they are alot more flexible than the ones supplied from walt. It is easier to cut and to handle, hopefully this time I am successful.

 

Removed old glue and have both bridges with extra abs plastic and made them more screen accurate by making the front part straight.

 

 

Bought a mannequin thingy to aid with body strapping (just have to adjust it to my body measurements 

 

Before I go gluing on the bridges I would like some advice. As of now the chest tabs do not align with the back plate tabs for the shoulder bridges, I know screen used TK's use elastic bands (I use them as well for my RS) But the amount of re-positioning of the shoulder bridges seem a little off to make it reach somewhat nicely to the back tabs. I also dont want to rely only on little bands to ensure it stays somewhat in place. Here is how the two pieces meet up:

 

NOW, I was thinking If I heat bend the top part of the chest to "flatten" it out, all tabs align a lot more nicely: 

 

By flattening the top chest piece it looks like a far better fit. 

 

Here is a picture on my RS, as you can see the chest and back tabs naturally meet up:

 

 

[Lord_Potato[TK]]

With all the craziness going along I did what I could with my time. I went over my limbs and sanded down the return edges. I tried to keep the initial "curve" of the return edge for personal preference. Tomorrow I will try and heat bend the top of my chest plate so I can finally get a good alignment for my shoulder bridges.

 

[Lord_Potato[TK]]

Found my biggest pot and hot water bathed the top part of my chest; slightly flattening it out (to help better align with back plate shoulder tabs)

 

Added a snap strapping system to help get these pieces to stay together when I put it on either myself or my mannequin so I can properly align my shoulder bridges when these snaps dry. (just using masking tape was such a hassle......)

 

Finally, finally, finally, I made a chicago  screw/militput housing for my right lens that is actually holding together. Now I can mimic what I did to the other side. I don't know why this thing kicked my butt. I know it was partially not having the bases at a proper height and not letting the e600 enough time to cure. I don't know. I haven't seen a thread where someone struggled as much as I did with lenses. *It is not very pretty, but it works and I can easily take my lens of for cleaning or replacement. 

[Lord_Potato[TK]]

Have a strapping system for my chest and back:

 

Need help/opinions......Looks like the chest is good but it looks like I need to slight bend my back plate tabs "inward" a bit. Any opinions?

[CableGuy[TK]]

Hi Jonathan,

Good progress. :-)

Is your chest strapping “pulling” the chest in at the bottoms? It looks less flared than usual.




For those back tabs, you could consider reducing their length a little. They are currently protruding above your natural shoulder line.

[Lord_Potato[TK]]

56 minutes ago, CableGuy said:

Hi Jonathan,

Good progress. :-)

Is your chest strapping “pulling” the chest in at the bottoms? It looks less flared than usual.




For those back tabs, you could consider reducing their length a little. They are currently protruding above your natural shoulder line.

Thank you for your input! And yes, along with straps on the shoulders I have one strap on each side to help keep the two pieces in place during this process. I underestimated the length to use so its pulling the chest piece towards the back. 

 

And yea, it looks like I need to trim a little off the top of the back tabs. It looks if I cut where you have highlighted I wont have to do any reshaping. 

[CableGuy[TK]]

Thank you for your input! And yes, along with straps on the shoulders I have one strap on each side to help keep the two pieces in place during this process. I underestimated the length to use so its pulling the chest piece towards the back. 
 
And yea, it looks like I need to trim a little off the top of the back tabs. It looks if I cut where you have highlighted I wont have to do any reshaping. 

No worries.

In theory, when you attach the chest to the ab plate, this should hold everything in place. As such, you shouldn’t really need separate side straps.

[Lord_Potato[TK]]

The lenses are complete and installed Hovi Mic tips:

 

I have a second set of ears from walt being sent before I continue with putting on the ears. I know this is going to be hard even with lots of guidance on the forums. I just suck at stuff like this.

 

Re glued my shoulder bridges (need to wipe away excess glue before it harden) and this time I made sure they aligned with the back tabs as best as possible this time. It wasn't perfect but the slight variation should be easily corrected by the little white elastic bands that go on the bridges.

 

I keep hoping around from task to task.....its a bad habit. I decided since the limbs were pretty much done, I decided to start adding a strapping system (which will help see how everything fits together).

There are lots of different strapping methods here. I have decided to loosely copy the arm strapping with the RS. Here is my left RS arm:

 

It uses a 2 inch black elastic to connect the bicep to forearm and uses a 1 inch elastic strap to connect the bicep to shoulder bell. I am basically using the same method but instead of gluing the strap right onto the armor, I will have it connected to snaps. I made 2 inch wide nylon strips for the two inch elastic parts and i inch nylon strips for the i inch elastic parts:

 

Right now I have everything taped to what I think is how it should go. I put ther RS arm next to my walts for comparrison:

 

Unless anyone sees any glaring issues then I will glue them on and see what happens. I wanted to out the snaps closure to the edge of the forearm but the "swoop" wouldnt allow me to do it. Unless I position my strip at slant instead of horizontal. 

 

 

 

 

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

18 minutes ago, Lord_Potato said:

Unless anyone sees any glaring issues then I will glue them on and see what happens

Hi, just a suggestion : i would recommend to use some Soldering Iron to cauterize the strap's edge to prevent fraying 

 

 

 

Keep on doing an excellent work trooper!!  

 

 

[Lord_Potato[TK]]

13 minutes ago, TKSpartan said:

Hi, just a suggestion : i would recommend to use some Soldering Iron to cauterize the strap's edge to prevent fraying 

 

 

 

Keep on doing an excellent work trooper!!  

 

 

Thank you for your advice. The armor with the frayed elastic is from my already built RS propmasters TK that I am using as reference. That is how RS propmasters assembled my kit. I have soldering iron that I have been using to burn the edges of the nylon squares and to burn holes for my snaps. When I do have to replace my RS strapping I will definitely make sure those edges are either sewn or burned  

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

19 minutes ago, Lord_Potato said:

Thank you for your advice. The armor with the frayed elastic is from my already built RS propmasters TK that I am using as reference. That is how RS propmasters assembled my kit. I have soldering iron that I have been using to burn the edges of the nylon squares and to burn holes for my snaps. When I do have to replace my RS strapping I will definitely make sure those edges are either sewn or burned

Cool mate!!   , great to know.  

[Lord_Potato[TK]]

shoulder bridges are attached and I added snaps to my armor:

 

Took out my RS belt to use it as a reference to cut my Walts belt:

 

I am very upset with myself. I actually had my ears pretty nicely aligned. They were a little meatier that I wanted but I thought they looked very good. 

After I screwed the ears on I realized that I thought I cut along the bottom mold line of the ear. The bottom of the ear mold line was barely visible and I had excess material. My dumb self decided to re cut along the actual mold line and I threw both ears out of alignment. I tried to correct it but I just made it worse. The ears are now unusable. I have more ears coming from Walt but I know the color is going to be off so I dont know what to do for color matching. The thing that has really gotten me in a bad mood was that the ears were aligned very well in my opinion. I should have left them. I just wasted lots of time for nothing. The only good thing that came out of this was I got some practice using a compass to help the ears align with the sides of the helmet. I am just angry with myself. 

 

Ill post some pictures with me wearing the arms and legs with my undersuit to show how it looks on me. I hope you all had a more productive weekend than me.  

[TKSpartan[Staff]]

2 hours ago, Lord_Potato said:

The only good thing that came out of this was I got some practice using a compass to help the ears align with the sides of the helmet. I am just angry with myself

As you said, there's a good thing and it's only a plastic matter. Enjoy building your armor and consider in this project and in life, there'll be always challenges, fails and good things.  Don't look back Trooper, keep on going ahead, you're doing an amazing work. 

 

Keep it up. . 

[CableGuy[TK]]

Don’t be angry at yourself, Jonathan. Ears can be a real pain! :-(

Anyway, I’m sure you’ll learn from that and get the second pair sorted okay.

On that note, you could consider reducing the size of the new ones when they arrive, unless the WTF ears are designed on the large side?




Personally, I’d be tempted to try something like this;

[justjoseph63[Staff]]

Some fantastic advice from @CableGuy there, Jonathan.  Trimming them down just may do the trick!  In looking at your overall build so far, I can definitely see a Centurion badge in your future should you wish to head there, but the thickness of those ears would have been a barrier.  I realize that it is not specifically mentioned in the CRL, but for Levels 2 and 3 we consider source material (screen images) when doing approvals.  Looking forward to seeing the updates!  

 

[Lord_Potato[TK]]

On 4/19/2020 at 10:55 PM, TKSpartan said:

As you said, there's a good thing and it's only a plastic matter. Enjoy building your armor and consider in this project and in life, there'll be always challenges, fails and good things.  Don't look back Trooper, keep on going ahead, you're doing an amazing work. 

 

Keep it up. . 

Thank you, I just need to accept this build is not going to done when I want. Patience is a virtue I guess

[Lord_Potato[TK]]

On 4/20/2020 at 3:14 PM, justjoseph63 said:

Some fantastic advice from @CableGuy there, Jonathan.  Trimming them down just may do the trick!  In looking at your overall build so far, I can definitely see a Centurion badge in your future should you wish to head there, but the thickness of those ears would have been a barrier.  I realize that it is not specifically mentioned in the CRL, but for Levels 2 and 3 we consider source material (screen images) when doing approvals.  Looking forward to seeing the updates!  

 

Thank you! I intend to submit my kit to centurion when this is all done  and yea, my ears were pretty chunky. I think I was more focused on making sure the ear piece matched nicely with the helmet and didn't bother of the overall shape/thickness. Ill definitely be paying attention with my next set of ears. The Image I posted was before the over trimming fiasco. It just looked so bad I was too embarrassed to post it.

[Lord_Potato[TK]]

On 4/20/2020 at 2:07 PM, CableGuy said:

Don’t be angry at yourself, Jonathan. Ears can be a real pain! :-(

Anyway, I’m sure you’ll learn from that and get the second pair sorted okay.

On that note, you could consider reducing the size of the new ones when they arrive, unless the WTF ears are designed on the large side?




Personally, I’d be tempted to try something like this;
 

The images I posted was before I over trimmed the ears. It just looked so bad it didnt seem worth posting. I will double check just in case I can still make my ears work knowing that they had a lot of excess plastic. And worst case scenario I have replacement ears coming any day now. 

 

As for why they ended up so meaty.....I think part of the reason was that (on this particular kit, some of the mold lines are hard to see or non existent). I thought I had the bottom of the ear cut to the mold line but there was like an extra half inch of plastic after the mold line. And I think having that extra 1/2 resting against the helmet when I was marking where to cut added a bit to the thick shape.