revlimiter's Armor Bin Build

[revlimiter[Staff]]

After researching and obsessing over other bin builds here (mostly of the 50 gallon variety and specifically @OddViking327 insane bin build thread) I thought I'd contribute my own.

 

I started out with this little guy. The Husky 25 gallon. I'm a small car enthusiast and make my living by producing parts for small cars, so a 50 gallon was just not in the cards. This 25 gallon doesn't really fit most of my cars, but it fits ONE and my TK does fit inside it with careful packing. 

 

This is the newest (2021) Husky 25 gallon. It has integrated lid handles and a barely-there logo. That logo is easily dremeled flat in a few minutes.

 

 

I didn't wanna go as all-out as OddViking with lights and switches, but I do want the bin to be in-universe. And to me that means white. All white. The two-tone black and white bins look cool, but they're just not quite the look I wanted. So just a few things got masked off before painting.

 

I also cut out some of the inner lid support. Not all of it... yet. I want to see how it does with some of it opened up. This gives a bit of extra room for the chest plate to live and not be smooshed. There's also not too much in the way of lost rigidity with half the support gone.

 

And then the painting.  I think this is two cans in.

 

I used just over four cans of paint for this little bin. Four cans. Two primer and two gloss white.  I used an Ace Hardware house brand for the primer and a Rustolium "also bonds to white" gloss paint. I didn't use Krylon fuzion because I really didn't want the paint to bond TOO well to the plastic.

 

It's cold here now, so I rolled the bin out to the driveway to spray. Then inside for the 20-30 minute cure and then outside for another can. Four coats total with a small spritz of the fifth can for final touch up.

 

And there it is. All white and shiny!!! It won't be like that for long.

 

Inside it's a huge TK picnic box. This black and white flannel was just too good not to use. I used spray adhesive on the walls to hold the fabric in place and hot glued the top and bottom edges in place.  The fabric can be removed (and repaired) if needed, but it's really really in there.

 

On the bottom is a flat pillow of toolbox liner. A 16" wide roll fit the bin perfectly. It's not a lot of padding, but it seemed preferable to no padding in the bottom. And that pillow just sits in there, so it can be easily removed and washed.

 

Then I fired up the laser cutter and made a couple vents. Totally TOTALLY plagiarizing OddViking here. After seeing them in his builds I couldn't not do a few vents for myself.

 

I also printed up a nice number plaque to fit in the middle recess. Because why not? I have all these toys to make car parts with. I needed something for the lid. So I went a little nuts and gave my TK the deluxe model of plaque for his bin.

 

And there's the bin all built up. This is how I imagined a fresh and shiny brand new TK armor bin might look.

 

Those handle recesses are just perfect for these vents. They're E-6000'd in place and some Jawa hood liner is blanking things out. I cut off some screw heads with bolt cutters and glued them in place as well. No need for any screws to touch my shiny armor...

 

Yeah. I'm pretty proud of that. "Serving the Empire with Unquestioned Loyalty"

Edited December 19, 2021 by revlimiter

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Nice work, looks great

[revlimiter[Staff]]

Then I started weathering it... in front of the tree. I sent the roomba out on a special mission shortly after.

 

The paint chipped off very very nicely. 4 layers of not-quite-cured paint is a fan of chipping. And that's what I wanted. I want the used and abused look. I want it to look like it's been across the galaxy by the time I'm done with it.

 

I used a bastard file for most of this. I wasn't shy. I let my daughter at it too. We got some good damage on there.

 

I really wanted to give the bin a couple blaster marks and I wanted them to be at an angle sort of like my TK was running away at the time. So I propped the bin up at about the right height and went to work.

 

Blaster marks applied.

 

I used the sanding drum on my dremel for this. While trimming and cleaning the inside of the bin lid, I learned how nicely the dremel melts this plastic. At high speed it melts beautifully. I actually blasted a hole straight through in this spot... by accident. But it DOES look good!

 

And then I brought out the airbrush and gave it the business. Plain black to start and transparent smoke around the edges.

 

I'm stupidly proud of my painting. I feel like the angle is right and the blast pattern is pretty nice.

[revlimiter[Staff]]

I've finally reached the whole reason I started this bin build, well... aside from actually needing one. Stickers.

 

I got this idea to do an in-universe bin with vintage travel stickers and everything took off from there. Similar to what you see in the Star Tours queue with the bags and robot, but maybe a bit more... more. All aurebesh. All vintage.

 

There's some vintage travel-style Star Wars stickers on the internet, but none really did it for me. There's one etsy shop with some nice stuff, but they're asking $6 per inkjet printed sticker.  As a print shop owner, that's insane pricing.  So I spent my spare time over the last week and a half collecting up vintage sticker artwork examples and reimagining them in the Star Wars universe. Poor @Scimitar has been getting these texted in a constant stream as I finished them.

 

Doing these stickers really sparked my imagination for my TK's back story. All the places he went and didn't get blown up. There's a great thread on here for various TK back stories. I've wanted to contribute but couldn't really find the spark of inspiration. This project did it for me.

 

Anyways, I've made around 20 different designs for my bin. OCD can be a wonderful thing if properly wielded.

 

Starting from top left...

Zeltros Ritz, Hotel Theed Naboo, Imperial Palace Coruscant, Imperial Navy, Star Tours (this was a fun one for me), Welcome to Fabulous Canto Bight, Blastech Industries (borrowed directly from wookipedia), Cladtech Armor, Sorgan Adventure Fishing, and my own REVlimiter heart logo in aurebesh.

 

Sorgan started out as an Idaho fishing sticker or something like that. Note the AT-ST and krill. This idea was all Eric's.

 

Air Mandalore, Fortress Vader, Aldaraan Royal Hotel, Redwood National Park Endor (note the tiny speeder bike), Dune Sea Tatooine, Nevarro Red Lava Rafting.

 

Champala Hotel, FISD, Hoth, Aloha Scarif, and Holiday Towers Hotel in Cloud City.

 

I think each of these had 5 revisions. The Champala one was a vintage French beach sticker with an orange lady on it. I carefully replaced her with this blue one and stole the sunglasses. Hoth is an Australian sticker. Greetings from Icerider Stables.

 

And then the bin got stickered and weathered.

 

Top/front. I sized a few of the stickers for specific spots. Others were carefully laid out by my daughter.

 

Front. I love this set so much.

 

Handle side

 

Cladtech Armor

 

Alderaan got blown up. I added a bit more blaster char to get the sticker integrated into that scorch mark.

 

Back end

 

Hinge side

 

EIB and Centurion numbers.

 

This build has been SO much fun. Maybe I went a bit overboard on weathering, but the bin just begs for it.  Everything I do to it just makes it look better.

 

I've just gotta print hubcaps and then it'll be a finished bin.

[Scimitar[TK]]

51 minutes ago, revlimiter said:

So I spent my spare time over the last week and a half collecting up vintage sticker artwork examples and reimagining them in the Star Wars universe. Poor @Scimitar has been getting these texted in a constant stream as I finished them.

 

Poor me? Heck no, these are awesome! Trying to think of some of my own or little additions to spice these up was a ton of fun!

[revlimiter[Staff]]

The hubcaps finished printing! I printed the cog in silver and the base in white, but they weren't too silver or too white. Each got a quicky paint job before being glued together.  Maybe a waste since I just immediately weathered them, but it's nice having actual shiny silver similar to the plaque and clasps instead of grey PLA.

 

And there's my bin project completed. SO Satisfying!

 

The cog wheels are so much nicer than the plastic RPF1 knockoffs.

 

I actually weathered these a lot more than it looks. They just didn't wanna look dirty. But I'm happy with the finish.

 

I also added one more vent and gave it a good coating of leaking oily junk.

 

So that's it for my bin build. Can't wait for the next troop to get it into the field.

[Sly11[Admin]]

Wow man, that looks amazing!

[OddViking327[TK]]

What an awesome bin! You did some great work there, and I am honored that I inspired this. Great work on the vents, the stickers, the wheel covers... it is all so amazing. Well done!

 

                        

[revlimiter[Staff]]

Thanks Andrew and Colin!!! And yeah, your bins are INCREDIBLE Colin. Thanks for inspiring many hours of enjoyable Husky hacking.

[Dielotski]

That is awesome!

If you ever think about selling an armor bin greebly and sticker kit I may be interested. 

 

[MaskedVengeance[Staff]]

That is awesome!
If you ever think about selling an armor bin greebly and sticker kit I may be interested.
 

Yeah that main plate and the vents are awesome! I could get in on this too.


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[revlimiter[Staff]]

I believe I'm at 23 troops with this bin now. It's been incredible all year.

 

 

Some early morning troops are coming up that'll have me suiting up at 4am in pitch dark fields. I added a little rechargeable camping light to my bin for those mornings. The lantern has 4 brightness settings, 3 color settings, and claims 72 hours of contestant use. It can even be used as a power brick for phone charging if needed. It fits well in the remaining lid structure and is riveted in place.