lonewolf

They don't sit flush, folks stick them to the bolt with various glues. You could sand the cover down a bit to get a more flush looking effect or find a different cover plate. Once it is on it looks fine.

I can send you two if you like, pm me.

This pic is in the Star Wars Chronicles book, as well as the side and back shots. It is a prototype/ preproduction picture. The TD is not of it and it appears there is a bit of thigh armour on it as well? I know many of us connect our pouches to the cummerbund in this way. The dark line at the top of the belt/cummerbund could be because of lighting or just incomplete in the pic, but I am not sure. The holster was initially joined this way, this didn't appear in the movie, but I am not certain. The toys all have the holster like this pic because Kenner used this pic to copy. The black elastic on the front side of the groin piece the same on the movie Scouts, a nice position to join to as it also nicely eliminates the dreaded "camel toe" due to how it pulls the material. Another interesting part is the bottom middle cutout on the chest plate, a detail I have always liked to add to my chest pieces, It may have been done to stop cracking from continuing up the chest plate. The Biker Scout chesh plate was allowed to be moved in a "V " diection to allow the guys to reach the handle bars of the Speeder Bikes[ the biceps push the chest armour together]. The plastic needs to be cut beyond the bottom curvature to be able to work. If I understand you well, I think the drop box straps are the same as the movie Scouts, about 1.5" wide and on my computer screen still look off white. The belt and belt boxes look like a prototype, maybe done this way for more freedom of movement, I have not seen this way in the movie...yet. Thanks for posting, I have some more freeze framing to look at now!

The best is Don Jarrs version, not from an original model kit part but very neat and well made. It fits the SC TD with a bit of tinkering.

Yes an MLC V3, somebody asked him on his FB page if he intended to make Biker Scout helmets, looks like he has his new "sculpt" ready for replication.

Yes the EFX helmet will be very interesting, I think there will be a few adjustments made to the copy, how the visor fits, the ear and eye holes, how is this going to be trimmed? Even the lttle nuances of how the visor sits, will it be close or wide looking. Will the decals be vinyl? Water slide? Will it have a chincup and elastic? How will the inner visor appear, rough fibreglass or finished ? Maybe a scan would be better to get an accurate fibreglass helmet instead of redoing a few pulls on the original bucks. Then we have a new helmet made which may not be put together accurately.

We need to have a chat with Don Post about the reasons. I can try to understand why licensed manufacturers may be told to make a less than accurate product, I thought it may have been scaled down for children or possibly a simple reason was it needed to fit into a certain sized packaging box! The original helmets may have 9 slots on the forming buck, 8.5 on the final assembled helmets. The DP may have lost 8 and 9 due to the shrinking and resizing. The depth of the DP slots may be because it was cast from the original molds which I think may have been as deep as the DP helmet slots. The original vac pulls were quite weak and/or there were no drill holes at this point on the bucks to get a deep pull. I have 6 hair thick holes in each of my slots to get some better detail. There is a very distinct eye area shape on the DP/Altmanns/KS and early MLC helmets which is a tell as well. There are lots of strange changes , like the shallow nose section which I don't understand but I am pretty certain it was a buck Don Post had to copy and not a helmet. The sharpness of the DP is better than the originals, another sign it was a buck copy, I am pretty sure the vac machine used to pull the helmets wasn't great or the plastic was tricky to heat etc etc, proof in the different sharpness of pulls of the original helmets. The surrounding eye area of the DP is very sharp, very like one of the original helmets [two steps]which seems to be sharper than the Steve Sansweet/Prop store of London helmet eye area[smooth flat appearance] There are a lot more things about the helmet and it's variations that are interesting , it was such a great design.

I don't want to hijack this interesting thread but I wish I had heard Without hijacking this thread any more, I am very sorry to hear this Jim, I still feel so stupid buying it, and the angry feelings I had over it. Hope you are sorted now. I can only advise folks on my experience now. Maybe other guys will come forward and tell their experiences. I hope to make a few kits available very soon, but I say this all the time! Sorry, back to topic!

Yes Phil, this was cut and trimmed, they were chromed but I sanded and filed them dowm, primer coated and spray painted them matt black. I am still looking for a better method.

Thanks Neil, yes the size similarity was good , better than everything else out there.I have no other good things to say about it however. Trooping in it was a nightmare due to the new weight of it!

Yes it was a very thin fibreglass/resin helmet, it was cracked and unwanted when I finally got it. It lay in a box, I couldn't even look at it without getting angry for buying a lemon! It was a bad Ebay buy, lots of problems even getting it, a long wait and some ill feeling messages may have helped keep it "lost". So I researched the real helmet, cut the fibreglass helmet to pieces,parts were soft resin, weak thinner resin paper! I adjusted just about every angle I could, widened parts and changed curvatures, some aspects were still nasty and my fibreglassing, fillering skills improved quickly. It was very heavy by the finish! It was a great learning curve for me. I was quite happy with the result, polishing a turd came to mind! So a bit of good came out of it. I think my helmet has a lot more of the problems ironed out, it is bigger than the modified cb , whe I saw the original helmet I had to make my own. With the new size, the prior experience with my 1995 Don Post and this CB helmet I have been struggling ever since to get my lid "right!" My middle helmet above has since been changed a bit. I thought I had some SC helmet /MLCV3 comparison pics but can't find them. And to think some folks can't see any difference!

My modified CB helmet with an original, And some old pics of some of my Biker Scout helmets, CB[heavily chopped and modified] My Helmet and my Kropserkel

I think the Altmanns is bigger than my lid,I have never seen an Altmanns for real but the way the inside forehead part is chopped out , the lack of innerside edge and with the wide faceplate it looks the biggest. I have physically compared my lid to the MLC V3, the Studio Creations, the DP standard , the CB v1 and the Kropserkel, I think my lid is comparable to them all , I like a big return edge on the underside so this reduces the opening and depending on how the two rear sides are joined, it will affect the front face opening slightly. I found the MLC V3 as easy to slip onto my head, it has no bottom lip however. SC is the smallest but best overall look, the KS is too stumpy. I took measurements of the original helmet as seen in our gallery and my helmet is very close to this one. I think the Altmanns is too wide and the helmet dome [as looking from above] is too rounded.The original helmets were not an easy helmet to put on apparently. The Don Post is very accurate[yes the vinyl material is rubbish] , I am completely certain it is from original Biker Scout helmet molds or an original helmet. Yes it is definately smaller than the original helmets , there are some changes, but generally speaking there are a lot of "tells" on the DP to prove it's heritage, just like the EFX! There are too many similarities for a fan sculpt. As I researched every aspect of the Helmet I have came to this conclusion. All these helmets are good, all have faults, mine is too sharp! The originals were not all the same sharpness, some are pretty soft pulls. I was trying to get all the different original helmet pics together from the remaining originals to show the differences, still a wip! There is one good pic of an original helmet, the lighting is directly from above and the pull on this particular lid is the best of all the others. The Steve Sansweet/Prop store of London is a poor pull in comparison. The eye area has very little detail. These are my opinions, it is as honest as I can be.

Yes I think this is the common idea, both to point forward, I doubt that the original guys had this worry. Also there is a slight gap between the top and square bottom parts on the original suits, if you are really fussy.

The Makita belt clip can sell from 99 pence to £6 plus postage, the average price as Rob says. Try some construction workers, many guys I know remove this clip and discard them! This clip is quite a soft metal, quite easy to cut , file ,sand and drill. It feels pretty strong as well. I know it is not perfect, as I have said in a few other posts I have spent a long time searching for some kind of fixing bracket suitable.Money clips could work with a bit of dremelling, I suspected maybe an Army belt clip/hook/ bracket due to the originals being a gun metal appearance and LFL using old army stuff a lot, but still nothing "right". I am quite happy with the look, it will do until I find something closer.

I was wondering how you could make the back a one piece! I have thought about the three part "wedge" buck, it is possible to vacform undercuts using this method, used quite a bit by vacshops to get tricky shapes pulled. Look forward to pics of your finished helmet.

Thanks guys, Yes Jeff I agree, they could be a bit tighter , but pretty similar. Possibly the top curvature is a little too wide as well. I think the MC hose is a bit too short and wanted the clips to be further apart as well, I pinced the screen grab from your site, hope you don't mind, the reference pics you have on there are great. As we can see from the screen grab the clips are on view and not hidden so should be seen to make our costumes more accurate.

We don't really know what was originally used but I needed a method which was as close as possible. These are slightly modified Makita drill belt clips, which were happliy supplied by workmates, cheers guys. I dremmelled the edges to make them slightly thinner and removed the angled base, sanded and painted them up. The originals are at the ends of the tube, I was thinking the originals may have been joined on by rivets, like everything else on the Biker Scout. I used M3 screws, passed through adrilled hole in the clips. I think the brackets were at the outer edges of the tube only to allow the maker to reach in with his/her fingers to fit a washer/nut on the backs. Pics are better than words, I cut the plastic thermal detonator box with a slight curvature as well. If anybody thinks this is only on the MOM model/Blu Ray model then take a look here, http://www.studiocre...mponbike_01.jpg

Yes this is a discussion , not about how the weathering techniques are/were applied or about how a Biker Scout costumer decides to build his costume. Asthe thread title states, Two specific types of Biker Scout, TB Garrisoned/ ready for duty/ Deathstar/pen pusher etc TB Deployed/Endor/field tested/field duty/Battle hardened etc I like a few of these names, Pen Pusher maybe not! The actual name could be voted on, if we have this as a label for the costume we sport. These are distinctions, they are two "different" costumes, I was making guys aware that the FISD allow for this similar distinction regarding the ROTJ Stormtroopers, although as I tried to explain there are a few variations in the kit, independant of which version we have. I am going off specific topic to talk about the details again, the Biker Scout chasing Luke has a neckseal, this was bluescreen scenes filmed indoors at a different time to Endor/ The Red Woods. Also depending on just how much belief you have in the Blu-Ray Biker Scout model it looks to be the same, a wider ribbing neckseal and made of cloth. I personally believe LFL didn't add this detail to the model, the screen grab potentially confirms it was used IMO. Yes we need a lot more info for the wee details but we know there were clean and dirty Biker Scouts for a fact.

I have been reading the new CRL for Return of the Jedi Stormtroopers at FISD and they are making a distinction between the "stunt" and "Hero" costumes. This only applies at the most accurate costuming level. Biker Scouts could also use this distinction. I am returning to this post to see if BS.N have any ideas regarding these Biker Scout distinctions. Death Star[clean] or Endor[dirty] costume choice. The idea that there are TD greeblies up, down and missing shouldn't be a problem for high level accuracy either. We have talked about the flaired visor and widened eye area on the "Hero" stuntman, both of these peculiarities may be by accident/human error rather than a design necessity, I am not sure. Maybe future Lancer Biker Scouts could be termed Endor Lancer or Death Star Lancer. The differences are mainly weathering, it could even be subdivided into stunt dirty/Hero dirty. I am not sure the lens size/shade are any different, possibly amber at times. The pockets are off white/beige in both types. There could be differences in the use of a balaclava for stunt guys and a wide ribbed neck seal for "Hero" guys. The undersuit may have been different for the closeup ,indoor, bluescreen shots compared to the outdoor Endor guys. This could be the reasons for the collars on the closeup guy "fighting" Han. Maybe Endor/California Red Woods guys all wore a different undersuit due to heat? Unfortunately just more ? regarding our costume. Any views?

That is great that you managed to vacform the whole back in one piece.This will make your helmet kit the easiest plastic kit to build. I like your lids, they are a nice general shape. Only problem for me is the lack of sharpness , decals may make it "pop" better. Nice.

Great comparison pics Matt, the Altmanns does look very big compared to the MLC V3. They are all nice looking helmets. I can see the evolution of the MLC clearly. We all have a particular look that we identify as an accurate Biker Scout helmet. I know camera angles/lens/distances can make them look very slim or other pics make them look too wide and I have my particular angles that I think really show off the sexy curves of this design. I can understand why you like the curves on the MLCV1,how the jawline is nice but the originals are not so extreme. I can see how this was exaggerated while it was created and I can understand why the newer versions were changed, although now to the other extreme. the eye areas are very difficult to replicate, the curvature changes on the original helmets only by the angle of the photograph, yes they are all cut out slightly differently but the main problem is the picture angle. The curvature of the top of the visor is dependant on the angle at the sides of the visor. I am not sure why they are all different but the originals are more curved than these helmets above. The KS looks closer to the originals on the above pic. I think the Altmanns is too wide, the dome is too rounded and the faceplate a bit too flat, it was possibly made this way to accommodate bigger heads, maybe. It has the assymmetrical eyes which is very accurate and looks to be the closest in accuracy between the four helmets. Build quality I think the MLC V3 is the best, not including kit builds. Thanks for posting.

Biker Scout pistol sounds good to me. I have been a SW fan since I was a kid, I love the OT , watched the movies many times, when I joined the Emerald Garrison a few years ago I heard folks calling the Stormtrooper blaster an E11, Han Solo's blaster a DL44 and immediately thought that SW fandom was becoming very Star Trek style. I didn't read all the "technical" stuff written and made up to beef up the SW universe, to sell books and give the techy guys names for the SW world of bits and pieces. Call the Biker Scout pistol whatever you want, it was never named in the "real" world of ROTJ.

If the thermal detonator grey tube is a bit short you can pick up a longer piece from your local dump, thrown away vacuum cleaner hoses are the same. Even a thinner tubing may be more accurate. Don't use two rivets on the tank hump, fit an angle bracket[many methods] on the back piece to join the hump on, the old manual may be updated which was not accurate. For the wee grey rectangular detail on the chest piece use an offcut off the helmet decal set, and cut it quite a bit smaller than the recess, which is a bit too big.

Use ABS plastic weld[available at plumbing suppliers] to join the belt, this way it looks one piece. The sanding sponges are not very controllable, use a fine sandpaper, 250 grit and maybe 400 to finish the edges. The shoulder bells will look much better with the corners rounded off, use a coin for the shape. If you have a local haberdashery maybe change the elastic widths to be a bit more accurate, the biceps are about 2" for example. Depending on how wide you are the chest piece can be cut straighter at the edges running at your underarms to allow more mobility and to look more accurate. Use only one rivet at the centre of the belt ends, not two as the instructions say, this is more accurate. This kit can look awesome with a few tweaks.