NegativeEleven

Elwyn, exactly. I know that's what was in the originals, and I know it's offered here. That's definitely the best option. Since I'm building my scout with a friend who has spent the last 2 years on his TK, he had me buy a hardhat and remove the liner before we had the scout helmets in hand. Neither of us were expecting the size to be so different. They don't look that different in the movies, but they're so rarely right next to each other. The KS when you buy it assembled just has some foam weather stripping stuck in there for a little padding. It works if your head is small and you don't mind the helmet shifting a little with movement. It's so light, I bet most people don't have a problem with it. On me, though, my head is big and I wear glasses. When I put it on, the eyepiece mashed up against the glasses as it sat at a weird angle. If I were to use it without a headband, I'd need a support above the eyes padding my forehead to hold it back, to prevent my glasses pressing into my face and scratching the eyepiece.

This is a great topic to explore. Personally, I have a small vac-forming setup, Bondo, plastic resins, silicone, a Dremel and a lot of free time. I don't have a lot of spare money. If these vendors offered some bad pulls as cheaper alternatives, I have the time to work on it and the desire to learn by doing so. That would be great. They'd have less wasted supply materials which could lower the cost for everyone and I'd have a cheaper product that I could put the time into turning into a useable product. On the subject of turnaround time... KS's website says expect 4 weeks. I gave a friend money and he placed the order for both of us, so I've been reluctant to complain. When we placed the order, they said it would ship in 2 weeks. It just arrived after more than 7 weeks. I placed my order for SC armor today and their website says 6-8 weeks. I was told that due to circumstances beyond their control, 10 weeks is more likely. I said "thank you for your honesty."

The one I printed (setup for 8x11) has 21 pages of pieces. The 11x17 one (says it's by Dungbeetle) is 17 pages with 2 extra pages for author credit. The big difference is the 11x17 has concentric circles for the top of the dome, and the 8x11 has 4 wedges. I've been having fun slowly trying to build something recognizable although clearly oversized to fit on this dome that I bought because I don't want it to go to waste. Also glad I now have a KS to build for 501st approval and comparison, too.

Here's the pepakura visor (on sintra, so the thickness added a little to the size) over the KS one.

Hope you resized enough. There's 2 different pepakura files out there (if you found the ones on rpf like me). One is made for 11x17 and the other is 8x11. The one that prints on 8x11 is at least 10% too big. I made the visor and face from that to fit on the modified Star Fortress bucket. The KS helmet literally can fit inside of it.

Don't know if you've seen the terrible fiberglass helmet I bought on ebay (I believe it was originally a Star Fortress). The snout sticks out kinda far (much more than an accurate helmet) and the weight of that (plus face and visor being fiberglass) made the whole thing fall forward and never fit right. If you add weight to the face, you better have some kind of support (TKs use a hardhat liner which won't fit in the Scout) holding the dome to your head. I know the way the KS ships "pre-assembled" with foam strips in it, sits weird on me and I'd need to modify that, bracing it against my forehead to leave room in the face for my glasses. It's a tricky helmet compared to Fett, which has pretty evenly distributed weight all around. I'd also like to take this space to point out again, that as a kid watching the movies, I never thought that the vents on the face of the scouts were just vinyl stickers. I really think they should be real vents when a kid comes up close to take a look. I am going to put the stickers on my new KS kit that arrived saturday because I'm building the scout specifically to join the 501st, but I won't like it! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My Fett is where I allow myself some creative choices. I've got real multicolored horsehair braids because wookies aren't solid white-black-brown. I don't wear a jetpack because I don't have one yet, but when I do get one, I like to think that Fett didn't wear it all the time. The toe spikes and darts on knees are just asking to get caught on something, and I don't recall Boba Fett having to carefully watch where he stepped constantly. I'm also planning to replace the velcro vest closure with snaps, that'll make it easier to get dressed by myself without ending up with the back all crooked. The velcro wasn't seen on screen and shouldn't be part of the CRL! I think the same thing about the scout vest, but again, I want to have a 501st approved costume, so I'm doing everything whether I agree with it or not.

I meant to get back to this thread. The resin I have been using to cast blasters is doing exactly that. It's like the material is repelling paint in certain spots. It's very similar to what I said about metallic paints shooting more of the propellant than paint, but that can be sanded off. This problem doesn't seem to sand away, so my other option is coating the whole thing in bondo before painting it at all. I'm gonna head out and look for that filler primer. Is that at auto-parts stores?

I've been waiting for a couple of months now for a KS kit (said it'd ship by the end of January). I had in my hands a while back, a pre-assembled KS. I was repainting the snout and replacing the snout detail piece for a friend. I would not recommend getting it pre-assembled. It was put together with this nasty double sided tape and it was put together crooked. Since you're gonna have to pull out the bolts on the visor and re-do the snout anyway, you might as well get the kit. Just don't believe them when they tell you their typical delivery is 4 weeks (or in my case they said it'd ship in one or two). This is the only picture I have of it, with a DVH nose greeble. You can kinda tell how the visor/face are put together crooked here, even though it's sitting crooked on a barstool. The black on the snout is a vinyl sticker that's coming up. The helmet was assembled in October, so I assume it was like that when it shipped. You'll have to remove that sticker and the greeble, then mask/paint and put a new greeble (paint it light grey obviously, DVH made them with black resin) on there.

Duff's is the only one with the visible finger grooves on the front of the handle. Is that screen accurate and no one else has done it, or is it something that's never seen on screen so just a personal choice?

Those evolution gloves look bad, and for $70... wow. Looks like cheap vinyl or something with suede for the ribs on the knuckles? I really need to pass this link to the girl that's modifying my gloves. If people are really willing to pay that much, she could probably do a much better job modifying something from Amazon or Ebay far cheaper than that.

Main pour spout is that sanded spot on the cleaner blaster. I had another at the raised square closer to the front, but it slipped while the silicone was curing. There's a vent hole at the highest point on the barrel hexagon. I'm gonna add one on the handle too, I think. Slushing it around seems to have made things worse. That's what I did on the second one, and I ended up with those resin bubbles, where there's a gap, but a thin layer of resin over it. The 2 kinds of resin I have here cure in 7 minutes and 15 minutes. So, pouring any slower isn't really an option. Tapping it on the table could work. I tried squeezing it a little to push air out, but I think the mold is too thick over the blaster. Squeezing worked on the scope.

Here's the first 2. I'd appreciate any tips you guys have for not having these bubbles show up. This is my first big 2-part mold, so I don't really know what I'm doing. I did make a 2-part mold of a lightsaber, but I sort of slush/roto cast that, pouring in the blade emitter part and rotating till the sides look thick enough. I should have taken pictures before sanding and trimming. I had to completely lose the barrel on one because the mold had come apart a little and added thickness and bubbles to the hexagon and tip. The pour hole is that sanded part on the body of the cleaner one. I have a hole at the highest point on the hexagon barrel part, too because that seemed like a place air would get trapped. I didn't think the main body and the handle would give me trouble. The one that's worse is the 2nd one I did. I tried tilting the mold and squeezing out bubbles as I poured. That just made the resin slush up to the top and form bubbles with a film over them. I am thinking a few more really tiny holes to let air get out would probably fix this. http://www.negativee.../casts01_lg.jpg (larger pic) http://www.negativee.../casts02_lg.jpg (larger pic) As for repairing these, you can see I've got some black sintra there. I'm gonna try to fill in the spots with that and some bondo. Again, I'm glad I made the mold the way I did (I knew the flatter side would be better on top) because most of these bad spots are hidden by the scope. I think I'm gonna end up cutting off the hand guard on all of them and replacing that with metal or sintra because the urethane resin is too flexible.

I pulled 2 today. I'm kinda mad at the bubbles. I thought I'd angled it correctly and had enough pour spouts/channels to get those out, but I guess I was wrong. The bottom half of each part (the outside when they're put together) looks great. The other side has big gaps where air pockets formed. I think punching some pinholes in the mold for air to escape is gonna cure that. Chopping off a few stems from resin filling those holes seems easier than filling in these big gaps. I'll try to put some pictures online later tonight. I'd love some advice. I've spent too much already on my casting and mold making education, so I hope to get something useable out of this gallon of resin.

Marcel, wish someone had said this last week. I got these on eBay for $10+$3.50 shipping. I dropped em off with a professional seamstress yesterday. She's ordering leather for another project, and I'm supposed to drop off the leftover suede when we do our coveralls. I should have em modded in a month or so. I told her I wanna wear em for my May 4th party. I figured the hardest mod would be adding the 4 ribs, so I went with the cheapest pair that already had those done. Shouldn't be too hard for her to take out strap and zipper then add correct split to it.

I believe helmet and armor are SC, several years old.

I have that issue sometimes with metallic spray paint (usually Krylon Aluminum). It happens if I start spraying right on the piece, what comes out of the can first is propellant. It leaves a slick spot that paint won't stick to. I end up having to sand that spot again. I always try to remember to spray a little off the piece, on newspaper or cardboard till the actual paint starts coming out of the can. Of course, I get in a rush and forget, probably 1 in 10 times.

I haven't been taking pictures of progress like I should. I rebuilt the scope mount area to fit the accurate scope rings I bought. I sanded off most of the details that shouldn't be there. I attached the accurate transistor with round head slotted screws. I spent 2 hours building up a box and filling with clay around the halfway mark of scope and gun. Then I realized I didn't even have enough silicone for one side of the mold. I've ordered more silicone, resin, and black tint. I'll be making 3 for our local scouts. If anyone else wants one, I'll see how the mold holds up. I'll do em cheap because I'm not great at this yet, and obviously there's a lot of better options on here for a blaster.

Does it still have the Return of the Jedi stickers on the barrel and scope? You'll wanna get those off. Maybe a little paint thinner and sandpaper to clean up that area.

Hmm... I've never taken apart a Kenner. I've got several Hasbro blasters here in various states of repair. I think one of my E-11's might be a Kenner... sanded the copyright off em long ago. Most have just a little speaker, circuit board, and LED inside. It's all wired simply and the trigger presses up a piece of metal to make the circuit. Got some pictures?

Started sanding... It's kinda weird how many colors I'm finding. The ebay description and picture made me think it'd be all white resin. I'm also finding some gray (probably a primer coat as he sanded it and painted it black before shipping), light blue and dark blue. The pink and red are bondo, filling in the original screw hole and a few chips from the Dremel. I'm looking at this dark blue and thinking how hilarious it would be if he just coated a Kenner blaster with resin and resold it, not knowing that the originals go for more than double what I bought this replica for. I know that's not what happened (sanded down half an inch on the grip detail and a lot of the scope mount had to be carved away), but still think it'd be funny.

I'd take it apart and just look to see if something is obviously loose. There's not much too it. There's probably just one or two wires that have popped off as the connections rust or just from being bumped around for 30 years.

So last week I was trooping (the local garrison is nice to let me troop my Fett even though I'm still short a jetpack and a few other parts that'll run me hundreds of dollars) and while we were suiting up, a TB 933 mentioned that he's waiting on another guy to bring a flightsuit for him to borrow, since his had been misplaced. The guy with the flightsuit was driving from 2 hours away and had said he'd be a little late, so I said I could run home (less than 5 miles) and grab mine. I haven't added the suede or elastic yet, but neither had he (501st member since 2005) and the suit he was going to borrow is from a Tie Pilot. Just to compare, I also brought my cummerbund and the only set of completed pouches (off-white, I am going to replace with white but still have to add velcro). He said my stuff was all in better condition than his (again, CRL standards have changed since his scout was approved and it's a little rough from several years of trooping). Long story short, my cummerbund, pouches and flightsuit got to troop with SC armor. TB 933 is a little skinnier than I am, so it took some safety pins to make it all fit him and the pouches started to sag almost immediately, so I guess I need to figure out how to keep them in place better. Either way, I'm excited about my scout progress. Hope my KS helmet arrives this week! Other than the fit, anyone notice anything I should be working on? I'm planning on adding suspenders of some kind (probably with snaps behind the pouches). I gotta fix the neck on the suit, too. I have the back pockets on the table next to the sewing machine to work on that next.

Panzer beat me to it. The one I wear with my Cobra costume was only $6 on Amazon. You can totally stretch the eye hole open to have your mouth free. I bought a second one to throw in the box with my Scout progress just to be sure I don't lose it.

I've been bugging a friend of mine for about a week. She has an industrial sewing machine and has done one-off mods for me before. I've been sending her links to gloves that look close to what we need and asking if she can mod them. I made sure she knows that there's 3 of us in town waiting to buy em, and suggested she register an account here to see proof that there's more demand and possibly room to profit. She told me she's going to look into it. Fingers crossed!

He said he "could recommend someone" if I was looking for helmet and armor. I said I didn't need him to, I've ordered a helmet and picked out an armor seller to order from next month. He also told me to check out The Dented Helmet if I was interested in Fett... been a member there for 3 years with the same username as my ebay account. Nice of him to keep a dialog going though.