Chopper

Thank you again for letting us know about this, Andy. We'll take a look and get back to you in a moment.

Hi Rob, thank you very much for your patience as the team reviewed your Level 2 application. Here's what we have -- Helmet The putty used to seal the two-piece dome is cracking off along the back and needs to be repaired. Flight Suit It's difficult for us to tell if the suede used on the IB flight suit is real suede or faux suede. Could you please supply some additional photos of the riding patches? The legs are baggy and will need to be better fitted by taking them in slightly. Upper Arm Armor Dressing Adjustment: Next time you suit up, please make sure to rotate the upper arm armor to the 9 and 3 oclock position to your left and right. Forearm Armor Dressing Adjustment: Next time you suit up, please make sure to rotate the upper arm armor to the 10 and 2 oclock position on your left and right forearms, respectively. Back Armor Can we please see a top down photo of the tank topper greeblie? Cummerbund and Codpiece The CRL for level 2 calls for "smooth white cotton fabric". The IB cod and bund look like they're made of a denim or canvas material. This is fine for the pouches, but the cummerbund and cod will need to be replaced with fabric that fits the Level 2 CRL requirement. Belt Dressing Adjustment: Note that your belt is dropping forward. You might want to use some velcro to keep it in place in the future. Detonator The detonator is silver colored. You'll need to paint the existing tubing neutral grey. Knee Armor Can you please provide the top elastic measurement? Boots The new Imperial Boots are great, however they still have a horizontal stitch at back seam, which has been an issue for Level 2 applications in the past. We recognize that the stitch is structural, but it can be filled with a bit of paint or caulk to make is less evident -- please reference what equuspolo did in his Lancer app, Holster The cuts in the holster are a bit too large -- they should be fairly thin as per the CRL and screen reference. You can put a piece of thin styrene behind the cuts, fill the large gaps with ABS paste, and re-cut with a thin dremel cutting wheel. Round off the hard edge cuts where the blaster fits in. See attached photo and screen ref below. Blaster The singlepoint scope of the blaster should not be hollow. It will need to be filled in. See screen ref photos. Also if we could please see a barrel front photo, that would be appreciated as well. I know it probably seems like a lot, but you can work through it with some effort and determination. Please let us know if you have any questions or need any clarification. Thank you again for your time and patience!

That looks really good.

Hello and welcome! Well, you picked the two most accurate scout makers available right now. With RS, I believe the plastic is a little thicker than Cf0. Also RS is quite expensive, so there's a cost difference as well. With Cf0, you'll likely have to trim all of your armor yourself, while RS comes assembled. I believe you can also request for RS to trim but not assemble your armor if you want to do that part yourself. The helmet from Cf0 is the Lone Wolf helmet, which was the top helmet for quite a long time. The RS helmet is cast from an original ROTJ scout helmet, so there's no beating that one! With the RS helmet you'd be getting an assembled helmet, while with Cf0 you'd need to assemble your helmet on your own. Again, there will be a cost difference. You can't really go wrong either way, it just comes down to how much time, effort, and funding you want to put into it?

Oh and just an addendum -- I believe the IB pouches are made of canvas-like material, right? That should pass for Level 2. However, the feline weathering is probably a disqualifier...😁

That is AWESOME my dude. A+ work!

Ah ok, that definitely still looks workable. You can put a bit of superglue under that little spot on the left, once you're done with all the cuts, to hold it down. If it's that difficult to cut through it though, I'm thinking that what Darthsnark said earlier is right-on the money. Some work boot soles are much denser than others. You may need to use a very small drum bit from a dremel to work the cuts, or you can get a hot knife.

Oh and the other thing to mention is that the depth of the cut doesn't need to be deep. The cuts on the orig sierras are really shallow, so you don't need to go for super deep cuts or anything like that.

Ok, are you using both blades? Cut the rectangular outline with the regular exacto, then, from the bottom of the sole, chisel up to remove the part? If you're already doing that, go ahead and send some close up photos and we'll take a look. As a last resort, you can buy a hot knife and use that, but we're not there yet.

Hi Rob, the back and forth can sometimes take a minute because the review team is comprised of several people who all weigh in and give their views on the application. That said, we should be ready to post our feedback very soon, so we greatly appreciate your patience!

This is a timely question, as something similar came up in one of our Lancer reviews. The ribbed elastic is not ideal and the non-ribbed is certainly preferred. However, the CRL doesn't specify, so the armory team is allowing it right now.

Thank you for posting that, Jenny. I have no doubt that it will be useful for many prospective scouts in the future.

E6000 and Shoe Goo will eventually slip and move over time. Even moreso in the heat, which is a significant consideration given that you're in AL. My covers have moved a bit over time, and I'm only in MD. If you can get some barge cement, that's what I'd go with and what I plan to use for my next boot build. I'd do some practicing with it first, but Lucasfan7 used it with great success on his boots.

Here's the post I was remembering about working with and using leather on the boots: http://forum.501stpathfinders.com/index.php?/topic/19916-tk-24576-who-also-wants-to-be-tb/page/4/&tab=comments#comment-196119

Leather can be tricky to work with. There's one scout who used leather to cover their boots a few years ago. Let me see if I can find the thread. I used marine vinyl for mine. I just recently bought the sierra sole underboots from CrowProps and had no issues. He ships via DHL and they arrived within the promised timeframe.

I'm not sure how I missed this? Congrats on starting a scout! With the scout ear holes, the shape should sorta look kidney bean-ish. If you have a circular file, I'd work a little bit on trying to round out the hard corners I've marked in the photo.

Your bells actually look ok in terms of proportions. I'd let them out maybe a half inch more from your shoulder bridges, round out that mid-bell angle, as well as the bottom corners, but yeah, I don't think you need to replace them unless you really want to.

The heel of the sierra's basically looks like the pattern you have marked out. I don't think there's any reason to change what you have marked.

Jenny, those boot stencils look just fine . You can go ahead and continue the cut pattern around the toe and heel and that should be good for Level 2 clearance. We realize that the Sierra sneaker sole isn't available (well, until recently...but the point still stands for the Level 2 reviews), so you don't have to exactly match the cuts, but you should try and get close. What you have should be a-ok, once you finish it up. I haven't heard about using a rivet in quite a while. 4505Marcel used to do it back in the day for his boot builds, but it's not a typical. I wouldn't do it -- who needs a piece of rivet sticking into your foot all day?

How much work are you looking to do and what's your budget? You can make a great boot with marine vinyl and a work boot for relatively cheap. If you want to go for Level 2/Lancer, you'd need to cut the soles out, but it's totally doable. The new IB boot is pretty good and you don't have to worry about doing a boot build. Again, if you're interested in Level 2, you'd need to make sure that the shaft height is tall enough for where you knee armor sits. And the new CrowProps base boot is pretty great too. It'll cost more than a cheap work boot, but you'll have nicer soles to work with when you lay down the marine vinyl. Again, up to you depending on time/effort/cost.

Yeah, we have not gotten very many applicants using IB soft goods for our Level 2 reviews, so I'd be curious to know more. If you have any close up photos of the suede parts, feel free to send them our way and we can take a look. If it's the back of the waist that feels tight, then I'd def see if you can get a slit with some flex fabric added. As I said, as long as it's under your belt and bund and isn't visible, then you should be good.

This is what you're looking for in picture form: The 1/8" measurement is the diameter of the shaft, not the pull/grip range, nor the measurement of the flange. You do want to use a small flange rivet head, which as per your photo, appears to be fine.

I gotta say, Andy, from the photos above, you look pretty great. I like what you did with the cod re-shaping and the current position looks good as well.] You can leave the suede riding patches as is as well, what you have looks good. If I can ask, do you know if IB used real suede for the riding patches, or is it faux suede? As you identified, the side straps do look a little loose for Level 2, and I think your stated adjustment will probably take care of it. The costume will never feel like a loose set of Dickey's coveralls and even I can't fully kneel or bend over when I'm suited up. (I usually have to use what's called a "golfer's lift to grab something off the floor). In terms of flight suit tightness, where are you feeling it? Just above your waist? Knees? You, or a tailor can potentially add a slit with flex fabric, or spandex if it's covered by your vest or bund. Again it all depends where you're feeling the tightness the most?

You can get the helmet bolts from KW by following the instructions in the following thread: http://forum.501stpathfinders.com/index.php?/topic/10270-fs-accurate-tb-helmet-hardware-kit-headband-kit/&tab=comments#comment-86123 We've also determined that these bolts from amazon are the proper 3M bolts: http://forum.501stpathfinders.com/index.php?/topic/21649-fibre-metal-helmet-bolts-3m-substitute/&tab=comments#comment-199071

You can see the front tab velcro patch in the photo below. It's subtle, but it's there. What you have looks pretty good in terms of size. It's really hard to tell from the photos if there's a diagonal stitch, but if Strider did it in his thread, then I think you're safe in this instance. The pouches you see on screen weren't super rigid, but plenty of folks add cardboard stiffeners to their pouches at both the basic and lancer levels, so what you've done isn't a problem at all.