Harbinger

I was thinking of a can of black water-based/semi-removable ‘movie paint’ used on the STs. Beat of both worlds?

Finished the other boot, how-to updated. I used some latex paint I had mixed locally (the color is on the can): It looks pretty close to the original color, IMO.

Great job lining up the halves, will look great with paint.

Not much left.

Looks great. How many hours of sanding and painting?

Looking good.

Update on my boots - Despite claims of being “extra-flexible”, the Rustoleum paint starting peeling almost immediately. I ended up sanding and repainting with regular ol’ latex paint. Mini how-to below: How To: Paint boot soles (and add accurate horizontal strips) Step 1 - Sanding Sand boots with 150-200 grit sandpaper until your arms fall off (seriously, sand until you think they are good and then sand beyond this point!). The goal is to add surface area for the paint to grab onto... rubber is notoriously hard to paint. Be careful not to sand away any details or hard edges. Step 2 - Accuracy/“Rubber-band’ing” (Optional, for Hi-Tec/Sierra Sneaker IV’s) The Sierra/Woodland Sneakers lack the horizontal ribbing of the film used Inter boots but are otherwise, nearly identical. Props to @Whiskey for realizing standard size rubber bands are just about perfect in terms of thinkness/width/flex for adding this detail back in. What I like to do is this: Cut the rubber band to open it up. Lay the rubber band strip down on the boot and mark the width of notch to fill with a pencil. I like to cut the band at an angle so the piece is slightly ‘V’ shaped, this helps it fill the notch better than completely straight sides. It also helps if you match the natural “bend” of the band (it will have a curve from being a loop originally) to the contour of the boot sole, this avoids the ends sticking out: Glue band with a fresh tube of E6000 (for maximum adhesion). Before fully dry, use a toothpick to scrap away any glue that has bled for a cleaner look. Optionally, I used some “super flexible” exterior latex caulk to fill any remaining gaps between the original sole and rubber bands: Step 3 - Prime After everything has dried for a day or two (assuming you did step two), clean the whole sole with rubbing alcohol and let dry, they do a very thin coat of exterior latex primer over the sole and net dry fully. I didn’t paint the upper sole as the white leather/vinyl will cover this part, but did paint the rear portion as it may be exposed per the original boots: Since the glue, rubber bands, caulk and paint are all flexible they won’t crack when the sole flexes: Step 4 - Paint Using a good exterior latex paint (try and find a brand with added flex) in a wheat/gum/natural rubber color. Note: The original Inter sneakers had soles with a slight orange tint: Depending on the paint and underlying primer/sole color this may take 1-3 coats. A spray gun is ideal bit you can use a brush as well:

You don’t need rubbing alcohol to remove E6000, you can just rub it off. As for the dremel nick look up ABS paste, that is probably the best solution but read up as you can make it worse if you don’t know what you are doing.

Deer leather completely falling apart? How are the cold-cast soles holding up? Hopefully you can at least reuse those.

I don’t know how you keep finding these vintage bits but your dedication is worthy of my jealously, good sir!

I agree, great job!

FISD is updating the TLJ CRL so I’d ping the DL to make sure you are using the most up to date info.

In-Universe guess: White is the de facto color for armor. Out-of-Universe guess: It looks cool.

Yep, my plan is to make the correct position the "on" position... if I ever run a troop w/o audio I'll just pull the battery.

Was able to wrap up the tank today (except rivets!). Here it is taped up to the back tank, I think the gaps look good to me: And, a bonus: I added a switch! I know, I know, it isn't screen accurate... right now it's a dummy switch but I plan to eventually mount an Arduino/speaker in there to play some radio chatter. Unfortunately with everything shut down right now it will have to wait.

I wonder if the FO scout is based on the scrapped electropod endor rebel? There are certainly some similarities.

🍿

I would make the back notches a tad wider.

Since you’re going all-in I’d suggest using some scraps to add the little step in the arch:

Yep, and RS has 7 vents FWIW.

It’s interesting when you look at those pics, the upper knee elastic and riveted holster were likely “screw it!” fixes from the prop department.

Is that what the elastic on the suit was for? Mind. Blown. They must’ve scrapped it last minute if so... wonder if they kept falling off or something.

Started working on the tank. The top has quite a bit of warp to it, so I gave it a bath in boiling water to try and flatten it as much as possible (before on the left): I then reinforced the top from the inside, it was quite thin up there and the majority of the stress will be on the river going through to top. I cut a piece of 1.5mm ABS to fit and glued it down with E6000: Also did some sanding/filling on the tank topper. There was a lot of flashing, paint bubbles/runs and a couple scratches that I filled and sanded down. Finally I cut out the tank decals from glossy permanent vinyl and applied them to the tank:

Yep, the Sierra's have asymmetrical sole notches so it'd be darn near impossible to replicate it exactly.

I usually go over any seepage with a toothpick when it starts to tack up, cleans it right off.