Aradun

Welcome Sean! You’ll find you’ll be in good hands here. The Pathfinders are a great bunch who are always eager to help so post up your questions and we’ll do all we can to help you succeed.

Edwin, I commend you on your perseverance in pursuing your dream to become a Scout. You’ve endure a lot of challenges along the way but have slugged through them with determination becoming a future Scout. Well done brother. Looking forward to your approval and your joining the ranks as a fellow Scout!

Picked up my Husky 35” tote a couple of months ago and have been experimenting with nesting strategies. Here’s a pic. I’ve got the whole TB kit in there. I place my undersuit on the bottom instead of a towel to provide “padding” and to keep the plastic of the crate from rubbing my armor. On the left I have my chest, back, and tank. Nested inside the armor are my knee, bicep, and forearm armor, as well as my neuro-saav binocs. Binocs are wrapped in a hand towel I use to wipe everything down after a troop. My TD is wrapped in my cod piece and lays next to the chest, back, and tank. I then lay my bund over everything, tucking it in on the sides of the crate to keep the crate from scratching the armor. In the middle is my bucket which I wrap in my flak vest using one of the padded sleeves to protect the lens and engine which contains a Ukswrath’s speaker. The rest of the audio kit sits in the white box which is tucked between the bucket and side of the crate to keep the bucket from shifting around. Then the belt sits over that. The boots nest under the tray insert with the holster positioned so that it sits under the opening in the tray for the handle. The tray insert holds my balaclava, trading cards, blaster, supplies for quick on the go repairs, and my gloves which I use to keep everything in the tray from shifting around during transport. Thanks everyone for the pics and the ideas. I’m still working on pimping the outside of the crate. I currently have a name plate from Assassin Graphics on the lid am looking to create some stencils for spray painting. I’ll toss up a pic once that’s complete.

Good luck [emoji1696]

I have the red label RS helmet too, but I find the fit to be fine without any headband or additional padding. The liner is padded with foam though nothing thick but it’s comfortable. I would advise strongly against removing the padding and liner. The helmet is lined only because it is fiberglass and you don’t want that stuff exposed around your face.

Then you know you can’t go wrong Mark. I’m quite pleased with it. I’ve only used it for a virtual troop with Special Olympics where I had to send in a video recording and the audio was fantastic. Looking forward to trooping live with it next month.

Impressive! Most impressive! That’s one sweet looking bucket! Excellent work!

So for the interior mods. I ran the speaker wire along the inside of the faceplate and secured it with strips of adhesive foam padding ensuring that I had enough slack to open and close the visor without issue. I used one piece of foam to cover the hole where the wire passes through the faceplate. That will keep dirt and water from getting into the speaker. For the battery pack, I ideally wanted to set it up on the back right side of the bucket to make accessing the volume dial for the speaker easy to adjust with my left hand hand on the fly. The volume dial would have sat right behind my right ear with this set up, but this positioning left the mic wire exposed and visible through the right ear hole. So I moved it over to the left back side, but now the green battery was visible through the left ear hole. I taped it off with electrical tape to cover the battery. I then added self adhesive industrial hook to the back of the pack. The self adhesive loop side was applied to the lining of the bucket. Here it is with the the pack installed. I can still get my gloved right hand up in the helmet while wearing it to adjust the speaker volume dial, but the dial is located just left of center to the back of my head. I little more challenging to reach on the fly, but doable. You can see the fly wheel for the volume control of the speaker positioned directly below the mic sticker in the photo below. The last thing I did was to connect the speaker wire to the pack. I didn’t want the wire dangling and getting caught on something while taking the bucket off and putting it on. So I wrapped it in a loop and using two stitches secured it to the lining of the helmet. Now the speaker can be unplugged from the battery pack and the pack removed for charging. It can also be left in to charge. The mic provided is decent quality, but for an Omni-directional mic, I feel that it doesn’t pick up the sound of my voice well from the side. I get way better performance when the mic’s foam cover is removed and it sits right on my lips, otherwise the volume drops noticeably. This is an easy fix with a replacement mic. I’ll probably experiment a bit with other mics I have lying around. The directions do warn against possible feedback due to the proximity of the speaker to the mic, which happens in my set up only when the volume is set at max. To remedy this, just put some foam on the inside of the faceplate directly where the speaker is to provide some insulation. And there you have it.

These are on sale too for $10.00 off.

What Nathan suggests is the easiest way to go. You can get a nice custom fit by playing with the various pad sizes and positioning them for max comfort. A simple search on Amazon will give you a bunch of options and price points. The other way is to go with the headband kit found here: http://forum.501stpathfinders.com/index.php?/topic/10270-fs-accurate-tb-helmet-hardware-kit-headband-kit/ It’s a matter of preference. Some scouts like one but not the other.

Awesome news on the impending delivery! Continuing to keep your mom in my thoughts and prayers too.

I recently installed a Ukswrath Biker Scout audio system into my RS Red Label Bucket. The Red Label is RS Props’ Fiberglass and ABS helmet. The dome is one piece cast in fiberglass and fully lined in black fabric over thin foam padding. The faceplate and visor are ABS are plastic. Ukswrath offers two versions. An A grade and B grade. The only difference between the two is the snout engine. The casting of the B grade snout engine may have some slight imperfections, bubbles, etc. All of the audio, mic, and guts are the same for A and B grades. The B grade comes in at $40 cheaper than the A. I went with the B grade and was quite pleased. Here are some images of the B grade Ukswrath engine. You can see some bubble spots and some casting debris in between the fins, but it’s nothing an x-acto knife and a steady hand can’t clean up. You can see in the image below that the detail of the RS engine is cleaner and finer. The RS engine is also a smidge smaller too. After cleaning the engine and giving the sides a light sanding to smooth out any rough surface spots, it was time to get it mounted. I was considering a couple of option for mounting the Ukswrath engine with speaker to my bucket. 1) use a spade bit to drill out the mic portion of my original RS engine and transfer the speaker and mesh from the Ukswrath engine into the RS engine. Note: doing so would void any warranty with Ukswrath 2) carefully cutting the aerators from the Ukswrath and RS engines and swapping them out. (Again a void of warranty). 3) creating a new backing plate to mount the Ukswrath engine and replacing the RS part completely. I really wanted to go with option 1 because I love the detail of the RS engine, but decided on option 3 instead. Given that the RS snout piece is merely attached via a Phillips screw and not glued to the faceplate it was a no brainer to simply remove it and make a new backing plate. RS on left. New backing plate made from .80 mm gray abs on right with Ukswrath engine on far right. The new backing plate was made by tracing the RS plate onto .80 mm abs and cutting it out with an x-acto knife. Then I used a file to round off the top of the plate and finish off the sides. A file was also used to cut the grove into the new backing plate. I then drilled a 1/4” hole in the plate so allow the connector for the speaker to pass through the backing plate. Here’s what it looks like prior to painting. You can see the size difference in the Ukswrath engine on the right. Then on to paint. Make sure to tape up the speaker portion of the engine to avoid damaging the speaker. I used Rustoleum’s medium gray primer, which is the closest match I could find to the gray used on the RS engine. After allowing the paint to cure, I gave it a light weathering with a quick sprits of flat black to match the weathering in the RS engine. Here’s a side by side. The engine was mounted to the backing plate with e-6000. If doing this again, I’d tape off a thin line down the center of the backing plate so that the resin cast engine would be glued directly to the abs plastic. While the back of the engine was unpainted it was glued to the painted surface of the backing plate. It’s still securely attached but you could see the glue reacting on the painted surface. I used the original screw hole for the Phillips screw that secured the RS snout to the faceplate and just widened it with a 1/4” bit to allow the connector for the speaker wire to pass through. I filed it down so that no burrs would cut into the speaker wire. I then used 15 lb 3M 1” outdoor double sided mounting tape (boy that’s a mouthful) to mount the snout to the visor. The snout area was painted flat black and I really didn’t want to muck it up with glue. Plus the surface has a slight curve to it so the mounting tape provided a great surface area for the snout to adhere to than if glued directly to the faceplate. This baby’s not going anywhere. I’ll get the interior install of the battery pack and running of the wires posted shortly.

A thing of beauty! You know you’re totally stoked to wear it Justin.

Good luck brother. Not that you’ll need it because that’s a solid build! Well done.

Everything looks fantastic. That two year wait for your bucket was worth it. This is another ST build I’m bookmarking for future reference when I get the itch to build a ST.

It looks like your photo limitation is because you are using the forum’s allowance which is super limited. You can use a photo hosting service like photo bucket or download the free Tapatalk app on your smartphone which will allow you to upload pics from your phone directly into your forum posts. Tapatalk’s free version is pretty generous with the number of photos you can upload each month, but upgrading to a subscriber account for a buck a month gets you unlimited photo uploads. Something worth looking into especially as you’ll be uploading photos regularly to your WIP now that all of your gear is coming in.

Following in Dad’s footsteps...awesome!

Great to hear that you’re moving forward Phil. Like Retrofire said, take your time and ask any questions. There’s a lot of troopers pulling for you. As for the drilling of those rivets, I’m sure [mention]Chopper [/mention] will have a pointer or two. He’s used the cobalt bit to drill out rivets on his costume and recommends that bit to everyone who needs to switch rivets out.

You should be proud of your accomplishment Joe. It’s well deserved. Your WIP is well done and I for one have it saved as valuable reference should I venture into my own ST build. Congrats Trooper!

[mention]troygordon2 [/mention] awesome detail brother! This looks incredible. You’ve really set the bar as far a accuracy and detail go. Well done!

Jenny, most scouts use a Red Kap or similar overall as the base for the undersuit. That collar is 3”.

That’s a great tip!

Great observations Joe and all relatively easy fixes. Your meticulous attention to details, especially those finer ones that some never notice will pay off huge in the end cause you’ll look like you just walked off the set of ROTJ when you’re finished. In looking over the CRL photos and other approved Lancer submissions it seems the sweet spot for the hanging length of the mud flap is that the bottom edge should stop just before the cod strap wraps under and between the legs. The edge should lay fairly straight across its entire length. If it’s too long then the cod strap pulls the center in between the legs creating an arc effect where the sides hang lower than the center of the flap. Cut it too short and it doesn’t cover the butt. You’re photos are dark, but from what I can see, I think you’re good, but wait for confirmation from one of the guys on the armory team. As for the bunching of the undersuit at the boots, here’s two options to consider. You can do what Chopper did and put boot blousers at the bottom of your pant leg to strap the pants leg at the ankle and prevent the pant from riding up, or you can sew elastic strapping to the inside of the pant cuff to create a stirrup. That will keep the pants from riding up too. It’s a preference thing that will come down to what feels best. I think either of those options will afford you with a little more flexibility of movement than what you’re proposing with Velcro. Again, just other options to consider. Keep up the fine work. The finish line is in sight!

This is a great tutorial for those looking to weather their Remnant Scout. Keep the details coming! Well done.

Looks perfect Joe. Well done on the weathering.