jdouce45

Thank you guys, I really appreciate the warm welcome and congratulations. No way could I have done it without the positive input, encouragement, and guidance I received here. You guys are a class act, can't thank you enough! I look forward to being a part of this organization and exploring what its all about in the months to come. BTW, I'll be helping my younger brother build one of these here pretty soon (so if you see a guy named cdouce45, you'll know its another Pampa, TX kid!) and I'll likely be starting a Lancer application once I get a new blaster printed and few more outings in the real world with the suit and see what wearing it for more than an hour or so feels like. For now, I'm gonna take a break from building for a couple of weeks and explore the forums, buy some merchandise, and look real close at those Jolly Roger guys, I've got a ROTJ TIE Pilot BBB sitting in the corner wanting some attention! Maybe I'll see some of y'all over there too! So, to close this thread out, I want to say thank you and express my gratitude for the help, the cheers, advice, and your welcoming attitude. This whole thing has been awesome!

Woohoo!! Just got the approval email, can’t stop smiling!! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks Guys, I was able to get in touch with the GML and they preferred to receive all images over email and a simultaneous application submission. I've sent in both so things are under way!

Thanks guys, those were the nods I was looking for. I’ve read about the application process and have thought it through a bit but still have questions. I see that I’m supposed to reach out to my garrison’s GML over what looks like email and provide them with pictures and any other details they may need, then once they have approved, complete the form on the 501st.com website. Is this the correct procedure? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

And a fresh membership submission set, I think I am about ready to send it in.

Latest suit up... I split the crotch and removed 2 inches of width from each rear patch, while I was there I reshaped the lower part of the patch to look closer to what is seen in the reference CRL images. I replaced the thigh straps with new ones since they needed to grow quite a bit. I then took up 1.25 inches on the outer seam of the legs in the thigh region to remove some of the bulk that collected under the elastic. I ended up with a much better fit. I removed roughly 3.5 inches from the width of the butt flap, raised it up 2.5 inches and let out another inch which netted a 1.5 inch shortening overall. I came to these measurements by taking a picture of the butt flap as it was in the shop with a yard stick clamped to it, then superimposing that on top of the mark up image to give me an accurate way of converting the markup lines to real world measurements. I did get a new hand guard made for the blaster, scrapping the plastic one that was misshapen for an 1/8 inch thick mild steel version. This was mainly to clean it up and give more metal for the lower magnet in the boot to pull on. I think I can ride a roller coaster now and not lose it. It got a fresh paint job as well. Below is a fresh zoom on the backside corrections.

Thanks Chopper, the markup is what I expected. I should be able to get those worked in this week in the evenings and do another suit up on Saturday. The sleeve part is believed to be just a dressing issue, but I've been keeping an eye on it since I first put on the armor. The sleeve is just long enough to stick out about 1/2 inch below the bell. There is an inch hemmed under in case it needs to grow but hopefully it won't come to that. If you see anything else that would be flagged on a Lancer application then go ahead and mention it, I'd like to get it out of the way sooner rather than later.

First, I appreciate the compliments on my work. Its one thing to believe you've done a good job and quite another to have it confirmed by those that you respect! Below is a few pics of my first full suit up. Man it was more fun than I expected it to be! We took like 82 pictures of it. These are all that have made it from iphone -> dropbox-> my pc so far, so I'm picking some out and getting them up here for look over. Now that I can really see the rear patches and flap I realize how misplaced and over sized they really are. In the CRL image, the top edge of the flap is pretty much right at the belt edge, so I need to move it north about 2 to 2.5 inches. It also needs to narrow about 1.5 inches on each side and a gap of about 1.5 inches needs to be between the top of the rear patch and the bottom of the flap. Luckily it is just tacked on and is double layered so there is plenty of it there to complete the needed mods. The rear patches are also way too wide, those need to be narrowed about an inch and a half on each side. The pants seem blouse out a little much in the photos around the knees and thighs, but after moving around I'm not sure if I can take those in any more without ripping something when I move too much, its a little tough to bend over and pick something up off the ground right now. A little hidden stretchy pants strip would be handy if you could find a place to hide it. I got my first glance at how I look from my reflection off of a car while doing this, not having a mirror handy, and I was really impressed. It looks so real when you have it on...I bet these make an impression when folks see you while on a troop. I'm looking forward to doing one at some point in the not so distant future. I'm a little out here by myself as Texas is kinda big and I'm in a fairly sparsely populated area so I think driving will be a part of it. It'll be worth it though I think if it was this much fun just doing it at the shop with no one around!

Alright....done! except for painting the blaster again. It needed some improvements so I wet sanded it a bit and squared up what needed it. I'll eventually replace it with something more accurate, likely from Mr Poopie's print files since it is more accurate and I can print that right here. Anyway, I reinforced the wall of the boot internally with something that is both stiff and flexible ...😉 I used 1/8 inch closed cell foam folded over on itself and vertically ribbed like a corset every inch. It still flexes at the ankle but gives the wall some more meat and vertical strength. I also sewed a 2 inch velcro piece almost the length of the holster on the outer side of the boot to bond it the whole way down rather than just at the rivet points. The velcro was sewn through the foam sheet and the elastic straps to extend the bond all the way through, that way the rivets and the vinyl aren't actually being used to hold the blaster up. The foam, velcro, and elastic bands take over that job. Here it is almost holding up half of the blaster weight on its own. I'm having to hold it at the bottom just to keep it from tipping over. As for the checklist, I believe its all done except the riding patch and butt flap checkup. I plan to post a full suit up tomorrow evening to start critiquing.

Not sure, can you get to http://dropbox.com ? The images are hosted there and each image has been shared. I've tested it from another machine and its working there but I don't have another location that uses different outside DNS servers to test from at the moment. Has it always been this way or just recently? And are all images not appearing or just recent ones?

This is where I'm intending to mount the holster. I'll be doing some reinforcing where I can as it seem way too heavy for the vinyl.

Since all of Texas had the week off during this winter storm, I was able to get alot done when the lights were on. I started on the helmet using the instructions supplied by SC, which were good, but my eyes were still pretty wide the whole time I was building it. I've used my fair share of bondo and fiberglass, but never ABS paste so I proceeded nervously with the hopes it would come out in the end. I just trusted that if it all went to pot I could prime and paint. But after a whole lot of sanding and shaping using a contour gauge, pool noodles, and adhesive backed sandpaper I had a good smooth shape and most of the scratches buffed out. Test fitting the face and visor were a different story. Alot of trial and error, probably a full day of putting it on, marking and comparing before it was time to drill. Even then I had to drill two holes before I was happy with the symmetry and was convinced it wasn't crooked. Below is the lens mounts...yes its still green for the moment. I knew this one was to be scrapped so I used it during the build and replaced it with a clean shiny black Hobart lens in the end. I masked off the area to be painted using vinyl tape from the parts store that I had around, then bagged it all using a walmart sack and blue masking tape to spray it. Applied the rear and side decals... I sewed some padding using open cell foam of various thickneses and wrapped them in some scuba foam I had ordered this summer but decided not to use. It came in handy for this and is nice and cool. Helps the helmet slide on too. To blacken the ears I painted the area directly behind the ear holes, then used a single ply of scuba material to form a drape that will prevent anything white from showing. An the finished product... The bolts have been ground in the center to concave them a bit. Its slight, but can still be seen when tilted. I have noticed that these are 25mm and the lancer spec calls for 22mm, so I will likely need to use a drill and file to slim them up to the right size. So this is a huge relief to have behind me. I'm quite proud of it though. It fits really good and feels like a real helmet! So now to the holster, which will be placed on the boot shortly. Here it is glued and trimmed and ready to be drilled. I added two rather large hard drive magnets from some drives I needed to destroy. They hold the blaster in pretty good. I plan on mounting the holster tonight which will be the end of my list, except for riding patches and butt flap adjustments. Tomorrow will be sunny outside and I can suit up properly to get the patches in good light. As always, if you see something wrong please let me know!! Thanks for checking it out.

Thanks Chopper: I will proceed on cutting the holster plate down to the outer edge of the green tape. I don't quite know the radius of the outer corners yet but will get that figured out once its cut down. On the green lens, yes it is green as that is what came with the kit and was in reach for a temporary showing of the eye cut outs. I had seen where others discovered the color and were advised to not use it. I will be using the Hobart face shield in black for the final one. The leather piece I'm working with is wide and is really long, I'm just folding it in different areas to avoid cutting it until I get a good idea of what its true shape needs to be. I'll do another partial suit up and include a yard stick to assist in sizing it later today. I'll get a better shot of the patches as well. I had my wife wiggle the legs a bit to remove some bunching in the seat so that may be what is making the rear patches look off...or they may be too big, we'll see when I get some better photos. Thanks for the lancer advise, you are correct that I'm trying to build to that spec, so if it won't pass that mark then I'll need to address it.

I've got the suit set aside until I get a nod on the patch length, so I switched over to my other two remaining pieces, the holster and helmet. First thing was the holster, I needed the horizontal slots cut and to assemble the thing. I started with the dremel cutoff wheel to get the slot started, then finished the lines with a disembodied hack saw blade. The blade gives me a little more control and avoid any slips that might happen with the dremel. Finally they were smoothed up with sandpaper and the corners rounded a bit. I used super glue to bond the two pieces together and a 1/8 inch rivet low in the holster part that I had seen others do. should be able to disguise it later and it is low enough that it shouldn't be seen. I intend to trim the holster plate on the outside edge of the green masking tape. I believe this is close to what I'm seeing in reference pictures. Then I'll add the radius corners and drill some holes. If this trim line looks correct, please let me know. Next I got to cutting the visor hole in the helmet face. Of ourse it looked horrendous until the rasps and files got after shaping the edges. I would have used a rotary file in the dremel, but I needed to capture as much of the cut plastic as I could to make some ABS paste. You can see the guide lines I drew around the recess. I drew the outer line, then got a little scared and drew the inner line to be more conservative. Growing the hole isn't too hard, putting plastic back...not so much. If the hole looks good in the second image I'll leave it alone. Anyway, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now!

Thanks Dennis! I circled the patch process for a while before I jumped into it. The crotch area had me concerned as I had a pretty bad case of MC Hammer pants and I felt that it was going to throw everything off. It also felt pretty weird walking around, so I tinkered with fixing it a little bit at a time and in the end ripped out the inner seam and took about 1-1/2 inches of excess material on the whole inseam. It fits a whole lot better now and removed most of the bunching I had in the legs. So after this I felt alot better about ripping and redoing the inseam to incorporate the riding patches. These are the patterns I came up with using the chalk method while wearing the suit with the new and improved legs. The true shape of the patches was a little nebulous to me so here I am lining up only edge I can use for reference and going on faith for the rest of the edges. I The fronts came out looking pretty good. The little triangle bugged me a little, but it will be covered up and is still symmetrical so I'm going with it. I'll suit up later today to see how the whole thing is looking in context. I've checked the fronts against the cod piece and vest and the alignment point look good. I have one picture of the fronts but you can't see the patches very well so I didn't include it. Below is the butt flap proposed shape and attachment point. It's double layered at the moment until the length is decided, at which point I'll chop it. So the real question: Is the width/length good or does it need to change? Or do I need to fully suit up to judge? If I can get this step done I should be finished with the suit and only lack the holster and helmet.

Looking better, I think I got rid of the cod issues but created a ridge under the cummerbund. I may have to add some padding up there to level it out.

I spoke to my wife about it, she being the real seamstress here, and she gave me a few yards of fusable fleece. Basically it is batting that you iron on the back of your pieces before sewing them together and they end up just like what I was describing...fabric bonded to padding underneath. I built a new cod using the fleece and added a 1/8th layer of closed cell foam throughout the whole thing and doubled it starting at the arcs going down. I've checked this out in the mirror and it looks like it will stop all traces of cod bunching. Its on the right and the previous one on the left in the pic below. Its quite a bit thicker, much stiffer and keeps its shape. I'll get suited up later in the week to see how it looks.

I do, there is two layers of felt for padding backed by 1/8 inch closed cell foam. I expected it to hold up better than it is but I'm realizing that the shape change is actually the surface fabric separating from the padding when it concaves up slightly. I think the only sure fire way of controlling this is to either have the fabric glued to the underlying material, like a car headliner, or stuffing it to the point that there is no slack between the padding and the top fabric. After looking really close at the CRL photos, I believe the stuffing approach is what they used.....mulling this over. I happen to have some 5 millimeter closed cell foam sheets from another project that I could use to fully build the codpiece padding, I may see what that is like.

Thanks guys, those are good comments and I appreciate the encouragement. I'll definitely concentrate on correcting the issues noticed so far. Considering that was a first outing, I'm proud its gone so well. I'll definitely be building this to Lancer specs, just so I can feel like I did my best and have something to be proud of. So the tank stripes will get corrected, likely going to be six stripes. I've worked over the cod and raised it about 1 & 3/4 inches, just till the elastic is the only thing going between the legs. I think it helped, though did not solve the scrunching altogether, please let me know if this is adequate or to keep tinkering with it. I did go ahead and set the location of the hip box straps in the back which let me put on the thermal detonator. I need to devise a way to keep that guy still, he likes to shift around and will surely fly off without something more substantial than the belt clips. The straps moved more toward the middle, almost touching under the TD. On this dressing it looks like my right side strap is up higher than my left in the rear. Luckily I chose to use velcro on these and have a good 2 inches of mobility in any direction, so I'll adjust them on my next dressing. I did get to add some velcro to the suit to keep the arm pieces in place. They are in place on the photos below. The green line is the proposed riding patch shape and location. The peach line is the elastic strap location.

Getting closer, what I have remaining is: Holster Riding patches/butt flap Helmet I'm feeling pretty optimistic after my first and second partial suit up seen below. The first time I suited up it was a train wreck, it all kinda worked and I got a good laugh, but I found out just how hard some of it is to put on and was really amazed that it fit as well as it did. Up till now I've just been putting a thing or two on to test for size and maybe measure so there was alot up in the air. So we marked some places where velcro needed to be to hold up the cummerbund and belt, the cod piece and the knee pads. Had to make the slots bigger for the side strapping on the chest and back armour, it was impossible to get off and on as tight as I had it and I found out that you really do need that space. After an evening of sewing and sticking velcro I tried it again. What a world of difference it makes when things stay where you put them. I'm grinning ear to ear inside, though you can't really tell in the pictures. I offered to walk my daughter into prom in April, she declined and gave me a rather threatening look...hmm. Please check the pictures out, keeping in mind I have no riding patches or butt flap, no helmet, holster, and weapon. I've also not yet put anything on the suit to stick down any arm pieces so I'm sure they will be in the wrong place. The belt rear straps are also in temporary spots with pins holding them in while I suited up. If you see anything that you think is way off please let me know.

And some more pieces parts that got completed along the way... I'm a little worried about the length of the tube in the detonator. Its what was sent with the kit so I've used it, but have a feeling when the belt clips arrive next week and I hold them up where they belong, it will look really short. So I am getting comfortable with popping the caps off and replacing the tube with a hose and wire wrapped version. We shall see. I'm also wondering about the smooth zip tie. The one used in the CRL image shows the horizontal ribs on the back side, so if I do end up replacing the hose I'll use a ribbed zip tie and not the smooth back one shown above.

Got the pin striping done on the tank using ProStripe 1/8 inch pinstripe I picked up from the parts store. I grabbed some 1/4 inch in case I chose to do the hero stripes, but instead went for a three stripe simple arrangement. Then got it all assembled into the chest and back armour using various techniques mentioned in these forums. When I fastened in the lower rivet the tank flexed around the hump which made the top plate pick up about 1/4 inch around the edges, a problem I'd seen others have as well. To solve it I heated the tank topper while in the raised position to make it flexible (something I accidentally found happens when using a heatgun to speed dry model paint) and then snuck in some super glue along the edges which stuck it down pretty quick. It seemed to turn out looking pretty good, so stickers were applied and the lower rivet set. Then the shoulder bells were attached using the suggested zip tie configuration and strapping described in Strider's Lancer build with a little modification. My front and back pieces were pretty flimsy when using strips of velcro on either side of the zip tie mount, so I sewed together the velcro into a solid patch, back to back, to give the bridge a little more stability and give me freedom on where I placed the shoulder bell This way I can move it wherever it needs to go while I'm getting everything to fit together. I also opted o have the shoulder bell strap be really adjustable and make it easier to take on and off. We will see how it works down the road.

Progress Update (got quite a bit done in the last few days) : Got the bondo done and smoothed out, so assembly of the back/chest armour can be completed.

Thanks Chopper, I think bondo would be easier applied off the tank well before stickers and glue are applied, so now is the time!

Been working on hard parts for a little bit. I need them in order to judge fit and spacing of the soft parts before I can finalize those. The belt is 95% done, just need to attach the box straps to the back of the belt. The chest/back armour is assembled, only lacking the tank topper and some small strapping. With these two pieces done I can put on the vest, cummerbund, cod, belt assembly and judge if those need to change and then finally know where the riding patches belong. Before proceeding, I have a question on the tank topper area circled below. The sunken area is to be painted white I believe, but should it be flush with the surface or is it supposed to be recessed like it is now? I've seen a couple of posts where it had to be corrected and this would be easier if it is yet to be attached.