TheSenate501

Just following up! Would anyone recommend turning the vest and flight suit inside out as well?

Quick update! So since my first troop my first thing I wanted to do was a bit of weathering. Currently, I do not have any up close pictures of good quality with my weathered armor on but I am working on getting some. In the mean time I did take individual pictures of my armor from bottom to top and would like to know how it looks. Please let me know if it is too much, too little, or just enough and I will adjust as so! Also, if anyone would like better pictures, angles, or close-ups please let me know and I will be happy to oblige! Boots: Knees: Belt: Biceps: Forearms: Shoulder Bells: Chest: Helmet:

Hello everyone, First off, if this is the wrong thread to ask this in then I apologize. Earlier this morning my squad posted on their site that we will be at an upcoming horror/Halloween convention and they said that we are free to spookify our armor as long as it is still respectful to Star Wars. I love Halloween and usually try to go all out when it comes to the spooky stuff. I want to spookify my ROTJ Biker Scout but do not want to overdo it, and I have no idea where to really start when it comes to "spookifying" it and keeping it respectful to Star Wars since I have only been a member since April of this year. Any tips would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Completed my first three troops over the weekend for May the fourth, had a blast and now I know some things I have to do to make it a more comfortable experience and then with my way towards Lancer! Thank you all for the congrats and it’s an honor to finally be apart of the legion!

Good morning/afternoon everyone! Just heard back from my local garrison and everything looked good for basic approval! I should be getting my official designation soon and then it’s off to the races! I cannot wait to start participating in events with my garrison and this is truly a dream come true! Thank you all again from the bottom of my heart for everything from all the advice and tips, to the wonderful videos our DL has made and posted! I hope you all have an amazing day and weekend!

Alright submission photos have been sent so fingers crossed!!!!

So to follow up with this post here is everything I did to the soft goods! Shoulders To keep the shoulders from sinking a bit and keep them in place better I went ahead and sewed Velcro onto my vest sleeves and applied some adhesive Velcro on the inside of the shoulder bells. Biceps For the biceps I went ahead and took a page from Choppers thread about keeping the costume together while trooping! Same as the shoulder bells, indeed some Velcro onto my flight suit and then applied the adhesive Velcro on the inside of each bicep armor plate! In the picture it is a bit hard to see but on each sleeve about halfway down is where I sewed the Velcro! Codpiece For the codpiece I sewed on some Velcro close to the bottom on the vest and onto the back of one of the closures of the vest. This will allow me to have some wiggle room in case the codpiece is too tight or loose. Pouches and Cummerbund So for the pouches I wanted to have a permanent fix for the issue I was having regarding the spacing and them sitting over the belt. So what I went ahead and did was sewed on some Velcro to the front of the attachment tabs of the pouches so when I fold them over the cummerbund there is Velcro facing my vest. I then put on my cummerbund with the pouches and my belt and found the position I wanted them to sit at and marked out a line with some chalk. After that I went ahead and sewed on some more Velcro to the vest as well as some more to the cummerbund that way my bund does not slip down and the pouches have a fixture and sit just above the belt and right below my chest armor! Tank For the tank I finally affixed the .5 inch elastic to the top and bottom with the 1/8 rivets! After doing that, and not having anymore buckles, I decided to once again refer to Chopper’s thread and applied more adhesive Velcro on the inside of my back plate and super glued some Velcro at the ends of the elastic. I also wanted the tank to sit more securely on the back so I went ahead and put adhesive Velcro on the outside of the back plate. Because MonsCals has a tab on the inside of the tank for their builds I went ahead and used that to put the other side of adhesive Velcro on my armor and now I have a good attachment point and the tank doesn’t slip and slide. I didn’t take a picture of the fixture but you can kind of see it if you look at the gap in the first image. And that should be everything! Here are the other photos as well from the sides and back of me with the full suit on! I still have to take some slack out of my codpiece. ( Got to make a mental note of that lol)

I am very proud of everything! This is my first time making a kit and not buying one and it has been an awesome experience! Again, thank you for all the support and advice!

When I took the photo I did notice it was a bit scrunched up so I will make the necessary adjustments next time! Thank you sir!

Sorry for the mess, but here is the full suit up! Went ahead and put the pouches in for a tea bath using 5 black tea bags in a plastic bucket at 180 degrees Fahrenheit (roughly 82 degrees Celsius) and left them in there for 4 minutes while stirring very often if not constantly. Thank you Strider and your wonderful thread! Still have some minor things to do and things aren’t sitting at where they should be since I suited up by myself (that was a workout in itself). When I have more help I will post pictures from the sides and back but what are the thoughts about the front view?

Alright hopefully one of the final updates to this WIP thread! After spending all day reading threads, asking my local garrison for tips, and watching videos I finally have everything dialed in I’d say! I still have some final touch ups that need to be done, like tea bathing the pouches and filling them with the cotton batting, but for the most part everything is done! Tomorrow or later this week I will post more in depth photos and measurements of things I have done to the armor and soft parts, but for now I decided to post a little test photo of most of the armor on! This is only the front view and only one arm is fully armored up, but consider this the beginning of the end! (Unless something major pops up haha) Here is the semi-suited up photo! Thank you all so much for all the advice, this has truly been an amazing journey so far!

Thank you for the response as I was slowly going insane on how to possibly do this haha 😂

This is also how it looks with the shoulder bell attached

Put the new side strapping on so I could test the new shoulder adjustments and they are still riding up a decent amount it looks like. I am skeptical on removing anymore from the back or front as I am running out of material and the gaps for the front and back are getting smaller and smaller and I fear if I remove anymore then I will not be able to fit my head into the hold. Even with loosening the side straps it is still a very tight fit but it is better than before.

While I wait for webbing I will be putting on my vest and flight suit and sewing on some Velcro so the bicep, forearm, and knee armor won’t slide around. That will be done this weekend!

So after some more boiling water baths and some careful bending with the heat gun I can say that I have, for the most part, gotten the plastic back to a uniform shape! Could still use some work, but I got most of the big imperfections out! Can’t show how it looks on myself unfortunately since my webbing around the bottom of the chest got damaged by some furry friends and I am waiting for new webbing lol. Also got my zipper for my flight suit snagged while walking around and three teeth are now missing so now I have to replace the zipper 🙃 On a brighter topic though my thermal detonator is now complete! The replacement tubing and clips from MonCals finally came in and the end caps are currently curing! I went ahead and sanded the end caps before putting on some resin bottle caps with super glue and then I put E6000 around the tops of the bottle caps and placed them inside the tube!

So when using the heat gun, after the plastic has been heated up could I just use my fingers to mold the plastic back or should I use some tools like pliers?

So when trying to form the plastic using the hot bath method it seems that it has become slightly deformed from where it is bending, don’t really know how to fix this and now the other problem is I can barely move my head into the hole when putting on the armor. Should I just reorder a new chest and back plate?

I was thinking they were a bit too far out still, the vendor I purchased the bund and pouches from pre-stitched some Velcro and I’ve just been using what was already there. Definitely going to move them in when I have the time next!

I apologize for the photo dump but I went ahead and took multiple photos to best show the new positioning. I had to fold my attachment flaps over the bund and still have to attach more Velcro to the back since only half the pouches are using it lol. The belt is currently sitting directly on top of my hip bones but the top of the belt is at the bottom of my navel like the aforementioned threads have suggested. My chest sits right below my pectorals but could use some more trimmed off by the looks of it since the shoulder areas do bunch up at the top (it is hard to tell from the pictures). I will trim about another half inch off the back and then use a heat gun to try and shape it better. For right now I just put a block of foam into the pouches to get them to have the right shape. I have a small Hershey cocoa container that I am going to put into the pouches and then use foam to give the pouches some more definition. I have also went ahead and attached the codpiece to the front of the vest! Let me know what y'all think and any other revisions!

Sounds like a plan! Thank you both for the information, when I get home I’ll hop right on this!

So one issue I am running into is regarding the pouches and space on my torso. I am currently reading several threads from smaller framed scouts to see what they have done. My issue right now is that I am 5’7 but my legs are much longer than my torso so I don’t have a lot of room to work with. I have trimmed the shoulder areas on my chest and back armor by about 2.5 inches and it definitely sits up higher and the armor is much more snug to my body now. However, when I put my belt on at either my waist or right on my hips, not below them, the pouches will ride over my belt. I’m still sizing stuff and I don’t have any pictures on hand but when I get off of work I will put everything on and post them. I know the CRL for level 2 requires the pouches be 6 inches high, 5 inches wide, and 2 inches deep but is there anything for level one that states I need those measurements? I would like to go for level 2 in the future so I would like to use those measurements now but would I be able to get some smaller pouches from a vendor or make them myself (I’ve never done anything like that so that would be interesting)?

I have been reading both of these threads and I think I am going to go with the Velcro on the back of the vest!

Finally there is the codpiece! The black elastic is 2 inches wide. I will be attaching this later this week as well, not sure on where to attach it to yet but I was thinking to perhaps go with the back of the vest

Up next is the cummerbund and pouches! the cummerbund is made of white fabric as are the pouches (going to dye them off white later this week as well as put some stuffing inside to make them pop). The closure is made from Velcro that is two inches wide and as always has a closure that goes right over left! There are five ribs on the front with six visible stitch lines. The ribs themselves are all one inch wide. The pouches will be 6 inches tall as well as 2 inches deep. However they seem to be a bit longer than 5 inches wide. Pouches attachment tab is also folded over the top of the cummerbund, but KriptonTop also included some Velcro on the front to attach them that was as well, do not know if there is a preferred way or not. The pouches once filled will be one inch away from any ribs! The bottom pouch closure is 2 inches wide The only measurement that seems to be out is the attachment tab as it is slightly longer than 5 inches