Sac's first build

[Bally]

I have been slowly planning and putting this together for a year or so now but just realised I've never put a build thread up here.... not that there's actually been much progress.

 

I started with some cams bought off ebay, before I realised I should have just hit-up the Brits who have laterally transferred over here at work. Our garrison seamstress MammaSith has just finished the work on them.

 

 

 

 

For boots, after 6 months of indecision I've gone for the Westrooper Tactical Elite, one of only 2 sets of boots I could find with a natural arch in the sole. Even though the arch in the CGI boots are quite unrealistic, I should be able to get something in the ballpark.

 

 

My plan is to cut and smooth some of the sole down and then use some beige adhesive I found to fill the grooves/pattern and do some shaping. I tried Selleys Liquid Nails on another pair of boots but it was still too soft when it sets. Recently I found some other stuff by the Monarch brand which sets hard, is still very flexible and sands well. Some testing on a set of my work boots:

 

 

For pouches my original plan was foam. I tried 2 different types of foam and once covered they just looked shoddy and not like pouches, so after having another look at some screenshots I decided to try and 3D print them. Then they can also be used to store stuff. Having a good look at the screenshots available made it difficult, because being CGI the pouches don't actually exist so it's hard to judge what they're based on. I used the dimension templates from these forums and went for a neat, square look with most of the pouches. The grenade pouches seem to have a bit of a prominent seam on their edges though so I tried to build this into the print.

 

 

This is what I have for the top front pouches and the grenade pouches so far. My plan is to use magnets recessed into the circular areas and hot glue material over them (the same material they're sitting on), then paint on the cam pattern. I'm also using a heat gun to do some warping to each individual pouch so they look a bit more natural (example on the right in the second picture).

 

 

 

I do have a pair of cheap and crappy gloves I got for $5 on ebay (from when I was counting every cent) but now that money is a little less of an issue I'll look for some decent motorcycle gloves.

 

Cummerbund is also being done by MammaSith. I've resigned myself to the fact it needs to be grey although I still really think the screenshots look khaki. Also, with 25+ years experience in the Army it makes no sense to me at all to have a grey cummerbund with camouflage armour. To me it looks like some sort of vertical MOLLE setup.

 

Hard armour will be within our Garrison once the moulds are tidyied up and the vac-forming machine is fixed.

[ferra]

Nice work so far bro, You should ask mammasith to get you the pouches in a light greenish/creamish tone so you could paint the scheme on it... t would be faster, probably look better too...

 

 

...you guys have an armor maker down there??

[Bally]

...you guys have an armor maker down there??

 

Yeah Mr Bungle gave our new GCO his masters, but it won't be at least until the end of they year until he has time to clean them up and start pulling armour.

[ferra]

Sweet!!!!!

[Bally]

First round of dying done at work today (a solid 30 mins). I used a bin and did it in the showers for the hot water, following the directions as close as I could, including salt and detergent. (2 packets of Rit Dark Brown powder)

 

 

 

 

They dried pretty quickly today so I made up a fresh batch of dye and did the second soak. I was so excited I forgot to take a picture of the dry first soak.

 

This is mostly dry after the second.

 

I tried to do the right thing and wet them again before the second soak (as per the instructions) but panicked a bit when a lot of the dye started coming out, which led to some shower cleaning. Is this about right prior to the black soak or is it worth another round of brown?

 

Also I assume you actually wash or rinse these before you wear them. Do you find much dye comes out then?

[THUNDERCAT]

Looking good great Craig I notice your wearing my runners lol, with your camo shirt and pants were did you buy them? I am still sourcing around from what I can tell only China and NZ sell sets of the British desert camo that I sourced.

[Bally]

I found a custom made run on ebay which were being sold due to the order being cancelled. They were cheap but postage from the UK more than doubled the price. Not genuine cams but close enough and 100% cotton. As I said above, I should have just asked one of the former poms at work if they still had some.

 

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

 

 

[Bally]

I gave the two brown soaks a couple of days to set and rinsed them in cold water today. This is what it looked like when dry:

 

 

I'm thinking about giving it another hit of brown before the black soak.

[Bally]

After the third brown soak and a black soak. Still looks darker in person than in the photos. Ordered a new pair of gloves yesterday too, thanks for the tip fellas . (http://www.ebay.com....RgMXgrFcA3g38yw)

 

Now to start modding my boots...

 

[Bally]

Did a lot more soaking of the cams and all I can say is they're still showing up a lot lighter in the pictures than they are in person. The difference between the lighter and darker areas is actually not much at all.

 

 

Susie managed to wrangle up a set of greeblies and straps for me which is awesome. Does anyone have any tips on getting the paint to stick to the belt??

 

My gloves also arrived Already started stripping them down and will pickup some craft foam on the way home today to use instead of the vinyl I have.

 

This is the vinyl I have for the gauntlets. Again it looks darker in person and IMO looks quite like dark, weathered leather.

[ferra]

Nice!!!

[Bally]

Work has been insane since well before Christmas so I've gotten absolutely nothing done. Ironically I had a bit of time when I was working on Australia Day (public holiday). I used a hot glue gun to stick the fabric to the pouches I 3D printed. Before I did it I used a heat gun to soften the boxes so I could shape them so they looked a bit less 'boxy'.

 

 

Do you reckon these look acceptable? If so I'll get onto printing the rest of them.

 

Thanks to Grumpy I found out the way around having to paint the silicone belt too.... black sharpie. Looks great and easy to do.

[serg]

I just started a kashyyyk trooper never thought to hot glue the canvas. I made cardboard pouches as stencils and for sewing but gluing seems more easer those look prettype good

[ferra]

Hey they look pretty good! After you camo paint and weather them they'll be just fine!

[SulacoBoy]

Can't wait to see more!

[Bally]

Hoping to see more soon

Funnily enough I just bought a sewing machine to see how the pouches turn out sewn, and I've been doing some more work on my boots tonight. BTW I'll pm you on CTN tomorrow about some stuff.

[Bally]

Okaaaaaayyyy now we're getting serious. Official BBB day:

 

 

 

Also I've bought myself a sewing machine and am trying some sewn pouches. I think the 3D printed ones, while they look great, are going to be too rigid and prone to ripping off the cummerbund.

 

Boots are almost finished too and I think, aside from custom made ones, they are going to be as close to screen accurate as possible.

[ferra]

Nice!!!!! Now get building that clone!!!

[Bally]

My boots. Still finishing building up the inside arch (left).

 

[ferra]

Oh wow! What are you using????

[Bally]

Oh wow! What are you using????

 

Hi mate it's in a thread above but stupid photobucket.....

 

I'm using this:

 

on these boots:

 

The stuff dries hard so you can sand and dremel it (and even use it to fill in holes if you dremel the arch too far) but stays flexible.

[ferra]

This is so cool! The color is the same or do you have to paint it?

 

 

Enviado do meu iPhone usando o Tapatalk

[Bally]

This is so cool! The color is the same or do you have to paint it?

 

 

Enviado do meu iPhone usando o Tapatalk

 

The colour when it dries is like the messy bit of the arch on the left, but when you sand it it goes lighter like the smooth part. I'd think you could actually get away with either, as the CRL says "either khaki or tan soles".

 

Edit: I'm planning on putting a thim layer over the top once it's all done to keep the darker colour.

 

Some early pics. I have slowly built up a number of layers over the top of each other.

 

 

[THUNDERCAT]

nice I love the boots