Ruthar's Patrol Trooper Build

[Ruthar]

Patrol Trooper Build

Greetings, Pathfinder cohorts!

It's time to start a new project, and the opportunity to kick this particular build unexpectedly presented itself. I was always really interested in this suit, but I originally nixed following the project through after seeing the extreme lack of screen time that this particular trooper received. However, more than a year later, I still find myself quite enamored by this particular ensemble, so I suppose there is no time like the present to kick it off.

Just like my Biker Scout build thread, the links below will find different parts of the thread. I find that organization on my build thread keeps my head in the game and spending less time looking around at piles of plastic and parts in my garage and basement.  

Contents

1 ) References/Resources

2 ) The Armour Kit

3 ) Assembly and Preparation

1. Helmet (part 1, part 2)
2. Boots
   1. Heel and toe armour
   2. Level 2 snap installation
   3. Shin armour
   4. Zipper pulls
3. Back Plate
4. Abdomen and Kidney
   1. "Gasket" test
   2. Ribbing Removal (part 1, part 2)
   3. Abdominal Gasket
5. Chest Plate
   1. Chest plate center greeblie (part 1, part 2)
   2. Neckline, clips, and straps
6. Shoulder Straps
7. Belt

4 ) Soft Goods

5 ) Belt Pouches

1. Snap pouches
2. Large pouch with white cover plate

6 ) Strapping and Fitment

1. Abdomen and kidney (part 1, part 2)
2. Chest and back
3. Belt
4. Shoulders, arms, handplates, and cod piece

7 ) First Test Fit

8 ) Details 

1. Suspender tabs, shoulder foam, and lens
2. Thermal detonator end cap
3. Helmet teeth and height adjustment
4. Sleeve length and holster rebuild
5. Helmet interior

9 ) Weathering

10 ) Submission Photos

[Ruthar]

References and Resources

501st CRL: Patrol Trooper

CRL edits and Level 2 discussion

Screen references (from this fantastic site)

Promo shot:

And a link to pictures of the awesome Hot Toys figure (thanks again for snapping them, @Hask)

[Ruthar]

The Armour Kit

The kit I received for this build was made by Armory Shop - the helmet is marked as "#7." It was originally made for another member, but I purchased the kit when they decided to part with it. Luckily, he and I are of a similar size, so there shouldn't be much issue in that regard. The whole thing came in two big boxes, a very welcome and exciting sight!

In tandem with the boxes of armour and gear, a smaller box came from Amazon. I pair all of my builds and helmets with the matching figure, so the Patrol Trooper arrived as well.

Without much delay, I just had to crack open the box to see what's inside. First was the helmet. It seems that the vocoder came off during shipping, but that shouldn't cause too much trouble.

It fits nicely in its new home in the display case alongside some other helmets from the new films.

The chest and back look nice and sharp. The tips of the neck piece broke off in the box, unfortunately, but that shouldn't be a rough repair either.

The ab/kidney section. I have some plans for this area that need some testing, but much more on that to come later.

Toe and heel armour.

Biceps and forearms

Shoulder bells

Boot/shin armour

Gloves from Endor Finders (same gloves as the TFA/TLJ Stormtroopers).

Belt boxes, cod, and belt pieces as well as some straps. I also have the long box but didn't manage to get it into this shot.

Greeblies, detail pieces, shoulder straps, and other teeny tiny goodies.

Baton and EC-17. I'll be using one of the blasters I already have for my Biker Scout, but I might assemble this 3D printed kit for fun anyhow.

Boots. Here's a link to this exact pair. I'll have to add a snap on the top rear strap for Level 2 accuracy, but that should be simple to do.

The only thing I don't have as of now are the leather pouches for the belt. My plan is to scratch-build those, but that won't be for quite some time as there is plenty of other work to be done. I will say that I am quite impressed with how heavy these 3D printed parts are. I've worked with a fair amount of 3D printed pieces before, but these really have some great weight to them. There are places where I want to reinforce just to be safe, but overall the quality of the pieces is very high.

[Ruthar]

Assembly and Preparation

Helmet (part 1)

I almost always start with the helmet with my other builds, so I figured I would do the same here. There were two things I wanted to tackle right off the bat. First, there's a crack on the bottom edge of one of the cheeks that needs attention. Second, I wanted to clean up the eye opening. Before doing that, however, I needed to remove the lens. Using a heat gun on a low setting, I was able to loosen up the hot glue that held it in place. Then, I removed the glue entirely on the inside of the helmet (as I will reinstall the lens using a different technique that I like later on).

Here's a close-up picture of the crack on the lower edge of the helmet (you can also see it in the image above).

Repairing it was simple - I just slipped some gel control super glue (I absolutely love this stuff - I use it for everything!) between the two pieces and held it tightly together for a minute. It was a rather clean seal, so I don't think I will have to fill it, sand, and repaint. I think the weathering that will be added later will mask it just enough. It's also on the underside of the helmet, so it's not easy to find if you don't know it's there.

Now that the most immediate issue was fixed, I shifted attention to the area around the lens. In the two pictures below, you can see that some of the edges around the eye opening are a little rough.

To clean these areas up, I used three different grits of sandpaper (150, 220, then 400) to get a nice, smooth surface. Here is an in-progress shot - you can see the newly sanded region on the left and the untouched region on the right.

A handful of passes and the edge was nice and smooth.

I slipped into the sides of the eye opening as well to get those smoother.

And here's an in-progress shot of sanding the underside of the brow region, too.

With the regions sanded, I moved to painting. I taped off all of the unsanded regions to not paint over the nice paint job that already exists. I covered the whole helmet with tape and plastic, but this is just a shot of the initial taping.

Once the helmet was taped and covered, I spray painted the exposed area to get a nice glossy white finish. I used Rustoleum 2X gloss white paint, a favourite of mine for a handful of other projects. The match is pretty close to what is used on the helmet, and the weathering will assist in massaging any slight colour inconsistencies later on.

While the paint around the eye opening was drying, I took time to remove the mesh beneath the helmet cheek tube vents. The promo shots show these vents pretty clearly backed with white, so I will replace the mesh with a white plastic strip.

After the eye opening region was dry, I added the black detail paint on the bottom edge of the brow area. It still needs another coat or two, but here's the first bit of paint added in that region.

That's all I had time for this evening, so I took a few shots of the helmet as it currently sits. I took a little bit of black and grey paint to touch up a few chips and dings here and there that I assumed happened during shipping. The vocoder and rubber trim on the bottom still need to be added, but I want to reinforce some areas before those are added back on. More to come tomorrow, I hope!

[Ruthar]

Assembly and Preparation

Helmet (part 2)

Got a lot done this weekend. One of the to-do items was wrapping up the helmet prep. Putting in the fiberglass reinforcement was first. For this, I started with fiberglass drywall tape. It's slightly adhesive, so it's easy to get into place.

I just cut up small pieces and stuck them into place around the bottom edge of the helmet. The sides and dome of the helmet are pretty beefy - it was just this bottom edge that seemed a little thinner, so that's what I focused on for the reinforcement.

I used a little painter's tape to mask off the side vents and the label on the back. I didn't want the fiberglass running through the vents onto the surface of the helmet nor did I want the writing to get covered.

Time to get the sticky stuff down. These are the items I use for the fiberglass reinforcement. The plastic paint cup and brush will be destroyed by the end, so make sure you have a few on-hand if you intend to do multiple coats (I did two total).

Gloves are an absolute must - this stuff does not come off easily! As per the instructions, I use relatively small batches of 6 tablespoons of fiberglass resin to 1/4 teaspoon of hardener (hence the teeny measuring spoons).

Once it's all mixed up, it's time to apply. I start by pushing the mixture into the fabric so it grabs both the helmet itself and the cloth. Once that coat dries (I usually wait the full 2 hours or so), I spread the second coat on with a painting stroke to get a smooth, glassy finish. Here's a picture of the first coat drying.

I had a little extra mixture during the helmet reinforcement, so I went ahead and spread some over the cod piece as well, just to be safe. I'm not sure how much stress it will be taking, but it certainly won't hurt.

After a healthy amount of time, I returned to finish up a few things with the helmet. The chin greeblie came off during shipping it looks like, so I needed to glue it back on. It's a pretty heavy piece that is installed on a downward angle, so I decided to use 2-part epoxy to get a strong bond.

It cures in 5-10 minutes, but I clamped it into place and set it aside for a half hour or so, just to be safe.

Definitely starting to look like something now!

Two more things remain before this initial helmet assembly is complete - adding the white backing to the vents and installing the lower edge trim. I cut two angled pieces of scrap white ABS to place behind the vents.

I held them in place temporarily while testing the fit. Too wide and the strips don't sit quite flush, so they need to just about cover the very sides of the holes.

Once the size was just right, I used some magnets to pull the plastic piece tight against the vents. Then, I went around the edges with zap-a-gap for a very strong and very quick bond. Using the magnets to hold the piece in place was essential - it allowed me to place the CA glue down with one hand and then immediately spray it with the accelerant before it could spill into the vents.

Once the zap-a-gap was applied on all four sides, I removed the magnets. The bond is nice and tight.

I took a moment to just experiment very quickly with what weathering between the vents will look like. I think it will really bring the whole thing together nicely with that oily, used appearance. Much more to come on all that later, but I just wanted to see what a quick first pass would look like.

Finally, I installed the lower edge trim. It was previously installed but I guess it fell off at some point during shipping. Because of this, the trim itself was already cut down to the perfect size. I simply removed the adhesive remnants that were there from before, applied a dose of E6000 around the edge of the helmet, then slipped the trim onto the helmet. Then I clamped it down with these tiny clamps to allow the E6000 to cure overnight.

And that's it for the helmet for now. I don't want to install the lenses until after the weathering is done, so I'll do that when I tackle the helmet interior later on (padding and electronics).

[Ruthar]

Assembly and Preparation

Boots - Heel and Toe Armour

With the helmet taken care of, it's time to dive into the rest of this suit. With the bucket done, I figured I would switch to the bottom pieces (mainly because I was extremely curious as to how these unique pieces worked). I grabbed this screen grab of the promo shot to help make some decisions (and gain some confidence!).

The Armory Shop kit has the toe armour and dog bone piece fused together. I debated separating them, but it would have forced the dog bone to slide down further on the toe armour which would have resulted in a more truncated look. I left them fused together to get closer to the image above. The first bit of assembly I took care of was attaching the elastic strap that seemingly loops around the boot from the edges of the dog bone piece. I used 1" black elastic webbing for this and started by gluing one end of it against the inside of the piece. I just used the loctite gel control super glue for this - I did the exact same installation for a majority of my Biker Scout straps, and they have held up pretty well.

I then glued in the other side, leaving the strap somewhat loose.

Once the gluing was complete, I slipped the toe armour onto the boot, carefully guiding the strap into place.

As you can see in the image above, the strap actually tugs downward, forcing the tip of the toe armour off of the boot itself. To fix this, I applied a generous about of E6000 on the toe area of the boot. E6000 has some elasticity to it (as opposed to other adhesives that harden and can crack), so I figured it was a good choice for the somewhat forgiving leather.

I then clamped the toe portion down and allowed the E6000 to cure. (Not pictured here: I used a strip of painter's tape beneath the clamp pad so it didn't leave a mark or indentation on the armour itself. You can see the tape in the images to follow.)

And, of course, I duplicated the process for the other boot.

Installing the heel armour was particularly easy. The pieces tightly hug the sides of the boot, so I only chose to use a single strip of velcro at the bottom rear to lock them in place. On these particular boots, there is a small panel beneath the end of the zipper which was perfect for attaching a piece of white industrial velcro.

I cut out the matching piece of velcro and very lightly applied it to the velcro already attached to the boot.

I removed the plastic backing and pressed the heel armour up against the exposed adhesive of the velcro piece.

Then I very carefully removed the heel armour to expose the velcro and press it firmly against the inside of the piece.

And that's all there is to it - heel and toe armour is now installed. I set the boots aside to dry for the full 24 hour cure time as I really wanted to ensure the bond at the toe was quite strong.

[Ruthar]

Assembly and Preparation

Boots - Level 2 Snap Installation

As per the Level 2 discussion thread, the boots need to have a top strap closed with a snap. My boots were closed with velcro, so I had to add a snap.

First, I removed the loop velcro from the surface of the boot shaft. There is a light adhesive holding it in place as well as some thread, so I used a seam ripper to get that velcro up.

To get rid of the adhesive, I just used a touch of Goo Gone and a paper towel. It came right up.

I took one of my boots over to the local Tandy leather shop to find the right sized snap. I use Tandy line 24 snaps for all my internal strapping on my builds, but their heads are slightly too large for this boot strap. However, I found that Tandy line 20 snaps were just the right size. I got the nickel coated ones vs. the silver to better match the boot overall.

Using a leather punching tool, I made the hole for the snap post in the center of the strap near the end.

Before installing the snap, I lined up the strap and marked the location for the receiving hole. I then punched that in with the leather tool as well.

With a hammer, a Tandy snap anvil, and the Tandy line 20 setter, I pounded the snaps into place.

Good as new - it almost looks like it was intended this way.

[Ruthar]

Assembly and Preparation

Boots - Shin Armour

With the easy part of the boots finished, it's time to really dive in to something different - the shin armour. The only familiar part of these is that they use a similar front place as the Shoretroopers and Tank Troopers from Rogue 1 - otherwise, these are quite unique! On the sides of the front shin armour are two pegs that line up with two holes on the rear shin armour piece. The finish and painting of these 3D parts prevents them from slipping together as intended, so I sanded and filed these pieces very carefully until they married up. I used a round metal file to carefully open the holes as well as some coarse sand paper to clean up the pegs.

Unfortunately, one of the top tabs on one of my rear shin plates had cracked off entirely during shipping (the seller had notified me of this, so no hard feelings!). With a few dabs of super glue, I got it back into place. I'll tackle hiding the remaining seam later on during the weathering phase.

I'm almost glad that little tab broke off in shipping, to be honest - it brought to my attention the need for reinforcement. To do this, I cut out a piece of scrap ABS just about the same size as the tab itself.

I then used a heat gun to heat the backing plastic piece up. Once it was flexible, I pressed it against the inside of the tab so it assumed the shape as it cooled.

Once the piece cooled, I used the trusted zap-a-gap cap glue plus accelerant to adhere it to the back side of the tab. The region is nice and strong now.

Even though the other side wasn't broken, I reinforced it anyways just in case.

Next, I installed the knee plates to the top of the front shin plates. There are two, small guiding pegs to help with installation, but they didn't quite fit together as easily as it seemed like they should. Instead of sanding them down and trying to get them all just right (as I did with the pegs and holes earlier), I decided to just sand down these guides on the knee plate.

This permitted the piece to sit nice and flush.

I installed this plate with a generous amount of the loctite gel control super glue so it could stand on its own.

Then, I followed that up with zap-a-gap behind that plate. It's hard to see in the image below, but I let the liquid slide down and settle before hitting it with the accelerant. That really solidified the bond between the knee plate and the shin front.

Unfortunately, I wasn't careful enough with one of the sides and some of the zap-a-gap leaked onto the front just a little bit. I took this as an opportunity to see how a little light weathering can hide such a mistake, and I'm happy (and lucky!) to see that it will work just fine to cover it up. I'll mask it even better when I use more layers than just the plain black smattered on there.

Just as before, I widened the hole and sanded the peg for a snug fit for the tab that attaches on the side between the front and back shin plates.

With all the pegs lined up and ready, I moved to attach the rear plate to the front plate. I used three strips of white elastic to do this - a 2" strip in the middle and two 1.5" strips on either side of the pegs. The elastic will allow for some movement and flexibility as well as take some of the pressure off of the pegs. They are just placed in the image below, but I used both the gel control glue and the zap-a-gap to permanently adhere the elastic.

Once the glue was dry, I had to slip the armour onto the boot shaft to see what we got. It's definitely starting to look like something now!

The last parts to assemble are the straps that run around the lower groove. The Armory Shop kit has two rubber straps with two grooves in them as well as four small strap clips. I started by gluing the strap into the end of one of the clips (there's a marvelously convenient slot in which the strap sits).

For one side of the strap, I created an ABS extension that slips between the armour pieces. I cut out a small piece of ABS and shaped it so that it could sit flush with the end of the clip. It's hard to explain exactly, so hopefully the pictures do it justice!

The tongue of this extension slips right between where the halves of the armour meets, keeping the clip down against the armour without having to glue it into place permanently.

For the opposite side of the strap, I created a slightly different mechanism. I started by extending the bottom edge of the clip with a pair of very small ABS strips.

Then, I adhered a third, larger piece that extends outward beneath the front edge of the clip. This creates a bracket between the two pieces that will clip around the armour edge.

Here's an image showing how this different clip functions. It doesn't snap into place or anything, it just holds the clip in place flush against the armour.

As I mentioned, this system prevents the clips from being glued permanently to the armour. Instead, the straps are held in place with two pieces of industrial velcro, one on each side of the back shin plate like so.

After some more experimenting, I found that extending the bracket portion of the second clip resulted in a much more reliable hold. To create it, I cut an additional piece of ABS and used the zap-a-gap to extend the lower bracket addition. Then, I used the heat gun to slightly bend the extended piece to match the curve of the boot. Here's a picture to better serve the description.

Sizing the strap was the first test of courage - I certainly didn't want to cut it too short and leave the clips too far from the armour edge. I installed one side first then pulled the strap all the way around the boot tightly.

I then lined up the clip and cut the strap. I "installed" the clip on the end of the strap with painter's tape so I could test the fit. It took a few tests and cuts before the perfect fit was found - better to go slow and get it right than to cut too much of the strap off.

This image shows the completed straps much more clearly - hopefully the descriptions of the tabs match what is seen here. I have just discovered how tricky it is to explain exactly what I mean - hopefully it's clear to some degree! I enhanced the bond of the velcro strips with a very small amount of the zap-a-gap, too.

An important aspect of the boots that I discovered is that the shin plate needs to be held high enough for there to be a gap between it and the dog bone piece of the toe armour. If there isn't a gap, the shin plate will push down against the dog bone, creating scratches and damage. (Not to mention the gap between these pieces exists on the promo shot).

To achieve this gap, I found that the lower front edge of my boot lines up with the top edge of the front shin armour.

This was the case for both the left and right assemblies, so I lined them up on the boots and made a decision. In order to keep the shin plates up and off of the dog bone, I decided to install a snap into the front of the boot that would click into the shin armour. So, I marked the locations for two holes, one on the front of each boot.

Then, I removed the shin armour entirely and used the leather punch to pop a hole through the boot for a snap to be installed. I am sure there is a boot maker out there shuddering from my bold snap addition.

I then installed the snap. This is a Tandy line 24 snap, a bit more robust than the smaller line 20 snap that was used on the rear boot top strap.

I then made two matching snap plates. To do this, I cut a strip of 1" nylon into small pieces, pushed a small hole in the middle of the piece with an awl, then hammered in the snap.

Using the gel control super glue, I installed the snap plate into the top of the front shin armour. I made absolutely sure that the lower top boot edge aligned perfectly with the top of the shin armour before gluing anything down. I should also mention that it is imperative that you ensure that the armour plate is facing straight out and not askew at all. Regardless, once the plate is glued in, you can clip the boot to the shin armour - now it certainly won't slide down onto the dog bone piece.

With that snap in place, we now have finished shin and boot armour. A very welcome sight! Hopefully my descriptions aren't too impossible to translate.  If anything is unclear or if you have questions, please don't hesitate to let me know so I can help explain it better!

[Ruthar]

Assembly and Preparation

Boots - Zipper Pulls

Now that the boots were finished, I had to make a strap to assist with putting them on. To get my foot in, I install the shin armour onto the boot (with the tab unclipped so it is flexed open) with the zipper all the way to the bottom. Then, I slip in my foot. The problem here is that there is no way to get your hand inside the armour to pull up the boot zipper. So, I fashioned a pair of zipper pulls using swivel clasps and paracord.

I didn't do anything fancy here, just tied a knot around the end of the clasp and left a length of rope that was long enough to run from the bottom of the boot up beyond the top edge.

I slide the rope through the open side of the shin armour until it is now behind.

It's just a gentle tug to get the zipper up to the top. Then, once the zip is all the way to the top, I open the clasp and remove the straps. For troops, I'll leave them in the bin then reconnect them to the zip to get the boots off.

[Ruthar]

Assembly and Preparation

Back Plate

I tackled a few things for the back plate this evening. First, I needed to repair the tips of the collar piece. Unfortunately, they both arrived looking like this:

Fortunately, the break was pretty clean and relatively undisturbed. I took a small dab of the gel control super glue and got them back into place.

I then put a piece of gaffer's tape over the front of them to hold them firmly in place so I could turn the armour over.

With the armour upside down, I used the zap a gap to coat the underside of the collar piece to really get a strong repair.

Next were the back plate greeblies. Here's everything all collected. I didn't yet install the shoulder brackets - I'll see to those later when the shoulder pieces are assembled together (need to fit the chest and back together first).

To start, the black base pieces needed to be flattened. I heated them up with a heat gun until they were flexible, then pressed them down against my garage floor until they cooled into shape. Here you can see the difference:

Once they were flat enough, I coated the back with some of the gel control super glue...

...and then pressed it into the back cavity. I used a couple large magnets to really get it to pull down tightly.

On top of those at the very top of the indent are the fence/rail pieces. I glued those in with some more gel super glue.

Then it's just piecing the rest on. The bottom left corner of each indent has a particular angled piece that nestles against the side like so.

The heatsink on the left and the circle on the right are the last two pieces to finish up the back indents.

On the left side below these back greeblies is a recessed box. The opening needed to be widened slightly to accept the box, so I used a large metal file to carefully widen the opening. Once it was wide enough, I glued the face of the box into the back side of the armour so that the edge and the recessed area is showing through the hole in the back plate.

[Ruthar]

Assembly and Preparation

Abdomen and Kidney - Gasket Test

As @Hask pointed out right here in this post, the Hot Toys figure uses a rubber material for the ribbing at the midsection that joins the abdomen and kidney plates together. That got me thinking - it would probably be far more comfortable to use flexible plates in that region and there has to be a reason Hot Toys decided to go in that direction. So, I got to thinking.

I picked up two things from Home Depot nearby that I thought could potentially do the trick. First, a rubberized grip liner for kitchen drawers.

Second, a large plastic for sale sign. I chose to use this instead of actual armour ABS because it's much thinner and more flexible. Anything too thick and the whole purpose of creating something with give and flex is ruined. (This isn't my picture, but it should give you the idea.)

To start, I measured the size of the ribs that are already installed on the ab/kidney plate. They are roughly 3/8" thick, so I cut strips of the for sale sign into 3/8" wide lengths.

Then, I cut a length of the drawer lining mat and arranged the plastic lengths on it to create a similar pattern to the ribbing.

To keep the area flexible, I used a liquid super glue. This particular brand really gets a fantastic bond and does so very, very quickly - perfect for adhering the strips to the drawer lining.

Once all the strips were cut and installed, I sprayed the whole piece with Rustoleum 2X white gloss spray paint.

I have to admit that I'm quite surprised at the result. The thin plastic and the drawer lining create a "gasket" that is just thick enough to hold but still thin enough to easily flex along the sides of the abdomen. This was just a test piece, so the rib spacing isn't as uniform as I would like, but it still gets the idea across.

It will take quite a bit of armour surgery to carefully remove the existing ribbing, but I think the end result might be worth the effort. I can't imagine the Hot Toys figure using rubber in this region for no reason at all - I really think there is something behind that choice. Much more to come with this as the build continues - this was just a test to see if the concept works. I think it really might be a nice option, though I'm curious what all of you think before I start cutting things apart.

[Hask]

If the look matches hard armour I don't see why not?

[Ruthar]

5 hours ago, Hask said:

If the look matches hard armour I don't see why not?

That was my thinking as well, just hunting for other opinions before I cut the hard material away. There won't be much turning back once those cuts were made, so I want to be absolutely sure I want to do it first!

[Hask]

That makes perfect sense 

[BikerScout007]

That's a great idea!  I would love to see armor makers make that area flexible in the future.  Almost like a rubber cummerbund.  

[Tarok]

Really enjoying following your build. I don’t have a PatrolTrooper planned (never say never), but so many great tips here. Definitely doing the fibreglass tape builders joint tape trick. So much better than trying to position fibreglass mat.

Neat boot trick. Question though: how will you pull the zipper down again? Slide the cord down between the armour and boot?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[matthewjblack]

i could not be more jealous!

[Ruthar]

6 hours ago, Tarok said:

Really enjoying following your build. I don’t have a PatrolTrooper planned (never say never), but so many great tips here. Definitely doing the fibreglass tape builders joint tape trick. So much better than trying to position fibreglass mat.

Neat boot trick. Question though: how will you pull the zipper down again? Slide the cord down between the armour and boot?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah. Definitely a lot easier to place with the slight adhesion. I can’t take total credit there - one of my garrison mates brought that forward a few weeks ago so I had to try it out.

Yeah, getting the zipper back down functions the same - just reattach the zipper, pop open the tab to open the side of the shin, remove the strap and clips, then pull down the zipper.

[Ruthar]

I finally made the decision to dive in and go for it. It took a lot of garage floor pacing and the calming presence of at least one beer, but there's no going back now!

Ultimately, it came down to me not wanting the seam down the side. If we wind up finding out that the rubber of the figure isn't correct down the road, I can always back the rubber mat with another layer of plastic to stiffen it back up.

Much more to come quite soon - there's more to post with this, but not without another day or two of work for it to make more sense.

[star-trooper]

On 6/10/2019 at 2:36 PM, Ruthar said:

Assembly and Preparation

Boots - Shin Armour

With the easy part of the boots finished, it's time to really dive in to something different - the shin armour. The only familiar part of these is that they use a similar front place as the Shoretroopers and Tank Troopers from Rogue 1 - otherwise, these are quite unique! On the sides of the front shin armour are two pegs that line up with two holes on the rear shin armour piece. The finish and painting of these 3D parts prevents them from slipping together as intended, so I sanded and filed these pieces very carefully until they married up. I used a round metal file to carefully open the holes as well as some coarse sand paper to clean up the pegs.

Unfortunately, one of the top tabs on one of my rear shin plates had cracked off entirely during shipping (the seller had notified me of this, so no hard feelings!). With a few dabs of super glue, I got it back into place. I'll tackle hiding the remaining seam later on during the weathering phase.

I'm almost glad that little tab broke off in shipping, to be honest - it brought to my attention the need for reinforcement. To do this, I cut out a piece of scrap ABS just about the same size as the tab itself.

I then used a heat gun to heat the backing plastic piece up. Once it was flexible, I pressed it against the inside of the tab so it assumed the shape as it cooled.

Once the piece cooled, I used the trusted zap-a-gap cap glue plus accelerant to adhere it to the back side of the tab. The region is nice and strong now.

Even though the other side wasn't broken, I reinforced it anyways just in case.

Next, I installed the knee plates to the top of the front shin plates. There are two, small guiding pegs to help with installation, but they didn't quite fit together as easily as it seemed like they should. Instead of sanding them down and trying to get them all just right (as I did with the pegs and holes earlier), I decided to just sand down these guides on the knee plate.

This permitted the piece to sit nice and flush.

I installed this plate with a generous amount of the loctite gel control super glue so it could stand on its own.

Then, I followed that up with zap-a-gap behind that plate. It's hard to see in the image below, but I let the liquid slide down and settle before hitting it with the accelerant. That really solidified the bond between the knee plate and the shin front.

Unfortunately, I wasn't careful enough with one of the sides and some of the zap-a-gap leaked onto the front just a little bit. I took this as an opportunity to see how a little light weathering can hide such a mistake, and I'm happy (and lucky!) to see that it will work just fine to cover it up. I'll mask it even better when I use more layers than just the plain black smattered on there.

Just as before, I widened the hole and sanded the peg for a snug fit for the tab that attaches on the side between the front and back shin plates.

With all the pegs lined up and ready, I moved to attach the rear plate to the front plate. I used three strips of white elastic to do this - a 2" strip in the middle and two 1.5" strips on either side of the pegs. The elastic will allow for some movement and flexibility as well as take some of the pressure off of the pegs. They are just placed in the image below, but I used both the gel control glue and the zap-a-gap to permanently adhere the elastic.

Once the glue was dry, I had to slip the armour onto the boot shaft to see what we got. It's definitely starting to look like something now!

The last parts to assemble are the straps that run around the lower groove. The Armory Shop kit has two rubber straps with two grooves in them as well as four small strap clips. I started by gluing the strap into the end of one of the clips (there's a marvelously convenient slot in which the strap sits).

For one side of the strap, I created an ABS extension that slips between the armour pieces. I cut out a small piece of ABS and shaped it so that it could sit flush with the end of the clip. It's hard to explain exactly, so hopefully the pictures do it justice!

The tongue of this extension slips right between where the halves of the armour meets, keeping the clip down against the armour without having to glue it into place permanently.

For the opposite side of the strap, I created a slightly different mechanism. I started by extending the bottom edge of the clip with a pair of very small ABS strips.

Then, I adhered a third, larger piece that extends outward beneath the front edge of the clip. This creates a bracket between the two pieces that will clip around the armour edge.

Here's an image showing how this different clip functions. It doesn't snap into place or anything, it just holds the clip in place flush against the armour.

As I mentioned, this system prevents the clips from being glued permanently to the armour. Instead, the straps are held in place with two pieces of industrial velcro, one on each side of the back shin plate like so.

After some more experimenting, I found that extending the bracket portion of the second clip resulted in a much more reliable hold. To create it, I cut an additional piece of ABS and used the zap-a-gap to extend the lower bracket addition. Then, I used the heat gun to slightly bend the extended piece to match the curve of the boot. Here's a picture to better serve the description.

Sizing the strap was the first test of courage - I certainly didn't want to cut it too short and leave the clips too far from the armour edge. I installed one side first then pulled the strap all the way around the boot tightly.

I then lined up the clip and cut the strap. I "installed" the clip on the end of the strap with painter's tape so I could test the fit. It took a few tests and cuts before the perfect fit was found - better to go slow and get it right than to cut too much of the strap off.

This image shows the completed straps much more clearly - hopefully the descriptions of the tabs match what is seen here. I have just discovered how tricky it is to explain exactly what I mean - hopefully it's clear to some degree! I enhanced the bond of the velcro strips with a very small amount of the zap-a-gap, too.

An important aspect of the boots that I discovered is that the shin plate needs to be held high enough for there to be a gap between it and the dog bone piece of the toe armour. If there isn't a gap, the shin plate will push down against the dog bone, creating scratches and damage. (Not to mention the gap between these pieces exists on the promo shot).

To achieve this gap, I found that the lower front edge of my boot lines up with the top edge of the front shin armour.

This was the case for both the left and right assemblies, so I lined them up on the boots and made a decision. In order to keep the shin plates up and off of the dog bone, I decided to install a snap into the front of the boot that would click into the shin armour. So, I marked the locations for two holes, one on the front of each boot.

Then, I removed the shin armour entirely and used the leather punch to pop a hole through the boot for a snap to be installed. I am sure there is a boot maker out there shuddering from my bold snap addition.

I then installed the snap. This is a Tandy line 24 snap, a bit more robust than the smaller line 20 snap that was used on the rear boot top strap.

I then made two matching snap plates. To do this, I cut a strip of 1" nylon into small pieces, pushed a small hole in the middle of the piece with an awl, then hammered in the snap.

Using the gel control super glue, I installed the snap plate into the top of the front shin armour. I made absolutely sure that the lower top boot edge aligned perfectly with the top of the shin armour before gluing anything down. I should also mention that it is imperative that you ensure that the armour plate is facing straight out and not askew at all. Regardless, once the plate is glued in, you can clip the boot to the shin armour - now it certainly won't slide down onto the dog bone piece.

With that snap in place, we now have finished shin and boot armour. A very welcome sight! Hopefully my descriptions aren't too impossible to translate.  If anything is unclear or if you have questions, please don't hesitate to let me know so I can help explain it better!

How many snaps did you provide for each boot? 2?

[Ruthar]

7 minutes ago, star-trooper said:

How many snaps did you provide for each boot? 2?

I just used one at the top for both, so 2 total, 1 on each boot. The line 24 snaps are pretty heavy-duty and the armour is pretty tight on the boot, so the one snap should be enough to keep things in place.

[star-trooper]

12 minutes ago, Ruthar said:

I just used one at the top for both, so 2 total, 1 on each boot. The line 24 snaps are pretty heavy-duty and the armour is pretty tight on the boot, so the one snap should be enough to keep things in place.

Thanks for the quick response.

I will following your build very closer. Building mine at this moment too.

 

13 minutes ago, Ruthar said:

I just used one at the top for both, so 2 total, 1 on each boot. The line 24 snaps are pretty heavy-duty and the armour is pretty tight on the boot, so the one snap should be enough to keep things in place.

 

[Ruthar]

6 hours ago, star-trooper said:

Thanks for the quick response.

I will following your build very closer. Building mine at this moment too.

 

 

Fantastic! If you’ve got questions, don’t hesitate to bring them here so we can all discuss.  

[Ruthar]

Abdomen and Kidney

Ribbing Removal - Part 1

Before I cut off the ribbed sections, I stood the abdomen and kidney pieces up side-by-side with the sides touching. I then used measuring tape to find the greatest distance between the pieces that included ribbing. I need this measurement so I can know roughly how long to make the flexible ribbed panels later on.

I also needed to fix the angle of the ribbing. Here is a picture of the test piece next to the actual molded ribbing.

You can clearly see the difference in angle between the two kinds of ribbing - the molded was angled higher while my test is angled more flatly. To find out what the actual angle is, I used a long ruler affixed to a set square to measure the correct angle of the ribbing. I found that the molded ribs run at just about a 58-degree angle.

Sitting on the bench next to all the parts is an old notepad that has a whole host of notes and scrawlings. I quickly jotted down a few things - the rubber base sheet will need to be 11" x 18" on each side, the strips themselves will be increased to 7/16" instead of 3/8" (so the gaps between the ribs are smaller), and the strips are placed at 58-degrees.

Once I finally decided to remove the molded ribbing parts, I had to find a clean way to cut them off. I found that the Dremel with a reinforced cutting wheel was pretty effective in getting through the thick, reinforced material.

I followed the edge as closely as possible, working slowly with the Dremel to carefully remove the ribbed piece.

About and hour of careful cutting later, the ribbing portions were totally removed.

It's not a true build if you aren't wearing it at least a little! Be sure to hold the armour pieces tightly while you are cutting them. One of the sharp edges slipped and slid along my forearm, though I didn't notice it until the following day when this fun red mark appeared.

After the big cuts were finished, it was time to move to sanding down the edges. I switched the Dremel cutting wheel out for a coarse sanding drum, using that to very carefully pull the dirty edges down even further.

The sanding drum definitely helps shave off even more plastic more carefully than the cutting wheel, but not quite all.

To get the last little bit of edge off, I use flat metal files for the inner edges as well as coarse sandpaper for the last bit of the exposed edges. Here is the finished edge.

Getting the between the triangle side detail on the abdomen plate was particularly difficult. I used a smaller sanding drum to get the bigger chunks out of the way, then used the flat metal files to really dig in there before finishing with the sandpaper. It took quite a long time and quite a bit of patience, but it eventually cleaned up well.

With the edges prepped (though not yet painted back to white), I temporarily installed my test gasket again just to see how it will look (roughly). Despite the incorrect angle of the strips, I think it will work pretty well. Definitely starting to look like something!

[Ruthar]

Abdomen and Kidney

Ribbing Removal - Part 2

After cutting away the ribbing and sanding down the edges, some of the internal structure of the 3D printed material was exposed. This left little pockets here and there along the edge. To fill this, I mixed up some Bondo and applied it along the edge.

Once it dried, I carefully used 150 grit sandpaper to take it down flush with the rest of the armour.

Once all the edges were prepped and sanded, I moved on to paint. First I taped up the surface of the armour to just expose the edge that needs painting (pretty much the same process as the helmet eye socket edge).

And then it was just adding a handful of coats of the Rustoleum 2X gloss white.

After a few coats and an hour or so of drying, the edge looks ready to move on. There are still very minor imperfections here and there, but the weathering at the end will help mask all of that to keep the eye from noticing.