Edoode's Patrol Trooper Build

[Edoode]

Patrol Trooper 'Vimes' WIP:

Finally my Patrol Trooper WIP, promised many times but here it is. I’ve taken a ton of pictures during the process, and I’ll be posting a few of those here. I’ve followed the WIPs from Ruthar and Wingnut65 closely so I’ll skip over some steps that were already documented by them, but try to focus on what I did differently.
I ordered the full package from Armory Shop Props. It took quite some time before the famous Brown Box Day, but communication with Dennis was good and the most of the delay was not his fault anyway.

The armour pieces were tightly wrapped up in layers of bubblewrap and it took me quite some time to carefully unpack everything.


Even with all the heavy padding, one of the shin armours had a break.


I carefully put in some Loctite Super Glue Gel and clamped the piece.
The break glues together nicely, and with some weathering should be unnoticeable.

Later I strengthened both the pieces on this weak spot using a two-part epoxy that needs to be mixed in your hand, and that will bond to almost anything, drying hard enough to sand in 24 hours.

All the other parts have survived the trip, so off to work we go. Starting of with cleaning the inside of the parts. They are 3D printed and a bit rough on the inside. A couple of hours with sanding paper and a file took care of most of the sharp surfaces

I started out with the boots. As others have noticed, the plates for the calves have a lip that seems like a vulnerable part: I cut some aluminum strips and glued these on the inside, using E6000.


The front and back pieces for the boot connect with pins and holes. One of the pieces the pin had apparently broken off during printing or painting and had been glued back on. Unfortunately this pin no longer matched up to its corresponding hole. I also didn’t trust the glue to hold, so I took the offending pins off on both left and rights parts. I glued strips of Velcro to the inside of the back part and to the outside of the font part.


For the heel part of the boot armour pieces I glued some Velcro straight on the boot, and in the inside of the heel guard. The toe guard I glued directly on the boot.


The last bits of the boots armour are black straps that run around the boots. On both ends there’s a small white buckle. I glued a small strip of scrap white ABS to two of them, and added a bit of Velcro on them. Inside the boot armour I also glued a bit of Velcro, so I can stick the buckles underneath, and they will stay in place.

For the buckle on the other end I experimented with magnets. I glued another strip of ABS to the front boot plate and added a small but powerful magnet on the inside. On the buckle I also added a magnet, but this didn’t work: the buckle didn’t hold to the strip on the boot.

Plan B was more Velcro


That’s all the boot parts done. Continuing with the belt in part 2
 

  -Edo

[Edoode]

The patrol trooper belt is a leather band with a number of boxes on them, a blaster holster, a holder for the baton, and a thermal detonator on the back. I’ve followed again the builds of @Ruthar and @wingnut65, so I started out by adding a cardboard template to the largest pouch, because I thought that was good idea by Ruthar, so I shamelessly copied it. This way it can hold my phone.


I will later replace this with an aluminum box but for now the cardboard box works. I also copied the IPT Card Containment Apparatus Wingnut65 invented. I’ve glued small wooden standoffs in 2 corners, and added 2 magnets to each corner. On the inside of the lid I made some room for the counter magnet. The lid is attached to the box by a 5cm wide elastic band. To attach the apparatus to the belt I’ve used a scrap of ABS that fits exactly in the box. I’ve drilled 4 holes in this, lining up with the slits in the back of the box. Through these I’ve stuck Chicago book screws.

In the belt I’ve made 4 matching holes, and using a piece of softer plastic plate that I had lying around on the back of the black belt (it used to be a desk cover, quite flexible) I then screwed the box to the belt.


I copied this technique for all white boxes, but I ran out of short book screws so in the small boxes I used a small block of wood rather than ABS. These small boxes will be glued shut anyway, so no worries.

For the black bags, those supplied by Armoury Shop Props are made of wood covered by (fake) leather, and have a loop on the back. I didn’t like this loop very much so I removed it and screwed the boxes straight onto the belt, using again the softer white plastic to prevent the black belt from tearing.


I really like the Chicago screws idea so I used that also on the holster and baton holder. Because the baton only just fits in its holder, I use my Dremel to make the screw heads as flat as possible. By doing this with the screws already in the holder, the heat from the grinding drove the screws even deeper in the 3D printed material. Perfect.
The last item on the belt was the TD. It’s rather heavy and as others have found it tends to drag the belt down. Others have solved this by adding some support behind this but I had a different idea. I wanted to attach it straight on the armour. So I took a 5cm wide band, and stamped 3 press-buttons through it. This I glued to the back of the TD.

I then cut 3 square holes in the belt, exactly where I wanted the TD to sit. I took multiple measurements to get this exactly right.

And on the backplate of the armour I glued another band, this time with the other half of the press buttons. The idea is that the TD is now pressed onto the armour plate, through the belt.

This works pretty well: the TD can easily be removed for transporting but when clicked into place its sits very solid and does not pull on my belt.
The last operation was gluing Velcro on the lower edge of the armour and the inside of the belt. I may have added too much Velcro, but at least the belt does not move around when I wear the armour.

After I cut the belt to the exact length I needed I added Velcro on the ends. The large pouch that can hold my phone will be attached with Velcro over the ends of the belt, effectively hiding the joint.
And that concludes the belt. Next up is the chest and back armour plates.

[Ruthar]

Great stuff! I like your idea with the snaps on the TD - looking forward to seeing that in action!

[Edoode]

For the abs plate, and the front and back armour I followed again the builds of Ruther and Wingnut. Like them, I also noticed the backplate rested a bit high on the shoulders so I took out the Dremel again and cut a section out of the shoulder ‘prongs’ and the matching section on the front plate:


I cleaned out the 3D printed filling and filled it back up again with the 2-component epoxy I had used before. This created a nice, firm bond that I sanded down so it was smooth. To connect the front plate to the back I used Velcro at the bottom but I wanted the shoulder ends to meet up perfectly. So I added two snapbuttons to a 5cm wide piece of black elastic and two snaps to the inside of the frontplate.

This way I can put a little tension on the elastic and this will pull the front and back together nicely.The elastic at the bottom was next. I decided to open the slits and pull the elastic on the inside, to yet another bit of Velcro there

 
The shoulder straps were attached to the armour using book/chicago screws, pulled through the armour. With the cover in place these are invisible.

To attach the other end of the shoulder straps to the frontplate I cut out a shallow hole on the straps beneath the buckle and glued a magnet there, using permanent glue, and three more magnets on the inside of the front plate. They grip really nicely

To attach the codpiece I used yet again Velcro. Two straps with a bit of Velcro on the end I attached to the codpiece, and two matching pieces on the inside of the abs armour.


I’m planning to replace this with snaps, because that makes it easier to hang the codpiece at the correct height, but that’s for later. I’ve also used snaps on 5cm wide black band for the shoulder bells, I will need to see if this holds up during trooping.
For fun I decided to add a cooler to the backplate. I was browsing a box of computer parts and found an old GPU cooler that fitted perfectly in the hollow in the backplate. I soldered on a USB plug and added some Velcro to the cooler and the armour and had it running in no time.


I have no idea if I will leave the cooler in during trooping, but it was a fun mod to make. A problem is that the jacket is a rubber like material that doesn’t allow the air to flow through it, but I have an idea for that…
The white plates in this picture are ABS, I’ve glued these in because I fear this is a weak point in the design. I will probably add a thin fiberglass layer on the entire bottom halve of the backplate.

Next (last) thing is the helmet, and the weathering.
 

[Edoode]

Last bit I worked on was the helmet. The bucket from Armoury Shop Props is a good helmet, looking very good fresh from the package. But of course there is work to be done. First I opened up the holes between the teeth, by drilling a small hole in the center, and then cutting out the rest with my Dremel. Then using a small square file, I cleaned out the holes until they were square.


These holes will let in a bit more air into the helmet, which is a good thing. Level 2 mentions a black mesh behind the cutout so I glued a bit on the inside.

I also opened up the small white stripes on the side, and backed those with some white fabric. This is only visible from really, really close-up, from any normal distance this looks like a solid white

The black paint on the helmet is very vulnerable; scratches appear very easily, for example on the vocoder, so I decided to re-paint that. With the help of my friend Job, we taped of the vocoder and sprayed it with Chaos Black, from Games Workshop.


After two layers we sprayed it with a  clear hard semi-gloss coating to protect it again scratches. I think it looks great now:

It looks so good in fact that the other black areas stand out as being not to great already:

So I decided to paint the entire black area again. I cleaned of most of the the black with paper towels and some alcohol: it comes of really, really easy so I think I made the right call. Taping of all the white parts took some time but after that the painting was smooth sailing.


With the outside covered (ha) it was time to look inside. I wanted to make it black, to keep light from reflecting through the visor, so I looked around for options. Somewhere I read a post by someone who put the soft side of Velcro on the inside and I thought that was a good idea so I bought a few rolls of sticky Velcro and added it to the inside of the helmet.


I found a collection of small motor helmet padding on AliExpress, so I bought that, added the hard side of Velcro to that and arranged them inside my helmet. On Facebook I found Troopercoola, who makes custom fan setups for helmets. I bought a 2 fan system with on/off switch and a USB connector for power.


All in all, I’m quite satisfied with the end result

[Aradun]

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

[Hask]

Nice work, nice work indeed.

[Edoode]

Big news, I have been approved! TB-23512 is ready for duty. Here’s a few approval pictures

 

To finish up the build I also worked on my crate. I got second-hand black tool crate that I wanted to paint using a black/white scheme. So the first step is to add a lot of painters tape

 

I bought two cans of white, and I used them both, after applying a quick layer of plastic primer. After the first layer I let it dry for a full day and then I added a second layer

 

After another day of drying I slowly removed the tape. I sprayed a small square green, like the green button on the PT armour chest.

 

I’m quite happy with the end result. It’s not perfect but it it definitely an improvement.

 

  -Edoode

[Patrol85]

Looks Awesome
Both the Armor an transport case paint my the case same Way Also


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