Dennis' JFO Scout Build

[Chopper]

Yeah, I'd say what you did with the Ace brand ivory is pretty close. Truth be told, I am very much not a fan of the Ace brand spray paint, as I've found that it tends to crack and chip very easily. I think it'll prob be fine as long as the surface prep is good.

[Harbinger]

9 hours ago, AradunFF said:

@Chopper Corey, do you have any measurements for the trap decal used on for the four bar rank version of the tank?  I need to convert my 6 stripe rank bars to the four stripe version in order to make my tank compatible for both the ROTJ and JFO versions and need to add this element.  It looks to be about 1/4" wide, with the trap being 1 1/4" in length along the bottom and about 3/4" in length at the top.  Does that sound about right?  Also, just confirming that the rank bars themselves are 1/4" wide for the four bar version with 1/4" space between them.   

Sounds close enough. I traced screen reference for mine. If you have a vinyl cutter I can send you my file.

[Aradun]

Sounds close enough. I traced screen reference for mine. If you have a vinyl cutter I can send you my file.

Thanks! I actually banged it out this evening. I’ll get photos posted in the next day or so.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Aradun]

I’ve been able to get done a great deal of work on this kit since my last post, but have been delayed in updating my WIP. So here goes everything!

TANK MODIFICATIONS

I managed to remove the tank topper from the RS tank, but not without damaging the tank itself, as I expected. Of course no more than six hours afterwards, that same day, I was looking though my FISD feed and saw not one, but two posts inquiring about how to separate two pieces of ABS joined by CA cement. Ughh! A day late and a dollar short, as they say. For those interested, our very own Glen Rhodes (gmrhodes13), who is a major player over at FISD, recommended placing the piece in the freezer to allow the CA glue to become brittle. Separating it once subjected to freezing temps should be much easier. Another option he suggested was to soak it in warm salty water. Sorry I missed this.

Here's what I ended up with after working at it with a chisel knife.



It ain’t pretty, but like I said it was expected. The spot that ripped away the ABS from the tank was the portion where the clamp was clearly applied when glued. RS uses some strong CA. No worries though as the topper will cover the damage, and I cut some spare ABS sheeting to fit the inside of the tank, which I then glued in place with E6000.



The bottom of the topper and the tank top itself were sanded to removed any CA glue so that I had a nice flat surface for remounting the topper.

Next, I used a fine Dremel cutting tool to cut out and remove the dial from the resin tank topper.





Worked like a charm. Once removed, the topper was resprayed flat black, and glued back onto the tank using E6000.



I then printed two tank toppers from MrPoopie's files and cut out the dials from the toppers. They are slightly larger than the one removed to allow for a little lip to cover the opening rather than being set into the hole of the original topper. This makes for a more seamless appearance, and eliminated any gaps from showing in case my cutout job of the original dial was less than perfect.

Afterwards, I used a sanding belt on the Dremel to create a recess in the bottom of the dial so that I could insert a 30mm rare earth magnet that was 3mm thick, which was then glued in place using E6000.



Each topper was then provided with the appropriate paint scheme for the ROTJ and JFO kits, and another magnet was secured inside the tank on top with the 3M adhesive strips supplied with the magnets. Once in place, I have very little worry about it getting knocked off as the magnets are rated with 18lb pull.

With ROTJ Dial:


With JFO Dial:


You’ll notice when looking at the strapping for the tank that it now has a parachute clip, whereas before the straps were glued to the inside of the back armor with CA glue. My original plan was to merely swap out the tank, but I had to bag that idea because the 3D files I had for the tank were not the same shape as the original RS.



Lastly, the original six stripe ranks bars were removed, and the four ¼” ranks bars were applied along with the trap decal in the center of the tank.  This combo makes the tanks acceptable for both the ROTJ and JFO builds.



ADDITIONAL FLIGHT SUIT MODS

I added additional Velcro to secure the bund, biceps, and shoulder bells to the suit. Still need to add Velcro to secure the cod to the suit. Won’t bore you with photos, as it’s just Velcro, and placement will vary between builds anyway.

Edit: I realized after suiting up that I also needed to add Velcro to the flight suit for my knee armor, boot strap in the holstered boot, and forearms.

BELT

So, for the belt, as noted previously above, I used remnants of the 2” leather belt from Tandy’s Leather, which I purchased for my wife’s TIE Reserve, and used two snaps for each piece of leather to firmly secure to the belt.

Then white webbing was used along with the 1.5” parachute buckles to connect the drop boxes to the belt. While not specified in the CRL the buckles were sown into the webbing, unlike the ROTJ Scout where the strapping merely passes through and behind the buckles giving the appearance of being functional. For the JFO Scout, the screen captures show the buckles to be functional so they were stitched into place and are in fact functional.



Velcro was applied to the black leather and stitched into place using a sewing machine. The leather used was about 1/8” thick, but my machine managed to handle the stitching pretty easy. However, one must go slow and steady. I did break two needles, but I was my fault because I went a bit too fast on both occasions. I could have glued the Velcro, but I didn’t think it would hold up to being torn apart when taking off the belt. Now if I had access to RS’ CA glue…maybe a different story.



TIP: Don’t forget to sew the strapping behind the Velcro when sewing it to the belt. I forgot, and then had to seam rip some of the stitching on the Velcro to slide the webbing behind it and restitch it.

Lastly, I whipped up some ABS paste for a repair on my ROTJ belt that had some stress cracks, and used some leftover paste to reinforce the joint on the JFO belt where it the pieces were glued together (The belt was printed in three sections). Just an added layer of protection against any stress.



The last thing to do now is the harness, which I plan to bang out this week. 1/2” foam is coming today, patterns for the padded portion are in hand, and I have access to the sewing machine now that my daughter is home between semesters. Hopefully, I’ll have the build complete by this weekend. Fingers crossed!

[Aradun]

On 12/28/2021 at 6:27 PM, MrPoopie said:

Let me know when you get to your harness. I have a few extra tips and tricks to keep everything in place that I figured out after suiting up a few times. 

It's go time brother!  Looking forward to you imparting your wisdom upon me.

[TreeHuggerMatt]

Wow!   your ingenuity is amazing  , love the way you find solutions 

[Aradun]

Okay…it’s harness time!

What a PITA this is! So before I lay down the how to, I need to get some advice on how to secure this rig.   

Here’s what I’m thinking, but @MrPoopie, @RickyBoyBlue, and @Ammonites your thoughts having trooped in your kits would be most appreciated:

1. A a piece of Velcro to the back of the buckle and the center of the bund to keep the belt of the harness in place. I notice it wants to pull up towards the armor.

2. Use RickyBoyBlue’s method of securing the straps to the shoulder armor via rare earth magnets.

3. Put a few hand stitches through the webbing and shoulder pads to keep them from shifting.

4. Do the same above for the side pads to keep them from shifting.

5. I might put a rare earth magnets on the inside of the back armor about mid tank to help secure the straps on the back armor and keep ‘em nice and tight against the tank as they come up over the shoulders.

Now here’s my Achilles heel. The dang battery pack rotates forward under its own weight.




I could just rotate it into the correct position, but then the padded harness it sits in would be 1.5” - 2” below the cutout for the black coils instead of flush with it.

Anyone else have this issue?

Here’s how I have it attached. It is stitched to the belt along the top.



In addition, I stitched about 3/4” of the battery strap to the shoulder harness to pull back on the battery pack. It helped a little.



There’s gotta be a way to keep this from rolling forward. Any thoughts would be welcome.

[MrPoopie]

My harness doesn't actually pull up on me. It may just be the snugness of the front straps but it all stays in place fine, especially with the extra weight of the control box on the front. I also use some small velcro straps in the undersides of the harness shoulders that strap under the chest armor shoulders. Without these the harness shoulders want to slip off. 

As for the battery, the grip from the vinyl keeps everything in place. You could possible just put a small strip of velcro on the bottom of the battery and another on the battery sling to keep it from shifting. 

Your mods look great. 

[Aradun]

My harness doesn't actually pull up on me. It may just be the snugness of the front straps but it all stays in place fine, especially with the extra weight of the control box on the front. I also use some small velcro straps in the undersides of the harness shoulders that strap under the chest armor shoulders. Without these the harness shoulders want to slip off. 
As for the battery, the grip from the vinyl keeps everything in place. You could possible just put a small strip of velcro on the bottom of the battery and another on the battery sling to keep it from shifting. 
Your mods look great. 

Thanks Justin. The straps on the shoulders is brilliant. I might go that route.

With regard to the battery, I don’t think I was clear on my issue. It’s not that the battery is rotating in the harness. It’s snug with the straps and isn’t going anywhere. The whole thing, including the harness is sagging causing it to roll forward under the weight. It seems like it needs something pulling from the top to keep it in place.

[Aradun]

Okay, so I removed the battery harness and reattached it towards the bottom of the belt, but left the battery straps attached to the shoulder straps. Rotating the battery straps forward created the “pull” I needed to keep the staff mount on the battery perpendicular the way it should be. I’ll get photos of the reworked harness posted to tomorrow and try to update the harness construction.

[Aradun]

This is a little out of sequence, so my apologies for those following along.

SHOULDER AND WAIST PADDING

I created patterns for the battery harness, shoulder straps and waist straps. Pictured below are the top pieces for the Shoulder and Waist straps.
Waist Pads Measurements:
Top Piece: 9”x4” (includes 1/2” seam allowance)
Bottom Piece: 8”x3”

Shoulder Pad Measurements:
Top Piece: 13”x4.25” (includes 1/2” seam allowance)
Bottom Piece: 12”x3.25”

Your measurements will vary depending on your body and armor proportions, but the measurements will at least give you a sense of proportion when creating your own patterns.

Why a 1/2” seam allowance verse a 1/4” seam allowance? It made it easier for me to fold the seam over the back piece and run it through the machine. I found that the batting made working with 1/4” seams more challenging.

You can see in the patterns above that I cut the corners of the shoulder pads a little differently than the waist pads. This was done after seeing how the waist pad turned out. You can see from the photos below that the top of the pads fold over the bottom material. As the bottom will never be visible, it works, even though it isn’t pretty.

My original intention was to use ½” foam for the padding, but it proved to be too thick with the vinyl for me to run through the sewing machine. That was $20 ill spent. Live and learn.  I used leftover batting from my cummerbund and formed two layers which ran through the machine much easier.

BATTERY HARNESS
Below is the pattern for the battery harness.  It measures 17.5" x 8.5" (which includes 1/4" seams) and is one piece.  It folds back on itself to be seamed.  You can see the fold in the crease in the photo below.  For the battery harness, I kept counting four rows of padding in video grabs I looked at.  I know others have done five rows.  I could have added about 2 more inches to the length when all was said and done. I used 1" cotton webbing for the battery straps. 

TIP:  When stitching this, turn the vinyl inside out so that the 1/4" seams are on the inside them you turn it right side out.  Then insert your batting through the open end (the side that will be sewn to your harness belt).  You can then run it through the sewing machine to create the stitch patterns running down the center of the battery harness. 

FIT AND FINESSE
During a test fit, I found the vinyl waist and shoulder pads to be sliding on the cotton webbing, requiring constant adjustments.  So once I got them in place, I pinned them to the black cotton webbing, and then tack sewed a few hand stitches through the edge of the padding and the cotton webbing to lock it in place.  No more shifting/sliding.


When doing this to the shoulder straps, remember that there is an additional piece of cotton webbing that slides through the straps and rests on top of the main webbing for the shoulder harness.  This piece should extend about 2.5” from where it emerges from the vinyl strap on both sides.  I make mention of it because you’ll want to tack this piece to the webbing beneath it to keep it from sliding or coming out of the vinyl shoulder strap itself. 

Just from the few times I suited up to test fit the harness, I realized that the shoulder straps do not want to remain on the shoulders.  They will slide off of the shoulder bridges of your armor as you move.  I thought about using magnets as RickyBoyBlue did in his build.  It’s a great solution, but I went another route. 

When I troop, a lot of people have a tendency to throw their arm around my shoulder when posing for pictures, which means their hands would be resting on the shoulder strap, which also means that there would be a higher likelihood that a sleeve, watch, finger, etc. would snag the shoulder strap and pull it off of my shoulder even with magnets used to secure it in place.  So, I used 1” cotton webbing to create a strap that slides through the bottom of the shoulder strap and then wraps around the shoulder bridge of the armor and snaps into place.  I put a hand stitch in the 1” strap and the cut portion of the vinyl shoulder strap it slides through to keep it secured in place.  The 1" strap was sliding out too easily when taking the armor off and putting it on.  End result…these shoulder straps are not going anywhere now!



TIP:  Make sure to allow enough material in the 1” webbing so that it is a little loose when wrapping around the shoulder bridge.  If you make it exact, you’ll find it challenging to get it to snap.  Of course, if you use Velcro instead of snaps the strap will be much more forgiving.

Lastly, I sewed the webbing for the shoulder portion of the harness to the back of the belt for the harness, but used Velcro on the front portion of the webbing to connect it to the front of the harness belt, which allows for some adjustments. 



TIP:  It you are one whose weight fluctuates, using Velcro will allow you to add a little length to the webbing shoulder straps to compensate accordingly.   If this is not a concern, then feel free to be exact in your measurements and stitch the webbing to the belt permanently. 

Next up: The tubing for the harness.


 

[Aradun]

TUBING FOR THE BATTERY

My apologies, but I completely forgot to take pictures of this part.

So I wasn’t able to do RickyBoyBlue’s method of attaching the Tubing to the battery pack because I had already assembled and finished my battery. What I did instead was remove the circular port where the tubes enter the battery because I just could not get both tubes to slide through the port and into the battery.

Once removed I stitched the ends of the tubes together, and leaving the needle and thread attached, was able to pull the tubes through the circular port. Then I removed the needle and excess thread leaving the tube ends sewn together. I then used a skewer to work the tubes into the hole on the battery. It’s a tight fit, but that is a good thing because it means it will be unlikely that it will be pulled out from the battery itself. Once the tubes were inserted into the battery, I work the circular port back into place and glued it with e6000. End result…



ATTACHING THE TUBING TO THE HARNESS

The tubing runs through four tube ports on the rear of the harness and two ports on the front of the harness. I used the rubber grips from a Pilot G-2 black gel pen. I cut the grip in half and used the narrower ribbed portion of the grip. The grips were sewn together and then sewn to the harness.


I used the other half of the grips for the front o the harness only because I didn’t have any more pens on hand. My preference would have been to have all of them ribbed, as I find the ribbing to be a nice aesthetic.

For the tubbing that runs from the shoulder to the glove, I sewed the ends of the orange/red tubing together and the sewed a small snap to the end of the tubing and to the shoulder strap to secure it in place under the vinyl.

Here’s the finished look once slid back into place.

I used larger 3/4” snaps to secure the tubing to the flight suit under the shoulder bells and to the very end of the sleeve where it will be hidden by the glove. I left extra length at the end until I get a feel for mobility while trooping and will then readjust the placement of the end snap and length of the tubing.


For the tubing that attaches to the control box, I used RickyBoyBlue’s method of inserting screws through the tubing holes on the control box and sliding the tubes over the screws and into their respective ports. This method work very well. You can use machine screws or pan head screws. Glue the in place inside the control
box.

TIP: If it’s a little difficult to slide the tubing over the screws, then coat them with a little dish soap and they’ll slide on without any resistance. Once the soap dries you won’t have to worry about them sliding off .

End result…


I plan to stitch the tubing to the harness at certain points to keep it secured, but will wait until after I troop in it to see where best to place the stitches if they are needed at all.

And that’s all folks!

[Aradun]

SUBMISSION PHOTOS

Sent these out to my GML along with links to my build thread and details on what was modified on my existing ROTJ kit to meet both builds, what did not need to be modified, and what was brand new for the JFO.

I’m really lovin the look and feel of this costume. I’m also keen on how well I was able to match the paint for the 3D printed belt and bicep armor to the color of my RS armor. It’s barely noticeable.








I hope this helps any ROTJ Scouts who may be thinking of adding the JFO to their repertoire. It’s easy to do, and I’m sure others will find ever more creative ways to make their armor interchangeable between kits. Thank you @MrPoopie for being the forerunner and designing and making available excellent 3D files for the JFO Scout. Thank you also to @RickyBoyBlue for an excellent build thread on modifying a ROTJ Scout for use as a JFO Scout too. Your work too was very helpful and inspirational for my own mods.

Pathfinders lead the way!

[TreeHuggerMatt]

Another fantastic job and thread Dennis , as always .

 

Its the ingenuity used to find solutions that i love.   The Gel Pen rubber trick was a work of genius dude. In awe of the skills mate.

 

Bravo sir !!

[MrPoopie]

This is excellent work. I'm very happy to see that the JFO is catching on. 

[Aradun]

This is excellent work. I'm very happy to see that the JFO is catching on. 

Thank you Justin! That means a lot coming from you. It’s a great build and a cool look.

When last I looked before submitting for approval there were only 8 in the entire Legion. As more build this kit and it get visibility I’m sure numbers will grow quickly. I have a few who have talked about doing this build in my Garrison. Hopefully seeing it live will give them the inspiration to build their own.

Thanks again for everything!

[TreeHuggerMatt]

Which , given the solutions you guys have found to allow the hot swapping between rotj and the jfo scout will im sure inspire folks to pull the trigger on as its a reasonably simple option

 

Brilliant stuff chaps

[Harbinger]

That turned out... amazing!

Maybe that will be my next build as well, in 5 years, lol.

[Aradun]

APPROVED!  Just received word that my kit has been approved making me the 9th JFO Scout in the Legion!  Thanks again to @MrPoopie @RickyBoyBlue and @Ammonites for leading the way and all the help and inspiration to take this kit on!  

[MrPoopie]

Congratulations. Hard work paying off.

[TreeHuggerMatt]

2 minutes ago, AradunFF said:

APPROVED!  Just received word that my kit has been approved making me the 9th JFO Scout in the Legion!  Thanks again to @MrPoopie @RickyBoyBlue and @Ammonites for leading the way and all the help and inspiration to take this kit on!  

Great News , though not even remotely a surprise.   Brilliant work and brilliant ideas and solutions , teamwork makes the dreamwork

 

Nice One Dennis mate.  Well chuffed for you brother

 

👊

[Harbinger]

Congrats Dennis!

[RickyBoyBlue]

Sorry bro, late to the party.  But showering you with massive congrats.  Great work!!!