Swiftcloud

That looks messy and fun! I would love to learn how to make casts for masks. cant wait to see how this comes out!??

Thanks Jimbo!

More progress. I am determined to make this helmet look more like the real thing. It started out as a Rubies with the most awful paint job. And it was painted as??the ESB version. I have done a lot of things to make this look more realistic. I think it???s coming along nicely. Got some small details to apply still. (I still have to install??the circuit board and dental files for??the rear vent.) But, I think it???s looking pretty good so far.

Actually, I have been working on a circuit for that. It just requires a few resistors, caps and LEDs as you mentioned. I could try to locate the parts from online catalogs, but if you have extras, I???m down! I have the micro switches already. I???ll PM you. Thanks a bunch!

You mentioned having extra electronic parts. Would you happen to have an extra set of the flashing LEDs for the range finder? If so, willing to sell? If not, do you know where I can get one? Also, I need a better RF housing. Any suggestions?

Latest progress: ??Well??I am, still??patiently, awaiting my jet pack kit. In the meantime I have made some additions to the armor. I added the chest LED display. Rather than glueing the circuit board onto the chest plate, I have opted for a removable method. Mainly because I do plan on upgrading my armor to aluminum at some point in the future. This way, I can take the display and re-use it when needed. To do this, I simply cut some rubber tubing (left over from the gauntlets) down the center the long way. I glued them in place in a sort-of frame shape to hold the circuit board in place. Seems to work nicely. -Gorilla Glue saves the day yet again. ??Like I mentioned before, I have decided to just repaint my current helmet because I just can???t afford another $200 to $300 for a new bucket at this point in time. And I have some time to kill, while waiting in the jet pack. So I started the paint job. Besides, it is a good practice project for when I do have a new one to paint. I am using the layered method with liquid mask for the damage effects. It???s easy, and difficult at the same time. Lol. But it seems to be coming out ok, I guess. Still too early to tell. I shaved the nibs off the range-finder snap tabs. And modified the earpiece so I can connect it with screws. Now it can easily be removed/replaced. ??****I need a better ROTJ style RF lens housing. The Rubies one sux!**** ??I???ve only gotten to the 3rd layer of paint for the bucket. So it looks kinda funny right now with just the metallic silver, primer grey and the green. But the effect looks pretty good so far. The hardest part is remembering where the latex mask is under the paint. I am using the CRL pictures as a reference. Here???s the pics... ??

I like it! Congratulations.

Very cool! I like it! Congratulations.

Awesome! Looks very menacing. Congratulations!

Looks good! Congratulations.

Just got my ManOfWar ROTJ gloves and the LED chest light in the mail today! The gloves look great, although I am having a hard time getting my bear paws??past the cuff. Luckily, my mother is a wiz with the sewing machine, so I???ll be bringing them to her for an adjustment.?? ??Also, I am getting ready to repaint my armor with better detail and I am considering repainting my helmet too. Just until I can get my hands on a better bucket. The one I have is??a pre-painted Rubies helmet that I modified. I???ll just repaint it to more closely match the ROTJ details until I can build a better one. Still waiting on Anovos for my jet pack. Hope it comes in soon because there are comicons popping up all around me lately. ?

Welcome Jay!!!

Welcome!!!!

Thanks for the warm welcome. Lol, I know his armor doesn???t make sense yet because I haven???t weathered the soft goods yet. I???m holding off doing anymore work until the Armor Party. I don???t want to go too far in the wrong direction, so I???ll wait to speak with the experts before I continue.

This sounds like fun! I???m in!!! See you there. It will be nice to meet all of you.

Thank you Alay for you kind words and suggestions. I will definitely contact those other blog sites that you mentioned. I know the Rubies helmet is not really the best piece to try to work with due to its inaccuracies. But I just can???t afford a $300 custom built one just yet. Which is also why I didn???t get too involved with making the paint job and damage effects look perfect. At some point I will start a new, more accurate, helmet build. Again, this build started out to be more of a Halloween costume at first, so I hadn???t even considered the guidelines of the 501st approval. Only after I started getting more involved is when I decided to at least start leaning toward the possibility of an approvable finished product. But I understand that there are some major changes that will need to be made before I can consider trying to get approved. I figure that I will makes those changes a little at a time as my finances eventually will permit. I consider this, as my first costume build, to be sort of a learning experience that I can build on and make adjustments as I go. Hopefully, someday I will have a product that I will be proud to submit for approval. Until then, I???ll just keep plugging along Again thank you for you advice and critique. That is exactly why I joined this site and posted my progress. Hope to be a full fledge member some day!! ? -Jerred Swiftcloud

So I???m at the point now where all I can do is wait for my jet pack kit to arrive. I pre ordered it from Anovos in April. They claim to be shipping in summer, which is described by them as being anytime between June and September. It???s mid July now, so hoping it comes sooner than later. Until then, I will keep trying everything on and tweaking whatever needs it. I still need to airbrush some wear and tear markings on the suit. And I have been trying different ways to wire in the headset mic and voice changer that I bought on eBay. Plus I still need a solution for the LED chest display. I may have to break down and spend the $79 for the kit on eBay. But I???ll look for a cheaper solution first. I have some ideas. Here is some detail photos of the most recent test fitting. when the jet pack kit comes in, I will continue to update this thread. Hope it is soon!

Using as much of the remaining sintra as I could, I decided to make the shin tools. Using a jigsaw and dremel, I cut and carved out the pieces. Painted and assembled them. I think they came out looking pretty good.

Up next: the gauntlets. ? these were very tricky....To say the least. So, I received my plastic molded??gauntlet kits??and they were not quite as durable as I had anticipated. They claimed to be 2mm thick and they were, in a few spots. But mostly they seemed to be about .5 to 1mm on average. This made them very light and flimsy. There was also some splitting happening in a few corners. Also, they were very tight when I held them in place around my Popeye-like forearms. Modification would definitely be necessary if I am going to utilize this kit. Since I already paid quite a bit for them, I was not about to throw money away by discarding them. So, modification was my final decision. The first thing I needed to do was to make them feel more durable. As they were, it felt like an accidental impact would crush them like a plastic water bottle. So, I filled in the back sides indentations with air-drying modeling clay. This gave them some solidification and added strength. Next, I trimmed the sharp edges with a razor knife and tried re-fitting them. Still too tight. I had this idea of first wrapping my arms in sintra using the heat gun to mold them into a nice comfortable fit. Then, I cut back more of the plastic on the gauntlets and glued them around the molded sintra pieces. Much better! With a few areas ground of with the bench grinder, I was able to attach each piece together for a secure fit. I bought a long piano-style cabinet hinge and cut it to fit the inner seems of both gauntlets. After securing them, I had to come up with a solution for clasping them shut without any visible hardware, to keep an authentic look. i didn???t like the Velcro closure that most people opt for, because Velcro tends to lose its grip after excessive use. So I devised a new hidden closure. I attached some plastic wire clips to each end of the inside open sides. I cut a piece of 1/4??? copper tubing and inserted them into the clips. On the upper halves, I added another clip at each end - lining them up with the ends of the tube. Then I cut a 1/8??? diameter steel rod and curled one end. When the gauntlets are closed, you simply insert the steel rod through the clips and the copper tube which traps the gauntlets shut. That works!??It???s a bit unorthodox but actually works well. The only down-side is that it requires a helper to lock them in place. Time to paint them, attach the components??and add detail.?? Oops! While I was drilling the back of the flame thrower (made from a resin??cast piece) it cracked! So, using a few pieces of Azek plastic wood - sold at Lowe???s- I cut, dremmeled and shaped a new piece which is actually more durable than the resin??one. Now I could easily drill the end to attach the hose connectors. Which also were made from cast resin, which also cracked in half. So,back to Lowe???s I went. I bought some real brass flare end tube connectors and a couple threaded brass nipples (giggity!) and attached them. So much better now. i told you these were a pain in the ass!

The boots: ??I just cannot afford the $175 Man Of War boots at this time, since the cost of the soft goods and so many other pieces. Even tho they are perfect, I???m gonna have to put them on my wishlist. In the meantime, I had already made my own boots that will have to suffice for now. I bought some boots from Target that look pretty close to Boba???s boots. And they were only about $24 for the pair. With some add-on material I was able to replicate the look pretty well, I think. I just opted for painting the stripes instead of adding a cord bead, because I hope these are only a temporary use for boots. -I hope. I did airbrush some aging??and worn effects. To create the toe spikes I used a large 6??? metal hose clamp and cut away the threaded parts. Using a hammer and the anvil side of my bench vise, I flattened and creased the metal strips to fit around the front of the boots. The spikes are actually soft rubber plugs that I shaped into pointy cones, using a bench grinder. I chose to make them out of soft rubber because I was afraid that real metal toe spikes would not be allowed at comicons and the like. Once I shaped them I spray painted them silver metallic. I think they look pretty realistic and I know they are actually harmless.

Meanwhile, the soft suit gear still had??not arrived yet. So I started work on the girth belt. I ordered a belt from amazon and it came very quickly, but it was plain white and needed to be colorized. I read about a technique of using Minwax Stain to colorize the belt. Unfortunately, I realized that I bought oil based stain instead of water based. I was wondering why it seemed like it was just pouring off and not soaking in. So I waited a few days and when it was completely dry, I used another technique where I just sprayed paint on. This seemed to work the best, and once it was dry I just had to work it a bit to regain it???s flexibility. By the time I had finished the belt, my suit finally arrived. So, it was time for another fitting. The person that tailored my suit had used the measurements she requested from me so I was delighted to see that it fit me very well! I used a combination of rare earth magnets and Scotch hook and loop (extra strength hold). So far the peices seem to be holding very well. I glued magnets to the back side of the armor pieces and sewn them into the inner side of the flack vest.

A few days later, I received the new longer range-finder stalk. Now I wanted to come up with a way for the light in the eyepiece to light when tilted. I considered a tilt switch, but could not find anything that would really fit inside the pieces. So, then I remembered I had some micro-switches left over from when i was a slot-tech at the casino. I decided to put the switch inside the rotor cuff thing at the base of the stalk. It was a little scary trying to pry the plastic housing off the helmet, thinking that it could crack and get damaged. But, surprisingly it came right off. Turns out, all that was holding it in place was two plastic clips and a tiny spot of hot-glue that wasn???t even really adhered too well. Turned out a couple of screws and was able to open the ???clamshell??? that pinned in the stalk. Using some Velcro, I attached the switch to the bottom of the stalk and ran a twisted pair of 22g insulated wire up to the eyepiece. To hide the wire, I wrapped the stalk with foil tape (tape made of thin metal used for attaching??heat/vent ducts).??This gave it the metallic look??and hid the wire very well. So, now, as the range-finder is lowered the switch gets pressed but the stalk at its vertical resting point and lights the LED in the eyepiece. As it is raised, the switch releases and shuts off the LED. upon testing, the result was successful, but the longer stalk seemed to want to fall forward too easily when I leaned the helmet over. So I glued in a rare earth magnet and wrapped a small piece of steel around the stalk at the height of the magnet. So now it???s held firmly in place when upright. But still comes down easily enough with a light push by hand. As a foresight, I re-attached the whole assembly back onto the helmet using Scotch Hook and Loop tape, so it can be safely??removed for future servicing or battery replacement.

Back to the??helmet. I placed another order, this time for the extended stalk piece for the range-finder. But the helmet still feels too light and creaky when I hold it. So I did a few things to add some rigidity to it. First, I lined the inside with some 1/8??? thin black craft foam and glued it into place. That haloed a little but it still felt kinda flimsy around the neck opening. So I traced the bottom of the helmet onto some sintra and cut out a ring about 1/2??? wide painted it black and glued it inside the opening. I had to file it and tweak it to get it to fit snugly, then used my trusty Gorilla Glue to lock it into place. Now it feel much more sturdy! Now I want to enhance the eye-piece on the range-finder. I had this idea in my head about making the viewing lens glow when the range-finder is pulled forward. So first, I found a fairly inexpensive LED accent light sold at the local craft store. It came in a 4-pack so maybe I???ll find other uses for the remaining 3. It was small enough to be able to be installed inside the eye-piece with a little bit of customization with a Dremel tool. I drilled out the fake lens and glued a plastic craft gem in its place. (I had to remove the shiny reflective paint on the back of the jewel in order for light to pass through it. To do that simply required some rubbing alcohol and a paper towel.) The lighted jewel gave me the effect that I wanted, but I needed to automate it???s on/off switch so that it would activate when the range-finder is pulled forward. To do this I would have to wait until the extended stalk piece came in the mail.

Time for a quick fitting for the back armor and collar protector, along with the helmet and knee guards. I found that the back piece still seemed too skinny around my mid-lower back. So back to the heat gun to make that adjustment. Also, my knees are fairly bulky, due??to my bike riding and powwow dancing. When I tried on the knee guards, they fit very snuggly. Too snuggly, in fact. I tried bending down and one of them snapped in two! So I had to re-engineer them. Ended up cutting them all into 3 peices and mounting them to a short strap of metal. I put small peices of soft foam in between the peices to allow some flexibility. Repainted the cut areas and the foam. I think it looks pretty well disguised. And now can flex as I bend my knees, without snapping into pieces. meanwhile, I have placed my order for the soft suit to be custom tailored for me. A person who sells the custom made suits on eBay and Etsy promised to produce the suit pieces which will consist of a flight jacket, flack vest, neck wrap and spats in ROTJ style. i have also ordered the gauntlet kit as well, since this being my first build, I thought that gauntlets were a bit out of my novice builder league. So, while waiting for that stuff to come in, I had plenty of other areas to focus on.??