troopermaster

The rivet in the cod piece is a brass split rivet with an M4 brass washer that holds a black elastic strap in place. The rivet has an 8mm head with 6mm legs.

Very nice!

You want to try and make the moulded strips the same size both sides before you glue the cover strips on, something like this.

PM sent, but please do post photos of everything that is up for sale and I will advise,

I build them 2 ways depending on what people want - either screen accurate or practical. I prefer the screen accurate method myself and I encourage others to go the same way if possible. Check out all my albums on Facebook. You will find some interesting builds

Check out my build on Facebook to see how the original armour is assembled. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=TMProps&set=a.2730823383802176 Let me know if you have any questions and I will be happy to help.

There's no need to paint the armour, unless it has started to yellow or you have parts from different makers and the ABS is different shades of white. The original armour was not painted.

Button plate corners should be cut at angles if you want to go for uber accuracy

Nice job on blending those shims! It's one of the things that I'm not crazy about doing, but I'm impressed with the finished result! Can you tell us which colour and brand of paint you used for anyone wanting to do the same thing please?

They are not broken, but they are old. I am not computer savvy and don't know how to retrieve them. 15mm is a good size for the tube stripes, though some may be shorter or longer by 1mm or 2mm. They didn't use a stencil for the stripes but it's obvious they used tape to mask the edges, so that's where there will be a slight difference in stripe width from helmet to helmet. The amount of curve on the stripes vary too.

Here's another. Like I said, any others are on my old hard drive that I cannot access. In fact, I have 2 that date back 20 years - both have some rare photos of helmets and armour.

I got this one and there are more out there. I have more on my old hard drive but cannot access them.

This is the way! The less precise you are when building the armour, especially when cutting the joining strips and finishing them, the more accurate your armour will look. I know it's hard for some people but in order to look like the troopers on screen, you have to build your armour the same way. You can still take great care and pay attention to what you are doing, but focus more on authenticity rather than ideally, and the end results will be much better in my opinion. Another thing that most people focus on too much (and I think you have too) is sticking to the 15mm width on the strips on the arms and 20mm on the legs. It's common for the strips on the arms to be 20mm and the legs 25mm, and these sizes look better when you are a bigger guy. Look at the strips on this guy. They look to be 18-20mm wide on both the biceps and forearms.

Hi Thomas, When sizing the arms, they have a kind of flat spot on the back side. This is how the original armour was and is where the joining strips are supposed to go, as long as you can get your arms into them. Obviously make them as big as necessary but I thought I would mention it just in case you are unaware since this armour is slightly different to the previous version you got from me. Also, no return edge on the wrist or inner elbow curve

The plastic ammo belt should be 90mm tall and go 40mm past the end blocks. Those measurements were taken from an original ANH belt. The canvas belt is 70mm tall.

Aren't the ear screws supposed to be unpainted on that particular helmet?

Choose one from a seller with 100% positive feedback. That doesn't automatically guarantee the glue will be genuine but it should give you confidence.

I buy mine on ebay. If there were any problems (none to date) I would be able to get my money back. Just buy regular E6000 3.7oz tube. One is more than enough for the full armour.

Buy it from a trusted site. The one in the link is not one of them. Look for the lock on the address bar. If there isn't one, look for another site. But to tell if the glue is genuine or not, I really don't know. Up until you posted I had never heard of E6000+

All I can say is that I have never seen it before, never used it before and never had any problems with E6000 before. I use it constantly to build armour and it holds perfectly well.

I have not seen that one before. Might be a fake?

Okay, the first thing to do is not panic You are wearing armour that is taped together with no give in any of the parts so you will feel like C3PO until the parts are strapped properly. Don't worry about the abdomen and kidney overlapping. You will find it won't be as much once it's all strapped together and it will feel so much better. Plus, what's wrong with a bit of overlap? Better than having a big gap, right? I strongly recommend you don't cut the sides of the abdomen and kidney plates. Next job is to focus on the legs. Try wearing just the thighs and your undersuit and walk around. You can tape elastic to the insides so you get a good feel for them. Make sure they are loose enough so you can pull them right up to your groin. That way they can move around on your leg without being too restrictive but make sure they aren't flopping around. Then size up your shins wearing your boots. A lot of people do the test fitting without their boots on and find the ankles are too tight when they put their boots on. Everything else looks fine so far. You might need to trim the shoulder bells down slightly but leave those for now.

Those white straps get glued directly to armour. The small snap with the snap plate goes on your right shoulder. The snap plate is glued inside the chest and the other side glued to your back plate.

The shoulder bell straps were included with the kit.