troopermaster

I agree with you, Jay. Everyone likes to do things differently but ultimately the end result is you have armour that is wearable. I also realise the original strapping is not for everyone and most armours are not suitable to have it because they are either made from thick, rigid plastic or cheap, brittle plastic. The original strapping is a perfect system if you have the right armour. Going back to the original question about the belt, riveting the plastic section to your canvas belt secures it permanently so you do not have to worry about velcro or snaps popping off during a troop. Seems like the best option to me.

Just saying how the original armour was assembled. It's up to you how you choose how to assemble it depending on your needs, but the original way is the best in my opinion

You should use single cap rivets to attach the plastic to the canvas belt. Use snaps for attaching the canvas belt to your ab plate like the original armour.

Of course, you would have to strip it down first to make sure all the parts got well lubricated. Just to be sure

Coming along nicely

****! No street view

Sculpt the shape, build a vacuum forming machine and form the part. Simple I have the knee plate and 3 button strips available if you don't end up making your own.

I am not acusing you of anything. It was a simple question. It seems everyone is making armour these days and no one cares about the origins of the armour they have recast. I look forward to seeing more of your project when you present it.

The proof has been shown and it is as clear as day what they have done but no one cares. I wonder who is going to get ripped off here?

It's definitely a small hole.

That is for slim guys who fit the standard armour. If you put your thigh halves together and you have big gaps between each half because your legs are too big for the armour, you cannot have accurate sized strips because the strips would not even touch the plastic to join the two halves. You have to bridge that gap with whatever size is needed. It would be nice to have a thinner strip in the front and a larger one on the back but that is not always the case, so you have to go with whatever is needed. My view is that wider strips look much better than having shims and a thin accurate strip which look bodged and crappy in my opinion.

I would leave them as they are. That looks much better than butchering them up to get the strips to look thinner. The strips should cover the joints and if you have to use 40mm or 65mm or whatever you need, that is what you should use. Forget using anything thinner to be closer to the original sizes. It will make your armour look rediculous in my opinion.

I send stuff to Germany all the time (and most other countries) and nothing has been destroyed or held in customs for whatever reason. I do not know the whole story here so I will not add fuel to the fire, but what I do know is that all my shipments reach their destinations whether it be Germany, USA, wherever....

Superb job on the build, Brad. This has got to one of the best looking TD's I have seen so far Well done!

:edit: *waste of time*

I will jump in here and say every piece of Sandtrooper and Stormtrooper armour and helmets are EXACTLY the same and pulled from the same moulds (minus the obvious parts that differ from each costume). The helmets can look wider or narrower depnding on how they are assembled. When assembled correctly with a medium height brow, they look quite wide. With a low brow, they look wider. This is because the face is pushed up inside the helmet and not lined up correctly. The high brow 'Move Along' is assembled the same as the low brow (believe it or not) and it had the face pushed forward and taped in position, making the the helmet look slimmer. Remember these helmets are made from thin Polypropylene and the shpaes can easily be manipulated with a bit of force from assembly. Here is the inside of the MA helmet with the original foam liner. All the armour was assembled the same too. It can only be assembled one way with the original strapping system and not cut shorter or wider. These are standard costumes and not custom made for individual actors like how we assemble them. They look bigger on shorter people and smaller on taller people - simple as that really. I am open to hear anything to the contrary.

I am not familiar with this helmet but it looks like one used in Kevin Rubio's film 'Troops'.

I'll drink to that!

You do! You keep going on about how all armour should be made as cheap as the next guy. There is cheap armour out there as I have said. Cheap armour is trash. How many times do I have to say it? We are going around in circles just as these threads always do. Yes, we know armour can be made cheaply, but it is never going to be as good as more expensive armour. Cheap armour is cheap for a reason. You will never stop recasters recasting. There will always be someone out there ready to rip you off and undercut you. Your way of thinking is like going into a Ferrari dealership and complaining their cars are 4 times more than your Ford. No amount of moaning will get them to drop their prices and they will still sell just as many cars, just as Ford will sell many cars too.

The hobby is expensive and that is just the way it is. Making a product cheaper to sell more is not the way it works. Most people who charge more are not looking to sell lots of pieces. You can find sellers who sell similar pieces much cheaper and there is a market for them, just as there is for more lucrative pieces. We all have choices and if you want cheap armour, it is out there for you. No one is ever going to make something cheaper for the fear of recasting. Recasting will always happen. Even if you are giving stuff away it will get recast, simply because someone wants a piece of the pie.

I see where you are coming from but I don't think you see the big picture. For instance, a common semi detatched house where I live goes from anywhere between £100k - £200k all for a few thousand pounds worth of bricks and mortar. The same house can be bought in another area for £50k or another area for £300k plus. How can this be when they are all identicle houses made from the same materials? I may be going off the beaten track here but it's the same for armour. If you want the best then you will expect to pay more. There is more to making armour than just buying a few sheets of plastic. Like Walt already said, mould making and mould materials cost time and money, the forming machine and upkeep/running costs, quality of plastic, service and reliablity of the maker and the most importantly, a good reputation. If you just want to spend a few hunderd pounds/dollars then you are not going to get much in return. Poeple making cheap armour for a quick buck usually turn out inferior products. It happens all the time. Someone buys a cheap armour and sure enough they end up selling it and buying a more expensive kit. Why? Because it was cheap and nasty, and they wished they hadn't wasted their time and money in the first place trying to get a bargain armour when there really is no such thing. Jedirobe and other ebay sellers are just ripoff merchants. They charge a huge amount to gullible people who don't know any better. Then, after someone buys their armour from them and they start finding out about this forum and the FISD, they wish they had gone to a reputable seller for a better kit and usually cheaper. So to put a finer point on it: Cheap = Garbage - Expensive = Quality (from a reputable seller)

That link just sends me to photobucket home page.

It was until recently.

Don't forget makerofthings! aka MOT on ebay. He sells RS recasts too.

They are recasts and you have taken all this time to come up with this story, and make these sculpts of the face and back for fake proof just like RTA. Now you are trying to make this smokescreen just like they did. What is so laughable about your BS story is that you don't even know what original armour looks like. If you did, your new sculpts wouldn't be exactly the same as the badly sculpted new parts from RS. The fact you claim to be getting closer to the original armour when in fact your new parts are exactly the same as the RS with all the cleaning up they did with their armour. Even if those photos you have shown were taken back in '08, doesn't mean they are the same sculpts you are using now. Nothing you can ever say or show will convince me that you have not recast an RS suit. If there is one thing I know, it is Stormtrooper armour. I have handled the RS original and studied these suits and helmets for 12-13 years now, and know every bump and ripple on each piece of the entire suit, so you will never pull the wool over my eyes on this.