bkbrowning

LoveMonkey - Sorry for belated reply. My shells are 8cm in length. Shout if you need anything else. -brent

Nick and Team - I did as much research as I could on Pack #4 and its associated frame. For some screenie comparisons, please see my build thread at http://forum.mepd.net/index.php?showtopic=13944 as I don't believe that it was a typical ALICE style frame. I'd certainly like to know for sure what it was, but the ALICE frame just seems to be off from the screen shot details that we can pick out. Got to love a hobby where we can still debate details 37 years after they were published. Let's keep it rolling until the truth is known. Thanks! -brent

I brought mine...That's me in the picture smiling behind my bucket on the right. A few interesting tidbits: 1) I scared and impressed the cabin cleaning crew when I emerged from my stateroom in my TD. Lots of fun and pictures ensued. They were thrilled. 2) I was "reminded" by a ship officer out in the lobby that I "should have received a note regarding wearing of helmets and masks in public areas. We don't want any of our guests to be confused and think that you are part of the Disney cast." He was polite about it. I was about to ride an elevator down a floor and told him I would remove it then. Once I got there, a large line formed of guests wanting to take pictures so I ended up leaving the helmet on for quite some time and just stayed in one place. Once everyone had their fill of pictures, I pulled the helmet as asked. When others came up wanting a picture, I just put it back on for those. All-in-all, the ship's crew was polite. I got the feeling that they didn't want to interrupt the other guests photo ops to ask me to take it off. 3) A 501st guest in an impeccable imperial officer uniform gave me a dressing down about the state of my armor being filthy. He did it when we were both surrounded by guests. I replied about the harsh assignment on tatooine, rebel disruption of our supply line, and the need for additional reinforcements. It made for a spirited exchange in front of a lot of guests who were laughing and enjoyed the role playing. 4) Hot and moist Caribbean air does not go well with a full TD suit. :-) It was NOT a dry heat. From the 501st, I met one Biker Scout and one other plain TK that both brought their armor kit. There were several other 501st members on board...many of which were imperial officers, dark side force users. Also, a good showing from the Rebel Legion with lots of Jedi, a few X-Wing pilots, Leia (princess and one slave outfit), etc. For Disney, they had two Royal Guard roaming the ship that day. Two TKs that were mostly posing for pictures. Some Jawas that would trade items with you (they were really well done). Imperial officers, bounty hunters, rebel pilots, random jedi, R2-D2, C3PO, Chewbacca and Lord Vader were also present throughout the day. While we were on our cruise, Disney announced that they are offering 15 Star Wars cruises for 2017. Ours was #5 of 8 for 2016. It was a great cruise. The Star Wars day was a LOT of fun with great interaction throughout the day. Nice to be with so many fans. Shout if you have other questions.

For Christmas my wife surprised me with a Star Wars Disney cruise. We just left the ship but had a great time with thousands of Star Wars fans and over two dozen 501st members. Here's a quick look at the rest of my family garrison...still trying to sway them from the Rebel legion! Had a great time and Disney made it a great day of Star Wars fun for all ages. And, for those that are wondering...I'm slowly working my way to my PO application. Will try to get it underway shortly.

One more quick update: with the help of some large pipe wrenches, we were able to get the barrel and heat shield free from my original MG15! As such, it's now gone from my RT-97C and looks much more like the movie version. I think I'm finally happy with it...and yes, I am smiling in the pic below!

Desert Rat - Looking at all the options for the mounting bracket for the InfraRed scope, I personally decided to go with one that was modeled after the RT-97C "blueprints" from the Star Wars Blueprints: The Ultimate Collection book (link to Amazon's listing). In that set of blueprints, there is a 75% wireframe sketch of this BFG and the bracket looks like it is offset from the main body of the rifle and attached to two rings that wrap the end of the scope. Here is the page from the blueprints themselves. Sorry that it's so small but I had to copy it from a reference on the web. When I get back home from being out of town, I'll shoot a picture of that section of the blueprints and upload them here. Also, the original sketch for this book was drawn by Chris Trevas and Chris Reiff (I think that's correct spellings) and their art for this also shows this in some detail here: Hope that helps. Shout back if you want more pictures of my build or need anything else.

If you haven't see this shot yet, you should head on over to http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-11/18/star-wars-force-awakens-stormtrooper-dressing-room There are some really cool pictures of the new EPVII armor. All we need now is a ***lot*** of burnt umber paint and we could fix those right up.

I ***think*** I may be able to separate the barrel without having to cut it and still be able to keep the ventiliation cage, barrel cap, and front end of the receiver housing held together. The barrel itself is a key structural part of holding all those components in place...but I think we can rig it up. What looks like one piece does show as separable based on some parts research that I've now done. Unfortunately, after 50+ years of sitting around, it's really, really stuck. Stuck to the point of acting like one piece. I'm taking it to a machine shop on Monday to use some of their tooling and expertise to try and break it apart with minimal damage. Will post some pics after we're done and let you know how we did it.

Thanks for the feedback troopers. So, the one question I do have for you all is do you think I should try to remove the inner rifle barrel? It's doable on the MG-15 but does require some destructive cutting to make it happen...not to mention that it will ruin the actual rifle! Reason I ask is that it does appear in nearly all pics that they removed the rifle barrel itself from this weapon for the movies. For instance, see the following pics: All of them (especially the last one...which is the trooper build I'm aiming for) clearly show no inner rifle barrel. So, I'm really thinking about cutting mine out...which is a nutty thing to do to a WWII vintage rifle but it is what I think canon calls for here. Let me know your thoughts. I probably need some encouragement to fire up the metal bandsaw.

To finish out, I had only the "infrared" scope to go. I have probably looked through 3,000 images of scopes from the WWII era to try and find what looks like the exact scope used in the movies. While some are close, they seem to all have an issue of some sort. So, I decided to cannibalize a few scope parts and being building my own. For size and scale, I used the reference from the Star Wars Blueprints booklet. Both the scope and the mounting system were custom built from spare parts, PVC, and various metal bits and bolts... I mounted the custom scope rings to the side of the MG15 with some aluminum offsets that would give me the correct angle and height as shown in the blueprints... ..and also mounted the brass pipe fitting to the side to act as a return for the hose coming from this scope. I used a Dremel to contour the profile of the brass fitting to the side of the MG15 and then tapped a set of threads at the appropriate point in the rifle to secure it with a bolt. Assembling and painting a few of the scope parts... I wanted to make sure it had some optics in it, so I used some of those cannibalized parts from other scopes... With the rubber eyepiece and the end scope portion attached, it is looking ready for mounting... And now, all mounted up on the rifle and some light weathering applied. Not too much as, like most troopers, the one thing you'd keep fairly clean would be your weapon! I think that's about it for this build! It's not the lightest weapon, but it does look and feel really good in the hand. Let me know your feedback, questions, comments, or anything that could be improved!

Next up is the rear, left side Singlepoint scope. The scope itself is 1" in diameter on the main bore so some 1" scope rings look like they will work just fine. They are designed to clamp onto a scope rail which the MG15 certainly doesn't have down it's left side. So, I modified the scope rings by boring through their center section and created a countersunk spot for the cap-head bolts to attach. I used my tap and die kit to tap the appropriate holes into the MG15 and secure the scope rings. From there, it was straightforward to attach the scope...

First thing I wanted to tackle was getting the forward scope mounted to the rifle. The scope of choice here is an Enfield MKII and there's a reticle mounting hole just past the magazine that makes a great mounting point. The only trick was how to rig up the mount. I've seen drawings and some assmeblies that seem to use a curved rod...but it looks like that requires some welding and possibly yields a permanent mount to the Enfield. I was looking for something that could utilize the mounting brace that came with the Enfield and that would be removable for travel. With some careful measurements and a little modeling with Autodesk Fusion 360, I created the following scope mount... To ensure that it would fit, I fired up the 3D printer to create a prototype... Fitting it to the scope using the Enfield's mounting bracket, it fits really well... ...and test mounting to the rifle, it's beginning to look like 1977... The 3D part printed in PLA and printed completely solid is VERY sturdy. I really think I could leave it as-is and not worry about it breaking or coming loose...but...I just had to have it in some type of metal. So, I submitted my 3D model to Protolabs and about 4 days later I had my new solid metal Enfield scope mount... Fully mounted on the weapon, it looks and feels really solid. With a little Aluminum bluing applied, it's looking great on the rifle...

In addition to my pack and armor build, I've been slowly working on my RT-97C. I managed to pick up an MG15 and a collection of scopes over the past several years and finally began to build out my RT-97C. To start with, here's the base model in all its glory along with some of the scopes...

A few of the key details that I was trying to achieve on this Falcon fly away pack... ...the correct frame bends at the top ...what looks like the typical frame bends at the bottom ...the missing top cap on the mortar tube ...the shorter (shortest!) detenator plate ...the white backed radar dish ...the high position on the upside down radio ...the likely wrapping on the outside of the radio ...the mysterious strap across the radio ...genuine tuppercraft box ...the correct number of shotgun shells On that last one, some scenes for this pack seem to show only 4 shells while it looks like 6 are visible in the takeoff scene. To accomodate for that, I 3D printed a mounting plate and inserted some magnet for the top two shells. That way I can attach or detach them as needed. Closeup photo of that here: ...and with the shells magnetically attached... Other features are inside the radio as I put a speaker system in there to play the radio chatter loop. One of the slider switches controls the on/off and one of the knobs is attached to a rheostat to control the volume. Sounds really well (thanks to those that took the time to make the sound loop!) At this point, I think I'm nearly done with this pack. Let me know if you have comments, questions, or things that you think would make it better!