DeadMan

Hi Tom, just checked out your build thread, looks awesome! (Sorry can't quote... not sure how this new (to me) fandangled quote system works yet) Yes, one side is glued together. The other side opens so we can get our feet through - getting the foot through at the ankle area is the problem. Although they do close-up pretty tightly, they will eventually slide apart, so I did end up putting a strip of velcro inside on the upper side, but not onlyto hold the shin together, but to hold the ribbed gasket in place - this also helps to hold the shin closed, and has been enough and has caused no issues. I stuck the hook side of the velco to the shin, and the fuzzy side to the gasket. I leave the entire leg section as one piece now, and only need to pop open the very bottom of the shin at the ankle a bit to get my foot through. Hope this helps

Very cool. Love seeing the tanks come together.

Hi everyone, it's been a while. To much travel, not enough energy to play when I'm home Updating and fixing image links. Read somewhere a while back that Photobucket is messing with things, and I see that now. Moving everything to imgBB, unless someone knows a better place. Is there a way to use images saved to OneDrive? They show up in the editor, then it says something like "this board does not use that extension" - probably because the image links don't have jpg or something at the end I am guessing.

Looking awesome! Can't stress enough to narrow down the cod piece somewhat though. The chaffing... oh the humanity... the chaffing!

Good to see another one started Dryer hoses; LOL'd at that Spring is trying to start here, then I will be able to start up on mine again.

Wow that is certainly totally awesome! I will be trying this out since I need a new one. Thanks for this

It's been a while, but I'm home for a week then I'm off again. Can't really do much since it's too cold out now to do anything in the garage... so I will just continue to chip away at the little things on my new set of tanks and hope that I remember how it's supposed to go together once I start sanding and painting again.

Been quiet in here lately... I should be submitting my photos to the Badlands GML today, and noticed the cod piece picture is still showing incorrect. Now I'm wondering how these Level 2 and Level 3 CRL options work. Doing a bunch of upgrades to my suit, extra leg detail, new pill boxes on the belt, a scratch built set of tanks, and what ever else I may come across. Wanting to make it as close to the Anaheim suits as possible, since someone said they were the screen used ones on display (Think it was Kevin on the FO FT builders page on Facebook). Alas, my travel season has started, and it will be a longer process to get it all complete, but I have "Level 2" in mind for the future. Thanks

Awesome! There needs to be more of us

Todays side project: make the hose/tank clamps. Want them to look like these. Glue some ABS pieces together to make it 1/2 inch thick. Large clamps are 2 1/8 inches. The smaller one is 1 1/2 inch. Rough trace around the hole saw bits. Dashed lines are where the screw holes will be drilled. The small holes will be 1/8 inch, the larger holes will be 1/4 inch. There is probably an easier way to make these, but it only took a few minutes. Took much longer waiting for the glue to dry. Leaving them like this for now until I decide what size pipes I will be using - they will be 1" or 1 1/4" in the end. The small one has a 5/8" hole since that's the size of my hoses running to the gun.

Made a couple of these little double connectors today. Not quite the same, but pretty close. Rolled a length of craft foam around the screw and stuffed it inside to give it some spring.

Those clamps on the bottoms of the tanks, where the tubes join up to the tanks, where did you find them or did you make them?

For the time that I wore mine, the whole suit fit pretty good, except for the cod piece chaffing (still sore!) :/ I found there were enough open areas on the suit that it didn't get hot and uncomfortable at all. Even the helmet didn't get as bad as I expected without fans - and I'm a real sweat monster. Ideal temp for me is 15c (56f) Didn't notice the tank weight at all while walking around - and I've had a wrecked back for 25 years now, and it didn't make it sore one bit. Shoulders were a little sore later on, but that was minor. Overall the hardest part was carrying the gun for that amount of time. I

Looks excellent guys. But the cod piece is the wrong one shown in the CRL pictures. Hope to have some help this weekend getting pictures taken to send in for approval

Decided to make a new set of tanks since the set I have is just to small, and I'm not happy with just extending the pipes since the whole thing needs to be wider and taller. Cutting out 1/32, 1/16 and 1/8 inch ABS plastic and assembling the parts. The caps I will have to do a vacuform or something. Just upgraded my design from last year, and printed out templates.

This is awesome! So how do I go about getting 501st approved? Think I have to take photos and apply to my local garrison (Badlands), and then they submit that? Do I need to do anything here under the Spec Ops Detachment?

Excellent Clint. Well done. I feel your photoshop pain

The CRL mentions the black grooves on the ab plate, but does not mention the bi-cep front S-groove and back groove. Also, the vertical grooves on the thighs are not mentioned; A pair in the inside of each thigh, and a single vertical line on the out side of the left thigh. The helmet has an indented groove on the back.

Whats left of my thrower. Since I plan on making a new one, I left this one very basic - no nice screws or LED's or anything else added. 46" long! My best idea - putting the dual cable holder into the end of the handle. Enough room to hold the 2 hoses and tuck the sleeve into it. These held well enough for someone to snag it and tear the entire grip off But I still plan on changing the out to the barbed style, or find some low profile quick connect ends to put onto the hoses - which is probably a better idea now that I'm thinking about it again.

My back pack setup. This is all one large piece. Works great, except I had the tanks bolted onto the back since I was out of time. The shoulder straps start at the ab plate in the back, then are attached to the back plate... The chest straps are the ones sticking out of each side. The belt is attached to the ab plate with large 6" elastic on each side .. the shoulder straps then attach to the front of the ab plate with some homemade buckles. I ended up not using the top 2 buckles. They would have been part of the chest strap setup, but found I didn't need them at all. The bottom 2 were glued to the front of the ab plate to wind the shoulder straps too. Not seen on these 2 are reinforcement strips that are on each side to help with the flexing. The lowest hole was not needed in the end for the strapping held perfectly when wound through the upper 2 slots.

Some thoughts on my setup: Cod piece needs to be more narrow - oi the chafing! Some other parts seem a little to big - the fore-arms could probably fit just a little tighter and the biceps maybe shorter in length. I couldn't touch my head after everything was on. Using Velcro to hold the under-arm/side flaps in place was a good thing as they take a heck of a beating putting the suit on and getting ready The chest/back could probably use an edge trim - I had an inch of padding over the shoulders, just enough so the edges were not digging in. The whole time the helmet kinda rests on the armour. Possibly a slightly smaller helmet too, although it looks proportional to the rest of the suit. I don't want to add anymore padding to the inside since I can see pretty good as is. Need to get better inserts for the boots - gel ones or something Harness and strapping worked great - this was my biggest fear starting the day as I had never put the whole thing on before Glad I used fabric elastic to join the ab piece to the belt, and butt and cod piece to the belt. Trim my strapping so it's not popping out!! And the gun does get heavy after 2 hours of holding it like this - had the arm shakes and sore hands for about 30 mins after. Could have easily walked around longer, but I just couldn't hang onto the gun anymore. Think I will use a neck strap to help hold it next time. The tanks also start to take their toll. Only in the shoulders though. Reminded me what it was like delivering papers when I was a kid.

The right one I never had a problem with; the left popped out twice for some reason. I fixed it after the first photo, then by the time I was inside and at the booth it was out again. I was thinking maybe because it's my leading leg for going up stairs and always twisting it for poses.

My first troop - if I can call it that without being a 501st member Didn't know we can't get a number until the CRL is done But that's OK, I had a great time. Getting there was fine, got all suited up. Was only ten minutes later after all the bumping and jostling getting to the Badlands 501st kiosk, the gun was broken already - the hoses were grabbed and tore the handle off, and bumping the front broke the seam on the lower handle. Easy fixes at least - and the barrel isn't correct as it's to long (but awesomely long!) And I just realised that we did not get any pictures of the tanks on! Here's a link to see the rest of the photos taken today with the folks if you like... SaskExpo 2016, Saskatoon, SK Canada. At the Badlands booth.

Excellent Todd. Simple wiring, looks easy to do, except for taking the tanks apart. Thanks.

The belt. Next step is to join it with the ab plate with strapping. It's basically one piece. Only put the Velcro on incase I loose weight and need to tighten it up Once I have the belt, ab plate and harness joined together, I can easily slip them on and off like a pair of overalls. Ran out of the rubber belt stuff since I used that bit on my backplate. Just have a strip of Velcro there to hold the belt at the back.. One set of my rivets that hold the boxes has washers, the other doesn't. After putting the first side on, the rivets cut a little to deep for my liking, so put washers on the other side. There is also a black piece of craft foam in there, under strips of thin ABS, to give it some play.