Mark's R1 Death Trooper build

[nanotek[CMD-DWM]]

I don't even know where or what I was up to so I'll just post a couple of things.

 

Firstly my boots and gloves arrived from Imperial Boots. Took less than three weeks from ordering to delivery.

 

 

I am almost finished on my SE-14r as well. There's some glue to tidy up and a little weathering to complete. I am very happy with how it's turned out.

 

 

There's been a lot going on so sorry for the light update.

 

In other news my armour is being printed so that is due to arrive in a few weeks along with my undersuit.

[nanotek[CMD-DWM]]

So my armour should be finished printing this weekend and hopefully posted this coming week. It should be here by the time I get back from a week long snow trip

 

I have been busy working on the E-11D. This weapon although quite simple is made up of lots a pieces, some of them very small.

 

Removing the print lines has been a process of sanding, then using auto putty, sanding then spray putty and more sanding.

 

I have been using Zap-a-gap CA glue to get all the bits together and sometimes seal some gaps.

 

I also had a couple of things break, but CA glue is soooo good in some cases makes it stronger

 

 

I have a real torch and real swivel mounts for the strap.

 

I have made some modifications for my own pleasure. Mostly just glueing some parts instead of bolting them. I am not going to put in any electronics.

[Chaos[CMD-DCA]]

Looking good.

[nanotek[CMD-DWM]]

Completed pouch and holster

 

I ended up doing the pouch and holster myself because no one is offering a screen accurate set.

 

 

If anyone is interested I have some spare materials and will make a set for you for a modest fee

[Chucklovesfood]

Completed pouch and holster

 

I ended up doing the pouch and holster myself because no one is offering a screen accurate set.

 

 

If anyone is interested I have some spare materials and will make a set for you for a modest fee

 

Hey dude I'm also in need of the holster and any other bits for the build that you just finished making, if you think you can make some for me let me know how much for your services btw great progress on your DT build! Looks awesome

 

 

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[nanotek[CMD-DWM]]

 

Hey dude I'm also in need of the holster and any other bits for the build that you just finished making, if you think you can make some for me let me know how much for your services btw great progress on your DT build! Looks awesome

 

 

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PM'd

[Chaos[CMD-DCA]]

Man I was racking my brains out trying to figure out how to put a snap on the speed holster's upper strap, thanks for the photo. You used a female snap head to attach the female to the drop down piece didn't you?

[nanotek[CMD-DWM]]

Man I was racking my brains out trying to figure out how to put a snap on the speed holster's upper strap, thanks for the photo. You used a female snap head to attach the female to the drop down piece didn't you?

 

Firstly I need to acknowledge Tom Campbell for allowing me to see his speed strap as that is where I got the dimensions from and how to assemble it.

 

So for the belt loop there are two female caps and two males that are held together by a small bolt and nut.

 

I will be posting a full tutorial on how to build these things in a separate how to thread. Hit me up via messenger on Facebook Chris if you need to seek further clarification

 

And on with other news:

 

I now have a tracking number for my BBB! In the box is:

Standard armour

Specialist armour

Extra shoulder bell to use for charity events e.g Pink bell for cancer awareness.

Undersuit

 

I am excited about its arrival with the excitement being offset by some of the challenges I will face!

 

[Chaos[CMD-DCA]]

Great news about the BBB shipping! So you used a bolt to attached to two males back to back on the leather ... even better. Thanks for the clarification. I just E6K'd mine and so far they are holding up. Think I'll go back and put a small bolt and nut on mine as well. Mahalo!

[nanotek[CMD-DWM]]

Great news about the BBB shipping! So you used a bolt to attached to two males back to back on the leather ... even better. Thanks for the clarification. I just E6K'd mine and so far they are holding up. Think I'll go back and put a small bolt and nut on mine as well. Mahalo!

 

I sent you some pics via messenger of an early prototype so you can get a better look

[nanotek[CMD-DWM]]

 

So I am up at Falls Creek this week doing some snowboarding, and this BBB arrived at my work a week earlier than expected!

 

So will be picking it up sometime this weekend to inspect and check all is well

 

In the meantime I am hoping for more snow and more sunny days!

 

The long road continues

[Chaos[CMD-DCA]]

Sweet! Denis does a good job of packing, your kit should be good to go! Enjoy the snow!

[Woodo007[TX]]

Your box looks a bit like mine. Really wish Denis would invest in some double walled boxes

Fingers crossed all is ok. Exciting stuff

[nanotek[CMD-DWM]]

Yeah I am reasonably confident all is well. Even if something has been damaged it's all easy enough to fix. Not to mention that Dennis is a top bloke with excellent customer service

[Sgt. Bilko[501st]]

Hi Mark, have you determined how your armor will be strapped together yet?

 

 

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[nanotek[CMD-DWM]]

Hi Mark, have you determined how your armor will be strapped together yet?

 

 

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Not entirely yet. I am going to rewatch Tom's video for some ideas, but also look at some of the TK builds for using snaps.

 

I have also seen some creative ideas around using magnets for the rubber shoulder straps.

 

While I am preparing each piece of armour I will gather reference materials and plan my attack from there.

[nanotek[CMD-DWM]]

Longish update:

 

So I unpacked everything and started to feel daunted by the huge amount of work ahead of me. Was also feeling a little bit apprehensive about where to start or how. But these feels were short lived, just got stuck in and everything is ok

 

So here is the undersuit. It's not bad, there's a few mods I will make for trooping and also I will be making the pants legs tighter as they are a tad on the baggy side. The top and poncho are perfect.

 

 

Mods will include

1. adding thumb holes to the sleeves

2. Adding stirrups to the pant legs

3. Will use either a zip or Velcro and snaps to attach the pants to the top

 

I will be attempting to make this suit myself in future as I have some great ideas on how to make it. This was just to help speed up this already complex and time consuming build

 

Now onto the armour... There's well over 100 bits and pieces to coat in resin and sand. I have not put them all here.

 

Lots of little bits:

 

Shoulder bell (I have three to do)

 

 

Forearms, biceps, abdomen (2 pieces) etc

 

Chest and a thigh:

 

Back:

 

Shin, thigh and some other bits:

 

I'll end that here and move on to the first lot of work, I've done a bit more than I have photographed but resin coated most of the larger parts to start with

 

 

 

 

I plan on resin coating both inside and outside of the armour. I will be buying some rubber material I saw at Bunnings to line the interior so that there is

A: less wear and tear on the undersuit

B: the armour should grip the undersuit without the need for too much strapping. (Maybe...)

 

Hopefully we have some more days like today so I can continue working. It was a nice day today!

 

[Darth Emphatic[CMD-DWM]]

Intimidating - yes. Totally awesome - definitely. You are very well organized, it will be no problem.

[nanotek[CMD-DWM]]

Progress update:

After coating the outside of the armour with resin I decided do an initial sanding and to do an inner coating of resin.

 

Shoulder bell inner has a lot of print lines and strands. All of this needs to be smoothed out to reduce catching on the undersuit.

 

 

Shoulder bell outer after first resin coating. As you can see there is quite a heavy "wood grain" pattern that will need to be filled and smoothed out.

 

 

Back plate inner has quite a few catchy bits. I will also be looking at storing a battery back here in the future

 

 

Back plate outer requires a lot, and I mean A LOT of work. I will need to reinforce the neck/shoulder line as well as fill and sand. As you can see even after an initial resin coat there are a lot of print lines that need to be smoothed out. I will be sanding this back and then applying a second coat of resin.

 

 

Cod inner has since been sanded and coated in resin.

 

 

Cod outer after first coat of resin and sanded back. Will be coating this again and sanding before assessing what to do next as it's not that bad in terms of heavy print lines.

 

 

E-11D blaster updates:

 

 

Weathering has started on the barrel by feathering gloss aluminium paint. I will give another coat tonight.

 

I bought some red and yellow acrylic to shape and add. So I cut out the yellow buttons according to the template provided by Tom and then my brain said " instead of using a decal for the red box around the yellow buttons, let's do it in acrylic!"

 

So it took 2 attempts. I cut out the shape using a Dremel and tried to use boiling water to soften the acrylic. No matter how much I boiled it didn't soften enough to shape to the barrel and actually just broke with too much force. So my second attempt I found a small chilli sauce bottle that roughy matched the diameter of the barrel, removed all labels. Then... I placed the bottle on its side in the microwave and balanced the acrylic piece on top. Microwave on high for about 1-2 minutes and whilst wearing leather gloves carefully shape it to the extremely hot bottle. Worked a treat!

 

Once I had my red square shaped I then cut the relevant section out of the barrel with the idea that I would be able to take that piece and insert it into my red square. After some further cutting with the Dremel and some sanding, it fit in nicely. I will need to fill the area around the acrylic as there are some gaps before setting it all in place. I think it looks pretty good and if I decide to put in some lights it will look pretty rad.

 

I also cut and Dremeled out another section of the blast at the rear to put in a piece of red acrylic, which looks pretty cool. I am thinking I might cut a line right through for further lighting in the future.

 

I also cut out a piece of red acrylic for the Hengstler counter and glued it in place. You can see when held up to the light it will look cool should I decide to light it up.

 

 

There's a ton more I did as far as applying resin and sanding goes, but you get the idea

 

[nanotek[CMD-DWM]]

A couple of things I forgot to mention, there has been some hiccups with some of the 3D printed parts.

 

Some pieces are quite thin and the print lines are much like wood grain meaning that they can break very easily.

 

I have had a couple of breaks happen in what I would say are expected places.

 

 

As you can see circles in blue and marked in red, this section was the first to go on the thighs. This will be an easy fix, I just need to get the ribbed section completed so I can glue into place. Once the ribbed sections are in I can reinforce with fibreglass.

 

The next break was not so expected, but happened out of clumsiness. Here is the chest plate:

 

 

I plan on gluing the crack with CA glue and reinforcing the back with fibreglass. I intend to do both sides of the chest plate to ensure that any future clumsiness is mooted.

 

 

''Tis but a scratch!"

 

The next two images are merely to show how much effort is required on this kit. 3D printed parts have their advantages and disadvantages. Advantages in this instance is that this armour was designed by Tom Campbell and is in my opinion the most screen accurate model we have available, I would suggest that even Anovos won't beat him on this.

 

Disadvantages include: print lines are hard to fill and create weak points by their very nature. And if the print is rushed or printed on weird angles; creates other artefacts as can be seen in the next couple of pictures

 

 

 

You can clearly tell on this forearm that after a light block sanding that there is quite a serious amount of work to get the parts to a smooth finish. Not all parts are the same, some are easier than others, some are worse.

 

The sanding is killing me and at times I feel like no progress is being made (even though any progress is progress) and find that at the moment it's only willpower that is keeping things moving. Anyway I will provide more updates as I go. I have a lot of reinforcing to to do and also some modifications to make thanks to advice from Tom.

 

Perseverance is a great skill to have on a build like this

 

 

[nanotek[CMD-DWM]]

So after a visit to Tom to show him the ArmoryShop version of his 3D files, a couple of things came to light. One major one was that these prints are from an earlier version of the STL files meaning that some of the more practical modifications he made to the armour for trooping are not included.

 

So here are the beginnings of the modifications to the ab and back plates. Basically the ab and back plate need to be extended by at least an inch to enable more movement of the upper body with out the armour catching on the lower parts.

 

I have never done any work like this before so it's just my interpretation of experimentation and my brand of common sense

 

Note: I have not given dimensions here because the armour is scaled to my body so it will be different for others.

 

I bought some 4mm ABS and began by measuring out the bits allowing for a 2" extension. It maybe too much to start with but it's easier to remove it than keep adding.

 

I used the score and snap method to cut the ABS and basically gave each part a rough sanding before gluing using Zap-a-gap medium CA glue.

 

Here is the back plate which holds the thermal detonator:

 

 

 

 

 

The ab plate was more difficult to cut as there are curves and angles to deal with. It required a fair amount of effort to get right, including the use of a hair dryer and a large pot to get the curve into the ABS:

 

 

 

 

I will be reinforcing this with fibreglass and will fill the front with more resin. Once this is complete I can do a fitting to see if any needs to be trimmed back.

[Darth Emphatic[CMD-DWM]]

The best I can say is keep at it and you will get there!

[Woodo007[TX]]

I feel your pain mate. My thighs parts broke in the same place and so did the chest piece. I have reprinted my chest anyways and reinforced the same area with plasticard and fibreglass.

 

Totally with you on the progress side. Spent 3 hours filling and sanding the other day and had nothing to show for it it felt like. My fingers are killing me!

Interesting what u say about the early file versions. I have Armoryshop armour but also have toms files and saw the mods he did to the ab plate. Wondered why that was.

Keep the faith mate. I have started to make a list of parts I have finished (ready for paint). The list is slowly getting bigger ðŸ˜

 

 

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[nanotek[CMD-DWM]]

I feel your pain mate. My thighs parts broke in the same place and so did the chest piece. I have reprinted my chest anyways and reinforced the same area with plasticard and fibreglass.

 

Totally with you on the progress side. Spent 3 hours filling and sanding the other day and had nothing to show for it it felt like. My fingers are killing me!

Interesting what u say about the early file versions. I have Armoryshop armour but also have toms files and saw the mods he did to the ab plate. Wondered why that was.

Keep the faith mate. I have started to make a list of parts I have finished (ready for paint). The list is slowly getting bigger 😁

 

 

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Yeah thanks mate. I've been following your build and it's reassuring to know that I'm not the only one dealing with these issues.

 

I managed to get up and running yesterday and get a few things done. Looking forward to when I can start ticking off some pieces!

[Atraxas[TX]]

Looking good, Jims kit is a bit heavier, and well, I'm pretty active.. so I have broken a few snaps...(strapping was a bit of guess work for DT, trial and error).. stick with it, and be a boss in no time!