Ensi's Mudtrooper Build [Jimmiroquai]

[RAIDER[COTG]]

You need to work on your roll man!!!  ???

It's coming along nicely.  Keep the updates rolling!

[Ensi[TX]]

Have to say that I am really starting to dislike the Montana Black series. It seems to never ever dry fully and doesn't apply good at all.

If any of you are guitarists and have played Gibsons, and noticed "sticky necks", know what i'm saying? Yeah that. It's a nitro blend so same type of stuff. I really can't use a paint that never fully dries and scratches so easily... On to the paint hunt again..

[Blackwatch[CMD-DCA]]

huh. OK....wow. I never had that problem with the green except when I put it on a vinyl holster I made for m IAT. That was dry at first and got sticky after a week.  Its on my Army parts: Helmet, gloves, boots and all all soft harness parts, and has been pretty tough. 

 

now, you said Montana Black--I have to assume thats  a different formula than Montana Gold we use on the IAT?

[Ensi[TX]]

19 hours ago, Blackwatch said:

huh. OK....wow. I never had that problem with the green except when I put it on a vinyl holster I made for m IAT. That was dry at first and got sticky after a week.  Its on my Army parts: Helmet, gloves, boots and all all soft harness parts, and has been pretty tough. 

 

now, you said Montana Black--I have to assume thats  a different formula than Montana Gold we use on the IAT?

I'm not sure about the formulation but there is a difference, yes. The Montana Gold series i've had no problems with (only need to shake it real good/warm it up). While i'm experimenting more with this i'm considering going the custom can route. But at about $40 a pop it's hard to go through.

[SpaceBandito[501st]]

Great info on this thread. I'll be following it. 

[Ensi[TX]]

Ok wow really lazy of me not to update this lol, but anyways..

FIRST UP, I present to you, my files of the E-10 Mudtrooper Blaster Rifle (Main body is Sean Fields). This requires you to get your own stock/tube/torch and some other bits n bobs. Please read the PDF contained within. Enjoy!! Free!! Tell me what you think and send me pics if you make one  

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xtpuJq3NFFp0tW5FeVYDwb34RcsLg-XI&fbclid=IwAR0UvjZHByOmFAY1q1O2zmHdQju5O_NTgg5Q-6krQxYB7uQuxZvAbtPj4q0

I'll write up my progress on the armor in the next post..

[Ensi[TX]]

Some updates on the armor, I can say I finally found a color i'm happy with. After trying several different ones I ended up with Fosco English Green. Has that grey'ish toned down green that I want. Plus since it's meant for military gear it's suuuuper matte, looks great!

Here's how the helmet texture/stippling came out. I had a hormonal spray can to deal with so it kinda did what it wanted. Ended up with a mess of a topcoat that looks pretty rough, I like it! Not the effect I was after but good enough  

I also had to re-inforce the top plate of the shins with a barrage of E-6000 as they had broken halfway off. I also cut out the outer slots for accuracy.

Biceps also got some love  Still working on the red medic decal, followed Paul's measurements for the yellow bands (which are Montana Gold Yellow Cab). Jims biceps are a bit different though, so i'd recommend looking at reference and try to get them as proportionate as possible. They look a taaaaaad big I think?

White: Montana Gold Pebble

Red: Montana Gold Blood Orange

Green: Fosco English Green

Dremel'd out a hole in the back for the black webbing loop that holds the respirator straps and also cut the holes for the rubber straps.

For the hose connections I modelled up a connector:

But in reality I don't think it sits secure enough for me, I'm thinking of going Jasper's route and just cutting out the holes and jamming the hoses in there.

Cut out the respirator grooves and started on the pocket the M4 socket head screw will sit in (needs to be a bit countersunk).

Also modelled up and printed the buttpad seen on reference. For this I cut up my smaller buttpad that came with the stock. Going to add this to the V1.1 upload of my E-10 files later, but if anyone wants them now just ask  

[SpaceBandito[501st]]

So Sick!

[RAIDER[COTG]]

I don't know man...I really like those angled forward hose connectors.  Do what ya gotta but I think those came out nice.

[areilly]

The angled connectors give it a nice look and help the hoses sit on your shoulders where you want them to. Here’s how I made mine, and they were completely secure during SWCC. I did want to do something a little smaller or with a disconnect to make the half-armor Han kit an option, but that will be version 2.

[Ensi[TX]]

15 hours ago, Raider said:

I don't know man...I really like those angled forward hose connectors.  Do what ya gotta but I think those came out nice.

 

2 hours ago, areilly said:

The angled connectors give it a nice look and help the hoses sit on your shoulders where you want them to. Here’s how I made mine, and they were completely secure during SWCC. I did want to do something a little smaller or with a disconnect to make the half-armor Han kit an option, but that will be version 2.

Pulling my hoses from a specific direction made them pop right out. I'll try to increase the width, and the length a bit to see if they sit better! Also thought about modelling up a pin to go through both, but that will just be another hassle when suiting up.. 

[areilly]

29 minutes ago, Ensi said:

Pulling my hoses from a specific direction made them pop right out. I'll try to increase the width, and the length a bit to see if they sit better! Also thought about modelling up a pin to go through both, but that will just be another hassle when suiting up.. 

I ended up with 22mm wide which was the inner diameter spec for my hoses - it was very snug and took a little work to get the hoses on. you'll probably have to experiment to get the right size for your hoses. One other idea I didn't get to try yet was gluing a plug with a magnet into the end of the hose and then having that attach to a socket on the back plate.

[TheSwede[501st]]

Great job so far

[Ensi[TX]]

17 hours ago, TheSwede said:

Great job so far

Why hello there Daniel from Nordic Garrison, we meet again  Thanks!

[Ensi[TX]]

Well after doing some heavy procrastination I got a bit done this weekend  

First up was cutting the slots for the respirator, buckle and webbing fits nicely but I might have to add some glue to the bottom as the buckle lifts a bit.

Second, I had sprayed the straps with a rubber coating (PlastiDip, just not PlastiDip) and then sprayed the Fosco color, but after a bit of handling.. well.. this:

 

So i'm planning to just go straight for the color coat on my next try, but first up some assembly as to do as little handling as possible.

For the chest straps I tried magnets but the ones I had were not holding as good as I wanted. I do not want anything to accidentally come loose under trooping. So I sewed some velcro on the strap and E6K'd it onto the buckle. This same reason is why i'll add velcro to the chest/back side closure as well.

For the shin straps I cut out 1 and a half rectangle to accomodate the buckle.

I originally tried E6000 to glue the buckle and webbing support, but this did not stick at ALL. Regular ol' CA glue (Cyanoacrylate, which is the main ingredient in Superglue/Krazyglue/etc for those who don't know) did though. The rubber strap was bent/forced into place to make it curve downwards, as seen in reference, just use your hand for this  

Also I really recommend Adam Savage's book Every Tool's A Hammer. Was great fun listening to it while building. He talks about all things making, his story, his time at Industrial Light & Magic, and much more.

I then attached the straps to the shins. I thought long and hard about this, and did a lot of testfitting with the boots. Velcro or snaps would be a bit of a hassle to connect considering the straps are gonna sit fairly tight. So I am going to try this, buckles. Much easier to snap into place, and much easier to unsnap at least for me. The buckle was sown onto some webbing on top of the original strap webbing. This was to have more surface area to glue it to the shin (I used E6000 here). Hopefully this'll work out IRL!

Then there was the collar. It doesn't sit/lock as good as one would think as it pops out, the little tabs at the end should ideally be longer I think. So I did a Jasper and made some holes and stuffed some webbing in there, locking it in place with 5-min Epoxy. This'll be connected to the chest with snaps which i'll be adding later to get the fit just right.

Jim's cloth belt is the correct width, but it comes with a straight stitch. So solely in the name of accuracy I ripped everything apart, struggled with the sewing machine, and sewed it together with a zigzag. Learnt my machine better in the process. Put the velcro back on and folded the end for neatness. Will do other end along with box installation once I have the torso rigged up.

The leather loop is really nice, but the webbing platform it comes with is stiff (like 3 layers of webbing), and a bit too big to glue comfortably. Luckily the snaps I use (Prym Sport & Camping 15mm) fit the loop so I made my own platform which sits better. E6000'd into place. Also made connecting straps out of nylon for the chest->back which will also host the connecting points for my shoulderbells.

And lastly I got the last piece of the puzzle, the main belt. From Philo Props and it's true, all of it. This is magnificent work.

Going to hope for better weather so I can put my tent out on my balcony and start painting again ?

[87ninefiveone[501st]]

Looking good! How are the buckles on the shins working out for you? I’m a bit hesitant to go the buckle route because it seems like such a pain to connect and adjust inside the shins. There aren’t too many build threads to go off of though and everyone seems to attach things a bit differently. 

I’ve been considering just going with industrial Velcro to attach the straps to the boots and then another strip of Velcro down the front of the boot to attach the shin, but I haven’t had time to play with it yet. 

[Ensi[TX]]

14 hours ago, 87ninefiveone said:

Looking good! How are the buckles on the shins working out for you? I’m a bit hesitant to go the buckle route because it seems like such a pain to connect and adjust inside the shins. There aren’t too many build threads to go off of though and everyone seems to attach things a bit differently. 

I’ve been considering just going with industrial Velcro to attach the straps to the boots and then another strip of Velcro down the front of the boot to attach the shin, but I haven’t had time to play with it yet. 

The connecting buckles on mine will most likely not be adjustable, there is too little room for it so the rubber straps dont have a large gap. I also don't think i'll grow much in the leg area and also some slack for movement is always nice.

As I like to say, a picture says more than a thousand words and a video says more than a thousand pictures, here is a test fit after temporarily installing the buckles. Showing how easy it is  

Here i've cut 1 rectangle from the top, and 4 from the bottom, this for me leaves just enough slack. Going to leave it as is to test and also add some velcro or snaps to the back of the straps to keep them somewhat in place.

[87ninefiveone[501st]]

Thanks for taking the time to make that video! Very helpful.

[Ensi[TX]]

Splitting this post into two parts to prevent megagigapost.

Been hauling donkey the last few days on the build  

This is how my shins look after installing all the buckles

I really like the buckle method of connecting the shins, however they tend to sag a bit and flair outwards. To combat this I added a strip of elastic over the female buckle, making it possible to stretch the buckle out when connecting, then just releasing it into place. Also added some webbing to keep the rubber strap somewhat in line. Added an upper snap to my boots and also the straps, will think about adding a lower one too.

Now for the plash connection, I also want to use buckles, and installed some on my chest piece. Will take some time later to test a lot and sew buckles to the plash as well. Also note connecting snaps for the collar webbing.

Chest straps, in a hurry I installed these without checking how they would sit, and ended up with the buckles sitting way too low on the chest. I ripped it off, cut off 1 and a half rectangle, and reglued it. Looks correct now!  

Lower belt

Dremel'd a hole in the hinged drop box and glued elastic to it for ease of movement. All boxes were screwed on with small washerhead screws  

Helmet got its black "rubber trim" painted on and also Philo's disks installed.

[Ensi[TX]]

Now for some more aerosol VOC action.. Started on the respirator, goggles, and large buckle by putting some spray filler on them and giving them a fine sanding. The buckle was 3D-printed and received a good, thorough sanding to eliminate print lines beforehand.

Protip for painting small parts, loop some masking tape over itself and put it on the bottom of your parts to lift them up to avoid it sticking and making a mess.

And well, who said this hobby was cheap..

Before painting I added some polishing compound by toothpick to simulate a bit of chipping. Here's the painted buckle pre-weathering:

Respirator was first sprayed matt/satin black, focusing on covering the mouth area. Then masked the canisters + mouth and sprayed green.

I then masked everything but the canisters and gave them (and the goggles) 2 coats of gloss black and 2 coats of clear. This is preparation for the airbrushed Alclad.

Drove over to my friend and sprayed some Alclad Chrome on the parts.

We experimented a bit, since these parts were gonna get handled we gave both parts a coat of Alclad Klear Kote. This dulled the finish so we gave it another Chrome layer, which helped a bit. We tried another, and just made it worse so we stopped there. The result? A pretty good steel/metal look instead of chrome. Which is kinda what I was going for anyway  

Here compared to the first pair of goggles in my thread

Now the next challenge.. is the mystery serrated buckle on the goggle strap. I have the Vogue Star ones but do not like them a lot, so i'm going to attempt to make my own. Wish me luck  

[Ensi[TX]]

Lenses! I had a spare hobart lense from a friend which I am using, sadly score and bend did not work out too well. This material likes to snap. So I cold-bent the material with a metal ruler and got OK results.

Glued them to the goggles using CA and also added an extra score line in hopes to make it more apparent. I also had to heat-bend the lenses a bit (where i'm pointing) to make them sit more flush. I ended up heating them a bit too much with the heatgun which caused some warping, but rather that than a 1-2cm gap  

Cut out the rubber gasket for the goggles and CA glued it in place. This was honestly the trickiest part so far of the build, along with the goggles. I glued it piece by piece and not all in one go, had to do some trimming too after installing. After I was done I noticed it could've been a tad higher on the top part, but I don't think it looks too bad

TU time, pulled out the drill (nervewracking) and drilled two 4mm holes in the helmet after some measuring. Tapped the TU holes with M4 and installed it with two M4x10 screws (+ 2 nuts on the inside).

But something's missing..

There we go

For the goggle strapping I had a video showing it but YT seems to be down now, so all I have is this:

After my previous post @areilly found what is the closest match to the serrated buckle we have at the moment in the facebook group. So I am just running with the voguestar buckles for now, until someone offers up the correct ones.

Starting from the goggles, I used: 25mm webbing->serratedbuckle->25mm elastic->40mm elastic.

Completed helmet+goggles pre-weathering:

[Ensi[TX]]

The TU file available has a flat backside and as such doesn't sit very well with the helmet. As you can see, mine flairs out quite a bit.

Screen used and original TU file:

Since you can't really shape 3D-prints I modded the file and added some curves. What do you guys think? Is it still protruding a bit much?

Since it's gonna be curved I cut up the main components from the plate for easier printing.

[Ensi[TX]]

Further revised the plate and i'm happy now.

CURVED TELEMETRY UNIT FILE FOR JIMS HELMET (STL)

I split the parts for easier printing but whole file is also included. Holes are 3,3mm meant for tapping M4 threads, An M4x10 screw fits perfectly. Indents on the front for helping align the small parts.

DOWNLOAD

[JAFO[TX]]

Nice mod ??

[Ensi[TX]]

Filler-post to reach next page on next post.