87ninefiveone’s Mudtrooper Build (Sean Fields - 3D Printed)

[87ninefiveone[501st]]

Slow going as I was on vacation with the family last week, but my jacket and pants from Jim arrived last Friday and I just picked them up from FedEx today. The materials and tailoring are top notch and these were produced and shipped within about two weeks as promised. 

The end is near. I just need the chest and back armor, a scarf and the arm patches to wrap things up. Then a bit of paint and weathering. My next troop is on June 7th so I’m hopping to have it done by then.

 

 

[87ninefiveone[501st]]

Over the past week or so I’ve been pondering how to attach my shins to the boots. I got my shins from PlasticArmsDealer on Etsy, and they’re a green silicone rubber cast with black webbing on the back side. The problem is that the webbing doesn’t run the full length of the strap and was pretty haphazardly placed in the mold which makes adding any sort of fastener or closure really difficult. Heres an example:

I briefly tried industrial strength adhesive Velcro to attach the straps to the boots. That doesn’t work. So, I decided to 3D print a solution. Here’s what I came up with:

The bracket above is for the top strap. I needed the full provided strap length so the strap and bracket will end up being glued together. It stays in place as is but I wouldn’t trust it not to pop off during a troop

For the bottom bracket I needed to shorten the straps a bit (2-3”) which allowed me to design in a boss to grip the strap without using glue. The only issue here is that the straps aren’t uniformly thick, so I may need to adjust my models and reprint to get a nice fit on each strap.

The red brackets will be painted black and get a piece of Velcro attached to them which will mate up to the shins.

We’ll see how this works.

[87ninefiveone[501st]]

TLDR: my final shipment of stuff arrived and I printed the chest and back armor.

No photos right now as iCloud isn’t cooperating, but I’ve received my last two purchases for the build. A generic olive green knit scarf ($12 on Amazon) and shoulder patches from Endor Finders (2 @ $10/ea). 

The patches look great and they actually came with Velcro backing. I tried attaching them by sewing on Velcro at first but I wasn’t happy with the look since the edges didn’t sit even with the fabric. I ended up removing the Velcro and just stitching the patches on by hand. It was a PITA, but worth the time investment.

Last week I started contacting armor vendors about buying a chest and back. I’d love to pick up Jim’s kit, but the time to do that was when I ordered jacket and pants to avoid the extra shipping. Plus I’m out of time with my first planned troop the Friday after this one. Local options aren’t looking much better. Plastic arms dealer wanted almost as much for the chest and back as Jim does for his whole kit which also would double my spend on the project so far...so that’s not an option. My last chance, and what I had been holding out for was Intergalactic Supply to release his kit since he’s local and really reasonably priced. Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to get ahold of him since my last PM a month ago to see if he’s finished his molds yet or not. 

So...I  took advantage of the long Memorial Day weekend to to print the Sean Field chest and back armor. I had a few mishaps with the prints, mostly under extrusion issues due to using a 10 lbs roll of filament, so a few parts had to be printed twice. For the most part it came out well though. I wish I had up scaled it 5-10% (I’m 6’2” and 210 lbs). Live and learn.

The  major issues I’ve found with the armor so far:

1. It is apparently missing a key detail from the CRL on the lower part of the back armor. Not really an issue as it’s easily remedied by removing some material with a  dremel and sticking a piece of ABS on the inside of the armor to create the semi circular indent. You could also just modify the 3D files but I’m not very good at manipulating STL files.

2. The collar design is crap. It looks fine, but it’s too thin to be functional from a 3D printing perspective and there’s no way you could actually get in and out of this kit as designed. I think the best option the fix this issue is to just split the collar in two vertically and attach the respective front and back parts to the chest and back armor. It’s not screen accurate but it’s a lot more functional and will also fix the alignment issues everyone seems to have with the collar/chest. I’m not super thrilled about going this route but with a helmet, scarf and mask I’d be surprised if anyone notices.

3. I’m too fat for this kit. Not really the kits fault, just saying.  Measured and thought it would be fine, but again, 5-10% larger would have been smart on my part. 

[87ninefiveone[501st]]

Just in case anyone is making an E11B, I modeled up the surefire scout m300 flashlight ($300 ?!?!?!???) and posted it to thingiverse. You can find it here.

[RAIDER[COTG]]

19 hours ago, 87ninefiveone said:

Just in case anyone is making an E11B, I modeled up the surefire scout m300 flashlight ($300 ?!?!?!???) and posted it to thingiverse. You can find it here.

Killer!  Well done

[87ninefiveone[501st]]

Photos!

Completed back section. 50-55 hours and about 1200g of material for all of the  parts. I spent a lot of time agonizing over how to slice this up to avoid supports and get decent quality on most surfaces. 

I forgot to take a starting shot of the chest, but here it is after one coat of primer and some filler. The chest was a much easier print than the back, 36 hours and about 800g of material, and only two horizontal joints to worry about.

Here I’ve attached the collar and done two rounds of primer and wet sanding. The light gray is a filler primer while the dark gray is just a normal primer which highlights issues better prior to painting (black is the plastic).

First coat of filler primer on the back piece (it’s rough). You can also see how the rear collar section was cut and attached here. 

Added the half circle indent detail on the back armor.

And here’s where I’m at as of tonight. 3x color coats on the chest and a second coat of filler primer on the back armor. I’ll do a final sand a prime on the back tomorrow and then paint Saturday. Weathering and final assembly on Saturday/Sunday so I can hopefully take some pictures next week and submit.

One more note as well. I’ve used super glue for assembly which is great, but not ideal for any sort of impact or shear resistance, so all of the parts seam lines have been reinforced with strips of 2mm ABS leftover from an old TK build and I’ll probably do some E6000 to hold those reinforcement strips in place as well.

[IcyTrooper[CMD-DL]]

Coming along very nice!!

[87ninefiveone[501st]]

I skipped a few steps and went straight on to weathering...where I may have gone a bit overboard. I used acrylic paint so I may go back and wipe off some of the weathering I did today as it’s a bit much outside of the boots after reviewing the reference photos again. Thoughts?

I just need to weather the soft parts tomorrow and I’ll basically be done and ready for submission photos.

I did a quick test fit yesterday as well and discovered that this kit is nearly impossible to put on by yourself. I can get into Vader by myself no problem...but upper body movement is surprisingly restrictive in this casostume.

[RAIDER[COTG]]

3D printing amazes me lol.

I feel u on the weathering. Im doing a Sandy now.

For urs...yea it may be a bit much. Maybe thats not the word even...has a splotchy feel to it.  You see that a more on the softgoods (pants, arms) than the armor itself I think.  Either way, best wishes on ur approval and thank you for posting such a detailed WIP for the community.

[Ensi[TX]]

I think it looks a bit too symmetrical/even and a bit much of the light color. Wiping some of it off unevenly should make it just right  Great work so far!

[87ninefiveone[501st]]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I went after the weathering last with a wet paper towel, magic eraser and a bit of sanding, but I'm not sure it improved things much. I'm still going to go ahead with submission after I get some suited up pics tonight, but I might be in for a repaint to get the effect right for approval. On the plus side I completed weathering of the soft goods which came out much better. I still went with some sponge dabbing, but I mainly used acrylic paint diluted down to 3-4 parts water to one part paint and did the application with a spray bottle that had an adjustable nozzle set for a coarse spray. I like the overall effect much better. 

If anyone is interested, I've 3D modeled quite a few small parts over the course of my build to save a few bucks and I've posted all of the parts to Thingiverse, you should be able to find them by searching my screen name or "mudtrooper". Here's a list of items I've made:

• 24mm hose connector for Sean Fields respirator
• Surefire M300 scope
• Large helmet buckle/greeble (design by Vahlok, but with curvature added).
• Large 40mm tri-glides for goggle strap 
• Lower belt box set
• Imperial Officer belt boxes
• Respirator tri-glides and small Yugoslavian backpack buckle (modeled off the real part since I had them already)
• Shoretroooper/tanktrooper/mudtrooper 3" belt buckle

A few final thoughts on 3D printing your kit. 

• Total filament used was about 5.5kg of PETG/PLA. Around 230 hours of printing in total.
• The large armor parts can be printed at 0.2mm resolution using 25% infill and 4 perimeters (0.5mm line width). The goggles and respirator should be done with finer resolution, 0.1mm preferred to improve fidelity and reduce the amount of finishing needed. 
• Be prepared to do a lot of reinforcing on the back side of the armor parts. I added ABS strips to the inside joints of the chest and back to prevent them from flexing/breaking and further reinforced a lot of seams with E6000. I still think going with a vac formed or fiberglass part is the way to go for the chest/back armor and will probably end up purchasing these in the future, but I ran out of time/money so the 3D printed parts will do for now. 

Build Cost Breakdown

• Pants/Coat (Jimiriquai), $200
• Boots (Etsy, AntiguaHouse), $44
• Highlander Spec Ops Gloves (Amazon), $30
• Upper Belt (Etsy, DarmansProps), $53
• Lower Belt (1.5" webbing from Amazon), $6
• Ammo Pouch (Etsy, PlasticArmsDealer), $55
• Helmet Padding (Amazon), $15
• Small Yugoslavian Backpack for respirator hardware (Colemans Military Surplus), $25
• Welding shield for goggle lens (Amazon), $6
• Strapping Supplies (Miscellaneous strapping from Amazon and JoAnn Fabrics and using leftover hardware from the Yugoslavian backpack), $25
• Cape/Plasch (Etsy, RussianGasMaskShop), $35
• Shoulder and boot straps (Etsy, PlasticArmsDealer), $35 for shoulders and $70 for shins
• Respirator Hoses (Etsy, RussianGasMaskShop), $28
• Paint, filler and sanding supplies, $80
• Filament for 3D printing, $150

All in I'm at about $900-1000. I'm definitely over my original budget goal, and probably didn't save as much money as I would have liked over just ordering the whole kit from Jim. So, if you're considering the 3D printed route definitely give him a shout first to check current pricing and availability. 

[87ninefiveone[501st]]

TX-87951 approved!

https://imgur.com/gallery/55Vb6ab

[Ensi[TX]]

Sick! Congrats  

[RAIDER[COTG]]

Congrats man!!!

[87ninefiveone[501st]]

Thanks guys. I still have a lot of work to do to make the gear a bit more functional,  but I’m pretty pumped to troop in it tomorrow! 

[crombieouch@yahoo.com]

On 4/26/2019 at 8:17 AM, 87ninefiveone said:

I have sewn! (Sort of).

I also learned that E6000 permanently damages whatever plastic welding shields are made of and is a handy paint remover for my silver finish. None of which matters because...weathering! Ill be adding foam for the outer seal,  matte black paint in the recessed cheak area to simulate the cutout and then weathering this up to finish it off. 

If anyone is interested, the 40mm triglides on the strap are my own 3D printed design. You can find them on thingiverse by searching Mudtrooper or my screen name. There’s a few other useful printed strap components posted there as well.

Any tips for attaching the strap? My lens is glued in with E6000 and I’m currently just planning to glue the webbing end tabs on the strap to the lens. I wish I had epoxied in a d-ring or something though. 

My gloves also came today. I ordered these on Amazon for $26 shipped and was then surprised to see that they came from England and only took a week to get. These apparently run small. I got L size and they’re a tight fit. I would advise to order a size up.

Almost ready for paint. I did some spot filling on the helmet, it’s still needs work. Shoulders, biceps, shins and TU are ready to go though.

Paint test!

This paint is too yellow for my liking, but by the time I get some weathering on there it should be fine.

My ammo pouch and shoulder/shin straps from PlasticArmsDealer (is he on here?) arrive tomorrow in the mail. Plasch, boots and respirator tubes are somewhere between here and Kiev as well, so I’m hoping they show up in the next week or so.

I’ll be ordering my tunic and pants from Jim as soon as my wife comes home from a business trip and can help me with measurements thIs weekend. And that just leaves the chest/back armor to procure. CantinaSecurity is supposed to have his production ready in the next few weeks, so I’m hoping for that but I’m also still debating 3D printing it to save some dough and get this build done faster. Long term I would like to upgrade to Jim’s kit anyways.

 

Hi! may i know where to get the silver buckles used for the goggles? Thanks!

On 4/26/2019 at 8:17 AM, 87ninefiveone said:

I have sewn! (Sort of).

I also learned that E6000 permanently damages whatever plastic welding shields are made of and is a handy paint remover for my silver finish. None of which matters because...weathering! Ill be adding foam for the outer seal,  matte black paint in the recessed cheak area to simulate the cutout and then weathering this up to finish it off. 

If anyone is interested, the 40mm triglides on the strap are my own 3D printed design. You can find them on thingiverse by searching Mudtrooper or my screen name. There’s a few other useful printed strap components posted there as well.

Any tips for attaching the strap? My lens is glued in with E6000 and I’m currently just planning to glue the webbing end tabs on the strap to the lens. I wish I had epoxied in a d-ring or something though. 

My gloves also came today. I ordered these on Amazon for $26 shipped and was then surprised to see that they came from England and only took a week to get. These apparently run small. I got L size and they’re a tight fit. I would advise to order a size up.

Almost ready for paint. I did some spot filling on the helmet, it’s still needs work. Shoulders, biceps, shins and TU are ready to go though.

Paint test!

This paint is too yellow for my liking, but by the time I get some weathering on there it should be fine.

My ammo pouch and shoulder/shin straps from PlasticArmsDealer (is he on here?) arrive tomorrow in the mail. Plasch, boots and respirator tubes are somewhere between here and Kiev as well, so I’m hoping they show up in the next week or so.

I’ll be ordering my tunic and pants from Jim as soon as my wife comes home from a business trip and can help me with measurements thIs weekend. And that just leaves the chest/back armor to procure. CantinaSecurity is supposed to have his production ready in the next few weeks, so I’m hoping for that but I’m also still debating 3D printing it to save some dough and get this build done faster. Long term I would like to upgrade to Jim’s kit anyways.

 

Hi! may i know where to get the silver buckles used for the goggles? Thanks!