New Sandtrooper Belt Pouches

I picked up the two new pouches from Luke and took them home to dye and modify the belt loops. I did not take any before pics . . . duh. Someday I will learn to get those darn before pics. :)

Anyway . . . here are 2 VERY small pics of the pouches before they were dyed from picture Luke sent me, and one before pic of the back side of the smaller pouch:

I used this dye, from Tandy Leather . . . USMC Black. Make sure you wear latex gloves when applying and working with this dye, as it will dye EVERYTHING and ANYTHING it touches :

I dyed them on the tailgate of my truck while my daughter was in her dance class. I figured I had an hour to kill, it might as well be killed doing this!

Luke had said that they would take a long time to dry, and I knew I had a short amount of time to work with, not only for dying them, but also for using them on Friday at the Spring Carnival, so after wiping on the dye and letting it sit for about 10 minutes, I lightly buffed the polish with a soft rag and then with a shoe-shining brush like this:

After the light buffing, I applied a generous layer of black Kiwi shoe polish from a container like this:

I knew this would put on not only more black color, but a waxy coating that would seal the dye in from the outside, allowing it to soak in and dry in the leather. Not only did it seal everything, it dyed the rough inside leather VERY easily as it is very foamy and watery when applied through the sponge top. After letting this sit for about 10-15 minutes, I buffed them again with the shoe-polish brush.

Here is how they looked after they were buffed last night before the belt loop mods:

This small pouch took the leather VERY well everywhere except the right closure strap. I'm not sure if it was sealed or somehow had oil on it or some kind of leather protectant. It took the dye OK, but not as dark as the left side.

The large pouch had an entirely different finish to it altogether. It seemed to have already been dyed it's lighter color and sealed somehow with a hard finish on the outside. The dye stuck after several applications, and then once dried, the wax coat sealed it all in nicely.

The small pouch is going to be used for my digital camera, keys, cards and/or maybe a cell phone if it will fit. The latch strap was VERY snug when the camera was inside, and hooking it on the brass closure was proving difficult. Luke and I had discussed putting velcro on the bottom for an easy latching, but I wanted to try something else first. I took a wood chisel with a nice, sharp edge and struck a continuation of the split in the leather . . . below the point where the brass piece usually would have poked through. This seemed to have allowed it to open and close easier and will not rip because the leather is very thick. Here is a pic:

Then, I needed to modify the rear belt loop to make it large enough to slip over my trooper belt. For the small pouch, I cut each existing loop (see before picture above) with a razor blade . . . down low enough so they would give the illusion of wrapping over and behind my trooper belt, and leaving enough of a small tab above the lower rivet to allow me to rivet my new section of thick belt leather in place. Check it out, the top of the pouch is on the left:

The process for the large pouch was similar, although different. It had 3 small belt loops, one on top of the other. So I sliced through the lowest loop as far down as possible before the original rivets and folded it back and up. I sliced through the top loop underneath where it attached to the pouch and folded it out. They both met perfectly, but had no overlap, so I cut and riveted a bridge piece of belt leather in place to join them. The middle loop can be seen behind this new piece, still intact.

The large pouch was a bit collapsed for my liking, so I cut several small strips of masonite pegboard (thin scrap stuff I had lying around in my shop) to fit the thickness of the pouch, and inserted one down each side, one across the bottom, and a cross brace across the inside front face of the pouch (below visibility eyeline from the outside) as seen here:

And that was it! Now I just have to wait for them to dry fully, and reapply black shoe polish as needed.

Flat Lens Installation

I wanted to be able to remove the flat lenses once they were installed, either for swapping out with bubbled lenses or for repair when/if the flat lenses became scarred. While removing the bubbled lenses, one of them snapped in two, so now, this assembly becomes one to allow easy repair/replacement.

I have used this same type of mount in my R2 dome where parts need to be installed, but may also need removal at some future time for repair or upgrade.

I began by assembling the parts I would need for the CENTER mounting point. The sides may be secured with industrial velcro just to hold them down. This center point ensures that the velcro does not bear the responsibility for holding it in, just for holding it in place.

The parts I am using are:

A 1/4" T-nut, some spacers that will fit around the shaft of the T-nut, a 1/4" machined bolt to fit the T-nut and a washer that will not allow the machined bolt to pass through - all found in Lowe's for only a couple of dollars, in the Hardware section in the metal specialty parts drawers near the nuts and bolts and key making area.

I glued two of the spacers together to achieve the height needed . . . superglue works great.


Here we see the beginning assembly order of how things will stack up once the T-nut is glued inside the frontal lobe of the helmet. These photos just show you the order of things, the T-nut must first be glued inside the helmet in the center of the two eyepieces, against the dome. Photos of this location coming soon.

The spacers seat around the T-nut shaft and will hold the lens material out from the bucket dome (because the eye openings of the bucket stick out - the T-nut mounts back against the inner dome and needs to rise up to the proper level for the lens to mount flat against the eye openings).

The machine bolt passes through the washer, and you are ready then to put the machined bolt and washer through the material used for your lens. This will then ALL be put inside the helmet and the machine bolt will screw down into the T-nut, snugly securing the center of the lens material to the helmet.

This is the stacking order minus the lens, I have not yet shot that picture. I will insert it as soon as I do. The lense will rest above the spacers and below the washer, held firmly in place as you tighten the machine bolt.


Here are the green lenses. I took the grinder's safety mask and cut it with scissors to the shape of a paper template I made of the lens openings in my helmet.

The lenses can be found here:

http://www.rjsafety.com/EH21.html

The lens you want is:

HF4118-DRK Dark Green Faceshield - $3.65 Standard View Window, Proportionate, .060" thickness, 8x 11 1/4"

Here is the spot where the T-Nut should be cemented in:

Once that was done, I figured this would be a good time to paint the inside of my helmet, as I never did so when building it. I masked off the eye lens openings, removed the lower trim, and masked around the edge of the opening.

Then I primed the inside and followed with several coats of Ultra Flat Black.

Having done that, and allowing it to dry overnight, I installed the lens as shown here:

And here is what the installation looks like:

The final step will be to add industrial strength velcro to the very edges of the lens to hold it snugly in place, and prevent anyone from seeing in past it into the bucket.

Revival

Ever notice how similar these two scenes are? Kinda eerie . . . in each case, the master helps his new apprentice . . .

Adding the Sniper Knee Plate

I had an original knee-plate in place which I had to remove.

When I did, I discovered that there was a rivet behind it, holding the top front of the calf pieces together. I drilled off the rivet head leaving a single hole.

I placed the mounting plate over the hole with the knee plate held in place, lined it all up, marked where the hole would hit the mounting plate, then drilled a hole in the plate. After I did that, I drilled a second hole in the calf that would hit the mounting plate. I then repeated the marking and drilling process for the mounting plate.

These are the nuts and bolts that I used (From Lowe's).
I slipped them through the holes for a test-fit.

I dropped the nuts in place to make sure there was enough room for them both.

Then, I put a small, thin bit of clear Liquid Nails (also from Lowe's) on the face of one of the nuts and positioned it over the opening. I repeated this for the second nut. When it had been sitting for about a 1/2 hour, I put more of the Liquid Nails around the nuts to anchor them securely to the inside of the mounting plate. I want them secure, as the part of the mounting plate where they are glued will be hidden between the Knee plate and the mount itself once the knee plate is attached with either ABS cement or Liquid Nails.

As soon as the Liquid Nails has cured for several days, I will attach the knee plate with either ABS cement or Liquid Nails, and I will be able to bolt the knee plate on and off at will for repair or replacement or just for easier storage (no breakage in my bin).

MFP Trooper Belt Mod

Here are a few pictures taken when we built Luke's Ab portion and performed the MFP Trooper Belt Mod. The key is the layering of the items, and the white plastic, hinged nut head covers.

Ab Plate modded to Sandtrooper

Here are a few pics of the mod and the piece removed.

Macrobinoculars/Monoculars

Here are some of the pics I have collected:

First, Luke's Macrobinoculars

Some pics of MY Monoculars . . . source and final product. (I have dirtied them quite a bit since these pictures were taken) I need to add some more "detail" pieces to mine to "STAR WARS" them up a bit. I used TANK ASSAULT for mine, but you can also use the alternative game SUB HUNT (Both made by RADICA and having the EXACT same casing)

Some Other People's Monoculars:

And some with a SITH look to them: