JSmails semi-accurate ROTJ Boba WIP

keep up the good work man

tried your method with the neck seal at home and i have to say that you saved me a lot of time. thanks man and keep up the good work

Glad to help!

I forgot to take pics today. I knew there was something I missed.

I painted and attached the keyboard to the gauntlet. Just have to weather it tomorrow.

I had to take the armor with the decal off to weather the decal, and the shoulder armor with the decal, and of course every snap pulled off the back.
Every time I have to take the armor off I lose snaps. This really isn't the way to go. At least with the Tandy Line24's. They just hold too well. I think what you want are more snaps that hold less. That way they come undone with a little force instead of pulling off with a lot of force.

Nut and bolt and grommet method wouldn't have this problem. Just unscrew the nuts and the armor comes right off. No stress on the bolt or epoxy.

So my first try was JB Weld. Then I did the JB weld Steelstick epoxy putty. Now I'm giving E-6000 a shot. I'm guessing the E-6000 should work, but I'm only using it on the snap. On other projects, I've put the snap through plastic or fabric, then E-6000 the plastic or fabric to the location. I skipped that step with this.

This will be my last try with snaps. I have to take all the armor off to dull-coat it. If the snaps that I've E-6000'd pull off, I'll have to drill out all the snaps on the vest and go with nuts, bolts, and grommets.

Always, always, always more to do.

I got my butt plate and cod situated today. That method was pure genius and I absolutely know I'd have never come up with it. I also pulled off and painted 6 keyboard keys today, so I'm getting closer.

More pics tomorrow I hope!

smaller snaps with Loctite super glue... I couldnt get mine off with a hammer now also use a few magnets the combination works great... hope that helps

Thanks for the help.

I think I've figured it out, and while it's a small pain to do, it's way less than redoing all the snaps.

Today I'm dullcoating the armor. Since the Tandy snaps have more hold than epoxy, instead of pulling, I "pushed" the snaps apart. Works great!



I just push the small screwdriver in there and twist. Pushes them apart without any stress on the epoxy. Once they are dullcoated I don't plan on taking the armor off the vest anytime soon.

Here they are getting the dullcoat. It's 30* today. Got to use the heater to keep the paint warm.



From my other thread asking about the buttplate, here's what I came up with.



Bolt goes through the washer, then through the belt strap, then through plate and the cod and gets held on the outside by this:



it's a keyboard key, painted silver, with a nut epoxied inside.



Lastly, I got off to a cardboard start on the jetpack.



Now I just have to find my hot glue and cut out about a thousand more boxes and stuff and I'll have the jetpack.

Thanks for looking and any help!

wow i must say this wip is looking good . i found your comment about the 27$ guy funny because that was me haha. your doing way better work then my 27 build was

Thanks my man! Your build is definitely an inspiration. My build is just one long slog.

I put in another 7 hours today. Here's where I am with the jet pack.

First I put in some foam core 3.5" PVC pipe. With the foam core it's lighter than normal PVC.



I didn't take a lot of pics during the process, but I used 2" PVC (OD is 2.25" I think) and made everything else out of card board. Is there a quicker way to cut the cardboard? Cutting curves for the top caps and bottom caps takes forever. I suppose I should have asked 4 months ago. Lol

Here I'm almost done for the day:



And here is where it is now:









I'm hoping to do enough tomorrow to get the resin on it. If not tomorrow Wednesday. If all goes great, I'll be painting it next week.

Thanks for looking.

JSmails said:

Is there a quicker way to cut the cardboard? Cutting curves for the top caps and bottom caps takes forever. I suppose I should have asked 4 months ago. Lol

Click to expand...

Looking great! For some smaller details like the tank cones, consider using card stock instead of cardboard or illustration board. Or at least thinner illustration board. It cuts and bends easier, and if you're worried about strength you can paint the back and/or fill with spray foam. A lot of my jetpack is filled with spray foam for this reason, weighs less than 3 lbs.

Another update. Busy yesterday and today. I put the final cardboard on the base of the jet pack.



Then I decided to resin it to harden all the cardboard.



Came back to it today, and of course the resin was still sticky. It just doesn't harden at 20 degrees F. So I made a "hot box", basically a huge cardboard box the jet pack goes in with a space heater, and let it sit in there for about 3 hours. After it hardened, I tried some bondo on it and that isn't going so well. Too cold and my hands are freezing putting it on.



I'm going to have my friend, Bodyman Bill, come over tomorrow and fix it. Someday I hope to be able to do my own bondo. I just absolutely suck at it.

I also cut out and weathered the cape.



I'll get a pic of it once I wash it one time as per instructions.

I also finished the left gauntlet, sans missle. It was just weathering the keypad and installing the (non working) light. I then dull coated both gauntlets.



Lastly today I cut out all the pieces for the knee armor and built the 3 knee armor nozzles (?).

More to do. Always more to do.

Okay. I'm still chugging along. The jet pack isn't turning out as accurate as I would have hoped. Oh well. It is what it is and there are many missteps I can avoid in the future if I choose to build another.

Today and yesterday was cutting out the piano keys toolguy provided and sticking them on the pack.



And here is both sides done. Again, not very accurate, but it looks the part.



I'm hoping to paint tomorrow.

Bondo for the new bridge.






And resin to firm up the piano keys and seal them for painting.



I then primed and painted them silver.



since I need that to really dry to start putting toothpaste on the jet pack, that was done for today. On to knee armor.

I have already built the knee armor out of the same plastic as the chest armor. I have also built the darts out of PVC. What I don't have are the side housings that the darts go on. So I made them out of wood.



that cedar is really grainy so instead of sanding forever I figured I'd fill up the grain with some bondo.



finally sanded and ready for priming.



i think that was a wasted step. I also should have attached the blocks to the knee armor and just primed them all at once. Delays delays.

Nice work! You've made incredible progress!

Thanks very much!

Not much done today as it is St. Pats. I did get the mustard (hated it) and toothpaste (longer but easier to work with) put on the pack for the most part. I then went to Home Depot and picked out a few colors.

And I started with the white.



tomorrow I hope to mask that off and hit the red. And if I really get ambitious, the yellow also. Or maybe I'll try to get the knees put together and primed and silvered.

Always more to do. My father in law is making the rocket out of wood and a lathe. I don't know how accurate it will be, but it'll all be one piece.

So I was sick of waiting and last night after work I masked off the white and did the red.



I used claret wine for the red. The same I used for the helmet.

Then today I masked off the white and red and did the blue.



Since the blue has so much mustard/toothpaste damage on it, I probably should have done that first. I couldn't really mask it without screwing up the paste. If I had to do it again, I'd likely do everything the opposite. Blue, then peel the reveal damage so it can be masked, then yellow, then red then white.

Lastly, I primed and painted the metal on the knees and knee darts.

I had a few minutes before work, so I decided to take the tape off to let the paint breathe and harden while I'm at work, and to see where I missed spots, which almost always happens.



Looks like the tape wasn't tight on the keys, so I have to respray that. A bit of the white on the right peeled off. I may just leave that, or hand paint some off white. I'll likely just leave it for "weathering". I'll get rid of the paste etc. when I get home then mask the whole thing off and spray the yellow.

I just have to remember to ALWAYS outline the masking area using the green 1/8" tape. That gives the best results.

Great work. Keep it up. Thank you for the continued pictures

Thanks for the encouragement!

I have a loose deadline of April 16th now, so I really have to get this done. I think I'll have most everything done by then except the boots.

Anyone have any leads on inexpensive boots? I plan on modding them, so anything close, and cost effective, would be great.

Another weekday, more updates.

I got the knee armor toothpasted and sprayed with the under yellow color. No pics of that yet. I bought more striping yellow to finish that.

I finally finished painting the jet pack and got all the tape off. The tape pulled more paint than I would have liked. I think if I had to do it again, I'd use brushes and acrylic. Anyway, here's the pics:









Just have to weather it then build the thrusters and then dull coat the whole thing.

Next, I have absolutely hated how the jumpsuit has looked this entire time. I sewed on the extra stuff then dyed the suit multiple times with Rit pearl grey. It's just too dark. And the stuff I sewed on didn't dye the same as the rest of the suit. Not surprisingly. I'd be fine with that if the entire suit wasn't so dark. Here's a pic.




I wanted to lighten the suit a few shades to get it closer, so I experimented on the lower right leg and bleach. All that did was get rid of the dye I had put in. It didn't touch the original color.



i had seamripped a pocket off the back then put that pocket in bleach overnight. No change at all. Same color. It's really hard to believe this is 100%cotton.

So how do I lighten the suit? Well, house stain worked REALLY well on the mohair belt. And the small cans are under $4 at Home Depot, and they have a LOT of color choices. So I got some cape cod grey and started painting it on.



And here it is with the arms done.



I went back to Home Depot and bought two more small cans. The entire suit will be stained in way less than 3 cans. I like how the dark grey base shows through a lot and looks weathered. I figure I'd go with a really light grey then weather it darker. How dark my suit was previously, any weathering wouldn't have even showed up. I also like how the stain is making the sewed on sleeves blend with the original sleeves.

I imagine it it would have been faster to just spray paint the suit, but wouldn't that dry and crack etc? Some of it would soak in for sure, but I know the stain is soaking in. It's a way longer process, with a much longer drying time, but based on the girth belt, the stain makes the color change permanent.

Does anyone have pics of the "backpack" way of mounting the jet pack? I know how they did it on screen. There has to be an easier way than using the metal base under the armor. I'm trying to create this costume so my son can take off and put on all parts by himself.

Thanks!

Not much time today, but enough to do the major painting on the knees. I had already sprayed them the squash color for the peel. Here they are with toothpaste ready for final coat.



and here they are before peeling.



lastly, how they are after peeling.



The wear on the right looks like a dog. It's distracting. So I looked again at the reference photo, and that kind of looks like a dog, but its arms are skinnier and longer. I don't know if I want to try to fix it or, more likely, just leave it. Mandalorian Mutt.

Knees weathered and dull coated.



here is the jumpsuit. After staining it it was incredibly stiff. So I washed it twice, by itself, in the washing machine then dried it with 2 sheets of fabric softener. I don't know if I like it, but I like it better than it was before staining. At least the sewed on parts blend now.