Update,
First, one the things I ordered for my kit came in this week. These boots are AdTech (Ride Tech) 16” tall Engineer Boots.
As with my previous build, I do the research and you can reap the rewards of my observations… I am 50 years old and after 24 years in the Army doing crazy stuff, I am at that point in life where everything hurts (including my feet). I prefer very comfortable shoes and boots. For my Sniper build I used some surprisingly affordable work boots. I marched in parades and stood in them for long periods of time and I can honestly say they are damn comfortable. That said, a few years ago I built a retro 1950s Sci-Fi space suite for DragonCon and for that build I got some costume tall boots (think Imperial Officer Boots) for 30ish bucks. These boots were horrible. My feet hurt so much from wearing them I was taking constants breaks on the bottom floor of the Marriott. Vowing to never making that kind of mistake again, I am apprehensive about ordering shoes online. I want to try them on and make sure they fit and feel good.
With this in mind, I knew I wanted a tall boot for this kit and the Engineer boot fit the look I wanted. I found the Ad Tech boots on Amazon and decided to give them a try. I normally wear a size 10 combat boot but most of my sneakers are a size 9.5 (ex. I wear a 9.5 Converse All Star Chuck). After reading the reviews of the Ad Tech boots, most people had 3 issues with them. First, most people felt they ran ½ size small. Next, a lot of people did not like the branding logos on them. There are two buckles that have Ride Tech on them and there is a pressure brand on the side of the heal that says Ride Tech as well. The third complain is that they are Ride Tech Boots, not Ad Tech.
Apparently, Ride Tech now owns Ad Tech so that explains that issue. The logos are not an issue since I will be weathering them and can remove whatever I don’t like. As for the size Issue I decided to order a size 10. The boots arrived and were a little big for me. I ordered another pair in 9.5 that fit perfectly so I returned the size 10 boots. So from my experience, if you order these boots get whatever size sneaker size you wear and you should be ok. Once the size was sorted out I tossed around a few ideas for the shin guards. I started to build a MDF buck for vacuum forming but since I was stopping at the plastic supply store later in the week, I wanted to what it was like to work with Sintra. My supplier carries the same product under the name of Celtec. I got a 4’x8’ sheet of 1/8” thick for about $26.00. I have not had a lot of experience with this stuff but its what most of you use to make Mandalorain armor so I wanted to get some experience with it. I cut several pieces out and heated them with a heat gun then shaped them to fit the shin with the boots on. Once I had the first layer shaped I heated and shaped the second layer and then the third layer. I sued super glue to bond all three layers and presto, shin guards.
I imbedded snaps on the inside of the shin guards as I built them and then marked and added the snaps to the boots. Here they are snapped on the boots.
Next I decided to remove the buckles that are on the boots and replace them with 4 cam buckles I had left over from my Rogue One Stormtrooper Crystal Patrol Pack build.
I painted the buckles with a firearms metal coating in flat black and baked the coating on. While they were baking, I decided to see if I remove the pressure brand from the boots with an Iron. Here is the pressure brand before I started working on it.
This is how it looked after working with water and the iron for about 20 minutes.
Its not completely gone but it has been considerably reduced and If I wanted to shine these boots (for an Imperial Officer costume) I think I could remove it further but not completely; however, whatever would be left could be filled in then shined and unnoticeable.
Back to the buckles, I unstitched the top buckle and replaced it with the painted cam buckle then re-stitched it with my industrial sewing machine. For the ankle buckle, I would not be able to access it with the sewing machine so I cut the strap, replaced the buckle and used rivets to secure the strap. I like how they came out. I still need to paint the shin guards and weather them and the boots.
Another thing that came in this week is the gloves. I wanted silver flight gloves with grey leather but the manufacturer does not accept individual orders so I had to settle on black gloves with grey leather (from Amazon). I will be add some stuff to these but here they are at this time.
Another thing or things that came in are the 2” wide leather blank strap and blank belt buckle (both from Tandy leather).
When I painted the buckles, I also painted the belt buckle flat black and baked it. After the buckle was done, I cut out my family clan symbol in vinyl and used it on the buckle as a stencil then sand blasted the buckle to expose the symbol. Next, I hand painted red in the Mythosaur claw.
Next I took some sand paper and weathered the buckle then I did a black wash on it. I still need to clear coat it but I like how it turned out.
Lastly, I attempted to pull the back plates with ABS. This is the first time I am using ABS and there was learning curve to vacuum form with ABS. I needed to let it melt a lot more than HIPS to pull properly. Also the ABS has a rough side and a smooth side. Here is a usable but ultimately failed pull with the rough side up.
Here is another not so great pull with the smooth side up.
And here is a near perfect pull.
I also got some stuff done on Shevla Kals kit as we are working on these concurrently.
Well, that is it for the update. Thanks for the interest.
