Who is ready for more TOR Bucket action?
Grille cut into the front so I can exhale without causing a tropical rainstorm to condense on my visor, hope it will work!
Next up, cut holes either side for hoses. Why? Tie-Pilot that's why!
It hit me awhile back that I always like Tie-Pilots and that the shape of this Bucket is ideally suited for Pilot duty.
So I dug around the 501st forums until I found the Pilots and specifically a tutorial for attaching the hoses.
Big thank you shout out to the Carolina Garrison for their excellent tutorial!
Hose I'm using is the same hose used by the Tie-Pilots, 1 1/4" sump drain hose... 24 ft for about 14$.
Okay so I have the hose, the helmet and now what? Tuck the ends into my chestplate? I could but ... no!
Chest box a la Tie-Pilot? hmm ... no!
I am after all a mando and my mando has this lovely sturdy pvc pipe backplate with attachment box already built...
So yeah why not build a jetpack/oxy tank pack that bolts onto the back of my legacy armor poncho??
Okay so I'm doing a box... nice lots of empty useless room inside... screw it, im gonna add some fans into the box and use the hoses for what they were meant for!
Dig out some of the 12V fans I bought years ago for my TK bucket, buy a pair of funnels and break out the duct tape.
After some trimming, adjusting of holes to match my chicago screws, i finally got around to using duct tape for its intended purpose.. ducting. First time EVER!
So what next? oh i need a box... first i was going to build one but that's too much effort right now.
So a trip to michaels later I have a nice plastic box with hinged and locking lid that will be mounted bottom to my back with the hinges up and the latches out of sight underneath. Sofar the CA glue hasn't glued anything onto it which might become an issue come greeblie time. I also had issues cutting a custom grille into the top of the left side panel for my fan, but with a dremel anything is possible! It is now grilled, drilled for bolts and I have a piece of window netting sandwiched between fan and box.
No pics of that yet because I haven't cut the top hole to route the hose out of.
Also need to acquire new bolts for mounting to the backplate before I start drilling those holes.