1 Year Later - My 501st First Anniversary

A little late on this update due to work, family and trooping. As many 501st troopers know, May is a busy month between 501st Day (5/01), May the 4th, and Revenge of the 5th. A lot of places want 501st representation during these days, so it helps that a lot of people like me joined the 501st after we got our Anovos kits together to help spread the joy :D

Speaking of joining, on 20 April, 2016, I was officially approved into the 501st Legion.

Hi Erik,

Thank you for your patience! We have finished our review and have reached a decision. Congratulations! Your costume has been approved and I've moved your application into the next phase. Welcome to the 501st Legion!  

Although it was with some trepidation, as I would realize that I trimmed my thigh pieces far too short and would have to shore them back up, it was a good day. After months of building during the evenings starting on 31 January the same year, most of my work had finally paid off. I would later repair the thigh pieces and join my first troop on 13 May.

Members of the @official501st's @southerncaliforniagarrison and the @rebellegion.us's @sunriderbase joined forces to support the HIghland PTA country fair this weekend. CC-9617, CC-61513, TD-9087, TK-21129, TK-76253, Rey, and an X-wing pilot adhered to a temporary cease fire in support of this event. Great job troopers! • • #socal501st #southerncaliforniagarrison #starwars #official501st #501st #501stlegion #badguysdoinggood #charity #theforceawakens #rogueone #thefirstorder #rebellegion #sunriderbase #commandercody #captainrex #stormtrooper

A post shared by Southern California Garrison (@southerncaliforniagarrison) on May 16, 2016 at 1:29pm PDT

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Escorting a potbellied pig around the OC Zoo

Hanging out with the crazy Imperial Sands Garrison at SDCC

The OC Squad Photo

Walk for Alzheimer's

The Weird Al show At BlizzCon

Tree Lighting in Anaheim

AnaConn at the Anaheim Library

WonderCon 2017

Our Star Destroyer backdrop at WonderCon

Meeting Ashley Eckstein

Scum & Villainy Cantina, Hollywood

(not a troop, just a ton of fun)

I've come to know so many great people through the 501st, and made some new friends in the process. Like I said in my 1 February post, it's weird to think about how a box full of ABS could change a person's life. To think that I almost passed this up, and what I would have missed out on - meeting great people, helping to raise funds for charity, putting smiles on the faces of kids and adults alike... it's crazy and amazing, thinking back on my first year.

All that being said, according to my garrison's mission reports, I did 9 official troops, 10 if you count WonderCon (and also a handful of unofficial troops), not as many as some of my other fellow "Anovos" troopers, but more than a few. The armor has held up pretty well considering what I've put it through on some occasions :D

Like doing 44 pushups in armor for the Walk for Wishes at the OC Great Park

(Formerly MCAS El Toro, my first duty station when I was active USMC)
At $0.25/ push-up, I raised $11 :D

Am I really ever done with the armor? Well... sorta? Not really? There's always maintenance, like fixing cracks, or tweaking things, like the TK Talkie I've been using and upgrading to v3, or the thermal detonator I finally modified (more on that in the next blog update).

Cracks are the biggest issue these days, especially in the chest plate with a speaker mounted directly in the chest plate as to not need to strap it to my person directly. I might also look into a different way to lay the armor out in my bin to reduce any bending on the piece while in storage. Here's where my armor has been cracking, for reference of any newer members looking to anticipate repairs or avoid them by doing some reinforcement with ABS paste or scrap ABS:

• Chest plate: neck and under arms
• Kidney plate: Top edge return
• Sniper knee: top of plate
• Right forearm: elbow edge
• Helmet/ bucket: under the rubber gasket
• Shims: make sure to reinforce the snot out of these to prevent future cracking

I've fixed all my cracks, upgraded my TK Talkie system (yet another topic for the near future) and will get my suit ready for tomorrow for my first May the 4th troop at the USS Iowa, which is now a floating museum in LA/ Long Beach. Being a Marine veteran, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to take the day off and see a classic battleship while doing my 501st thing. I'm really excited. It's weird that I never got to see this boat when I was in the service, but now I am, as part of a volunteer group of plastic spacemen, as Albin would say.

Next blog update I'll talk about how I modified the Anovos Thermal Detonator to be more accurate, and also the upgrade of my TK Talkie to the new v3 system, which supports configuring it on the fly through a smartphone app (eat your heart out, iComm! :P ). Until then...