johntrek
New Member
I know, I know, lots of people have made one of these. But I finally took the plunge.
Many years ago, around 1979 if memory serves, you could mail order a Colonial Warriors battle jacket. According to some internet information (and that's always true, right?) the jacket was unlicensed, so they had to dye it a blandish olive drab color to avoid being shut down by Universal. I loved the jacket when it arrived in the mail, but hated the color, and immediately dyed it a darker brown color. I then proceeded to keep it hanging in the closet, always thinking "one of these days".
So, 33 years later, one of those days arrived. I am still in-progress on this, but thought it was finally to the point where there was enough to show.
I bought an unfinished blaster online, filled all the inevitable casting errors and painted it up. I found a pre made brown Kydex holster from an eBay vendor, eventually located a dark blue with brass rivets canvas web belt, and made a hip strap from a thin nylon web belt.
The trousers are home made from Suedecloth. Took me forever, since my sewing skills have always been rather rudimentary. I made a test run pair of trousers using a Simplicity pattern, then tried again using a Burda pattern. It took a lot of trial and error, and lots of help from YouTube tutorials.
Watched eBay for a couple weeks and finally snagged some Sidi Full Bore boots. Rather well used pair, but all the buckles work, and nothing is fundamentally broken. Cleaned them up and sprayed them with the Nu-life Cordovan brown. Will need to replace the metal toe pieces, the existing ones are really pounded and I think beyond any help from a simple cleaning up.
God-bless all the people who have made this uniform, and left lots of nice information on the internet for me.
Still haven't tackled the tunic yet. Buckling the jacket helps to hide that problem for now. Still hoping to find a pattern for the tunic, but am going to try figuring it out for myself if no pattern drops out of the sky. There is a nice step by step tutorial on a woman's blog on how she made hers, it just lacks an actual pattern.
Yeah, I decided to skip a mortgage payment and buy one of the eFX helmets. Talked myself into it by deciding it could be on display in my living room during the 99.99% of the year when I was not at a Con or a Haloween party.
Many years ago, around 1979 if memory serves, you could mail order a Colonial Warriors battle jacket. According to some internet information (and that's always true, right?) the jacket was unlicensed, so they had to dye it a blandish olive drab color to avoid being shut down by Universal. I loved the jacket when it arrived in the mail, but hated the color, and immediately dyed it a darker brown color. I then proceeded to keep it hanging in the closet, always thinking "one of these days".
So, 33 years later, one of those days arrived. I am still in-progress on this, but thought it was finally to the point where there was enough to show.
I bought an unfinished blaster online, filled all the inevitable casting errors and painted it up. I found a pre made brown Kydex holster from an eBay vendor, eventually located a dark blue with brass rivets canvas web belt, and made a hip strap from a thin nylon web belt.
The trousers are home made from Suedecloth. Took me forever, since my sewing skills have always been rather rudimentary. I made a test run pair of trousers using a Simplicity pattern, then tried again using a Burda pattern. It took a lot of trial and error, and lots of help from YouTube tutorials.
Watched eBay for a couple weeks and finally snagged some Sidi Full Bore boots. Rather well used pair, but all the buckles work, and nothing is fundamentally broken. Cleaned them up and sprayed them with the Nu-life Cordovan brown. Will need to replace the metal toe pieces, the existing ones are really pounded and I think beyond any help from a simple cleaning up.
God-bless all the people who have made this uniform, and left lots of nice information on the internet for me.
Still haven't tackled the tunic yet. Buckling the jacket helps to hide that problem for now. Still hoping to find a pattern for the tunic, but am going to try figuring it out for myself if no pattern drops out of the sky. There is a nice step by step tutorial on a woman's blog on how she made hers, it just lacks an actual pattern.
Yeah, I decided to skip a mortgage payment and buy one of the eFX helmets. Talked myself into it by deciding it could be on display in my living room during the 99.99% of the year when I was not at a Con or a Haloween party.
