Captain America Rescue Costume -- Aka my first build ever!

Alright! So I figured I'd finally get started here on the rpf and start it off with a bang of sorts!

Here's basically my first build ever. (I have done other costumes in the past but this one is a heck of a lot more serious than either of those). I'm going to Retro Con next month with my best friend who's coming down from Connecticut and we're planning on doing a Marvel Day and a DC Day!

So! Here goes my first Marvel costume ever!

I figured I'd start with the Captain America Rescue Costume from the first Captain America Movie! (Sorry if some of these pictures are a bit big, but I found some nicer reference images I figured I'd share!)



Now onto the actual build part!

I'm just gonna put this out there before I get started, THIS BUILD IS NOT GOING TO BE EXACTLY PERIOD! Unfortunately as much as I would LOVE to be able to make this build period as well as movie accurate. I can't because of mostly budget reasons but also because a lot of this stuff can be hard to find and I only have a month to put this entire costume together.

That being said though, I am going to attempt to get it as close as possible for right now and I can always upgrade/tweak it later.

So without further ado! Here's what I've found on my excursions through the swamp of Military Surplus Stores located around my area. (I'll have pictures up soon, promise)

• Steel Pot Helmet (I'm not exactly sure if it's an M-1 or what. All I know is it's definitely older)
• Suspenders (For the harness, it's hard matching up colors. Honestly right now I'm just trying to go for the oldest looking stuff I can find)
• Pistol Belt (Again going for older)
• Gloves
• Holster (I'm actually really happy because it looks like it could be legitimate WW2 era and it's the proper color and it's weathered like crazy from actual use. I found it down in my basement with all of the old stuff we have)
• Training Knife (It's actually supposed to be an MK 2 knife. It literally looks just like my real MK 2 I have, just bulkier and plastic. So while it's not an M-3, it'll work)

Things I still need:

• Leather Jacket
• Goggles
• Boots
• Paratrooper Pants
• Pouches
• Shield
• USO shirt
• Sheath for Training Knife
• Boot Spats (I actually have a lead on some vintage WW2 Boot Spats from a lady who runs a local Vintage Shop, she says she thinks she has them at her house and she's going to give me a call if she still has them! )

I'll have pictures up soon! And then I'll get to actually futzing with the pieces to make it movie accurate. Wish me luck guys! I'm gonna need it!

Hey everyone! Here's the pictures of all the pieces I have so far. I'm going to attempt to do this in a fashion so I don't clog up one entire post with nothing but pictures. So I'll start with my Steel Pot, Harness, and Knife and go from there. (Or something to that extent).





Here's the outside and the inside of my Steel Pot, I have no clue if it's an M-1 or even if it's an American helmet. The son of the guy who runs the Surplus shop I bought it from immediately rambled on that it's probably not even American and that it's probably just Belgian. And his Dad seemed to agree with him. Although... I have my suspicions.

Either way it's definitely older, waayy older. My Mother was in the Army for 6 years and got out in 1987, so she's been helping me try and sort through things and figure out which pieces are older than what she was using back in the day. When she saw this she took one look at the clasp on the helmet and said "We didn't have anything like that that's way older than what we used." So here it is!

I can't complain... for only $75 it wasn't too bad. I honestly was expecting the price to be worse. So no complaints there (unless I could find a better helmet for cheaper and then I'll start complaining.)

The one issue I have with this. And I just realized this last night. Is that the leather strap that goes across the top of the helmet, (which I assume is used to keep the liner from falling out of the helmet. I've had this problem when wearing it, since I've been trying to get used to the weight of it, also because I'm a big dorky nerd who just loves to wear her helmet!) is missing so I'm going to need to replace that.

So if anyone knows the name of that particular strap, pleaseee let me know. I just need that and also the chinstrap. I did find the Paratrooper Helmet Kit at atthefrontshop thanks to looking over Fly4v's huge build thread for his AMAZING Captain America costumes. (Here's the link if you'd like to take a look at it https://www.atthefrontshop.com/Prod...#WebrootPlugIn#?1#?1#PhreshPhish#?1#?1#agtpwd )

Now as far as painting goes, I don't know if any special paint in particular is needed. Since this helmet is already textured and I don't have a lot of time. I was planning on just getting some white and blue spray paint and doing a whole coat of white, taping off the A and then spray painting the helmet blue.


NOW! Onto the Suspenders!

And before anyone says anything -holds hands out for shackles- Arrest me officer it's not period!

Please no throwing of tomatoes, and here we go!



Yes, yes I know. Soooo totally not period. But hey, I'm not complaining. I was just looking for the oldest/most weathered equipment I could find and we went to probably 3 or 4 different Surplus stores yesterday so the suspenders and my steel pot were from one shop and the pistol belt was from a completely different one.

Anyways, I decided to hook everything together last night so it was easier to carry around and that way I could get a feel of what it's going to look like. Obviously I'll be taking the electrical tape off of the strap, unfortunately the duct tape on the one hook is because the poor thing is slightly busted. Like I said I'll be upgrading this as I go along so eventually I'll find period correct items and be able to make this properly when I have more time.

I still haven't found any pouches that are old enough yet. Even the older ones from Vietnam I've found are made out of material that didn't exist then. I did find some period pouches but I didn't pick any up yet because everything I needed wasn't all there.

Now for the Knife! One of my favorite parts!

So I was looking for a reproduction M-3 because that's what he would have actually had, but I found something still somewhat period, not a real knife, and will work in a pinch.



On the left is the training knife I found and on the Right is my actual Real MK 2. Obviously you can see this training knife is modeled after the MK2, but since the MK2 was actually in WWII (Mine was anyways since it's a 1943 if I remember correctly) it's okay and I just need to make/find a sheath that'll work.

More pictures to come! Please let me know if anyone knows anything about that strap! Or if anyone knows where I can find some good pouches that would work that aren't going to break the bank.

Okay so since I have a quick minute before I have to skidaddle off to the land of board games (it's board game night with my friends)

Anyways! Here are the rest of the pictures for the Gloves and the Holster!

First up, Gloves!



So theses are just some beaten up old work gloves that I found at home. I totally forgot I had these, they were my Grandfather's gloves that my Dad had just given to me after he passed away and we were digging up stuff. But now I found them and here they are!

And next up! Holster time!



Front!



And back!

I'm actually really happy with finding this. It was down in the basement and I had remembered it from a while ago so I thought "Hey I'll grab it!" This definitely seems like it's period, it's weathered really well and still in one piece, also it's the proper original color and I'm so super psyched about that. I'm still nooot exactly sure how this is going to fit onto my gear, but I'll figure it out. Pretty sure this was either my Dad's or my Pop Jay's. Who knows. It's at my house! I'm using it!

So here's what all I have right now for parts! I'll be getting more soon (hopefully)

Also if anyone has any advice/tips/links for the goggles. I heard they're supposed to be B7 goggles but those are extremely expensive. I know the goggles aren't going to be cheap but I'm going to need something close. So if anyone knows anything that'll work! Please please let me know!

You may want to consider conditioning any old leather very, very well prior to use. Old leather tends to dry out and tear very easily, and I'd hate to see something with potential family history damaged! Some conditioners will darken the color though, so either spot test or look for ones labeled as "non-darkening". I think it's pretty awesome that you're going for actual vintage stuff.

Thanks! I'll have to see if I can find any conditioner. Worst case scenario I can always go and hit Tandy up and find something. I think the holster should be okay but it might be a good idea to at least condition it a little bit seeing as it is pretty old.

I mean if it being hung up in our basement for 16+ years hasn't busted it, I don't know what will. :lol

But anyways, good news! I'm probably going to be going out on another excursion. This time to thrift shops and more Surplus stores! Let's hope I can find what I need. (fingers crossed because I have no clue if I'm gonna be able to find all the pouches or the pants or even the jacket today. Might have to wait till it's a bit colder for the jacket).

So I'll post pictures if I find anything good, and let everyone know what happens today. I'm really hoping I make more progress because the countdown to the Con is starting now!

There's only 3 weeks, 3 days, 23 hours, and 29 minutes to go!

Oh god I'm officially nervous.... YIKES! Guess that just means I've got to hurry up and go go go!

But as always, if anyone knows anything about that missing strap, AND/OR the Goggles (or something close!!) Please please please let me know. The goggles are going to be one of the most expensive and hardest parts to find, and it's coming down to crunch.

AND I almost forgot, when it comes to the Boots. This is where I shall beseech everyone to not throw tomatoes at me. I may have to go with Black Corcorans because A) trying to find them in an actual shop is crazy impossible, and B) The cheapest pair I found online was over $150 anddddddd I can't exactly afford that just yet. Honestly I'll do what i can about the boots, but if I wind up having to do black... yikes I'll do it.

Still waiting to hear back on the boot spats, I really really really hope she calls me soon.

Wow you are off to a great start. Really look forward to seeing it done!

This is the first image other than screen caps showing the M3 fighting knife. Plus you have some vintage items.
With the leggings you should be able to get away with your black jump boots and some dried on mud.

I have a rescue build list in my Cap build if you need to find any items.

:eek Fly!! Wow it's so awesome to see you here!!

Thank you so much and I honestly can't wait to get it done myself. I'll be referencing that build list in your Cap thread a lot now that it's gotten down to crunch time.

I'm down to the Jacket, Goggles, USO Shirt, Sheath, and Pouches. Since I now have the materials to build my shield and I ordered Paratrooper pants. (Now they aren't period but they'll work since they are legit paratrooper pants and they're in the right color.)

So here goes the update!

First off I finally got my Boots. Now I could have ordered in Brown Corcorans, but I realized that for now the black ones would be better because I can use them for more than just my Cap costume (Since I'll be tackling Winter Soldier for Philly Comic Con next year, it'll be good to have my boots ahead of time since I can technically get away with those.)






I'm super excited about these, they're my first pair of Corcorans ever and I was like a kid at Christmas when I got to finally try them on and walk around in them.

Next up are the "building materials" I finally went to Home Depot and got some things to use to build my Shield as well as the spray paint for my Helmet as well.




Rivets and the Rivet gun that goes with to attach the belt to the board I have (you'll see that in a minute) and also the Fiber Fix to use as the fiberglass "shell" Hopefully this all goes together the way I want it to -fingers crossed-



Here's my paints, I got the heavy duty stuff since I'll be painting my helmet. Didn't want to take any chances. The Masonry Board thingy is for the handle of my shield and you can see the corrugated plastic board I got for the base of my shield.



These are the eyelet's I'm going to use when I make my sheath. Yeeaahh I have to make my sheath from Remnant leather I have laying around because my training knife won't fit into the sheath I have. (I wish it did it'd make life a lot easier). But no biggie.



And here's the whole lot of it!

Sooo yeah I'm gonna have a lot of fun putting everything together. Wish me luck! I hope I can get the measurements right on the Shield size, I'm just gonna eye ball it for the most part. Unless someone has any exact measurements.

Still waiting to hear about the Boot spats and I'm gonna start the hunt for the goggles now. I'm still keeping an eye out for a Jacket, but I just went to Good Will today andddd nothing there. Soooo yeah. Might hit Burlington Coat Factory... maybe. But I honestly don't know.

As always! Any tips, advice, instructions, links, etc. Hit me up!

Uh...thanks ...but I'm just Fly4v.... not the famous Fly.... George Mc.

Corcorans are great boots. They last forever just use Kiwi and water to shine them and they will never crack. Kind of stiff until they are broken in.

Getting the jacket was difficult, I still use and wear my home-mod not as a costume. My wife likes it, the people I work with life it and it held up to a hard winter so for a $60 base jacket it was worth it but... did himalayaleather.com go out of business?
Can't get their page to open.
Sadly, the best and most expensive out there was made by Dan "The Man" who ended up gettting Banned.
So on the jacket front have to default to the new Cap's that may have bought their jackets from ebay.

Edit: Getting forgetful. The leather strap you need is included in the Paratrooper Helmet Kit from At The Front. It is listed as Leather Liner Chin Strap. As you know your helmet is a ground helmet and will need the A yoke and chin cup.
The Chin Strap that you have is the later version with the metal clip and while in excellent condition would need to be removed and replaced with the sewn on strap with longer the snap end and install snaps in helmet liner.

I have no idea what's going on with the himalaya leather site because it wasn't loading for me either. But thankfully I have some good (ish) news!

Started breaking in my Corcorans today, the pain endured is worth it! I'm going to give my foot a chance to heal from the blister and then I'll be wearing them again. (Note: While wearing them all day to classes at college is a good idea and will probably help break them in in no time flat. BOY DOES IT HURT!)

Other good news is that I talked to a friend of mine at my college who retired from the army. I do believe he was in for 30 years or so. (the great thing about going to Community College is you run into all kinds of people) I showed him what I was looking for with the jacket and the goggles. He said he thinks he has a pair of goggles just like the B7s at home so he's going to go take a look for them. And he suggested where I could possibly find a jacket like that. So I'm going to be looking online at the one site right now but some more excursion trips are definitely in order!

Still haven't heard anything back from the lady at the Vintage Shop. I'll have to pop in and see if she dug them up yet or not this weekend if I can. And I'm now just waiting for my pants to come in and I'll be sitting down to work on painting my helmet and working on my shield soon! (Maybe tonight if I feel up to it. I'm not sure).

I really hope Bruce has those goggles or something close at least. It'd be a big relief. He almost had a heart attack when I told him how much they were going for these days.

I'll be grabbing the material to make my shirt as well soon. Soon as I get the shirts I'll be dismantling them and sewing them back up. I like to refer to it as "Bucky Style" since I did something similar for my Winter Soldier hoodie I made. (Mostly those pictures are me acting like a goof with it but you can get the gist of what I did with the sleeve and what not.) So hopefully this shirt shouldn't be too much of a challenge. I fool around with the sewing machine enough that it'll be done in a couple hours I think.

So I guess really all that's left while I wait to hear back from everyone I have leads with is to just start cranking out the projects that need constructing. Shouldn't be too hard. I just have to fenangle the shield and paint the helmet.

OH! And Fly, I am going to try and get the paratrooper helmet kit, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to just yet. I'll do my best, trust me, but if I just wind up that I can't get it in time for the Con I'll have to just add it to the list of upgrades that I'm going to be getting once I upgrade this costume.

Since you have a perfectly good chin strap. As a cost saving measure, could enlage the photo from 'At the Front' for the patterns and make the A yokes from Khaki strapping, the chip cup for a scrap of pleather, and the front helmet band from dark brown pleather and just tie it off to keep the liner and pot together.
A good scrap bin search at a local fabric store should be good and if you don't want to eye ball it, using the width of your chin strap as a gage when blowing the picture up, I can measure what I have.

I just started collecting pieces for a Cap Rescue costume. I'll be watching to see how this goes for you.

Good call on the black corcorans. I'm going to be doing the same; getting a used pair from a surplus store in town. I think I'll try to strip them of whatever polish is on them and repolish using a brown leather polish.

Hrm. I'll have to look at the patterns then and see if I can't do something. I am however heading up this Saturday to another surplus/flea market type place where all the locals swear there's a bunch of stuff. Still waiting to hear back about the boot spats though. And hopefully tomorrow Bruce might have some info for me on whether or not he's got those goggles.

Hi there Ken nice to see you here! Um and on stripping your boots... now I'm not the expert on boots but I honestly wouldn't do that to a pair of Corcorans even if they were used because you might wreck the leather of the boot if you try and do that. But that's just my opinion on it, I'm not sure if it can be done or not.

Anyways! I have lots of pics and some great news. My USO Shirt is almost finished! I have tons of progress pics for it. I was working on it all day today cause I had the itch to get it done and out of the way. And let me tell you I couldn't be happier.

So without further ado!

First off I went out and bought 3 long sleeve T-Shirts. One Blue, One White, and One Red. All of them are Hanes "Beefy" mens shirts, size M (since that's what I fit into).



First thing I did with the shirts was take the White shirt and using a seam ripper, rip off both sleeves from either side. Leaving the torso and both sleeves behind.

After that I took the Blue shirt, lined the white sleeves up with the blue sleeves and cut both sleeves at once where the cut should go so everything matched up in the right length.



Now onto the stripes! I'm going to be cutting out a lot of progress pics in here for the sake of saving everyone's browsers since there's a lot that I took. (they're all on my facebook but I can basically explain what I did here).

When it came to the stripes I cut the Red and White shirts at the same time One on top of another, right below the arm seam, across the torso. This let me work with both of them without any issues, at once. Now I eyeballed everything so originally I only had 5 stripes cut, but I very quickly put it back to the original 7 with some trimming. It took a while but it was worth it.

A hell of a lot of pinning and sewing and a few hours later and I finally FINALLY had it attached to the actual shirt. I'm telling you that pinning the finished stripe section to the blue was a crazy mess. I'm lucky it worked.



Next up!

Sleeves! Now I'm just going to say this now. Whoever invented sleeves was A) a genius. and B) a sadistic psychopath. Because trying to mess around with sleeves when you barely know what you're doing is a NIGHTMARE! Thankfully I figured out the trick.



When you pin the white sleeve to the blue sleeve. The very first thing to do, is to find both the original seams of the shirt sleeves. (REMEMBER THE SEAM GOES DOWN!! ALWAYS REMEMBER!) and smush them together right sides together, and then start pinning from there.

Thankfully after figuring out the trick and getting everything lined up. The Sleeve Seams were IMMACULATE! I am so so happy with how they came out I am still grinning ear to ear over this.



And last but not least here it is! It's not finished yet though! The star is only pinned on in this picture so I could show everyone what it looked like.

It's not the best star, and I did sew it on tonight... it just.... was crooked. ^^;;;; Ummm so yeah I'll be pulling that off and fixing it this weekend when I get a chance.

But so far so good! 99% done on the shirt!

Hopefully if I get time this weekend I'll be able to go outside and paint the helmet and get that finished. According to my heavy duty spray paint it only takes about 15 minutes to dry or something like that. I'm not entirely sure but I'll be glad when I get it done! Then I can start working on my shield.

I have to say for a budget piece this is actually pretty authentic especially to the untrained eye nice build!

Thanks!

And here comes the update!

SO! First things first, I fixed the star on my shirt and I put it on and I gotta say it. This thing looks fantastic!

Secondly, I've got better leads on more of my stuff and I got some Pouches and my Leggings today! (was corrected and told they are not boot spats they are leggings. Whoops my bad.)



If you can't tell which ones are which, I have 3 Ammo pouches and 1 medical pouch. I have them on my pistol belt now and it's a pretty good fit!



Here's the one pair of leggings I got, they're 2R's soooo I may have a bit of trouble fitting them around my leg but we'll see what happens once I get my boots on. They are missing their laces but thankfully the guys I met at Renninger's (it's a big flea market/antique market/consignment place and there's a couple guys that run a couple really good surplus stands all the way in the back. It's like one big surplus party it's awesome!)



This is actually the "Spare" that I found. Out in the outdoor flea market there was a guy that had some surplus stuff there and we found this out there. Andddd he didn't have the other leg. But it was $3 so no worries and it's the same size as my other pair so if the left one breaks I have a spare!

I got to really talk to the guy that runs one of the surplus stands that I mentioned. It's where I got the pouches from (The pair of leggings were from another stand that an older gentleman was running) he actually had me write down what I needed and I showed him pictures of Cap's costume and he was shaking his head at some of the things and going "Well this is what you can do." It was really awesome getting to talk to him and he's going to actually pull out a bunch of gear that he has and bring it down next weekend for me to look at and see if it'll work. So he'll be bringing some all purpose straps, more leggings just in case, and he also recognized the goggles and he said that I could probably get away with using a pair of German goggles that are really similar. So he's going to look for those for me since they'll be a hell of a lot cheaper.

Also! I got the white coat done on my helmet, it's all dried and I taped off the A. Hopefully I did a good job with it, Because I eyeballed it as best as possible and then did the blue coat.



There's the white coat after it dried. I had some paint that was still tacky on the bottom of the rim from how I painted it. (I basically had this board with a contractor trash bag unfolded on top of it to keep the wood protected and then put the helmet on top of it and spray painted it that way.)



There's the masking job I did on the A, I had to actually trim the top of it while it was on the helmet, (That was fun. ugh.) And finally after I got that finished and the way I liked it, I just took it outside and put on the blue!

The final thing that I worked on today was the Sheath for my training knife. I just had some leather remnants lying about. And I know this isn't perfect and believe me I know it's not. I just kinda threw it together real quick and it'll work for now till I can make a better one or actually find one that fits.



Sooo did not do seams on this one... like I said I just threw it together quick, I don't even know if I did the eyelets right they were giving me all kinds of trouble. But hopefully no one will care about the hack job I did on the sheath (no pun intended) and I can always spruce it up later. Or find something that'll fit this thing.

And now for the continuation of: -DUN DUN DUN!!!- THE GREAT JACKET HUNT!

SO! I think I may have found something. After looking around with no luck and scouring the internet. I came to the conclusion that, at the present moment, the only style I can find the proper look/style of Cap's jacket is in a motorcycle jacket. The only issue is that pretty much all of them... are black.

BUT NEVER FEAR! My family's favorite leather website is here!

http://www.jaminleather.com I shall be the first to say it. Thank God for Jamin' Leather.

I remembered that my dad's heavy duty hunking huge "Herman Munster" (as I liked to call it) Motorcycle jacket that he got from Jamin' Leather was the same style zipper and collar do da, so I went looking and low and behold what did I find? BUT THIS!

Light - http://www.jaminleather.com/Side-Lace-Light-Brown-Leather-Motorcycle-Jacket-P895.aspx#

Rich Brown - http://www.jaminleather.com/Rich-Brown-Leather-Jacket-P949.aspx#

Dark Brown - http://www.jaminleather.com/Retro-Dark-Brown-Leather-Jacket-P972.aspx#

Now that's all the have in this color selection at the moment. Sooo the closest I could get would be the Rich Brown but I honestly don't see it being that much of a set back.
That jacket of Cap's is such a hard color to find. And I mean it's crazy. I've been looking through every rack of jackets at Goodwill, the flea market today, any chance I get to see a jacket rack somewhere I'm paging through it and I haven't found a single jacket that even came close to the look of his. Or the color. So I'm probably going to go with the Rich Brown one. Thankfully I know there stuff is going to be worth it's weight in gold because it's nigh indestructible. (Testament to that is when my parents got into the motorcycle accident. Everything held up thank God.)

But anyways, now I have leads on goggles, and the Jacket. I'm getting down to the finish line here soon! So now all that's left to build build is the Shield. And boy I hope I can fenangle this.

Alright so quick update on my helmet!

Got the blue coat finished and dried.



Moment of truth time!



TA-DA! I'm really happy with how it came out. Although I realized after I checked my reference image. That the A is waaayy too big.



So yeah, I may fix it before the convention, I may not... I might wait till afterwards. I don't know. Right now I really need to focus on the shield and get that done as soon as I can. I'm almost done and I can't wait to get everything put together and finally futzed with. Let me know if it's completely horrendous and needs to be fixed right this second. (I think I did okay for my first time spray painting anything at all)

Hey guys! Figured I'd give the update on the shield real quick.


Soooooo the Fiber Fix did nothing. It was absolute crap when it came to this project, and I kinda found it out the hard way.

I mean don't get me wrong the stuff seems like a pretty good product, but it's just not meant to handle doing something this big. It's meant for smaller projects. So! Thanks to the awesome people that work at my local Home Depot, I went back told them what was going on, talked to Madi (who is awesome) and she suggested Bondo! Which I'm honestly kicking myself for not remembering that I could use Bondo. But this is my first time working with fiberglass ever so it's okay.

She hooked me up with a fiberglass mat and a nice size container of the resin to use on top of it. So I'm just going to use my plastic shield cut out that I already have ready to go and then I'll just put the mat on and then put the resin on! And ka-boom!

Also extra good news. Couple days ago I ordered my Leather Jacket! I went with the Rich Brown from Jamin' Leather. And while we're on the subject of things ordered.

For those of you that couldn't tell, I'm a girl. (I know I didn't exactly make it obvious but it's okay if you couldn't tell.) Anyways, I also ordered my binder, because I do love to crossplay and I wanted to do this costume proper justice and play it as Male Steve. And because I tend to have issues trying to bind... I figured it was high time I got myself a proper binder. So that's also on its way!

Should be here at the end of this week or the beginning of the next at the latest. Thankfully being on the East Coast means I'll get my stuff faster ish since the companies I ordered from are on the East Coast too.

I'm also heading up to Renninger's this weekend again, Rick is going to help me out with the last bits of my costume. And I really hope I get the call from the other surplus shop about my paratrooper pants I ordered. I may have to call them tomorrow, but we'll see.

I'll post progress pictures of my shield soon as I get started with the Bondo! If anyone has any advice please... please share. I know I'll be fine but it seems a bit daunting since I've never worked with it before. But it's pretty straight forward.

About 2 weeks and 2 days or so left to go! -bites nails- Getting down to the final crunch!

Still working on the shield, it's going to rain today so I have to hurry and get all my fixing of my helmet done and try and get my shield ready to bondo before it rains. -fingers crossed-

Binder came in the mail today and I just called into the surplus store and my Paratrooper pants are in! My jacket is still on its way, but if all goes well it should be here this weekend or the beginning of next week. Now all I need to do is find goggles that'll work, Rick will be helping me with that, and figure out the whole leggings situation. Almost finished! Can't wait till it's done.

Update! And it's picture time!

So here's the pictures so far from my shield build and from fixing my helmet.



First up, the nonsense that happened with 3 whole rolls of 4 inch wide fiber fix. I'm sorry at 10 dollars a roll.... soooo not cost effective and it didn't do its job for this project. Great for smaller fixes but not this.




Next, my helmet! I printed and cut out the proper size A and then cut out the shape with masking tape, but apparently the blue paint decided to get under the tape and cause me to nearly pull my hair out. Thankfully I have Acrylic and the spray paint I got is the 15 minute fast dry professional grade. (love it, LOOOVE IT) so did some touch ups with Acrylic and we're back in business!



Back to the shield I pulled a Rosie the Riveter, and was Riveting away on this since I finally looked up how to use the rivets I have. So simple, so so simple. Just drill, and put those babies in there. Had to put a nice amount of gorilla glue on the rivets on the belt after hammering them down. Cause they didn't want to stay. I'm gonna let everything dry overnight.



Finally, the NEW materials Bondo (hardener included) Fiberglass Resin, Fiberglass Mat, 2 extra fine sanding blocks, the variety pack of 2 60s, 3 100s, and 3 150s is in the back behind the Spray paint. Can't wait to get this all done. Can't wait.

Also Binder came in the mail today, I put it on for a few hours, super comfy and I'm glad it's here. Just waiting on the Jacket now, and the Paratrooper pants came into the Surplus shop today so I'm gonna go up this weekend to pick them up.

This is alot of progress. The rescue uniform is really coming along.

Thanks Fly!

I'm kinda feeling the crunch right now because everything's kinda coming down on me. I'm literally so tired and stressed that I have to stay home from classes today because I'll probably beat someone over the head with a textbook if I see another stupid person or have to put up with fools in my class. (I go to school in Reading, nuff said) I'm going to get this shield bondo'd and finished today if it kills me. I really am. I'm so sick of seeing it laying around and only being able to do some of it.

I'm just so glad I'm almost done. So so glad. I've already told people that when I'm done I'll come around in costume to show it off. Home Depot is the first stop since everyone wants to see what they've helped me build. And Madi is getting close to having to take her maternity leave from the store so the sooner I can show it to her the better!

I'll have more pics by the end of today. And then after tomorrow I'll hopefully have more spoils of war-- Er I mean Renninger's