Han Solo: Empire Strikes Back

[Risu]

The buckles are being cut today, the bluing solution appears to be working (I just need to polish the gun better before applying it), and the parts from Gatekeeper arrived yesterday and look great. That's all the good news.

The bad news: the pants fabric I bought from Denver Fabrics is awful. Way too red and the weave is chunky and rough. Not how it looks in their product photo at all. I'm going to see about returning it and another fabric I got from them that's even less like what I expected. And the really bad news: front of Russia stole my money. So just to be clear, for all future generations that try to put this costume together, and because nobody was able to or cared to warn me, Front of Russia will steal your money. Not might steal your money, not could steal it. They WILL steal it. I advise anybody over on rebel legion, 501st, Dented Helmet, and any military reenacting forums you're on to spread the word. I don't want these guys to rip off anybody else, but more than that I don't want them to keep making money.

Anyway, the investment lost wasn't much, but since tw only other option right now is Motor Cowboy at over $500, this costume is on hold until a new boot option becomes available. Hopefully Todd will get his back in stock soon, but it definitely won't be in time for my original deadline and probably not for DCon either.

 

[GBrittelleJr]

Before you try anything else, email Todd. I did a while ago and he said his stock doesn't match what the site says. So he may have your boot size yet! Otherwise, I'm really sorry to hear about that with FoR. Isn't there anything you could do? PayPal or credit card fraud?

 

[Risu]

I've already talked to Todd, he says it'll be a few months before he has stock.

FoR requires that you pay with Western Union, so nothing I can do. If the gap in price between those boots and the next option wasn't so high I wouldn't have risked it.

 

[Dark Siren]

Oh, and to answer your question about the shirt fabric; seeing as how both ANH and ROTJ are knits, shouldn't we assume it would be the same for ESB?

I wouldn't make that assumption. Until you see the shirt in person, you can't ever really be sure. However, for those who understand how draping, pattern making and fabric works, we can make good guesses. The ANH shirt behaves like a knit, you can tell by the way it moves and stretches. The cross front ESB shirt, however, is most likely a woven cotton or linen, however I would use a cotton shirting with 2% spandex stretch for easy fitting and wear. Also, if you look at the blue-ray, I would watch for how the shirt wrinkles. Lots of wrinkles will give it away as a woven fabric, mostly cottons and linens. Knits have more give to movement and don't form wrinkles as quickly.

 

[jaytripwire]

I found the perfect ESB Solo boots on Etsy they were $150 and already worn in, check there every so often, you have to weed thru pages of womens boots but when you get a find its worth it.

 

[Risu]

There are lots of Russian boots on ebay right now for around $120, but I honestly don't want to spend that much for those considering they're the wrong leather, the wrong top cut, the wrong toe shape, and I'd just have to spend another $80 getting them taken out to fit my legs. I'd still have to do that with Todd's but at least they're accurate.

The shirt fabric, woven with a small spandex content is what I went with. The shirt in the movie doesn't wrinkle (crease) at all, so it's probably a knit, but all the knits I found draped horribly and wouldn't have looked right.

 

[Mitch LaRue]

I had a bit of bad "Boot Luck" myself, recently...
Ordered a pair that I found Online and loved -and that looked really ON (to my eyes, at least - I kept comparing the photos of them to photos of Ford's and they looked SO right) …but once they got here I realized that while the "shoe" of each boots seem like they'd be the right length for me, the width of them is too narrow for me!
I'm sure someone with a more narrow foot would do well with them, but it looks like they're not meant for THIS Corellian! :facepalm
The search continues…

 

[Risu]

What size do you wear/what size are they?

 

[Jango Wes]

Have you seen the Museum Replicas Imperial officer boots? I've never seen them in person, but the pics seem to be ok. They run about $200 on eBay.

 

[Risu]

If I remember correctly, they're not tall enough. And I've heard nothing but bad things about Museum Replicas.

 

[Mitch LaRue]

What size do you wear/what size are they?

Hey Risu, how ya doin?

For starters, HERE’s a Link (I hope it works) to what I ordered:
size 95 EQUESTRIAN black leather 70s 80s knee by 20twentyvintage

As you’ll see the measurements are right there in the Ad plain as day:
3 3/4 exterior sole width

But unfortunately, while I do wear a 9.5 and MY foot measure 11 Inches in Length, they are a (WHOPPING? I never thought they were really BIG feet) 4.5 Inches in Width.

Anyway, I have no one to blame but myself:
I didn’t catch that little detail of the width mostly because I was so stoked that I was seeing my Size and foot length on a boot that seemed to look SO right to me (I know different people have different “takes” on these boots – for instance, some people believe steadfastly that those boots have a flat, level “cut” to the top of them… but I ALWAYS see a slight UPward slope to the outsides of them. Sometimes I’ll even it in a photo showing Ford in the movie that people are posting to make the point “See? They’re FLAT” and I can still see the slope.
Anyway, when I saw these British Equestrian Boots “from the 70’s-80’s” I though “THESE are as close as I’ll ever find…" :love

But
DAMN.
WIDE.
FEET.
:facepalm

Ah well… The Search continues (I’m going to have to find a buyer for these sometime, though, and try an recover some of my cost…)

:rolleyes

 

[Risu]

Those are the most perfect Solo boots I've ever seen. Too bad I wear an 11.

 

[Risu]

Here are the parts of the Solo blaster in their current state. I definitely need to polish the denix before applying the gun blue or else it just looks dingy and feels dirty.



Also, I'll be fixing the flash hider with a thin walled piece brass pipe, fits in almost perfectly.

Edit: Oh, and this is fun. I just received a tracking number from Front of Russia. Let's see if that ends up being valid.

 

[GBrittelleJr]

Any updates on this? I'm curious as to where you got your ESB DL-44 parts, as I want to build that next.

 

[Risu]

I bought them all on here. I don't expect to be updating this for a while. The gun is on hold for a week or two while I handle some other small builds, the gun belt buckles are in progress but the timetable isn't up to me, and the rest of the costume is on hold until the boots arrive and my girlfriend has time to dye my jacket fabric. She may also custom dye the pants fabric since all attempts at buying that have been massive failures.

 

[Gatekeeper]

I really don't want to paint this thing, has anybody had any luck with those gun bluing kits on Amazon and the like? I've heard mixed reviews in the past. If it looks good I'd really prefer that over painting.

Birchwood-Casey products (Aluminum Black) have been used for rebluing zinc replicas, even though it's not even supposed to be possible... the main thing is the prep work. Strip the Denix thoroughly of the old coating, degrease, sand with several grits, degrease again... get the surface as smooth as possible before applying the bluing compound. Don't forget to degrease. Bluing compound may have to be applied in several coats. Afterwards, apply oil for a nice bluish-black sheen. Lots of elbow grease is needed to achieve a great look.

 

[Risu]

Yea, I ended up getting that stuff and did a few tests with it, you can see it in the picture up above. The polishing is definitely a necessary step. I might work on the gun a little more in a week or two, we're too busy at work right now for me to get anything done with it really.

I did get my gun belt buckles finally, and unfortunately it looks like they're just going to be too expensive and labor intensive to do a run, sorry. The water jet cutting and welding for just the buckles themselves, no c clamp, was $100. Then there's the hardware that gets welded on, the time to bend the bars for the back buckle and clean them up, and the worst part is bending the c clamp. The overall cost would be about $140 in materials and about 4 hours of work each. I just don't have the time for that, and obviously nobody would want to pay enough to make it worth my while.

 

[Risu]

Guess what arrived in the mail today! My boots from Russia. And they're two sizes smaller than what I ordered. Other than that they're great. If anybody wants a pair of size EU43 solo boots for a great price, send me a PM.

 

[Indy Magnoli]

Just finished our version:

We ended up using a midnight blue cotton twill. It looks like a very dark blue in most lighting conditions... sometimes almost black or a very dark grey. So this particular version I would say leans more towards "screen seen" than accurate to the original color (which probably is a bit less blue). You can see the decorative stitching in the photo with the sleeve pocket. This is the same stitching as on Luke's Bespin jacket.

Let me know what you think.

Kind regards,
Magnoli

 

[Risu]

Pretty snazzy. Definitely the best commercially available one out there. One change I'd recommend is to make the flap on the sleeve pocket longer and more angular. Other than that, no complaints here.

Those boots are up in the junkyard now, really good price, need to move them quickly.