Wow how time flies. Didn't realize it's been so long since I last updated this thread. Well it's almost Halloween and as I'm headed out in full Chris Taylor gear I thought I'd post a few pics of wht I've been able to assemble.
First, I did get the semi-clear grenades from ehobbyasia with no hassels.
They look very close to the real thing and the spoon is actually a seperate piece attached to the top with a plastic rod 'pin'. I broke those off pretty easily.
Next, reading some tips on a BMX thread about painting plastic I first washed each grenade with soapy water and rinsed clean. I grabbed a blow torch on low and heated the plastic till it looked wet and wiped off the chemical release with a clean rag. Then I took them out to the garage and began the process of applying 7 coats of flat OD green spraypaint. I wore dispoable plastic gloves the entire time so no finger oils would contaminate the paint.
I think they turned out great! Best of all is because of the prep-work the paint is SOLID. It doesn't mark up bad or scratch off at all. But I didn't think the little plastic 'pin' looked authentic enough so I bought a lot of 20 used M26 pins on ebay. Had to bore out the hole through the top and spoon a little to give them some flex but wow what a difference! Thinking if I find some extra authentic spoons on ebay I'll grab them and make these things look even better. Other than being super light.
So now the REAL hard part. Getting the infamous written quote from Taylor's helmet to look just right. I got a great couple of screen shots and put them together in photoshop to extract the text. I tried to print it off onto heat transfer paper and iron it onto the mitchell cover but that failed. So I took a regular paper print-out and placed it on the helmet, grabbed a good sharpie and under traced the quote on. Again I think it came out pretty good considering the angles and that I never could get a clean shot of the last part so I had to free-hand it. And I suck at free-hand tracing.
For comparrison. Throughout the film the placement of the text would move around the helmet so I placed it as best as I could.
And finally the reason this thread was created in the first place, the ARVN Rucksack. Looks a little dull without being stuffed full so I'm going to grab some cotton batting for effect.
2 of the 3 grenades, the helmet and rucksack all ready for the 31st. Thanks for the help and suggestions and I'll propably post some pics of the full load-out soon.
