Well, this is a labor of love for me. Flash is my favorite figure of all time. I'm very pleased to have gotten a new Flash from Hasbro, but there were a few things I was not happy with. Here they are in no particular order: the collar, head, and that his chest harness and pad isn't removable like the other OG13 Joes we have gotten so far.

Anyway, here is my attempt to fix this. I'm about 85% pleased with it, but I'm done with him.

Sgt. Flash: Laser Trooper




The harness is made from 2 Cobra Air Viper harness fused together (thanks a ton to Midgarn on this), and I cut the chest pad off of a Sgt. Flash torso. It's a little bulky, but not as bad as it could be. Also, it'll never come off. I had to put the harness on, then glue the chest pad in after, but I doubt I would've taken off anyway.

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That head really works well for Flash -- I wish I could easily fix the googly eyes of my Ace so I could use it for mine.

I really like the method you used for the chest pad -- my only critique is that the harness (silver part) looks a little too thick around the edges, but that's a very minor thing.

Love what you've done with him. --You gonna snap an "all geared up" pic?

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Probably try to do that this weekend.

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I too really like that Ace head on Flash. (Man, now you have me thinking about swapping those two... )

I'm also glad my Fast Draw harness helped inspire you on the harness here. It looks pretty seamless, even where you glued the bottom straps onto his belt.

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I have to ask why go to the trouble if it won't come off? Doesn't the molded on release from Hasbro serve the same purpose?


Great craftsmanship as always though. Love the new head.

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glad everyone likes the head. I hate the original for Flash (although it works for Grandslam)



Good question. It was originally planned to come off. After glueing the harness together I realized that I wouldn't be able to take it off. It really needs to have "latches" where the harness meets the belt, but that is hindsight (plus I'm not sure how I'd have done it). It does serve the same purpose as Hasbro's, but I think he looks more consistent with the other OG13 figures that have been released.

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Using the Ace head makes him a 1000 times better. If that was all you did that would be great. I like the idea of what you were going for with the chest pad, but it still doesn't seem right to me though. I can't put my finger on what is bugging me about it. Maybe the outer edge. I don't know and I know that isn't of any help either. It seems like it is unfinished and needs something.

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man i love it . you know i love all take on removable gear. you have done a killer job on this one.

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I've been of two minds how to fix my Flasher. I've been thinking of simply painting silver edges to the break in the padding to say it's two-piece armor instead of one-piece that Hasbro fubared like a T-Rex on a chihuahua.

I've also been thinking of trying to find some red quilted fabric and gluing it to some webgear for a similar set-up to what you've got here, except removeable and flexible. I was thinking I'd use the belt buckles from a pair of Trooper webgear to make the connecting latches on the belt. Have the harness straps end with the loops of the buckles, and have the pegs on the actual Flasher belt.

And, amazingly enough, I've got a spare Ace with no uses in mind so I think I'll swipe this headswap as well.

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oh man, you'd think I'd seen those latches when I cut them off the office webgear. that's definately be the way to go if I were to do this over.

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Definitely like the Ace head for Flash. I think I'll pull that swap myself though I'll have to change his hair color a bit to make him look different from Ace.

The webgear looks good but there's one thing that bugs me. I'm not sure if this is just the way the image is showing up or if its the gear itself but it doesn't look like the chest padding is quilted like the rest. Since its non-removable I would have just scuplted on the quilting rather than try to recycle the padding from the original figure (if that's what you did, still fuzzy on that part) But the straps and harness combined with the original belt work great.

And yeah, we need a geared up shot to truly appreciate this one. You did leave the back hole exposed right? That's something I would do, get a wicked cool web harness done and then forget to leave the backpack hole usable.

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I cut the original padding off the torso. Then I sculpted to fill in the seam between the two pieces. Between one pass of fine sand paper and the couple coats of paint, I almost lost all the quilting.


Well, that would've been the problem, but I used a SE torso that didn't have a back hole, so I had to drill it myself.

I might go take some pictures right now.

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Looks like I'll being redoing this one. I found some 1/16" square texture styrene last night at Hobby Town. I'm going to thin down the straps in the front, and am going to attempt to make the harness removable.

Wish me luck

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