Thanks for the comments guys, much appreciated!
As for covering cardboard with fiberglass resin, I have no experience in doing that. I guess it could work. But I would do it on the inside of the bucket to gain more structural rigidness. Just my 2 cents.
Now let's get on with the show. 8)
All glued parts should have now dried sufficiently. Let's do a little inspection of what we have already. Remember that I cut an angle to the cheekbones before glueing them in? This pic shows why:
It definitely paid off. You can also see the mask layer on top of the bucket. This makes quite a rigid composition.
And as you also might remember (if not, just scroll up) I used the "Inner Surface" template for the bucket which is a bit smaller in height compared to the mask template. And that is apparent from this picture:
When glued on correctly, it creates sort of a rim or ledge (red circle). Now this is makes it easy for the base of the dome triangles to adhere to, as will be apparent later on.
For practical reasons I took off the dome frame arches previously. Now it's time to glue them back on:
So now it is time to get busy on the dome triangles! They had plenty of time to dry up so let's use those babies.
I start off with the cardboard piece I made from this template:
This one forms the back of the dome, and I split it up half (three sections each) and glued them on the inner ledge of the mask:
Inside view:
As can be seen from above photograph, I left just a little more length on the bottom part of the triangles. This exactly compensates for the aforementioned rim/ledge. So the actual length (arched area in the WOF template) which I leave on the triangle bottom, is the same distance from the dome base ring to the top of the mask edge.
To illustrate, this is where I cut the bottom (red line):
This excess material is covered by and glued to the inner mask edge. That same extra length I also incorporated for the dome form rings:
I hope I made that clear :confused. Most of the time, trying to explain what I did is the hardest part of posting. But if anything is not obvious, please LMK as usual.
Okay, let's proceed to glue the triangles to one another; start by glueing both triangles marked number 10 (see WOF template) to the dome frame ring. Then the adjacent triangle number 9 gets glued to number 10, and number 8 to number 9. But take the time to let each part dry thouroughly before you glue it to the next. Use your fingers to mold and shape the triangle in the required curve when glueing. Again, patience is the key here.
Next up are these two parts which connect to the glued-in back section and form the side and front of the dome:
Here's a close-up of them pointy bits stuck together:
I just continue in the same fashion for the rest of the triangles; start to glue from the dome frame rings and then connect to adjacent triangle parts.
The pre-shaping with the misting bottle paid off nicely
. It makes it easier to glue the parts together:
By this time I always seem to remember the template part which I forgot to incorporate earlier!
Here it is:
Taped together as depicted, WOF template pages 11 and 12 form the "Helmet Base". This particular template helps in determining the bottom shape of the bucket, as does the "Dome Base" (pages 9 and 10) for the top shape. During the shaping of the wet cardboard Inner Surface, the main form of the bucket is somehow automagically created. So now let's test to see if it makes the correct fit:
It duz, it duz!!
If it wouldn't have, just use the misting bottle and spray the bucket a tiny bit moist and shape it accordingly.
Only a few more triangles to go:
Almost there....
And shazam! The dome is complete!
The basic shape looks okay to me:
Here you can see that (even
) I messed up a bit :facepalm. Some triangles where not glued symmetrically, so I had to compensate but cutting excess material away. But this should not be a big showstopper since the dome will receive a thick coat of filler anyway.
The areas marked red are to be corrected by either cutting away or by filling up. Keep confidence. It will work out okay.
Inside view:
Looks nice! :cheers
And here's the last one for today:
That's it for the cardboard part of the dome. To make it nice and smooth I'll have do some cutting and basic sanding and to apply filler. But first I think I will focus on creating the "ears". But that is for next time.
Thanks for looking!
Peter
__________________
"With great power comes great responsibility"