Budget Scratch Build

I've poured over this site a few times, especially Antman's work. Some of the stuff people come up with is pretty cool. And you can tell a lot of effort and expense has gone into this stuff.
This is for the most part following Antman's tutorial, so all credit to him and WOF, except that I have no money and few tools.


In Short: This is a bucket build on the cheap, lets see how it goes.

more 2moz, having image upload problems.


...well that, and it's pub quiz nite.

Very nice mate!

I dont have a RF for my lid... how difficult is that to do? Might just try it

More pics please!

Dave

As you can see the edges aren't quite as sharp as they could have been. In my constant refusal to buy any proper stuff I was sanding these using a fairly rough file, and some old sanding blocks I found.

The biggest problem I had was when I was clamping layers together. It was hard to find a flat surface in my room, and they often skewed during drying. (I have a workbench in my shed, but this is England I'm not freezing my arse off out there all day)

My favourite thing about this method is that, however bad it initially looks, you just cover it in polyfiller and get a nice smooth finish.
Again whilst rooting around the shed I found some old polyfiller, from the 80's, it was grainy, had lumps and came in a tub not a tube. But it seemed alright and has served me well so far.

Unfortunatley the largest helmet pieces won't fit onto the A3 bits of card I salvaged from sketch books, so I went to an art shop and bought a large A1 piece ( 4x size of A3 ) of cardboard (£2) and some more, stronger PVA (£3).

Which meant I could make the main helmet piece.

I don't really have a set of clamps so to hold this together while drying I used a combination of Quick Grips (yellow things), G - clamps, rubber bands, and for the hard to reach spot at the bottom I clamped it with a pair of rare earth magnets.

Basically whatever you can find.





PVA is definatly the best glue for this, easy to use, strong and inexpensive.
As long as you don't get the watered down stuff, meant only for paper.

Be careful, your work is on it's way to be stickied.. Great work!
-Ville

nice start, did mine on a budget to, but i made my helmet with 1 large sheet of styrene. i think in total the whole helmet cost me about £18 including all the necessary glue, the visor (clear acrylic sheet)and buying a kids bmx helmet to make the dome part of the helmet (from t k max (£3)
alot easier than making it from scratch.

keep up the good work nice to see a fellow Londoner

Jason

The next part is poorley documented because I was frantically trying to get the mask to stick.

This shows the mask attached to the helmet and the wooden blocks clamped to flatten out the ear areas.

As I've said the hardest part was getting the mask to stick on evenly. The clamps I have only allow you to reach about 10cm from each edge, I needed more magnets really, but I had to make do.

Several steps missing here.
Cut out cheek areas and added the plates. Then added the dome arches.





The cheeks took some time but I followed Antman's instructions and am very pleased with how they came out. If you're trying this leave a good couple of hours, as you need to hold each section, letting it dry before moving along the line.

Also the top visor part has been cut out (cos I wanted to try it on)

Originally Posted by aero

i think in total the whole helmet cost me about £18 including all the necessary glue, the visor (clear acrylic sheet)

I've had a bit of trouble locating some tinted (black) acrylic, i've got loads of the clear lying around, but that doesn't help.

The dome was pretty much like applying the curved cheek sections. It was fine as long as you took your time.






I was farily happy with how the whole thing was going, all praise to WOF and his flawless templates.

Looks pretty good right?







Until you look at it from above.




Hmm.....

Could WOF have got it wrong? Is he in fact, not perfect?

NO, he is.


It seems I printed out the wrong templates, how was I to know there were different ones for European printers.



Nothing that can't be solved with a bit of newspaper

I think you're doing a great job!

Total spend is now £5.00.

Large card for main helmet & mask : £2.00

Pint o' PVA Glue: £3.00

Looking real good for a budget scratchbuilt.

Originally Posted by madmanmoe64

I've had a bit of trouble locating some tinted (black) acrylic, i've got loads of the clear lying around, but that doesn't help.

i'll send you a pm where i got my green tinted acrylic at a reasonable price.

This part wasn't following Antman's tutorial, because he hadn't posted that stage yet.

Still it was fairly simple, get out my pot of dodgey polyfiller and cover the dome in it.






You may also notice I've painted some of the edges, this was just to stop them from being damaged too much during the next stage.

I was fairly happy with the finish on the cheeks and didn't see the need to cover them in polyfiller.

Next ( after hours of sanding ) the dent.

Lookin' fabulous dude!
Always great to see a scratch build come to life.
Keep up the awesome job!

Greetz,
Peter
__________________



"With great power comes great responsibility"

You have ALOT more skill than I ever will sir, your doing excellent!

I've been busy 'cos I'm moving, going to uni. As soon as I find a camera and some other stuff I wasn't able to sneak out of the house I'll post some more progress

Right only a little bit of progress. I bought some Tesco value sandpaper for about 50p. Then started sanding away at the mass of polyfiller. Working down from 60grad to 100. I wrapped the sanding paper round a block of wood to try and get better control.

After a lot of sanding here it is.






I also started on the dent, This is where accuracy went out the window. I cut a random sized hole in roughly the right position. Glued a bit of card behind and filled it in with polyfiller (had to do this in layers)

I then made the main lines using a small file. After that I've been slowly shaping it with 60 grad sandpaper.




That's all for now I need to finish the dent and then when I get some supplies I'll work on the vent.









Note: these are now camera phone images as the camera I used previously wasn't mine and I couldn't bring to Uni.






Total spend is now £5.50.

Large card for main helmet & mask : £2.00
Pint o' PVA Glue: £3.00
Sandpaper: £0.50

This was taken with the webcam on my laptop, hopefully its a bit better.

Tiny update, I still have none of the proper material at my new house but decided I wanted to carry on anyway.

With no printer I had to construct the keyslot pieces using a pencil ruler and setsquare, It took forever.




After that It took me ages cutting out the delicate vent piece. Going over each line several times very gently.

Its worth doing this slowly to get those sharp, square edges.







These are all the pieces necessary, the frame has an extra bit of trim so it will attach to the rest of the helmet.





Unlike the rest of the build for this I had to use Uhu glue. It left the piece a bit scrappy, not generally how I like to do things. Hopefully with a bit more work I can tidy it up a bit.

Note: remember when wetting and bending the vent, the good (best looking) side should be the inside curve.










That's all for now

Looking good.

wow, nice job!

Looking great

You sure can't beat building your own lid. It just feels so good to know it was all your own work. Nice going

ALL OF YOU GUYS with your "paper-template, from-scratch-cardboard-builds" amaze me.

Awesome.

you've done a pretty god job.... my dome was all clamed up, but hopefully with some bondo, sanding and patience, all will turn good at the end ^_^

Very small update, I wasn't happy with my dent. It was too deep and lacking in detail. It's probably in the wrong place too but I can't be bothered moving it.

Ne who I filled it up with polyfiller and sketched a design onto it with pencil. I over exaggerated the shape because I knew I would loose some detail when sanding.





Then using a small half round file I began to etch out the main lines.





After that I filed out the main, depressed areas.







Then with the file I began to round off the raised areas. After that I moved to sandpaper and ended up with this.











Not perfect. But I think it's better than before What does everyone else think?

I think it looks beter than before. The whole thing also looks kickass.

this is always amazing. paper templets. an im always loking for budget builds because they can alwas look just as good as anything else. all in all i am amazed and i think this is a project for me. keep up the great work

Incredible that you can make, very good!!!!!

Ok, i've posted on several places, and I keep seeing how hard it is to make a scratch bucket, but now that I see yours, I KNOW I can do it, and I really like the cost... 6 pounds is like $12.00 US, I am gonna go get some card stock today and hopefully get started in a day or 2. (Gotta go the in-laws for b-day party). Cheers, and SUPERB WORK MATE!!!

Thanks for all the comments,
Since moving I've had a bit of trouble replacing some tools (e.g. clamps) but I've made do without buying loads of stuff.

Still The biggest problem will be painting it. I don't think I've seen a bucket done entirely with brush work before. And spray paints or airbrushing end up really expensive.

started my bucket today, but my card stock is way too thin, I guess I gotta layer a few pages together and give it another go. That and my printer is cropping my prints. How do I post a pic of my work?

never mind on how to post pic, I see I need to get past the 14th day, thats cool, it'll give me time to get my bucket in better shape and to get a few build pics ready to post.
I gotta say there are some really tallented people here, I hope I can live up to the standards.

Nice built man. Cant wait to start mine.

this is turning out great! keep up the good work. Wish I could pull something off like that.

To me it is amazing that someone can scratch build something like Boba Fett's helmet with a little time, a lot of effort and patience and the help of this board. Great Job, I can't wait to see it more completed.

....hmmmm, I don't know how many sketch books I have lying around. Where could I buy a large sheet of that kind of cardboard? I tried finding it before but opt'd for poster board since i was short on time.

wow, nice job man

That looks great so far, keep posting pics of your progress!!

Originally Posted by Strife

....hmmmm, I don't know how many sketch books I have lying around. Where could I buy a large sheet of that kind of cardboard? I tried finding it before but opt'd for poster board since i was short on time.

Anyone? Seriously, I'd like to know. O.o

Your best bet is to look in an art or graphics shop.

I've heard this stuff referred to by many names: Fibreboard, mattboard, my local shop calls it greyboard.

it's also used for the backing of picture frames so lots of framing stores stock it.



hope that helps,
Tom

Whoa....I'm gonna do this now....sweet build man.

I was really questionable about using polyfiller, but now I have seen that it works, I'm off to get some. I found that the ever wonderful Mr Cheap has got some ex-stock near me so I'm off to get some now. If you have one near you , it['s well worth popping in on a lunch break and pickin up some cheap art stuff. I managed to get sculpting tools for about £1.

You have lots of patience my friend. Looks great!!

i wish i would have seen this thred b4 purchasing my lid. it only cost me $75 but still. that is an awesome build my hats off to u

I haven't posted anything in ages because I've been away (doing an Architecture degree)

But now I'm back and have got thoroughly stuck into making my rangefinder.

First of all I purchased a metronone kit from Maplin as well as some green LEDs.

As soon as I got the kit I assembled it according to the instructions and then began to sync the lights up to the right speed (2.13 Hz), by adjusting the two pots to 40KΩ each.




That was fairly easy and formed the basis for my rangefinder circuitry.

Next I desoldered the 9v clip, the LEDs and the capacitors. I re-soldered the capacitors, leaving longer leads so I could fold them down flat.



I had to extend the leads of the LEDs, this was fairly simple, I just soldered on some short lengths of wire and added heat shrink tubing.





I then re-soldered these longer LED's into place.
Also I filed off the unused areas of the board.



Until I could scavenge another resistor (maplin only sell them in massive sets) I'm leaving the circuitry here.

Total spend is now £9.58.

- Large card for main helmet & mask : £2.00
- Pint o' PVA Glue : £3.00
- Metronome kit : £3.99
- Superbright green LED : £0.59

Next up is the rangefinder housing. If I remember correctly this part isn't detailed in either of Antman's threads
(which I have been following fairly closely) So I'll try to show a bit more detail.

First of all print out a set of WoF's templates from the gallery.

I'm using 1mm thick mattboard (scavenged from an old sketch book)
So I then began to mark the various places I would have to trim 1mm off of to keep the correct shape.



The dotted lines show where I'm going to angle both edges at the corner rather than just trim one of them.



Here are the pieces cut out.

I began to angle some of the pieces with a knife and sandpaper. I also drilled out the LED holes using a 5mm wood bit.



Then I just began assembling all the pieces.




I had to be careful, trying to make sure the sides were square.



One of the pieces didn't quite fit, overtrimmed, but I'll sort that out later




After letting it dry a while I decided to paper mache' the inside, to cover the small cracks and strengthen it a bit.



Here is the housing after having been trimmed, polyfilled and sanded quite a lot.



Then I brought out my circuit and did a test fit, bending the LEDs into roughly the correct place.




The circuit fits easily into the housing. The only problem is that it infringes on the lens' space more than I would like.
But I can't be bothered to move all the stuff onto a smaller board.

According to the WoF templates, the ESB rangefinder doesn't have that little lens on it, but I decided to make one anyway.



The first step was to mark out the areas to trim.





Then carefully cut the pieces out of 1mm thick mattboard





I filed a v shape on the opposite side of this bend to stop the card wrinkling when I bent it.





Then I glued the pieces together, careful with the delicate 'hinge' area.





Here is the piece after some careful sanding.

This a little video of the lights in operation

http://img190.imageshack.us/i/dscf3070x.mp4/

i too am building a super cheap bucket and id be extremely happy if it turns out anything like yours...the sanding takes forever >_<

Originally Posted by xcmike1056

i too am building a super cheap bucket and id be extremely happy if it turns out anything like yours...the sanding takes forever >_<

Too true, then you prime and discover you still have a lot more to go!

Don't know how I managed to miss this thread. Nice work on the rangefinder, very neat. Looks like I'll be off to Maplins soon. I will be sure to refer back to this thread later on in my build. Not quite at your stage yet, STILL sanding my dome. It looks like it's been snowing in my garage!!

Originally Posted by goodus10

It looks like it's been snowing in my garage!!

Yeah you can mistake that stuff for icing sugar (until you try to eat it)

Luckily I'm done with all the sanding an now I'm about to start my paint up, once I work out the kinks with my budget airbrush set up.

Should I put the Paint-up in a new thread?

Any progress on this moe? I'm doing my own cardboard bucket so this is really helpful.

Unless I missed it, you didn't fibreglass the dome did you? Do you think it'll be necessary? I still need to put filler on the dome but I'm wondering whether to glass it first.

Sorry there's been no progress, I'm back at Uni and I haven't had any spare time to start spray testing.

I haven't used fibreglass, I don't think it's necessary for this. The dome is solid and there's no chance of it collapsing in on itself.
If it takes a knock you will get dents, so if you're going to be wearing it a lot then you may want to glass it to protect the surface.

looks great! that dent really turned out well!

another year's gone by with no work on the bucket. But I'm back for the summer and have been experimenting with picaxe integrated circuits.

Whilst an IC is really overkill for making two lights alternate, by using a chip for my rangefinder circuit I can make my circuits really small and simple.

Today I set up a simple circuit that flashes the red leds in the right sequence. powers up* an internal bright led and then after a short delay flashes a simple message inside the rangefinder. e.g. 'targeting'

all the work is done by a tiny 8 pin IC with 4 leds attached.
I also wanted to add a piezo speaker to make a power up sound (like when you charge the flash on a camera)

I haven't had time for pics/ video tonight, but hopefully tomorrow I can post some pictures to make it clear what I'm talking about


*when I say powers up I mean it goes from dim to light, giving the impression that the rangefinder is booting up or something.

hey moe im very new to this. actually just joined a few days ago and let me say that ur thread has giving me confidence that i can make a cool lid inexpensively. i wanted to know if u put any kind of pads or like a hard hat piece on the inside so it fits snug on your head or wat?

At the moment there isn't any permanent padding, but if you are gonna wear this you will need some.

I've been using foam temporarily, easier to cut to size and install.

But a well placed hard hat type thing would be less hot and probably better.

Thanx alot! Im sure that foam would get pretty hot.

Im sure i could install an adjustable hard hat piece with little dificulty.

THanx again for the help and thread. Iv just started my set of armor and will definetly learn from this.