Building a Boba Bucket - A detailed scratch build tutorial using WOF templates

Sorry Jaiden, PVC is Polyvinyl chloride not Polystyrol or Polystyrene (EPS, XPS, PS-E)
See more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polystyrene

:D

:rolleyes Okay, you got me...major blond moment.

The PVC sheets at my local store are the same ones used for vacuum forming armor parts. That's why I thought they were comparable.

This really sounds very important, thank you! You did sound like Yoda (y)

Just doing my part to entertain the masses!(y)
 
i was thinking about making this helmet into a mold and then vacuforming it do you think it would work well

IMO, a vacuformed helmet is never sharp edged as a molded helmet would be. Boba Fett bucket has a lot very sharp edges. When you like a lot details you won't get them as much defined. But honestly I never did vacuform anything so maybe I am wrong and you will find a good way to make lots of details. Did you see this thread here? http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/showthread.php?t=20678
compare the edge detail, but the results are very nice though !! #

----------------

Thank you guys for all your nice words ! And you are very welcome Alan, I will try my best to use your templates as good as I can. Its really a pleasure and an honor, because I never had that fun to scratchbuild a model before...(y)
You found very nice words Alan, I hope I found them too with my limited english word pool.
 
Strengthen the main body ring:

To keep the main body ring in its shape when glueing in the cheeks, I built an inner ring using some polystyrol left overs. For that I used the dome base temp and the main body temp again. See here:

IMG_7048.jpg
IMG_7051.jpg
 
Building the mandibles.


You will need these temps here:

Mandibles_Templates.jpg

Just like before I glued the cheek templates on the styreene and cut them out with regular scissors.

IMG_7051a.jpg

The cheekbone and the cheekbone backplate was glued to each other with special styreen glue. Brought together, the material is 2mm thick. The extra border you will get is very helpful when bring all cheek parts together.
Good idea Alan !!

Because the 1mm styreen is not very bendable I cut the cheekbone parts in 4 pieces. SD68 did it in the same way, it really worked well, thanx SD !!

IMG_7036_b.jpg

All cheekbone borders were directly sticked, only with super glue.
It almost unbelievable how strong super glue bonds styrene together! Absolut fantastic!!
I started with the bottom mandible parts first I glued them very roughly in position. After checking their position I assembled everything together.

IMG_7062.jpg

After that, I reinforced all seems with styreen stripes.

IMG_7061.jpg

The right side:

IMG_7067.jpg

Assembled:

IMG_7065.jpg
 
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I thought I was seeing things when the words on the helmet were in German, but then I noticed you were from Germany.

Wanderbar! Alles sieht sehr fantastich aus!
 
Attaching the dome

Attaching the dome was very simple. Because the dome should be a little smaller than the helmet main body ring, I wrapped 1mm extra layers of tape around the dome. I did overlaping the tape over the dome's rim so I could insert the dome a little to the body. Then I fixed the dome outside with a lot tape to the body.
With glass mats and resin I glued the dome to the body permanently.
After hardening I could remove the tape layers very easily...
This picture I took right after attaching the dome:

IMG_7121.jpg

The visor is just drawn with a permanent marker. The cheeks here are sanded already a little:

IMG_7122.jpg

The visor I cut out partial. To strengthen and to round off the contruction I glued a piece of WOF "Helmet Base" as bridge temporarily in.

IMG_7164.jpg
 
Excellent job!!! This is look better with every post. Thank you very much to taking on this task. It is such a big load off my back I can't even describe.

When it is complete maybe we could work together to create a PDF downloadable version to include with the helmet templates. Let me know what you think of the idea?

Keep up the great work.

Alan
 
When it is complete maybe we could work together to create a PDF downloadable version to include with the helmet templates. Let me know what you think of the idea?
Absolutely a great idea Alan !! I would like to that with you !
But sometimes I may not have taken photos of every single step which might be necessary. I worked and worked and worked and later I thought, oh no I forgot to take photos in between...
Also my way to build the helmet might be a little unusual sometimes comparing to yours ??

Anyway, the helmet is almost done, I think it has a little similarity to the Boba bucket ;)
 
I'm sure someone else here is going to attempt the WOF templates. Digifett, let us know what steps you did take pictures of. Whatever you didn't photograph, someone else can. That way, Alan can have a full set of pictures of all the steps.

David.
 
Wow... very nice tutorial! Well done! And the Helmet looks great.(y)
I'm going to build my own Mando-helmet, and this thread was and will be a great help! I'm from Germany, too, and because of my bad English-skills I've problems to understand some thing written in this Forum, but this tutorial is realy great and even I'm able to understand it ;) (and i hope you English-speaking guys are able to understand me:p)
I'm actually looking for all the materials i will need and I'm going to start working on my helmet next weekend (if I find time to do this).
@digifett: So if you need some aditional photos, let me know!
 
Großartiges Tutorial. Vielen Dank auch für die vielen Bilder. Hoffe ja das ich auch irgendwann mal an meinem Versuch weiterbastele und der dann genauso gut aussieht, dir auf jeden Fall noch viel Erfolg und viel Spaß (hast ja hoffentlich heute genug Zeit ;-)) und weiter fleißig Bilder posten. Liebe Grüße. Und nicht wundern warum mein Deutsch so gut ist, liegt daran das ich auch aus Deutschland komme. Grüße aus Dresden.

Ok for the members who didn´t understand the first part, i will translate the main part:

Great tutorial, thank you verry much for the pictures, i hope that when i start reworking at my first attempt, it will look as great as your does. wish you all the best with working on your helmet and keep up posting pictures. greetz. and do not wonder why my german is so good and my english so bad, thats why i came from germany too. ;-)
 
Thank you so much for all the nice complements, ideas and the German greetings !! Today I found the time to make another chapter:

Applying the mask:

The helmet has some elevated parts, thats what I will call "The Mask"
It also includes the head band and the sideburns.

To spare some styrene material and to simplify the gluing of those big parts, I cut the mask in many simple parts. Here you can see my way I cut the WOF temps. Each blue color shading represents a single new part:

Mask.jpg

IMG_7128.jpg

Starting with the right mask part -the biggest part- I began at the exact middle of the eye area using first super glue for about 1cm, before be very sure the mask is perfectly aligned !! The rest of the mask I glued with the polystyrene cement, being patient and glued and pressed each cm one by one... Be sure you use a lot of the polystyrene cement, when it comes out a little on each sides, then it is perfect. Keep the cement becoming hard and later on cut it off with the scalpel.

Mask_2.jpg

With all other mask parts use the same applying method.

See here, with the mask applied the Boba bucket slowly wins its characteristic charm ! The visors rim is now twice as thick.

Mask_3.jpg
 
Man this is looking great!! I love the pics of the new dome layout in the first post! This is a first rate tutorial, so far have seen nothing "Unusual" everything is just how I envisioned it would be.

Alan

Absolutely a great idea Alan !! I would like to that with you !
But sometimes I may not have taken photos of every single step which might be necessary. I worked and worked and worked and later I thought, oh no I forgot to take photos in between...
Also my way to build the helmet might be a little unusual sometimes comparing to yours ??

Anyway, the helmet is almost done, I think it has a little similarity to the Boba bucket ;)
 
I've been lurking these forums for the past month and a half to 2 months and I read this thread every day for inspiration. Your helmet is amazing. Hopefully I'll have mine starting to shape very soon. Thanks for helping me achieve one of my dreams in having my own armor and helmet.
 
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