Grant McCune Helmet done in true PP2

Watch this thread as I glue various bits and bobs into the helmet to make it accurate to the real helmets.
Then comes the hard part, I will be posting my paint work progress and I hope I can do it justice.

I love the hole you've made for the rangefinder bolt, it's accurate! I'll be looking this thread with hopes

What have you used for the borden, a Mojo's replica?

I should mention the visor is not fully trimmed out yet. Its still a bit off in places.

Here is my WIP of the visor clips. During the process of getting them where I want them, I will fine tune the visor.

I won't take the bordens topic here, because I have my own opinion. So... about the helmet, can you show me more closely how have you made the visor attachment? Also, PLEASE, tell me what have you used for glueing the borden!

KannE, the glue I used for the Borden is just 5 min Epoxy. It is a clear, cream color naturally, I just tinted it with some yellow acrylic paint mixed it. (Thanks for the tip Gino)
Thats another area that will be fine turned later.

I honeswtly cant look at this any more Im getting to excited

Me too!

I'm interested in the visor clips too...

I am loving the work so far KB. I think I just may be salivating while looking at this....yep I am. I probably should not have admitted that. Keep up the excellent work.

what are you using for reference for the bolt hole for the RF?

You can find pictures of it at the gallery of the PP#2, I think they are at the end of the PP#2 pictures.

ahhhh wheres the duct tape?

Originally Posted by Fett 4 Real

ahhhh wheres the duct tape?

By the way F4R, I love your quote from Jinto... irony is a cruel mistress. :-)

That's looking fantastic! I hope your not putting the mold-removal machete marks on that!

Originally Posted by Fett 4 Real

ahhhh wheres the duct tape?

I'm not sure I will put in the duct tape. You can see it covering the visor at the bottom in the pictures of how it is present day. I dont seems to see it in the PP2 Kenner shots which means it was probably done by Don Post or sometime after.

I am likely going to use artistic license to finish the interior to how I believe it may have looked in its hey day with the electronics and probably some foam padding like the ROTJ from the Heilman photos.

CSK225, no way am I putting in the marks Don Post put in.

If you look at the heilman photos theres what looks to be a metal bar...coat hanger maybe glued in holding the bottom of the visor not sure if you were doing that as well?

Its a flat metal tab much like the iothers how ever its thicker,

you can see were the tape for the electronics was there , I have worked out it was set up almost exactly like the ESB interior

Any new progress shots? I have to learn whilst watching you. What did you use for the bases of your visor tabs and what did you use to attach them?

For the metal tabs did you put a nut on the helmet and glue it in place?

No new progress yet. I am waiting for some cheesehead screws and a 3mm drill tap to make the bottom visor mounts.

For the base of the upper visor tabs, I took the advice of Gino who has done an accurate helmet interior before. Its just some aluminum sheet stock threaded and gooped in. It works very well actually.
I am reasonable sure this is how the real helmets were done. In the case of the PP2 you can see the flat rectangle of missing material on one side where the metal would have been.
Its hard to make out any accurate dimensions of the parts however, and placement can be pretty tricky.

Also, check out the TDH gallery for some shots of the visor attachment on the ROTJ helmet.
Art got a few shots that show them.
Link to one below. Its differs a bit from the PP2 and ESB but the principal is the same

Boba Fett Costume - The Dented Helmet Gallery

Ahhhh i gotcha the sheet stock is threaded and glued in which the bolt can thread into...had seen the ROTJ one before and was thinking about it myself...might work on that this weekend have some stuff here I thought Id use for it

Originally Posted by Fett 4 Real

Ahhhh i gotcha the sheet stock is threaded and glued in which the bolt can thread into...had seen the ROTJ one before and was thinking about it myself...might work on that this weekend have some stuff here I thought Id use for it

I just saw this now that you guys mentioned this... In a way it looks simpler than having to line up holes for bolts through the visor. (I did that using Chicago screws)

This way you can just slide the visor in and and tighten the screws.

Wow. I haven't done much in all the time since I last posted in this thread.
I have been busy with a few other project so not much to update. I hope to get a major update going ASAP


I got the keyslots and MQ-1 board all squared away.


Yes that's a casting not a real circuit board. I have a real one but decided not to use it. And I sort of screwed up the keyslots a bit but am too lazy to fix them.
I hot glued the stuff in there temporarily so I can fix them I guess.
This turned out to be more trouble than I would have guessed and I have spent too much time on it. Not to mention I had to order the acrylic so that set me back another week.



Has anyone done their keyslots like this before? This is the accurate method as far as I can tell. 1/8th acrylic formed to the curvature of the slots with a cutout for the MQ-1.
You can see the sides of the acrylic overlapping the MQ-1 on the ROTJ and "Sandy" helmets and I tried to match that look since the PP2 was their brother helmet.

Here is what I mean about the overlap from the acrylic.

Also please note I am ashamed about the way my keyslots came out. I may be an accuracy nut but that doesnt mean I gots skillz...

I disagree. I think its black, it just looks funky because there is a layer of dust over it. Check out the pictures of the PP2. You can see areas where there is no dust and it looks pretty black to me.

I know must others agree with you , Ive tryed to think of it as black but I just can see it as any thing other than green ,
How ever it does make more sense as black and the pics are not the best thing to go by so your probably right

It's green. It's the color of the fiberglass resin. It's a blue/green color. Now there are different types of laminating resins so some are amber but I believe it to be unpainted

Originally Posted by kbrosseau

Wow. I haven't done much in all the time since I last posted in this thread.
I have been busy with a few other project so not much to update. I hope to get a major update going ASAP


I got the keyslots and MQ-1 board all squared away.


Yes that's a casting not a real circuit board. I have a real one but decided not to use it. And I sort of screwed up the keyslots a bit but am too lazy to fix them.
I hot glued the stuff in there temporarily so I can fix them I guess.
This turned out to be more trouble than I would have guessed and I have spent too much time on it. Not to mention I had to order the acrylic so that set me back another week.



Has anyone done their keyslots like this before? This is the accurate method as far as I can tell. 1/8th acrylic formed to the curvature of the slots with a cutout for the MQ-1.
You can see the sides of the acrylic overlapping the MQ-1 on the ROTJ and "Sandy" helmets and I tried to match that look since the PP2 was their brother helmet.

I used the left over peices of visor from the visor material to do this same thing in my PP1 I did a few weeks ago...yours turned out really good

Also the ESB helmet is green inside because of overspray I would guess as the ROTJ heilman photos clearly show a white interior...which is more likely as this is also a sandy helmet would have had similar interior to the ROTJ

Keegan, awesome work... looks like you're just about ready to put some paint on that puppy.

any updates?

Not much to report on this. I have added back some physical damage in a few places where the GM casting was too rough to preserve them.
I am still waiting on the screws for my visor. Once I have those I can move forward on the GMH.

In the meantime, I have been working on another helmet I found just sort of hanging out in my closest. And I just so happened to find some aluminum ears in a desk drawer. So I thought; Why not put them together?

I am taking this FP MR helmet to finish in ESB style and I hope to start painting it very soon. I will start another thread on that if I dont screw it up...

Great work Keegan...
Nice teaser pic too, will have to start that interest thread soon.

Originally Posted by Mojo-Fett

Great work Keegan...
Nice teaser pic too, will have to start that interest thread soon.

Indeed!

coo...

Not much progress on this at all. I have been working on a few other things.

I did repaint the inside and do the bottom visor mounts. Here is a ****** cell phone pic.

Ears are here!

The parts are wonderful and the result of a considerable amount of effort. But for all that they are not perfect.
Some areas will need to be worked on when you take these out of the box.

There are burrs on the edges of the parts that will need to be filed and sanded down. Dont worry about sanding the hell out of the ears, you can always shine it back up with steel wool and the originals were sanded anyway.
There is one burr that will prevent you from putting the stalk bolt in at first (from the shop drilling the stalk pivot before the wire hole)
Sand the inside of the stalk hole with heavy grit or files etc. Do this to the inner ear as well.

15mins later everything will be in order.



Here is what you need to know about the upper right ear:

If you have your 1SX1-T switch you will need to file it down to fit. This is because the GMH is a bit small.
You should file more off the back than the front to match the holes. That is; file right down to the pin on the back and less on the button side.

The bolts for the switch will go on bit askew at first but work out fine. After you have tightened these very tightly, file the ends flush where they stick up on the backside of the inner ear. (see below)


Now you will need to dremel the hole for the brass stalk bolt to fit though. The real helmets had this hole and I matched the shape. It's the only way to mount the ears right.
It should look like this.


And that's the upper right ear.


IMPORTANT: Not all of the mounting hole impressions on the GMH will match these ears. The ears were based off of better reference so we made the changes.
What this means:
The lower right ear; matches up 100%
The upper right ear; will need to be positioned on the helmet and marked for hole positions.
The left ear; the bottom hole matches but the top does not. Measure the hole position on the backside of the ear and then mark it on the ear platform.



You will love these! More to come on my GMH

Excellent tutorial! I was able to get in contact with Gav and have a set on the way. I can't wait to see them up close.

Sweet! I'm going to the post office today to pick up my set, plus another
for a helmet commission I'm working on. It'll be awesome getting these onto
a bucket.

Sweet! Cant wait to get mine!

hi there Keegan, what kind of screw do you use for bottom mount?

thanks

The bottom visor mount? Brass cheesehead bolts. Thread was M3 and length was 5 or 6 mm I think.
I can find out when I'm at home if you need me to.