Help: Trimming and Prep for Alu cold cast helmet

Hey guys,

My cold cast Alu lid will be with me next week.

can anyone give me any advice for the trimming and prep before painting?

thanks guys all the help up until this point has been amazing and very helpful.

Boba fett helmet: Episode 4, Washing the helmet - YouTube

The whole series is the best.

If you want to have the Cold Cast aluminum finish show through as your silver layer, you'll need to polish it up with some 0000 steel wool. Next, you'd need to use some sort of art masking fluid to mask out the silver damage areas on the helmet. Apply it with a rubber color shaper, instead of a paintbrush. Raf's templates would be your best bet for doing that. It's a really tricky proposition, trying to 'landmark' all the silver bits of damage with no paint on the helmet.
Once all the silver's been masked, paint on a coat of self-etching automotive primer. With a smooth polished cold-cast surface, you're gonna need every bit of bite and grip you can get from your primer; I think self-etching primer's the best way to go. If you can't find any, at least get some sort of paint adhesion promoter (DupliColor makes one) before priming.
Once the primer dries, you can peel off the masking to reveal the silver cold-cast surface underneath, with a primer around it that's ready to take paint.

I got a cold cast Alu bucket too, but all that initial masking was too much trouble for me. I just painted on the silver damage with a paintbrush.