Rebuilding a Master Replicas Fett helmet

Obviously, but apart from that.........:lol: Just asking for the guys that were a little shy! 8)

Ok, I knew there would be a good reason. Good work, I would not fancy chopping one of these up.

Love the RF mechanism, that would be a great part for someone to manufacture.
 
Good stuff so far. Just out of curiousity, you are one of several folks that has chosen to cut the mandibles or cut the helmet to move the mandibles. Why is that? On my helmet I have simply corrected where they set by reinstalling a visor correctly.

I tried that first, and I didn't like the look of that mandible once the visor was in. The corner of it was pulled down too low.

Looking at FP's pics, I really liked the way it looked with the cut. It allows you to shift that entire mandible up slightly, which then offsets the fact that it dips down a bit when you bend the corner out.


Do you plan on modifying the ears to make them more accurate?

I've never really studied the ears... what's wrong with them? I doubt I'll do anything to them. Since they are all exposed metal on the RotJ helmet, I wouldn't want any filler or scars on them.

Last but not least, the borden seems to be a seperate peice, are you going to detach it?

It is a separate piece. I had thought about detaching it, but the glue they used on the rest of the helmet was REALLY strong, so I imagine I'd probably do a fair bit of damage trying that.


Keep up the good work and the pics coming. :)

Thanks!
 
I didnt find it much work to strip it, and if you were simply doing a repaint you wouldnt have to rip the lining out of it, just strip the paint off on the out side and pull back the lining where it covers the screws and take the visor out, and install a new one correctly.

Yeah, the paint came off with very little fuss, and the lining around the visor wasn't damaged when I pulled that out.

I absolutely love the look of it, now that it's all straightened out and primed. It's a lot of work, and it stinks to "destroy" a limited edition collectible, but it's worth it to me.

And hey, I'm making every other one out there worth so much more! ;)
 
Brian ... holy mackerel!:eek: I knew that one day somebody would post a thread on fixing the non-parallel vertical T-visor. But like others have said, you are a VERY brave man! I didn't expect you to be completely repainting the entire helmet. On the other hand, I'm with you ... ROTJ all the way!

You're pretty fast at painting ... any chance I'll be able to see it in person at NYCC?
 
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Are you going to have the slight taper in the visor that the ROTJ helmet has? (y)

i'm not going to match anything specific from any helmet... i want to be able to do either rotj or esb with it in the end.

and mr. buffett, i fully expect to have my shiny new helmet by nycc. though i'm not 100% sure i'm even bringing boba!
 
I am sure this is a stoopid question, but here it is all the same. What is the advantage of using the MR helmet over say, FP or BM (other helmets are available)? Looks like a lot of work to get it to the stage they are delivered in and then start to paint?

Sorry if this is a stoopider than stoopid question. :confused

confused, Rob.

My take on this is that obviously it is scanned off of the prepro, but also consider this . . . even if you plan to do all the work modifying it, you're still money ahead.

A good fiberglass kit will run around $250 / metal stalk $40, electronics for rangefinder $60 / metal ears $200 / helmet stand $40 (that's what those dowel rods with a hemisphere of styrofoam cost, and this is much nicer). Total - $590 (and kick in shipping for all of the above)

MR helmet - around $420 (with a killer paintjob thrown in to boot)

You do the math. Strip it down, keep it as is, or just fix the visor, the MR makes better financial sense.
 
Just to stem the tide of PMS!

Yes, I am molding this and making myself a resin copy of it. I don't trust the structural integrity of the patched mandible. And yeah, I'll probably make myself a couple of copies, so that I can do various paint jobs that I've always wanted.

No, I am NOT making copies for sale. I know that there's a fuzzy area about recasting discontinued commercial products, but I'm not looking to go down that road. This is a project just for me.
 
here it is preped for rubber. i've never done this before, so i'm basically going from smoothoninc's youtube tutorials, and the guys that did the halo helmet video.

rubberprep.jpg


couple of interesting points.

it's propped up on a gallon jug of windex. i globbed a bunch of hot glue onto the top of the bottle then set it in. in retrospect, leveling it better would have been... well... better. but what can you do?

the bottom skirt and visor are filled in with thin sheets of plastic that i got from jason ages ago. hot glued into place, then the perimeter of the skirt was hot glued to the base board it's sitting on (foamcore). that was to prevent leakage under the skirt.

my seals around the edge of the visor aren't perfect, so i may have some cleanup to do on the mold. we'll see tomorrow or so.

the holes on the sides for the earcaps i filled in with modeling clay and pushed in enough to leave a dimple. i used modeling clay here because it's easy to clean out later.

fast forward through 4 coats of silicone, applied about an hour apart...

rubber.jpg


the rebound silicone doesn't like cold... that slows its curing down a LOT. i had to bring the thing up from the basement to get decent times out of it.

i molded a couple of other things along side this (that's another thread). one of the small ones i brought upstairs to use as a gauge for when i'd be ready for the next coat. when the vortex manipulator was ready, so should be the fett.

but when i got downstairs, i found fett to still be wet enough that i could brush the rubber around.

i brought it up to the second floor and closed it in my office, which gets REALLY hot. it went from 2 hours for a coat to dry to about 45 minutes :)

i demolded the vortex manipulator (torchwood prop), and it came out clean. so here's hoping fett will be the same! the rubber was all from the same batch, so as far as that goes i should be ok. i'm just hoping i didn't lose any details. i'm particularly concerned with the borden connector and the corners of the visor. we shall see!

i'm hoping to be able to peel this off as an uncut glove mold. i did build in a thicker line down the right ear, should i need to cut it. but i hope it doesn't come to that. the rebound is supposed to be really stretchy, so here's hoping!

tonight is the plaster jacket, which is the last step before i demold and see what i got!
 
Is it done yet?? No?? ah well









Is it done yet?? No?? ah well..........


hahahaha! i'm still at work, and they don't like me bringing my fett parts to work on here!

no, really, i did bring my knees here to peel the latex masking fluid off of during an overnight... left little bits of orangy yellow paint everywhere!
 
Nice work! Definitely anxious to see your progress.

As a side note, has anyone tried to clearcoat the helmet with a dull clearcoat?
 
i demolded this morning. the silicone came off as a single piece... no cut needed :)

i made the mother mold out of plaster of paris with fiberglass tape embedded in it. i think i'm going to redo that in something lighter, like maybe fiberglass. slushing that big beastie around is going to be less than fun!!
 
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