progress on my ear caps!
i finally dove in to the ear cap issue!
sorry... lots of text, not lots of pics!
so, the MR earcap on the RF side is just odd.... i don't know why they built it how they did.
it's hard to put into words, but basically think of the 2 parts of the RF side ear cap as being the inner and outer caps. the inner cap sits on the helmet. it's the thicker of the 2, and has the cutout for the stalk.
the outer cap is sort of a cover that goes over it, and is thinner.
on the mr it's reversed. the piece that touches the helmet is about 1/16" thick, and all of the bulk is on the outside. the outer cap is concave on the inside for no obvious reason. it has a small lip at the bottom where the RF stalk lives, but is curved otherwise (reduce cost by shaving an ounce of aluminum out?)
i was trying to figure out how to do something with it that didn't involve scratch building a whole new piece. i wanted to preserve the look and feel, but make it closer to accurate.
i ended up taking the assembly off of the helmet, removing the stalk, and then screwing the 2 pieces back together. this left me with a sort of sandwich of metal with a gap in the middle for the stalk.
i filled the gap with modeling clay, leaving a solid chunk.
i made a 1 piece silicone mold of this part, and poured 2 copies.
on copy 1, i carved / sanded / filed away the outer cap, leaving just the inner part that touches the helmet.
on copy 2 i did the opposite, carving away the inner part, leaving just the outer cap.
a LOT of sanding later, we get:
if you look closely at the back of the little triangle wedge at the bottom of the cap, you see that i cut a little too much. i'll build that back up with epoxy putty, rather than going through all this effort again.
once i get these all properly sanded and smooth, they will be the masters that i mold off of for my final ears.