Rebuilding a Master Replicas Fett helmet

That's a great looking cast, and a great mod job. It's the kind of thing I think about doing to stuff when I see wonky spots, but rarely have the inclination to actually do. It's amazing how that one cut fixed more than one warpage problem. Are you using polyurethane resin?
 
Well, #4 wasn't a winner either, and I realized why...

My mold is too thin at the top of the dome!

It's sufficiently thin that the weight of the resin is pulling down little dimples in the top.

There are also a couple of flaws in the mold that have been bugging me.

Soooo..... I'm going to re-do the mold!

I am using urethane resin. I just ordered a new flavor to try. I've been using smoothcast 321 (7 minute pot life). I just ordered smoothcast roto, with a 2 minute pot life. Should make things go faster! ;)
 
At this point I'm just plowing on to see where I end up. I've been numbering the failures as I go, so that I can see the progress when its all done.

I'm not going to give up on this mold just yet... My new stuff won't arrive until Tuesday or so, so I'll probably have on more go at it this weekend.

I'm thinking the thicker mold plus the faster resin will let me finally make something tough enough to actually wear.
 
the neg's own jodo kast (aka travis) and i spent the afternoon going through the various failures and picking out what if anything might be salvageable. short version: LOTS of work needed.

i think i finally got a handle on the slush casting technique. i ran out of both resin and mold though... the bubbles in the mold and the too-thin rubber finally did it in.

still no long term success... my helmet still remains a glimmer in my eye.

but, i've got the silicone for mold #2. i'll start on that this week sometime. and by the end of a second gallon of resin i HOPE to have my final bucket.
 
the NEG needs a Boba on the 12th. webchief can't make it, and I've got no helmet...

So I picked the best of the bunch from my first round of tests and am painting it up!

Primer and deep scratches:

photo-10.jpg


photo-9.jpg


See all those light spots? Those are filler, to fix dimples on the dome.

Once all that was done, it actually started looking pretty good!

I can't wait for my new supplies to come so that I can try again. I can taste the perfect helmet!!!

I did another coat of primer after this, and laid down the silver base before work today.

Tonight I'll be masking things out and laying down a couple of colors at least. Depending on drying times, I can technically knock it all out in one night. This is a temporary helmet so I'm not going nuts with it.
 
and super-quick paint job is done! i knew this was a temporary helmet so i cut a lot of corners and flew through the whole thing, from silver to done in 1 evening.

photo%7E4.jpg


side note: i love the pic on my laptop screen in that photo. i thought i had screwed something up... the mandible on the side i hacked sticks out a lot further from the top of the visor than i would have thought it should. but that photo confirms that the original is warped like that!


photo-1%7E0.jpg


i simplified the back quite a bit... the weathering shouldn't be all silver. there should be a sort of grey gradient across it. but this is a quickie.

photo-2%7E1.jpg


visor is on its way, and the missing bit of the rangefinder is sitting in some silicone right now. i'm hoping to make an rotj friendly replacement for the battery cover.

overall, not bad for a single day paint job! silver went down before work, and the rest of the colors went down over the course of 6 hours or so.

i did do layered weathering, but rather than subtle color blending to finish it off, i just misted with black and grey, and rubbed some graphite dust into a few places.

the ears aren't weathered yet. not going to do that until the final helmet.

no mq-1 in the back yet. also not bothering on this one. i'll put some black mesh in there and call it done. the one from the MR still needs to be repainted.

i was experimenting with new colors. i'm pretty happy with how it came out. i'll probably use the same on my "real" one, just with better weathering.
 
One day to do all of that??!!!:eek: Did you have the whole day off from work? I swear no matter how many time you've gotten something done in lightning-fast time, I still blown away. Very impressive work, sir!(y)
 
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One day to do all of that??!!!:eek: Did you have the whole day off from work?


heh... nope, i started at 8PM!

i look at it and just see all of the things i skipped, missed, simplified, etc... but it will do the job for the saturday troop, and that's all that i need :)
 
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There is an additive you can add to the silicon to keep it running so much, it thickens it up like peanut butter but i dont recall the name of it.
I used to use it for a final layer to really lay it on thick. Might be something helpful you could look into, takes alot of babysitting out of it
 
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There is an additive you can add to the silicon to keep it running so much, it thickens it up like peanut butter but i dont recall the name of it.
I used to use it for a final layer to really lay it on thick. Might be something helpful you could look into, takes alot of babysitting out of it

That's exactly what I just got yesterday :)

Smoothon calls it Thi-Vex. It's AWESOME!!! I was actually giggling when I was filling in the visor area and it was just sticking. I was packing it in to prevent bubbles, thinking about how cool it was that I could do that!
 
Brian

Your a master, you painted that in a day, over here in England our days only last 24 hours, is there some sort of different rule where you live? ;) Keep us updated as you carry on, as I said before this is a great thread (y)
 
my biggest "secret" on the high speed painting is having a good sense of when paint is *just* dry enough for tape... and i only use the crazy $10 a roll super delicate surfaces tape.

the nice thing with rattlecans is that they dry fast and the finish is REALLY tough.

i can lay it down tape about an hour after i paint if the temperature is good. and a small space heater does wonders for the temp.

that and i find layered weathering much easier to do if you don't let the paint cure too much before peeling it.
 
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