FP CC - help me finish this helmet

Well, I finally received my FP CC in the mail yesterday!

I took it out of the box and just stared at it for like 10 minutes straight......that thing is beautiful! 8)

Here's where you come in... I've seen a few tutorials on here, but nothing very detailed. I came across BM's tutorial here: http://www.bobamaker.co.uk/Jango_Helmet.htm

First, His tutorial says to sand the whole thing with medium and fine sand paper. Is that ok - I'm afraid to do anything with this helmet.

Second, What is the accurate color face shield to use? Dark Green or Smoky? Or does it really matter?

Third, The key slot section looks really thick, and it doesn't match the Cold Cast look - should I sand it down and then Rub'n'Buff it? (I will post images later). How thick should the key slot section be?

Please help if you can!

Nevermind - Someone PM'd me with the info, but I still need to know:

What is the accurate color face shield to use? Dark Green or Smoky? Or does it really matter?

really dude..where are the pics? LOL

I'm working on the helmet now! Well - wet sanding it with some ultra fine sand paper! I'll post some pic later tonight!

Well here are the pictures... (sorry in advance for the poor quality pics)

This one is from the first night I got the helmet:

Ok this was after I wet sanded with ultra fine sand paper and then went over it with 0000 steel wool:
Do you think I should sand it one more time? I don't want it to get too shiny.

This is the issue I am having - I don't want to sand it too much, but can you see the inconsistency here (it's like that on both cheeks): It's kind of hard to tell, it's a bigger contrast in person.

Oh and yeah - I still have some dremeling to do It's raining today, which is good news (since we've been in a drought for about 7 weeks), but bad news since I will have to wait until I can paint it.

nice looking helmet tony, my suggestion is as long as the dome and the back looks even...i wouldnt worry to much about the areas you plan on painting...put down a good primer base and sand that smooth then paint it...

Looking nice, my friend!

I just would sand it a bit more and for me it looks ready to go!

Ok so last night I ended up sanding it again.

I started out with 600 grit all over the "silver parts". Then wet sanded them again with 1000 grit and then again with 1500 grit. Last I rinsed it all off let it dry and then went crazy with 0000 steel wool. Rinsed it again and let it dry. I then used a liberal amount of Aluminum polish, rinsed it off, and the rubbed it dry with a clean dry cloth.

The helmet is slick to the touch, but it still has a grey apperence to it, not really the silver look I was hoping for. And it still has the inconsistency of color as show above.

It looks lighter than the above images, but not by much. I will have to post some pictures later tonight to get some feedback...

Anyone have any ideas?

i hate to say it, but you could always rub n buff it...

iirc, the cold cast stuff does have the potential of not being ultra shiny, depending on how the aluminum dust mixed in.

Have you taken it out in the sunlight yet? I'm kind of curious how it looks in natural light. If the sun hits it, and it hurts your eyes when you look at that spot, it's done

What I've learned is this ... the shinier it gets, it can appear gray"ish" with inside lighting. It's how the light refracts from it, sort of like a "void". If you take a pic out in the light, it should do this ....











The helmet shown in the pics was made the very same day yours was, with the same mixture of alu, to the same ration of resin, with the same amount of catalyst. It won't ever look like chrome, or mirrored if that's the effect you're going for. It's the same with the Jango exhibit display .. in darkness, or yellow light, it appears almost to be a led color at times, at other times it can appear to be painted white with weathering

Sometimes it's best to leave some steel wools swirls in it, as it breaks up the "void" and give a bit of a brushed alu look to it as well. If all else fails, hit me again, and I'll send you a sample of the "Classy" shine that I use. After polishing it with that, hit it with the steel wool to break up the "void" and you should be good to go.

FP

I haven't taken it outside yet, when I get home from work it's already starting to get dark outside. Like you said it does look more like lead, but I will wait until I get home to see it outside (hopefully it the sun will still be poking out a bit).

That's the problem with looking at other pictures - is you never know what type of lighting they are in to compare yours to their's.

Like I said, I will check when I get home and post back on here... maybe with some pictures!

Well I got home around 5:45pm - not enough sun to matter... It was behind the trees at that point.

Hit it with some Autosol aluminium polish and give it a **** good polish and you should see better results, Ive got a Dr Who Cyberman helmet which is cold cast and after handling it does dull quite alot, I polish it every now and then to keep it shiny, I agree about keping the swirls in, you dont want it to be silky smooth, the swirls give it a 'machined' look

OK here are are some more pictures. This was after I sanded with 600, then wet sanded with 1000 and the with 1500 then used the steel wool and then polished it twice!

Looks pretty much the same as before (above pictures). I still have the same wierd coloring on the cheek area, It also is around the rim of the helmet too:




See the places where it's more silver - that's the color I was hoping it would look like.

The helmet just looks gray - like lead - no mater what light it's in. Not sure what to do now. It seems JangoUri had the same issue and he just ended up Rub'n'buffing it...I don't really want to resort to that, but if that's what it's going to take to make it look good...

What does everyone think?

Can anyone post some pictures of their FP CC for comparison?

What about an actual aluminum polish like they use on custom wheels. Would that wrok?

Here is a comparaison of my FP CC helmet and my JD R&B Helmet :



The shiny effect is the same on the CC helmet. But it takes a lot of time !
1. I've sanded all the helmet with a wet Sandpaper 600 (I was afraid to remove the aluminium layer). I've try to remove all the "accumulate" silver in the corners to have the same dull grey everywhere.
2. Then I've sanded again with 800/1000/1200 wet sandpaper.
3. When all the scratches is removed, you have to use a wirewool (the most fine, I think it's "000").
4. Now you have to take a cotton cloth (clean), and buff your helmet during a lot of time to remove the "brushed" effect of the Wirewool and to make it shine. It takes me about 2 or 3 hours
5. And last but not least, use a Metal polish with a special metal polish cloth (used for cars).

Here is the difference before and after metal polish :


And now on the whole helmet :
BEFORE :


AFTER :


Be patient, it tooks me at least 20 hours to sand it and buff it properly.
Last advice : Test the whole process on a small area first (an area on the "T" is a good idea because you gonna paint it. That's what I've done.).

Hope it helps.

Pierre.

The thing about cold casting is your not going to always get a flawless finish as from what ive seen its a real pain to use, I was lucky enough to tour the studio of Millennium FX who do all the prosthetics and monsters for the new series of Dr Who and when talking about making the Cybermen which were all 100% cold cast suits, they said its a pain in the butt to cast, whereas with r'n'b you can polish your surface as smooth as glass then paint it, accuracy doesn't always mean perfection if that makes sense?

Eskilax I did all that. I am afraid if I sand it anymore than I already have it will go thru to the fibrerglass. I've sanded it (600, 1000 wet, 1500 wet), steel wool 0000, and polished it. I did that process twice already!

Maybe I will look for a better polish today at lunch... I don't know...

I thought the cheek pictures looked like he had gone through the resin's skin while sanding. I have never seen one of these helmets in person before, but I have done some airbrushing over cold cast resin parts and thats the look I got when I went past the 'skin' or 'film'. FP would know though.

Cruzer, for the inconsistent color around the edges, I wasn't really worried about those - but I was trying to point out the silver areas to show that's what I thought the color should look like. The cheek areas to me just look horrible at this point - I don't think polish is going to help, but I will try again with the polish you recommended.

Originally Posted by Stormrider

I thought the cheek pictures looked like he had gone through the resin's skin while sanding. I have never seen one of these helmets in person before, but I have done some airbrushing over cold cast resin parts and thats the look I got when I went past the 'skin' or 'film'. FP would know though.

That's what it looks like when I got it, I thought sanding it would help...It helped on the dome and made it a bit brighter...

This thing is starting to frustrate me...

I did a light sanding on part of the (just a small part near the edge) cheek last night - 600 grit (really light sanding) then wet sanded with 1000 and 1500, but it seemed to make the silver area turn grey.

I did, however, buy some Stainless Steel polish at lunch and it made it really shiny. It's an improvment compared to the other aluminum polish I had.

Well, I've tried to Rubb 'n' Buff it. I tried to use a hand buffer, it actually buffs everything off of the helmet - So that answers that question - it doesn't work.

I have a huge problem with build up when working on the dome area. The cheeks were simple - looks much better.

OK so I finished the R-n-B. I rubbed it in around the whole dome, then once it was all covered pretty well I took a paper towel to buff it all even. Worked great.

I was working on the T-visor(made of thick acrylic). I was trying to fit it in the helmet, but the curve wasn't correct. So I ended up breaking it while trying to flex it...

Well back to the drawing board on that. At least a friend gave it to me for free...

Anyone have a template for the FP visors?

Sorry to hear you had to resort to RnB.
I'd recommend finding a welding supply store locally, and purchasing a dark-green tinted welding shield. For me, they've always been more forgiving than any acrylic visor when trying to bend it perfectly to a helmet curvature.

However, Bobamaker's visors are superb if you still want to shoot for using an acrylic visor.

Originally Posted by Cruzer

Sorry to hear you had to resort to RnB.

Yah, I had to do the same

So is green canon or smoky? I was going to just go with smoky for visibilty...

Can someone give me some pointers on how to install the visor?

I saw a thread about Tee Bolts - but I am still confused on how that is supposed to work...can someone point me in the right direction and possible post some pictures?

man..thats too bad you had to R&B a cold cast...bummer

Yep, I was alittle bummed...oh well..what can one do?

Originally Posted by ItsThatGuy

Can someone give me some pointers on how to install the visor?

I saw a thread about Tee Bolts - but I am still confused on how that is supposed to work...can someone point me in the right direction and possible post some pictures?

Anyone?

Looking at pictures of T bolts, the only way I see that working is cutting off the threading and then epoxy-ing the top to the helmet to hold in a visor.

Ive seen something similar done with Those picture frame holders cut in half and epoxied in to hold a visor in.

Wow Tony? The whole R&B thing really sucks. I told ya to hit me, and I would have hooked you up with the stuff I use. The "Classy" stuff. Seems to be the the one factor that is the common denominator in this. But you've already gone the R&B route, it's probably a little late now. I'm not sure how to get that stuff off Acetone would dull the CC again.

Well, if you want to try it anyway, I'd be happy to send you a vile of it if you get adventurous

FP

FP - The RNB buffs right off with one of those rotary buffers.... I tried to buff it with that and the stuff came right off...

My problem was that I could get the grey out of it, it seemed like it was a bad part of the cold cast or something.... I got a really nice shine with a couple of products, but nothing to make the metal consistent.