The red primer was a very thick sandable primer that I put on mostly to fill the little pinholes in the fiberglass helmet before going over it with the expensive automotive (grey) primer. Also, after sanding off the original paintjob, I wanted as many chances as I could get to wet sand and get a nice smooth finish instead of this:
After waiting about 8 days for the clear coat to finish off gassing, I was able to put on the chrome layer. I think this came out pretty good, but there are a few flaws. It turns out that every mistake is visible through this paint.
Very nice paint job on the helmet and car. I'm gonna have to make me one of those neckseals, those are bada$$. BTW is that chrome paint avalible in the US if so,where? the paint only can be shot through a airbrush gun??
-Goldenrod
Yea....i've been lookin for a pattern for this too...no one seems to have one up...or...one that i can find at least. PLEASE post the pattern if ya still have it.
~
In case anyone was still wondering, I had the whole thing put together and I was re-chroming the car panel by panel. I was at the halfway point and still using the car as my daily driver. Unfortunately, I was driving in the rain on my way to the shooting range and someone ended up hitting my front right fender and tearing open the front bumper cover.
The whole thing was a bit upsetting, but it gave me an excuse to tear the entire car apart and repaint all of the pieces that needed it while I was waiting for the replacement parts to ship.
I've been awfully busy lately, but I was in a big rush to get it put back together in time for me to go back to sea. Right now it looks like this:
The next step will be new rims (chrome of course), a bunch of effect lighting (blue) and new carpet and upholstery (blue and black). Then I just need to install the seismic charge launcher in the back end and I'll be all set.
In case anyone without a spray gun and compressor wants to duplicate my super shiny helmet, the folks who made my chrome paint have now figured out how to put it in a spray can:
Daaaang, that's amazing. I'm so jealous. When I was younger I used to tell my Dad that I wanted to drive around in a chromed out car then he went on about blinding people on sunny days into car accidents & police tickets so that was the end of that conversation. Dreams...shot...down...but the dreams were only in a coma, they're coming back!
thats very cool...i like the helmt too..very shiney...i think ill keep the rub and buff method too though...
i dont know man..i just watched the video and it seems pretty easy to do...may be worth the 115 bucks...have you tried doing any weathering over the final product? pictures..?
I'm still active here. I check in from time to time, but my Fett costume is on the backburner for a while while I work on other things. I didn't do any weathering on the helmet because I couldn't bring myself to mar what was then my best chrome finish to date.
Since then I've done these guys:
Then turned them into this:
I work as a commercial mariner, so I spend 4-6 months per year at sea doing my navigator job. The rest of the time I'm on vacation and tinkering in my shop. If you'd like to know more about any of this insanity, check out my myspace profile at http://www.myspace.com/protagonist4hire. I keep project logs and travel journals in my blog there and try to make it all interesting reading.