Finished!
OK. . . OK, so I didn't stick to my original timetable.
The Duplicolor white cured very nicely, and once I had polished it a bit, I used some Duplicolor clear to protect it. This was also polished with some rubbing compound and that brought it up to a very nice, natural looking shine. It's not like a mirror finish, but I think it closely approximates the gloss white-painted look of the original stunt helmets.
Here's an overall shot.
I repainted the frown, tears, trapezoids, and ears with Testors Gray 1138. My excellent hobby shop, which normally has anything I could ever want, doesn't carry any gloss Humbrol colors. :facepalm
But comparing the Testors to the original color, I think it's a great match.
The black stripes inside the rear trapezoids and tears, and the vocoder, were painted by hand with a Testors gloss black paint marker. In all my years of modeling, I had never used one of these things before! Sooooooo easy to use!!
The black outlines of each trapezoid were done with auto pinstriping tape. I just wanted to have those lines very smooth to define the shapes.
The replacement tube stripe decals I bought are terrific! Very vibrant shade of blue, but not too light like I've seen on some TK buckets. I cut a thin line of painters tape to use as a guideline, then cut each tube stripe out individually to ensure they conformed better to the curve of the helmet.
Once I was sure I wouldn't have to respray anything, I reattached the Hovi tips with CA glue and added some black mesh inside the frown. I got a 1-foot roll of the stuff for like $3.00. . . I have enough left over to do about 200 more helmets.
I just tacked it down with a few drops of CA, just in case I ever have to remove it for anything. I also put some of the black mesh inside the Hovi tips because they're basically see-thru.
I re-tacked the brow trim, again just using a drop of CA on either temple, and put the neck trim back on, then the very last thing I did was replace the report covers I used to darken the lenses with some smoke gray limo tint. It's much better to see thru!
So that's it. My "cheap" MR bucket wound up costing a little more, but I'm glad I made the alterations. Would I do this again? Probably not! At some point I'll probably wind up getting another one of these CE helmets to keep pristine.
Thanks for looking!