Attempted BF bucket using WOF plans

Made alot of progress tonight. Chipped all the latex plaster off the dome, completed the cheeks, made new inner bracing rings from the templates, and put in a temporary visor made from an old welding helmet from work. There's some smoothing up to do, but I'm bringing the helmet to work tomorrow. I've got a buddy there that's got experience with fiberglass and bondo. Hopefully, some magic will happen.

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Im not sure, but it looks like you may have left the extra border on the dome pieces (the base) it looks on teh templates like it stays attached, when in fact it needs to be cut off. Its like a half an inch worth of material. Otherwise, your cheeks look excelent.
 
Oh man... I wish I'd known that before I took my helmet to work today and fiberglassed the hell out of it. I spent about seven hours glassing, sanding, glassing, sanding, glassing, sanding... all the power sanders were locked up too, so I did it all by hand. Here's pictures.

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Even with the mistake with the dome template, I think it turned out really well. I thought that extra strip on the bottom was supposed to make it easier to wrap around the template. Blast. :p
I was going to glass the whole thing, but after just starting with the dome, the glass is so difficult to work with, that I decided that I'll use bondo on the face. The fiberglass is so solid that I may reinforce the mandibles from the inside using fiberglass around the cheekbones.
 
Ok. So I spent the evening doing ALOT of sanding. I've done as much as I can with the fiberglass, so I put a coat of sandable primer on. Tomorrow my wife is taking me out for my birthday, so on Sunday I hope to finish the sanding, and put on the outer plastic piece that wraps around the visor, and has the template for the ear pieces, wrapping around the back. I'll probably use bondo to finish the cheeks and cheekbones once that's in place. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the vent slots in the back yet. The fiberglass layer back there is pretty thin, so I don't think I should have a problem cutting through it, probably have to use a saw.
I still don't know what I'm going to use for the RF stalk, tho... tossing around ideas of balsa wood, but that's too flexible. Plastic might be more sturdy, but I also still have plenty of fiberglass, too.... maybe make a mold with plastic, and cast it in glass.
Ideas, ideas. It's hard to sleep at night with all the ideas and plans and possibilities running through my head.

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You're getting a really nice surface on that. I know what you mean about ideas running through your head. I have a gazillion projects on the go, and each one of them has possibilities for which way I could go with it. I lay in bed at night with thoughts about construction methods and materials running through my head. I really like using balsa wood, but only for constructions I plan to make a mold from. Same with stuff like spackling and drywall mud... great for building up a surface, but no durability. Since I make molds of most of my constructions anyway it hardly matters.

I recommend using f'glass to built up your rangefinder earpieces. If you want it functional then you will want it durable. A glued-together construction won't hold up.
 
Did some work on the RF tonight. I wasn't sure how I was going to do the display screen, but I decided against trying to put an LED in the display screen. I used two blue LED's that I bought at Target, they're spare christmas tree lights, rated at 3.5 - 5v. I used the same plastic to make the RF that I used on the rest of the helmet. The wires are going to be run down the RF stalk.

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The idea is to wire the LED's so that they'll power on when the RF stalk is in the down position. I'm planning on making a contact point on the front of the shaft, and on top of the stop on the ear piece, so they make contact when it's down. At least that's the plan. We'll see how that actually turns out.
 
Updates...

Got alot of sanding done. The whole thing feels like glass now, I can't wait to paint it. I got the RF stalk built and primed, and then found out that the LED's in the RF didn't work... in the process of trying to pull them out, tore up the RF. Not a huge deal, I just built another one. Got the earpiece built, so that's a start...
I'm getting there. Alot of work left to do.

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That's coming along very nicely.......Nice job!
Funny, that's exactly what my kitchen table looks like!

Josh
 
I love to look a what people do with papercraft. I would be absolutely no good at it, but you have done an excellent job. I can't wait to see what you come up with in the end.

-Matt
 
Just finished building the right ears, mocked them up to the helmet for fit. You can also see the curve of the right cheek that needs to be fixed.

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Great progress Samlynn... the lids looking good.
As Kripps said... my table looks exactly the same too.... *Till the wife steps in and makes me clear up* :lol:
So have you decided what colour scheme your going for?
 
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