Would like opinions and tips on my helmet

[deltakilla]

So, after making the original thread in the wrong section I thought I'll just move it to where it truly belongs, I'll just copy and paste most of it out of lazyness, sorry!

Hey everyone,

I've been lurking around on here and after a long time I have finally gotten the proper materials to do pepakura builds, and I ust finished my Boba Fett helmet with the thicker paper instead of the normal print paper I used, and I'm eager to start to fiberglass it, but first I would like an opinion from you guys if it looks ok, and if you have any tips with resinning and fiber glassing that would come helpful for someone who has never done it before, thanks up front!

Also, would anybody happen to know how dried/cured whatever the term is feels like? I tested the resin out to see if I could do it during the winter in the cold temperature outside due to lack of inside space, and the item i applied it to has been sitting outside for a good 7 hours but still feels all sticky, so I don't know if its dried or if its supposed to feel like this.

 

[Darth Voorhees]

Looks pretty decent. A bit narrow looking at it from the front, but still not bad at all, especially for your firswt time.

Fiberglass resin will dry to a smooth, hard, not sticky finish. The reason its likely sticky is because it is cold. When you put the hardener in it, it creates a chemical reaction that creates heat that hardens the resin. So if its cold, it wont cure/harden. Its rough to try and work with it in the winter months without a proper "shop".

 

[intwenothor]

Difficult to tell as there is considerable distortion created by the fact that the camera is too close to the helmet. Can you do some pics at 6 - 7 feet away?

 

[deltakilla]

Looks pretty decent. A bit narrow looking at it from the front, but still not bad at all, especially for your firswt time.

Fiberglass resin will dry to a smooth, hard, not sticky finish. The reason its likely sticky is because it is cold. When you put the hardener in it, it creates a chemical reaction that creates heat that hardens the resin. So if its cold, it wont cure/harden. Its rough to try and work with it in the winter months without a proper "shop".

Yea, I did notice that aswell, compared to the one I made out of regular print paper, but I just stroke it off as the cardstock paper being less flexible.

As for the resin, I left the test object indoors overnight to see if it would improve, it did somewhat but its still slightly sticky to touch, verry slightly.
But for the cold I think I found a good place to work at, but what should I resin first? inside or outside? or do both at once?

Difficult to tell as there is considerable distortion created by the fact that the camera is too close to the helmet. Can you do some pics at 6 - 7 feet away?

Hope these are clearer for you.

 

[Darth Voorhees]

You can widen the look a little by putting a beam/bar of some sort across the bottom from side to side to pull it out a bit. Then fiberglass it and remove the bar/beam. it will bring it in a bit from front to back, but it may help the overall look.

i did the resin inside on mine first. BUT when i did mine, the intention all along was to take a mold from it and cast it, so the inside had resin and i also slapped some bondo in it to stiffen it up further. THEN i put a few coats of resin on the outside and bondo to smooth it out.

I think in your case, i would resin the inside, then resin the outside and then put the fiberglass/resin on the inside. Assuming you want to use this piece.

 

[deltakilla]

You can widen the look a little by putting a beam/bar of some sort across the bottom from side to side to pull it out a bit. Then fiberglass it and remove the bar/beam. it will bring it in a bit from front to back, but it may help the overall look.

i did the resin inside on mine first. BUT when i did mine, the intention all along was to take a mold from it and cast it, so the inside had resin and i also slapped some bondo in it to stiffen it up further. THEN i put a few coats of resin on the outside and bondo to smooth it out.

I think in your case, i would resin the inside, then resin the outside and then put the fiberglass/resin on the inside. Assuming you want to use this piece.

Yes, I would like to wear it and use it for a costume, also I like to have the first actual prop I ever made so I can compare it to later work and see how far I've come.

So then.. first resin the inside, let it dry, then do the outside ,dry and do the inside again?

I'd love to go custom with this.

And thank you for helping so much, I appreciate it a lot

 

[Darth Voorhees]

no problem Yea pretty much, but when you do the inside the second time, do it with the fiberglass so it becomes sturdy. Otherwise one little squeeze and it'll crack all over the place because it wont be solid.

 

[intwenothor]

Much better with the new pics so thanks for those. I think it looks good but I've never built my own helmet as you are doing but Lou has considerable experience so I'll leave him to point the way. Nice work though brother. I'm always impressed to see people brave enough to take the leap to making their own parts. I'll follow this thread.

 

[Kimozaki]

Hi There! just saw this thread and notised that you´re bulding with a firefek pep! it has alot of things that needs to be changed for it to be accurate if you want any pointers to what, you can check my buildthread. i managed to get my bucket kindof nice whith that pep you´re off to a good start! keep it up!

 

[deltakilla]

Haha, yes Kimozaki, I had 2 peps but firefek is way more detailed, I also noticed the sort of piece that came with ti but didn't fit anywhere was actually something to hold it into shape while resinning it , atleast I think thats what its for... for the rest I assembled everything as it should so .. don't know why it turned out like that...

Anyway, I just finished the inside earlier, I put that .. filler thing so to speak as support , hopefully itll come out nicely I have to keep it outside in the cold. so Itll take longer but its already drying up nice and slow so..

 

[deltakilla]

I actually just realised something.. how the hell am I gonna install the vizor with that depth effect... :behave

 

[Queso]

I actually just realised something.. how the hell am I gonna install the vizor with that depth effect... :behave

I am building the same pep file. Instead of using fiberglass on the inside, I am using Smooth-On's Smooth Cast 65D. It is a liquid plastic resin I saw on another thread here. A few coats provided pretty good thickness. I may add more to the mandibles to give a flush surface for the visor. I'll let you know how it goes.

View attachment 83706

-Queso

 

[deltakilla]

I am building the same pep file. Instead of using fiberglass on the inside, I am using Smooth-On's Smooth Cast 65D. It is a liquid plastic resin I saw on another thread here. A few coats provided pretty good thickness. I may add more to the mandibles to give a flush surface for the visor. I'll let you know how it goes.

View attachment 83706

-Queso

I doubt I can find that stuff over here sadly, but the insides already gotten its first coat of resin., oh, I can't view your attachement either sadly

 

[Queso]

View attachment 83711

Here's a retry of my pic of the Smooth Cast stuff...

 

[deltakilla]

View attachment 83711

Here's a retry of my pic of the Smooth Cast stuff...

Thanks, that looks realy neat though.

no problem

Yea pretty much, but when you do the inside the second time, do it with the fiberglass so it becomes sturdy. Otherwise one little squeeze and it'll crack all over the place because it wont be solid.

I just finished the first and inside layer of the resin quite happy about.



With the added support inside I think its actually looking wider so I'm keeping the support in till it's finished to be sure.
For now It's drying slowly and steadily for a day or 2 now, so I'm thinking of putting the outer layer on it, or to just wait till the inner layer is completly dry.

Also when can I best take out the visor ?

 

[Queso]

Also when can I best take out the visor ?

My game plan is to get all the exterior bondo work done before I cut the visor out .

Sent from my HTC One_M8

 

[Darth Voorhees]

yes Queso is correct in removing the visor last. The helmet loses a little integrity when the visor is out, so its best to not cut it out until your ready to install the actual visor.


The smooth cast is a good idea, simpler than the fiberglass, but you then have a resin helmet basically. Those have a tendency to warp in significantly hot situations like sitting in a closed car in summer and such. Resin also can crack much easier than fiberglass. You also may lose some of the interior space because the resin needs to be built up to be strong. All that said, still not a bad idea. I prefer the fiberglass though.

 

[deltakilla]

snip.

snip.

Alright visor out last, good to know, and yes the smooth cast sounds like a sweet deal, but I don't think I can get that in Belgium sadly, I looked around in the store, and so far the only way I get my hands on resin here is buying it together with fiberglass matts as a "car-repair kit" so I'm sticking to fiberglass... although I probably should go on ebay or something to buy these supplies...

 

[deltakilla]

Alright so, today I excevated our old electric portable heater, and using that to make it cure faster, its slowly coming along, and I already gave the rangefinder pieces a second coat, with this time more hardener, to my surprise they cured in a good half hour, so thats where I screwed up, im waiting now to see if I can cure it with the heater before applying the fiber glass to it, and this time I'm using more hardener like I did today.

On a side note its looking like a proper boba helmet now, not nearly as narrow now, quite happy, and slowly learning how to properly do this aswell!

 

[deltakilla]

So 2 hours of fiberglassing later and a few hours of curing here's the result :



I'm quite happy with the result, its really sturdy and solid despite me worrying the strenght between the fiber cloth and matt would be a different, but this does not seem to be the case, seeing how for some reason the kits I buy give you both a strap of cloth and matt.

Tommorow ill strenghten the bottom 'collar' with a second layer of the leftovers I got, and then Ill apply the bondo!

In the meantime I need to find a way to fill the space between the cheekbone area up so I can glue the future visor to it without problems.