Bumpy texture

[SW1]

Iam intrested to know is the bumpy texture on this origanal ESB lid caused by the paint or is it the HDPE material that causes it to go bumpy ?

 

 

Just luv it

 

 

 

 

 

[tkrestonva[TK]]

Looks like a bad paint job, i.e. the surface was poorly prepped. It's as if they slapped a new coat of paint on it and it reacted badly with the previous coat.

 

Also, moved to the ESB Stormtroopers section.

[RogueTrooper[TK]]

The process of thermoforming/and the cool down period with HDPE can cause the bumpy, rippled effect that we have seen in many of the original Stormtrooper lids. But that doesn't take into account the un-professional paint job.

 

Here's video that will shed some light:

 

[SW1]

Thanks for that Tom , i did think it could be the way the HDPE is heated , just luv that texture , one day hope to have a replica done with the same bumpy texture effect

[troopermaster]

The bumpy texture is part of the mould and has nothing to do with heating of the plastic. All original HDPE helmets have that texture, some more than others, but it's all there. Not entirely sure why it is more pronounced on some helmets but I think that maybe the moulds had been used more by the time this helmet was pulled?

 

Either way, gotta love it

[RogueTrooper[TK]]

I have seen first hand the HDPE plastic thermoformed by a professional company close to where I live. The man was doing custom radio/speaker housing for his motorcycles. During the cooling down process technique that he used, the HDPE did get a rippling effect on the first few pulls untill he got it to where it wasn't doing that.

 

I know there are little nuances that transfer from the molds, as we have seen time and time again in some of the other helmets.

 

But, I would hope that Liz Moore and Brian Muir would not put out molds with so many imperfections that they would come out looking like this almost everytime. I would expect from professional to put out a smooth professional mold. Unless, Ainsworh doctored them after he got them.

 

Either way, you do have to love the wonky, bumpy, rippley finish of them all.

[john danter]

Could this be an age thing? 30+ yrs

Paint and plastic combined so it looks like it does today

 

Were they really that bumpy on screen? Not perfect no but some of these things look awful/great, depending on your view

Plus was that lid a ANH lid making it even older?

 

It could be like a hero/stunt thing in that this guy was confined to background shots, but if that was pulled like that, that's really bad

 

....or good, depending on your view

[TK bondservnt[501st]]

it's just age and paint.

 

just the paint reacting over all this time.

 

and they were quickly repainted, so from 1976-1980 they sat in a box inside a wharehouse in california.

 

so 2 paint jobs and 30 years of bad storage in a closet, or in the trunk of a car...

 

it gets to be about 100d on some days in some parts of northern california.

 

if the lid were in england all this time, then moisture and heat could make them look like this.

 

hdpe could be pretty bumpy to start with, then add 2 paint sessions, then wait several years, then paint again.

 

then you have 30 years of bad storage, and thus we have the glory of the bumpy hdpe lid!

 

I personally believe that the hdpe and it's heat/forming was always a problem for AA.

 

that is a major reason why the hero lids were ABS. AA was still refining his use of the different plastics.

 

which produced different results.

Edited January 17, 2011 by TK Bondservnt 2392

[GINO]

The bumps/texture is absolutely part of the mold.

It is on every hdpe background helmet made for the movie.

The exact same bumps can be found in the exact same spots on every helmet.

Some helmets are sharper pulls than others, therefore making this effect look more apparent.

 

It has nothing to do with paint or debris.

 

When I spoke with AA, he maintained that the only helmets made in hdpe were prototypes and there were only 6 while the rest were abs.

This is completely untrue and is actually quite the opposite. There were 6 abs hero helmets made for the film and the rest of the background (stunt) helmets were hdpe.

 

Forming hdpe does put sometimes put rippling texture into a part, but this is not the cause of what we are seeing on the helmets.

Also it is not reserved to just the back/cap, it is also on the faceplate just not as prominent.

[riveting]

The bumpy texture is part of the mould and has nothing to do with heating of the plastic. All original HDPE helmets have that texture, some more than others, but it's all there. Not entirely sure why it is more pronounced on some helmets but I think that maybe the moulds had been used more by the time this helmet was pulled?

 

Either way, gotta love it

 

The above post & what other longstanding armour makers have said in the past, it's from the mold. Also checkout starwarshelmets & the interior ESB lid shot the costly refurb amplifies it.

 

it's even got seam lines down the tubes

[troopermaster]

As far as I am aware plastic doesn't ever deteriorate. As for the pattern on the helmets being the paint - how do you account for these same bumps being on Simon's unpainted ANH helmet?

 

Simon's ANH helmet looks really smooth in the photos, but once you hold it up in the light you can see the faint pattern which we have all come to recognise.

 

This particular ESB helmet has the most prominent bump texture of all the helmets I have seen so far. I believe that the moulds produced by AA were made from resin and reconstituted aluminium. Moulds are usually heated before forming begins so maybe the hotter the moulds are the mre pronounced the bumps are?

 

Also, it could just that the lighting has caught this helmet and gave us better images of how these helmets really are. I mean, just how many really good close up photos, like these above, have we got of original helmets in this kind of lighting to show the bumpy texture?

 

I have formed HDPE and it never left left any bumps like that. It leaves strange tram lines on hard edges, but no bumps. That said, there are different grades of HDPE so it's not impossible for another grade to react differently, though I doubt it. AA was using this HDPE to produce fish ponds and garden ornaments so I think he would know how to pull it successfully before using it for Stormtrooper helmets.

[john danter]

True

 

Can't wait for the BluRay discs. I'm sure this hobby will leapfrog once more

 

Thing is though, if you look were the paint has flaked off, even that looks a little bit warped?

Then when you add a layer of paint, those little bumps become larger. White reflects light more than any other colour so the angle of light, coupled with the paint on bump exaggeration, would make that lid look like the moon's butt

 

How about shots of inside a lid? Are they as bumpy?

Edited January 17, 2011 by john danter

[troopermaster]

[SW1]

@Paul , totaly makes more sence in what you are saying with the texture being part of the mold , and yes the close up pics with that lighting really brings it out , Paul have you ever tried to replicate that bumpy texture for your helmets i think they would go down rather well

Edited January 17, 2011 by SW1

[TK bondservnt[501st]]

the bumpy texture part of the mould? wow!

[tk7713gra30]

Hi all, not meaning to detract from original post but it looks like S shape trim is wrong for the helmets.

 

This is brow trim, I had this on my fallano hero, is that correct

 

regards

[Sonnenschein]

Hi all, not meaning to detract from original post but it looks like S shape trim is wrong for the helmets.

 

This is brow trim, I had this on my fallano hero, is that correct

 

regards

 

Not exactly... What you're seeing here is an "S-trim", where one part has been cut off, thus resulting in a "U"-shape, similar to the brom trim.

Edited January 17, 2011 by Sonnenschein

[RogueTrooper[TK]]

I do believe Ainsworth had more than one set of molds of everything, simply for the fact that he had a 15 foot thermoforming table that he constructed to do kit cars. In fact that is one of the reasons they hired him to thermoform the armor/helmets for ANH, because he could do it in mass quantity. It would not be savvy for someone to have a 15 foot table and only be pulling one suit at a time. So, we could be looking at stronger/sharper pulls because one set of molds may have been slightly altered to its' cousin. One of the other thoughts on the matter is that the make up of the HDPE back then, may not be the same formula as what is manufactured now. This could change how the HDPE reacted to being thermoformed 30+ years ago compared to today.

 

There are little nuances or tells that show there were different molds. For instance take the ANH thermal detonator/CO2 canister, I have seen at least 3 different versions and I am not talking about about strange webbing or bad pulls, but how the molds were totally different. Also there are little nuances in the forearm of the ANH TD's and TK's and I am not talking how they were assembled/trimmed and other slight differences throughout some other parts of the armor. So if there are different versions of the other parts of the armor, then there could be different molds of the helmets, as well.

 

 

Also, if you've read where they have talked about how George Lucas wanted the look of a lived in Universe, some of the helmet and armor blemishes could have been intentional to give that banged up look to some of them.

 

You can also see in one of Ainsworth's prototypes of the Imperial navy/Cheese Grater helmet, that the helmet itself had some of the same rippling/wonky blemishes that we do see in the TK's and TD's. This effect could also be from reversing hair cell material so the hair cell side is on the outside(not touching the molds) and giving this prop a funky finished effect.

 

 

 

Without being able to go back in time and witness the whole process, from beginning to end, we can only go on speculation and hypothesis on what totally occured. It is kind of like "how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tooties Pop, the world may never know".

 

 

 

I truly hope that the Blu rays will be un-doctored. Lucas in his inimitable ways may see imperfections throughout the film and may want to throw a gaussian blur or any number of techniques to clean up things that he doesn't like on the film that you the viewer would be able to pick up in the Hi Def version.

 

If anyone remembers an old video of them talking about re-doing the Jabba/docking Bay 94 scene, LFL could not find the original film to that. All they had was an old beat up VHS copy and they put it through several processes to get it to what you see in the '97 SE and now the Redo on the 2004 DVD, which resulted in a truly night and day difference from the VHS copy of the scene to what you see now. Lucas may have gotten the itch to try to take out any imperfections that he sees in the films, but I hope that is not going to be the case and we can see more detail.

[TK bondservnt[501st]]

AA describes the process for the above helmet and it was from a basic dome shape. AA's videos have some of these details

[john danter]

I'm sure he said that dome shape was his TK lid mould just that the plastic wasn't sucked down as much? That's what gives it the flared appearance.

 

Shame he's been such a b***itter as some of what he says might actually be true. It's we have an instant alarm everytime he speaks

 

One thing though, the hero helmets don't have the bumps? So if he made more than more mould, or even cleaned it up.....that opens a whole kettle of eggs

[RogueTrooper[TK]]

I have seen the three disc set from SDS that were originally used in the trial between Ainsworth and LFL. If you truly look through his catalog of prop products and study the originals to what he makes now, you will see that there are differences, not only in the Stormtrooper line but through the entire catalog. So, unfortunately Ainsworth does not have a good enough reputation and cannot remember what was done for the original props to be a reliable source. And, like I said before, I still think Ainsworth was running more than one mold and those molds possibly had variations.

[john danter]

Oh yeah I'm not going to argue with that. Just wondering if AA made a nee or diff mould for his hero, or just cleaned it up.

You can't ask him and trust his answer, is the point I was trying to make.

I know his recent works are way off

[tk7713gra30]

Not exactly... What you're seeing here is an "S-trim", where one part has been cut off, thus resulting in a "U"-shape, similar to the brom trim.

Many thanks, now I understand

best wishes

[trooper18938]

Regarding the above "Imperial Guard" helmet... the "bumpy" plastic actually mimics the stuff you see in automobile interiors - like the center consoles, door handles, ashtrays, etc. As the only fact we can rely on is that AA ran a kit-car business prior to ANH, is stands to reason that any "prototypes" (and I use that term lightly) such as the above may have been formed from the same material... Remember the pulling of the film costumes was a side project, leftover plastic was probably used, as in the HDPE/fishpond for helmets story... We'll never really know, but it is fun to speculate, it is a hobby, after all. We all live for those special days when something like Simon's armor and helmet come into the light...

[Lone wolf[TK]]

The helmet in these pictures actually is a very good vacpull, it has very distinct lines compared to others but seems much bumpier . I don't think AA would have needed to make more than one mould for the helmet , unless he damaged the original badly, the order was for about fifty, a vacshop could manage that in a very short time. Regarding the size of the vactable, even the old versions had ways of changing the size of sheeting , to avoid wastage.Stormtrooper mysteries as always