HOWTO: Make Black Series R1 bucket more accurate

[Parquette[TK]]

****UPDATE! 12/08/2020****

Note: This Update is the full tutorial on the major things that need to be done so that it can truly become an approvable R1TK Bucket.

 

 

Alright to start off, the bucket is sculpted really well and once held up to a screen grab, is nearly identical. However, obviously Hasbro took some liberties/changed some things around that will be modded/or will have to be left alone. One of the most noticeable things is that the cheeks of the faceplate are a little wider, thus resulting in the rest of the sides of the helmet being wider. However, this can't be helped much without taking extensive measures.

 

DISCLAIMER: 

 

While this mod is mine, some images of my PROCESS have been lost to the sands of time (or data in this case). So I'll be utilizing some pictures of the original BS helmet, with crappy circles and arrows I drew to highlight the parts I'm talking about. 

 

So let's get started.

 

List of materials needed for the following mods:

 

-Bondo Filler.

-Vacuum Line from the Auto Store.

-E6000.

-Loctite Superglue: Gel, and Liquid versions (optional)

-2 Part Epoxy

-Trooperbay Brow and Neck-hole Trim

-Screen Door Plastic Mesh Patch

-Your choice of polishing compound (optional)

-Dremel Tool with assorted grinding bits.

-Sanding paper: Grits 120, 150, 220, 1000, 15000. (last 2 grits are for polishing. Optional) 

-Styrene Plastic (For Sale Signs, Parking Signs, etc...)

-Rustoleum Ultra 2x White Gloss, Rustoleum 2x Blue spray paints.

-Patience...

 

Highly Reccomended items:

-Respirator (for breathing when using Bondo)

-Pocket Knife (for prying)

-Latex Gloves (for superglue contact on your finger)

 

 

*****Black Series R1TK Helmet modifications*****

 

 

1. Gutting of the interior.

 

Gut out the interior in the back half of the helmet. This restricts head room (or is unwearable for us big headed folk), and looks bad from the bottom.

 

For any remaining plugs or screw posts for this section, completely grind down. This one is pretty self explanatory: Just use your DREMEL cutting and sanding wheels and grind down until flush, then sand smooth. 

 

Side note: I highly recommend taking the back half of the helmet out to gut before putting the helmet together, because once it's in the helmet, it's not that easy to cut, and the helmet is a little difficult to separate. 

 

 

 

2. Trim removal.

 

The next step was taking out the neck trim on the BACK HALF of the helmet. It just didn't line up with the trim in the front, so toss that. You just use a pocket-knife or something to pry it into the underside, then tear it off. It shouldn't rip, and should peel nicely. Luckily, this isn't molded into the plastic like the front neck hole section is, so it's easier to do. 

 

 

 

3. Filling in the speaker and battery compartment.

 

 

The best way (and the way I recommend) would be to use Bondo, Milliput, or Plumbers Putty. Either way, you take your paste of choice and push it hard into the speaker. Then take a flat, flexible object (like a squeegee)  and scrape the excess off. Let it sit... 

 

Finally you'll whip up some 2 part Epoxy to glaze over it, then once it cures, sand until smooth (or flush). 

 

 

4. Bonding.

 

Time to bond the ALL 3 SECTIONS of the helmet together. Use either your 2 part Epoxy or E6000 to place in all the seams. DO NOT allow any squeeze out. Press the parts all together, and let it cure with tape or a brace around it to keep constant pressure. 

 

 

5. Vocoder, brow and neck trim STRIP.

 

Now it's time to replicate one of the most noticeable features on this TK helmet: The vocoder tubes. Begin by prying the layer of rubber off of the vocoder section, which I pried off with a sharp pocket knife. Treat the knife as if it was a crowbar: Once it's under the surface, rock it back and forth, gradually pushing the knife in further, and LIFT. Any chips or notches your knife may make can easily be filled in with Bondo. Just take your time: with patience you will be greatly rewarded. Be sure to check your health condition at this point, because your vocoder will look as hideous as in the picture below, and you could have a heart attack. 

 

While your at it, tear off the rubber for the front half of the helmet too. Should look like below once sanded. 

 

 

The brow is the same story. Speaking of which... 

 

 

6. Bondo filler between skull cap and face. 

 

Alright, so this one's a doozie, so just bare with me...

 

The brow of the helmet must be LOWERED DOWN, as you can see it's way too high to be SA. 

 

 

Compared to OS...

 

 

But you tore off the OLD ONE... What do you do? Well as you can see, there's a noticeable gap between your CAP and FACE sections. Now, assuming you did your bonding job right, it won't be too big a gap. So you're going to need to fill that part in with Bondo first, then 2 part Epoxy to top it off. Take your time, sanding in-between layers. Build up until the cap edge is perfectly flush. 

 

Below is from when the helmet is already painted, but it shows what it SHOULD look like.

 

 

 

7. Sanding time.

 

Go ahead and sand all of the surfaces where the rubber was. Use low grit 120 and work up to 220.

 

 

8. More work on the Vocoder.

 

In order to create that gap on the bottom between the 3 middle tubes and the 2 tubes on the edges, grab your Dremel tool with the cutting bit and chop off the bottom section of the plastic vocoder. Then, apply some STYRENE plastic in place with some SUPER-GLUE, then Epoxy all around the edges.

 

 

Then you'll apply Epoxy on the OUTSIDE as well to get rid of any gaps. Sand smooth. 

 

 

 

9. Vocoder tubes.

 

Originally I went to the Auto store and bought a vacuum line hose, but it turned out too shiny, stiff, and formed kinks at the sharp angles. I went into my garage and found an older one, that was more dull and flexible, thus resulting in little to no kinks and the proper matte look of the screen used bucket.

 

Drill out the holes the tubes will go in. Put each one of these holes at the top and bottom of the vocoder ridges. NOT ABOVE OR BELOW. Directly on the ends...

 

I took the hosing and wrapped it in and out of the holes, to see how it'll go. Once you have a feel for it, take out the tubes. THIS IS ONLY FOR A TEST FIT! DO NOT GLUE THE TUBES IN PLACE!

 

 

10. Jaw Extension 

 

Take some styrene plastic scraps, and glue it to the interior of the helmet's neck hole. Do this all along the inside, have half of the pieces stick out. Make sure they are wide pieces too. Sometimes you'll need to glue another piece on top of some to make it stronger. Use superglue for this, then fill in with Epoxy or Bondo. Sand smooth. 

 

 

 

11. Assymetry to the left eye.

 

In the screen used Rogue One helmets, a subtle yet key feature leftover from the OT helmet is visible: the bump on the left eye. Look closely

 

 

You can see how the right eye in the below pic is animated to show how the left isn't the same.

 

 

 

 

Here you can just build it up with bondo. Make sure it protrudes forward, and raises subtley (if that's even a word). 

 

 

12. Hollow out the slots.

 

I don't have pics for this, but drill out holes in each slot. Then, cut out the slots with the Dremel, using an etching bit. After this, file the stripes smooth with various files (or if you don't have these, use folded sandpaper to get right-angle grinds).

 

 

 

13. Time for paint.

 

PAINT THE HELMET! Mask off the grey sections carefully, and paint the entire helmet with Rustoleum 2X Ultra Coat Gloss white paint. Make sure they're even coats, and make sure they're not too thick. 

 

Or you can have a local auto-body shop do it, like I did.

 

 

 

14. Reweave the vocoder tubes.

 

Like the title says, reweave the vocoder through the holes. Once this is done, cut each of the extra tubing on the inside, leaving the vocoder tubes on the outside. Then E6000 them in place from the inside, so they'll stay there forever.

 

 

15. Neck hole rubber trim.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Use a PRESSURE COOKER rubber edge seal you can find from Ace Hardware. Slip this onto the edge of the neck hole, and glue it in place. 

 

 

16: Blue backing for tube stripes.

 

Paint some blue styrene plastic a nice blue color. Put this underneath the hollowed out tube stripes and glue it with e6000. Be very light, you don't want any of the glue visible in the exterior of the tube stripes, nor the e6000 actually melting the thin styrene. Believe me, I've run into this problem from going heavy on it. Just make sure you glue in areas that won't be seen. I'd recommend doing it at the top, bottom, and very edges of the strip.

 

Now, what I did was looked back at the infamous interview with the costume designer Glyn Dillon. He said (and I paraphrase a little), "we actually designed those [tube stripes] to be working vents." 

But for the life of me, couldn't find any gaps to confirm there's room for air to get in. But nothing stopped me from improvising. 

 

 

Those 2 steps you'll find are on the BOTTOM side of the tube stripes. Those will act as "shims" to create a non-visible gap, thereby allowing the most MINUTE of air space. It barely does anything, just figured I'd say "yeah, it's a vent" and let it sit at that. 

 

I painted them an ocean blue (which I think may have been a smidge too dark), and proceeded to use E6000 to glue them to the underside, using painters tap to keep constant pressure. 

 

 

 

In the above pic you can see the piece is actually pretty close to the surface. However, in the below pic you'll find that on the BOTTOM SIDE of the blue piece that there's a visible gap. To the naked eye, this isn't apparent, but it fulfills the necessity for some gap in there to technically make it a vent...

 

 

 

17: Rubber brow replication.

 

Grab your brow you ordered from 'trooperbay.com' and carefully glue it in place. I would recommend you do this with frog-masking tape and e6000. Squirt glue first (not in globs) on the base, spread it thinly/evenly, then slowly and methodically tape your brow to the glued region. There are a few different levels of brow in the film: Angry frown, neutral frown, there are tons of ref images of how the screen used helmets looked. Trim to the desired length. 

 

Place the brow much lower than the original, almost at it's edge. But towards each end it should slowly meet the original brow base again. 

 

 

18. New Mic tips!

 

Thanks UKSWrath for my new Mic Tips! 

 

Have them painted black on the inside (like the screen used ones), and they'll be perfect. That's what I requested from Tony, and he delivered.

 

Just drill a hole in the center of the appropriate sections and screw the new ones in. 

 

 

19. Teeth Mesh

 

The original helmets contained a criss-cross BLACK SCREEN Material that is seen between the individual teeth. So we're going to utilize some good old fashioned PLASTIC SCREEN PATCHES from the hardware store. These are typically used for repair work on screen doors.

 

 

There are tons of builds on here that show various ways to do this, so it's pretty self-explanatory: Cut to shape, find best way to place it, then glue. 

 

 

 

20: Polishing.

 

Wetsand with 1000 - 15000 sandpaper, anywhere it's white. Then grab your polishing compound (mine is Mcguires) and apply it in small sections all over the white parts of the helmet, one section at a time. Then with a rough towel, rub it really hard into the surface. Wait a few seconds, then grab a smooth cloth and polish away. Put a lot of elbow grease into it! The more pressure, the more reflection.

 

 

 

21: FINISHED!!!

 

And there you have it! My Black Series mod. I'm still finishing mine, so the below pictures will not be complete. But I hope this helps! 

 

A last and final note is that this is how to make your BS Bucket APPROVABLE, not be 100% screen accurate. For instance more work is required for the gray rear trapezoids and cheek details to make them perfect, and currently I don't have a proper write up for that. However if I find the time I will be sure to update if that's the case! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 14, 2020 by Parquette

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Nice work so far

[Parquette[TK]]

Thanks gmrhodes13.

I haven't done any mods lately (mainly because I havent made any trips to the hardware store), but my next move is to get some wire screen material to screen doors, and insert some behind the mouth. In movie close ups you can see a grill in between the teeth of the helmet, and on the black series is a black piece they put behind it. I'm going to take that out, and put the wire in, then screw the black piece back in.

 

Hopefully it should work fine! After that, I think it'll be on to putting padding in, then maybe, just maybe, get around to filling in those infernal cracks.

 

Btw, pro-tip: Make sure after screwing in the helmet frame after putting the lenses in that it is not warped in any areas, due to improperly being screwed in. There was a mini gap at the ear section with the brow, and I found it that some extremely small pegs were not inserted into their appropriate slots at the ears, so I reseperated it and pulled it back towards that peg slot.

 

Also, make sure your holes in your home made lens are big enough to be put over the screw slots, because it will make a big difference as to how your helmet frame sits. It caused a gap in between the skull cap and brow on mine, until I found out my center hole in my lens wasn't big enough and pushed in.

[Daetrin[Admin]]

Updated title to reflect the article. Please keep the pix/mod's coming.

[Parquette[TK]]

Will do sir!  

[MrBlondle]

I've started to mod mine kinda as you have and been going round noting the (many) tiny details that there are to be addressed - one of them being the annoying gloss black outlines on the cheek and side grey panels - on the screen used there are no outlines - rather in fact it's shadow where they are actual inserts into the helmet and there's grit and muck in the little gaps.

 

 

also for real sticklers the tube stripes are actually cut right through the helmet and the blue is a plastic insert INSIDE the tube stripe/helmet (you'll have to trust me on that one but it is kinda visible here where there's micron thin shadow between the white of the bucket and the insert)

 

 

here's how my inside looks after cutting the massive lump out of the back and removing the voice changer...

 

Edited December 9, 2020 by Sly11
Edited to restore the image by Sly11, 2020

[Parquette[TK]]

Yup! All of that on the tube stripes is on my mind already! The tube stripes present a problem for me, mainly because without cutting areas of the ear inserts inside the faceplate it won't be possible.My main plan was to cut them out, put a blue painted strip of plastic in there, and depending on how snug the fit is, may not even need to glue it in, seeing as how in a recent interview they said it was an actual vent.<br><br>
In regards to the grey cheek panels, I would say it could pass a basic approval when a CRL comes out. I wouldn't fret too much about it, seeing as how you don't notice a difference until you really get up close to it.

Edited December 14, 2016 by Par_

[Parquette[TK]]

Sorry I haven't posted anything on the Black Series mods lately.

Added grill to the mouth, as seen on the screen used R1 helmet. Got some cheap screen wire from Ace Hardware in their screen section. They have little screen repair kits in small packets. I bought the black one because on the screen used helmer it isn't too visible, but I may go back just to highlight them a bit more (possibly repaint with aluminum spray paint or stee...l wool).

In the BS there is already a black piece behind the teeth screwed in. In order to keep it in place I unseeded it, stuck the grill sections over the pegs so that they poke through, then re-skrewed the black piece over it. Make sure it's tight so that it keeps the grill from moving around too much. I will advise putting something along the edges of the loose wire sticking out on the inside, cause this stuff does fray and even touch you when you slide the helmet on. Maybe glue the ends into place on the actual helmet itself.

 

 

Also, based off of this reference image provided above, the blue doesn't look like it's plastic at all. In an article recently they talked about how they designed the stripes to be vents, but the blue looked real close up to the underside of the white plastic, thus restricting the amount of air circulation passing through (unless on the side facing us where we can't see the stripes there is a gap that isn't visible from the front or sides). It looks very much like it's thin blue tape of sorts. Does anyone else see the diagonal little lines in the blue? It looks like pieces of tape overlapping each other. If anything, it might allow for easier air circulation to get in. For now I need to figure out how I am going to even cut out those stripes before planning any further down the road.

 

 

Plugged up the speaker on the Black Series, along with the battery compartment seam. There are better ways to plug them up, but here is what I did.

For the battery compartment I used e6000 glue to seal the seam, with a littke plumbers epoxy putty for the indentation at the bottom. Then, with more epoxy putty (this stuff is reccomended by Adam Savage and Cosplay Chris on youtube. I know his stuff is more cheap, but even Adam Savage on Tested reccomended this stuff), I plugged it into the speaker best I could, then with a bondo knife (tan flat scoop things by bondo), I scraped off the excess. It took away a few spots inside the speaker, but it's not bad. Sanded a little bit to make it flush, and I have 1 more thing to do to both the putty and the e6000: superglue.

What's that? Superglue won't do it? Well I've found that the loctite gel superglue makes an excellent filler, if there isnt too much to fill and you have enough of the glue. I'll put it on the holes and cracks in the putty, smear with my finger, and repeat the process until there are no holes. Now I need to do this to the e6000 area because e6000 is more latex like than hard, so if you sand it it'll fray at the edges. I'll go over the general edges/area with the superglue to ensure it is generically hard and doesn't fray.

Then sanding!

I will warn those who wish to use the putty tgat, it stinks. Even after drying after 20 minutes, it stinks. Smells like a bad stew really. And if you breath in enough of it you could get a headache.

 

[BrinkHouse]

Keep it going! 

[ireachy]

Keep it coming - looking to mod my BS now that I have the Jedha pack sorted.

 

Really interested to see what you are looking at regarding replacing the rubber seal / trim for the bottom edge - but waiting patiently so don't let me derail your build :-)

[ireachy]

Par_,

 

I think that whilst the R1 TK helmet had the mesh under the grill, I am sure that the attached reference shows that it was not 'backed' i.e. there is just the mesh in place. You can see the light or white of the helmet inside showing through.

 

 

The fantastic hi res image is available here:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8604/28089834910_019dda3a55_o.jpg

 

I also believe that the image shows that there is a black tram line running around the cheek and brow rhomboid. But, there is no doubt that these also have a greater 3D 'pop' than is present on the BS helmet.

 

Hope that this is helpful.

 

ireachy

[Parquette[TK]]

On 12/18/2016 at 10:25 AM, ireachy said:

Par_,

 

I think that whilst the R1 TK helmet had the mesh under the grill, I am sure that the attached reference shows that it was not 'backed' i.e. there is just the mesh in place. You can see the light or white of the helmet inside showing through.

 

 

The fantastic hi res image is available here:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8604/28089834910_019dda3a55_o.jpg

 

I also believe that the image shows that there is a black tramline running around the cheek and brow rhomboid. But, there is no doubt that these also have a greater 3D 'pop' than is present on the BS helmet.

 

Hope that this is helpful.

 

ireachy

 

Thanks for pointing that out! I opted to go with backing it with the original piece so that I had something to keep it in place, and not be see through (though because it's black I'm not sure how much you could see in). Just personal preference, though a person can do otherwise

[Parquette[TK]]

Next step: Filling in the speaker and battery compartment lid in the rear of the Black Series Rogue One helmet. I filled in the speaker with plumber epoxy putty, but I scraped off all the excess after pushing it in as much as I can. It will leave putty in the cracks, but there will be holes in the putty from scraping off the excess. Then I put e600 over the battery compartment lid, because it was difficult to get the putty into the cracks (unless you took out the lid, stuffed the putty on all the edges, then placed back in and removed the excess, which I didn't think of until after doing the e6000). After letting it dry most of the way (impatience) I put loctite superglue over it, because e6000 is more latex like and if you sand it it's edges slightly start to peel.

I tapped and smoothed the superglue on so it doesn't make drips and globs. I did this about 4-5 times to ensure everything was pretty smooth, sanding in between each time. It's pretty smooth now, but you need to sand. Also be prepared to have a coated finger of superglue. Lol I've used this stuff so much I'm used to getting superglue on my fingers.

Also I updated the brow: I put electrical tape on it to give it a better look on the underside instead of that plastidip job I did (accidentally ruined it when I tried to fix a problem). But because the tape us only do wide, I still have its edge showing at the top. Because of this for some reason it doesn't want to stick do well. It's not super bad at first glance but once you look into it you'll see it. I would put superglue underneath but that hazes and could ruin it. Oh well...

 

I'll post more steps soon   I also updated the interior with some spare padding I had laying around. It feels better, but still needs a little more.

 

 

Here's how the brow looks with the electrical tape. A big improvement, aside from the lack of stickiness at the edges, no matter how much I push it down. But the stuff works well for the effect, just may need to overlap the end with another piece. Note: it's best to dismantle the helmet's skull cap and faceplate so that you can have more freedom to put the tape on the brow, be it 2 separate strips or 1.

 

[Parquette[TK]]

Black series helmet update: I changed the brow to have electrical tape versus plastidip, because I only plastidiped the brow's underside instead of the entire thing, so the edges fray. Then after failing to get plastidip out of the can I untaped the helmet and some plastidip already on came off with it in an area or 2. So electrical tape works, and hopefully once a CRL is up and functioning, it could pass basic.

I also updated the interior with padding and a home made elastic... chin strap. It actually keeps the helmet on my head when I look down pretty well It was majorly inspired by the chin straps that the Shoretroopers have inside the helmet to keep it on the wearer, so I assumed that the Stormtrooper helmets have it as well.

 

Thoughts on brow welcome hopefully I'm not kidding myself with the tape (I have it slightly tucked into the skullcap so it stays down. This stuff's edges don't want to stick very well). Aside from a few wrinkles at the very ends of the brow where I tucked it into the helmet, it hopefully will pass. Here's to hoping!

 

 

 

 

Here's the interior of my helmet, with 2 different kinds of padding.

 

 

Edited December 21, 2016 by Par_

[Parquette[TK]]

Went and saw Rogue One again for the 2nd time (first was at premiere night). Had to take a pic with the poster and helmet!

 

[Shoretrooper]

Looking good

 

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

[Parquette[TK]]

Here's a mock up of my Rogue One Black Series so far with all my mods. Today I did a rough cut at the tie stripes, and once cleaned up with a file or something, I'll put some blue tape underneath. Why blue tape? You see overlap lines in the blue portion of the tube stripes, which makes it look like tape. They did say it was designed as an actual functioning vent for easier breathing, so it'd make a little sense.

Mainly I cut the indentations out with a rotary tool using a blade, and a bit to fix the edges. Be very careful when doing this cause you can mess up by accidentally trailing off and making cut lines along the surface.

 

Also how I put on the electrical tape is by separating the helmet sections, and I put 2 pieces of tape on the brow. One for the underside and middle front of brow, and the other for entire front of brow and top. You want to make sure no bubbles or separation is occurring, this will effect the overall life and look of the tape. Maybe putting superglue under the tape's edges so that it stays down? I'm thinking of doing that with mine because for some odd reason the edges refuse to stick to the top.... but with the tape make sure no noticeable tape overlap or seams are present.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll get to documenting the neck hole trim later, but I will say that drilling out the tube stripes is a pain in the neck to try and get perfect with a rotary tool. I'll need to get a file of sorts or something that can fix the edges and make it more cleaned up.

 

Also, Merry Christmas everyone!

Edited December 25, 2016 by Par_

[Vaphil]

Greetings,

My wife got me the 'Star Wars' The Black Series STORMTROOPER helmet at Black Friday this year for Christmas. After reading some reviews, I found more Negative reviews than Positive ones; mainly because Hasbro boasted about the Voice Changer they fell short on that promise.

 

Is it possible to 'tinker' with the helmet to Fix the Voice Changer? If so, who knows or how can it be done?

PS: I realize this comment could be a thread on its own; however, this OP's thread is about tinkering with the helmet I felt my comment would be appropriate here.

Edited December 26, 2016 by Vaphil

[Parquette[TK]]

No need to worry Vaphil, a completely appropriate question

 

It is very possible, with even some Youtube tutorials which were made on the topic. I personally haven't messed with the voice changer to make it sound better, and opted to gut the electronics out. I am planning on using a wireless microphone/speaker system I heard other 501st members using at my first troop (not 501st yet, but they let me ). Mainly to save money and time, one could go with the modifications route of the already existing speaker, but it definately wouldn't be the loudest speaker in the world. If one was at a crowd for instance at say an NHL game, it would be hard to talk over the crowd to another person without having to shout with your normal voice.

 

Hope this helps man! Good luck with your mods to your helmet! Merry Christmas btw!

[BMM]

Par_, great work so far!! Can i ask, did you paint the entire bucket after filling the speaker slots and battery compartment? or was it easy to just paint match the back? 

[Parquette[TK]]

Thank you sir! Yeah painted it after filling in the area in the back <br>

I just painted the rear half of the helmet (not including top cap) with Rustoleum 2x Ultra Cover White gloss. While it isn't the best match, it's what I bought the other day so I'm using it

Edited December 27, 2016 by Par_

[Parquette[TK]]

Black Series R1 mod. Next step, neck hole rubber edging. I was asked about how I'll be doing this, so here's what I bought and did. Then I'll also show you how the tube stripe vents are coming.

So I went to Ace Hardware and bought a pack of weather stripping. They come as one looped weather strip, and to be quite honest I don't know the official pricing, because the tag said around $30.00, but the cashier said it was in the computer as around $19.00, so I don't know which to ...believe. I'm more inclined to believe the computer, ha!

Anyhow, it has a soft flexible part, and the other half is a really hard, almost wind shield wiper in looks, rubber. Cut that entirely off. You can see it in this image.

 

Now you have only the soft part. I noticed that the overall shape is like a L with a hook at the top, which you can see in the above picture. I cut off the _ part of the L (interferes with final product), and used the hook as a place to slot over the neck hole of the helmet. After slotting on, I would trim it down to size, but I'd advise having it overlap with the front half of the helmet's trim, so that it looks much smoother. I'd also reccomend using a rotary tool to cut open any restricting areas in the ears of the helmet that keep the trim from sliding right over the neck hole.

 

Then its time to actually put it on for good. But before doing that I reccomend supergluing the neck hole edge before putting the rubber trim on.

Now you have a new trim! It's much more lined up than the old trim which didn't look any good. Hopefully this helps!

 

Also regarding the tube stripes, to cut them out I'm using a rotary tool with a few bits (including saw bit), and some files to clean them up. I used the saw bit for the rotary tool first, then other bits to clean it up. But the files really do the cleaning. I'm not finished, but wanted to show how it's coming. Teaser for next update

 

[Parquette[TK]]

Next step in the Black Series mod: Adding jaw seam.

In the actual screen used piece, people have pointed out a seam directly at the area where the cheeks and the jaw meet.

Now on the Black Series this is 1 molded piece, so I had to make an artificial seam.

 

The most accurate way to do this would be to completely seperate the jaw from the rest of the helmet and reattach through adding shims in the underside, but because that'd be a struggle, the best solution is to cut an groove all along the area where the seam should be. So using a rotary tool with a saw bit, make a cut into the corner, but not a deep cut, just an indent that's a little deep. Cut it too deep, then you make an actual cut, which in this case we don't want. Make sure to bring it in and out to do make a groove easier. But be steady with it, cause if you rush it you risk going off course and making unwanted cuts. After you've made the groove, sand both at the edges and inside it to get rid of any rough sections. Take extra care to sand out and remove any ABS plastic shards that didn't come off easily.

 

Now comes the fun part. Making it highlighted to look like a seam. This method is a common way of weathering prop replicas. You'll need 3 things; Black Acrylic paint, a brush, and a spray bottle filled with water.

Spray down the jaw's groove with water, and then immediately in a light quantity apply the acrylic paint with the brush. As soon as you do this you'll need to wipe it down, leaving behind only what is left in the groove. This'll make the indent darker and more black, giving the idea that it's got a shadow in the seam.

For any areas that are too dark, you can rub it down with soapy water and sand paper. I'd suggest a super fine grit, so no lines are easily visible.

This thing is coming along and looking a whole lot more like a proper R1 TK Helmet. More to come

 

Next update: Repainting the rear half with possibly a better paint... we'll see how it goes...  

[ireachy]

Par_,

 

good to see the neck trim trick. I have looked at using some OT S-shaped trim but it looks a tad too bulky, so will have a play with your weather excluder idea. Also have some excess trim from X-wing helmet so that may be a go-er too.

 

The cheek tubes are looking great. That is the part that I am likely going to leave to last as it scares the heck out of me - too much opportunity for a catastrophic slip with the Dremel!!!

 

Good spot on recreating the nose / jaw separation line. Something that I will now look to do on mine.

 

I may post some WiP pics of my lid here, but don't want to clutter your build thread.

 

Best,

ireachy

Edited January 24, 2017 by ireachy

[Parquette[TK]]

Thank you Ian! Yes I have to say the cheek tubes are scary to do, I've messed up on a few areas. Howeer, nothing a little Loctite Superglue gel won't fill (obviously may need some white touch up paint though xD )

 

Look forward to seeing your mods! The X-wing trim may work too, anything that works helps  I will recommend for the jaw seamline that it's more of an angular cut, and not at the side all that much. I did this on mine, and it makes it look like a gap. If you went more towards the top of the actual jaw itself it would look better.

Edited January 24, 2017 by Par_