ANH TK Stunt - My first suit!

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

So many different ways to attach the lens, I make mine a little bigger than the eye holes, hold in place with tape and magnets and use silicon to hold them, leave for a couple of days to dry.

 

Using Sugru is another option

Original helmets had a one piece lens held in with the ear side bolts

[Scout_Troop3R]

After that earlier post and a little more research I painted most of the frown successfully before I had to go to work, just missing two "teeth", overall it took me about two and a half hours, although after I got back from work the last two only took me like 10 minutes so I'm not quite sure how that happened lol.

Anyway, here they are, and for someone who hasn't painted in years I'd say that's pretty good!





Tomorrow I'll probably wind up attempting some lenses, but for now, my hot tub calls to me.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

15 minutes ago, Scout_Troop3R said:

After that earlier post and a little more research I painted most of the frown successfully before I had to go to work, just missing two "teeth", overall it took me about two and a half hours, although after I got back from work the last two only took me like 10 minutes so I'm not quite sure how that happened lol.

Anyway, here they are, and for someone who hasn't painted in years I'd say that's pretty good!





Tomorrow I'll probably wind up attempting some lenses, but for now, my hot tub calls to me.

You may want to remove a little of the paint touching the gums, toothpicks work well.

 

Note the gap between the teeth and the gums in these references. It's more for higher level acceptance, basic should be ok

[Scout_Troop3R]

46 minutes ago, gmrhodes13 said:

You may want to remove a little of the paint touching the gums, toothpicks work well.

 

Note the gap between the teeth and the gums in these references. It's more for higher level acceptance, basic should be ok

you know, I was thinking all day "Man, I wish I had something to help clean up those edges" and I never thought of a toothpick, it's perfect

I'll definitely go back and do some touch-ups later... once I get some toothpicks (because somehow we're all out)

[Scout_Troop3R]

Started working on the visor today and as much as I would like lenses, I don't have a bandsaw or anything to cut it as clean as I'd like, and something would probably go wrong so I'm just gonna stick with the full strip visor.



I did however cut a ridge for the ol' sniffer in the middle of the visor, just a nice small cut, and I'll probably leave everything else the way it is.
I also glued the mesh with some E-6000, once that's done gluing I'm going to put the visor in, and I'm also going to fill in the gap between the eyes with some scrap ABS so the visor has an anchor in the middle so it can sit (mostly) flush for sure.
 

 

I want to have a screw for the middle but I'm not sure about whether the ears should be screwed or glued, depends how far they are from the ears.

Edited August 26 by Scout_Troop3R

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Normally you can add the bolt holes a little further back, this will push the lens forward when you add the sides to the ear bolts. I only used one on each side of my helmet. You will also need to trim your ear bolts after everything is fitted as they are normally quite long and will interfere when putting the helmet on and off.

 

A little gap between the lens and helmet can be good to circulate the air. Fans are a much better source of air circulation though  

 

 

[Scout_Troop3R]

1 hour ago, gmrhodes13 said:

Normally you can add the bolt holes a little further back, this will push the lens forward when you add the sides to the ear bolts. I only used one on each side of my helmet. You will also need to trim your ear bolts after everything is fitted as they are normally quite long and will interfere when putting the helmet on and off.

 

A little gap between the lens and helmet can be good to circulate the air. Fans are a much better source of air circulation though  

 

 

Yeah I figured I'd need to trim some screws, and even with the anchor the gaps at the corners of the eyes, as small as they are, are unavoidable with this method, but I don't think it'll matter much because it still looks great.
I've made sure to get me some of Henry's Helmet Fans too, those little things are push a lot of air.

[Scout_Troop3R]

I was looking over my helmet pieces and just wondering, "how the heck do these go together?" so I figured I'd get some answers.


As you can see these don't go together very well yet, enough so that I wasn't able to get it with tape, I'd have needed to be general grievous to hold everything in place.


















So I'm wondering, I know the ear pieces go over the overlapping pieces and that the bottom trims of the two pieces are at different angles, but I'm also wondering which side to trim, I know the back of the faceplate needs trimming, but I'm not sure about the sides on the back of the helmet. AM has also pointed out very helpfully where the rivets (I think?? it might be screws there) go on both pieces.

That's the big thing that I don't know about making this bucket.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

These should help you:

Some references of screen helmets, many had gaps  

[Scout_Troop3R]

1 hour ago, gmrhodes13 said:

These should help you:

Some references of screen helmets, many had gaps  

That is perfect, and definitely helped me today.

I started by removing the mesh magnets, and marking out where I wanted to trim from the faceplate ear edges, I opted for 10mm from the rivet/screw guides that AM put in, and did a dry fit which was so much better than before, and it comfortably sits inside the rear bucket piece now. Everything has gone quite smoothly today.

















I would have started with the visor today too, but I needed to add slightly more layers to the anchor which now sits flush, and I also found some nice little screws from the depths which (with slight trimming) will work perfectly.



Right now it's lunch time so I'm gonna take a small break and get back to it after.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

How and were you attach the sides of the backplate can change the angle of the ears but also open and close the neck opening. As you have it now your backplate needs to go back, a good indication is position of ears to trap.

 

 

The "ideal" ear placement is as seen below, where the screws line up with the rear angle of the trap right above it.  Because some armorers design their helmets differently or send them pre-assembled this is not always possible to achieve, but it is suggested that you try to get as close as you can.

 

Note:  Top ear screws should ideally be located directly below the rear of the trap.

 

       

[Scout_Troop3R]

2 minutes ago, gmrhodes13 said:

How and were you attach the sides of the backplate can change the angle of the ears but also open and close the neck opening. As you have it now your backplate needs to go back, a good indication is position of ears to trap.

 

The "ideal" ear placement is as seen below, where the screws line up with the rear angle of the trap right above it.  Because some armorers design their helmets differently or send them pre-assembled this is not always possible to achieve, but it is suggested that you try to get as close as you can.

 

Note:  Top ear screws should ideally be located directly below the rear of the trap.

 

       

Yeah that was just a rough slap it together kind of thing to show it off to the people at home.

[Scout_Troop3R]

After lunch I got back and drilled the ear holes with a 3/32 drill bit in the faceplate and rear bucket, to then discover I didn't have the right size attachment for my terrible rivet tool, which thankfully hasn't been used, so I'm gonna return that and get better one that can actually fit these rivets



While waiting for the visor anchor piece to glue I figured I could get something else done, and I want to wait until it's assembled to paint the stripes, so I installed the hovi tips.
The ones I have are ukswrath's hovi tip speakers so I had to drill rather than just glue them.







I think in the end they turned out pretty good, even if drilling the holes was worrisome and less clean than I would like, a good washer and nut shores everything up nice and tight.

[Scout_Troop3R]

Not too much progress today, which sucks, but I have to wait for glue to continue.

The visor anchor finished gluing together, so I drilled a hole in that and the visor for the screw.







Now I'm just waiting for the anchor to glue to the faceplate, and I can't do any helmet adjustments of the front and back together, so I also marked out a line with a ruler from the traps for the screws.



Once the helmet is situated properly I'll get to work on the ears.

Also I figure my paints aren't coming until after comic con considering they're in LA right now, so oh well.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Any progress is good progress  

 

The angle of the ears is an "Ideal" position and not all makes of helmets will allow for it, don't stress if yours doesn't align 100% there, just do your best 

[Scout_Troop3R]

Hello again! No update yesterday because I had a gamenight, and worked on my bucket right up to it.

I assembled the front and back halves with loose-ish rivets so that I could take it apart if I needed to, and the visor anchor also works quite well, for the ends of the visor I'm just gonna have the ear screws hold them in place because that's easy and secure.



Today I want to try and get the ears situated (or started on that), and considering these pieces do not line up at all I have a lot of reading and testing to do.





Hopefully I can get something successfully done before work.

[Scout_Troop3R]

Right so I've figured out where I want to have the ears placed, and I'm going to cut the back plate to the profile which I'm outlining in pencil once I get my nerve up.



then hopefully everything will sit much more flush and I can start putting the rest of the screws/rivets

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Try not to leave too much room under the brow, it wants to pinch on the rubber trim so it doesn't come loose.

Also keep an eye on the opening, you want to make sure you can get your head in comfortably. FYI you put the helmet on sideways first, drop over your nose then turn straight. 

[Scout_Troop3R]

3 hours ago, gmrhodes13 said:

Try not to leave too much room under the brow, it wants to pinch on the rubber trim so it doesn't come loose.

Also keep an eye on the opening, you want to make sure you can get your head in comfortably. FYI you put the helmet on sideways first, drop over your nose then turn straight. 

Yeah I didn't mention this but on Thursday I put it together with the brow strip and electronics and showed it off, there was enough room for the brow to sit nice and snug, and even with the electronics there was still plenty of room

 

I wasn't able to put the foam in though lol, that definitely needs some shaving down.

[Scout_Troop3R]

Today has been less than productive, I think I'm a bit burnt out.

Only thing I managed to get done today was practice on countersinking some screws

which went great




That was as close as I managed to get with various methods, so that means I'll probably have to go to home depot again and get a countersink drill bit.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

I find using a larger drill bit and screwing by hand gives me the best result, anything too fast either grabs or melts.

 

Any progress is good progress, great to see you trying before applying to the ears 

 

Ears are the worst for many, tedious, small amounts of sanding and trial fitting, we all go through it, have a read through those couple of threads I previously posted, the step to the top of the ear makes all the difference 

[Scout_Troop3R]

1 hour ago, gmrhodes13 said:

I find using a larger drill bit and screwing by hand gives me the best result, anything too fast either grabs or melts.

 

Any progress is good progress, great to see you trying before applying to the ears 

 

Ears are the worst for many, tedious, small amounts of sanding and trial fitting, we all go through it, have a read through those couple of threads I previously posted, the step to the top of the ear makes all the difference 

I'll do some more testing and read those threads again when I get home for sure.

[Scout_Troop3R]

Update time! 

The past two days I've hardly been able to do anything because of work, and a visit to my grandfolks, but I'm very satisfied with what I got done in that time.



I finally got those rivets secured thanks to a little advice from my grandpa, and it really looks way better now.







Now that the rivets are secured I can also get started on the screws, which means I can also now get the visor secured, which means hopefully I can actually get it mostly done (minus the paint) before Saturday.

[Scout_Troop3R]

Today I got started on the screws, and got the right ear piece screws countersunk and it is looking quite nice!

I'm having lunch now but I'm going to trim some more off the back helmet piece so the ear sits more flush, and get started on the rest of the rivets/screws.

[gmrhodes13[Staff]]

Easiest thing to remember is wherever it is touching you will need to trim to close up the gaps in other areas.