Robocop Helmet

strengthof10men

Hello everyone.

This is my second helmet . I have mixed feelings with how it turned out but I did learn a lot of lessons from it so I thought I would post it up.
I started with a pep file I printed it out too big, so I reduced it in size. After the third time I got impatient and decided to just start and sort it out later. This was my first mistake
The fibre glassing went without trouble and lured me in to a false sense of security. lol

strengthof10men

I knew the helmet was too narrow so I sawed it in half and added about an inch strip straight down the centre






This made the jaw no longer fit so I had to screw with that. I had cut reshape and rebuild , until I finally gave up. Printed a new jaw out , assembled it and fibre glassed it. I wasted a lot of time and money on the jaw and was getting frustrated. In the end I had made it three times.

strengthof10men

I moved onto the details . I knew I needed to add Robocop’s ‘ears’ so I went to the ‘every thing for a pound store’ and looked around for anything that I could cannibalize. I was lucky and found some bathroom sink strainers. There the things you put in the sink hole so if your hair falls out into the sink you don’t clog it up with your gross fur ball.
I also bought two telescopic magnets , so I could cut the ends of and use them later.



I drilled out a hole in the side of Robo’s head , and using a file a saw blade and anger made the holes wider. I then used the fibre glass resin to glue them in from the inside.



The small cylinder in the middle of the ‘ear’ was made by rolling up some card, tapeing it in place and then I filled it to the top with resin.

strengthof10men

I then started to apply car body filler and sand, I then printed out the words. OCP POLICE 001 and printed them out to the right size to fit the head band area. I scribbled pencil on the back of the print out and then taped the print out in its right place. I then took a sharp pencil and drew over the words. When I peeled the paper off, the graphite from the pencil I scribbled on the back had transferred to the helmet in the places where I had scribed on the front of the print out. This would have also worked with charcoal or chalk or pastel. I’m sorry that I don’t have photos for this part.
I was starting to get frustrated , because I knew that the helmet would never fit me right because I hadn’t taken the time to get the sizes right from the start , so I resigned my self to this being a display piece. But I thought it might be fun to still make the jaw removable. I wanted to have the magnets flush with the top of the jaw , but this proved to be difficult to do because their wasn’t a lot of room to glue the magnets too and the tops where a little uneven.



In this picture you can see where I glued the two magnets to the inside of the helmet.



Since the jaw was going to remain attached most of the time . I just used the fibre glass resin to stick four pieces of metal on the jaw where they would line up with the magnets. I know its not pretty . But by know I was losing my confidence and just wanted it finished.

strengthof10men

The visor.
I found a piece of Perspex in my Dad’s work shed. I cut out a strip that lined up with the eye hole slot. And then I put limo window tin on it. I bent the plastic and hot glued it in place . Anyone who has used window tint wont be surprised to find out what happened. The tint rippled and fell off. This goes on the list of things that I learnt while doing this. Its was very annoying but now I know not to even try this in the future. You can still see the visor attached in the photos. I have since taken it of and trying to come up with other ideas. I am looking at buying a motor cycle helmet replacement visor for cheap. Maybe on Ebay.

strengthof10men

I used a dull silver spray paint to cover the helmet. Then when it dried I mixed up some Cyan acrylic paint so that it was very watery and brushed it on the helmet. I waited a few seconds, the using tissue paper I wiped it gently off , which left behind a faint residue of colour. I the mixed up some Magenta acrylic and did the same. I found that if I left the acrylic on the spay paint for any longer than that , it would stain the silver and I couldn’t get it of. , it was important to move quickly once I had decided where the paint had to go. I even figured out a pattern to the colouring so when I make this helmet again I will already have the paint scheme .
As you can see from the pictures the helmet is too big for my slim , none heroic chin. I have learnt a lot from the mistakes I made and when I decide to redo this helmet I'm positive I won’t fail again.









(yes that is an A.L.F poster in the background I've had it since 1987 )

STEALTH

hey man, that is great. I love RoboCop.
You should do the whole suit.
I like the blue accents in the paint as well.

You're going to make this helmet again? Great! It will turn out even better for sure. It's always the case.

tgk

Just a thought but perhaps you could try to use smoke grey transparent paint for model kits. I know that Tamya, and Gunzi Sangyo have several colours of transparents and because they are acrylic paint they don't craze the surface of the plastic and make it opaque. Just be sure to shape the piece of perspex before you paint it. Love the build and good luck.

jqjedi

OMG!!! That is great. I have always loved robocop.

wickedoffroad

I thin kit looks realy sharp. Trial and error can sometimes be a pain but as youve said, your learning things. While it might not fit you, there is always the optoin of making a stand and using it as a shelf display.

strengthof10men

thanks for the advice TGk i'll definitely look into that.

strengthof10men

I have also started looking at replacement motor cycle visors but I think there quite expensive , especialy since I only need a small strip.

strengthof10men

Thanks Stealth. I checked out your youtube video. Brake dancing Iron Man is fantastic.

Fullmetalsam

This is really really nice !!!

You can definitely tell that the effort you put into this has been worth it... that helmet is awesome !!!

As for the visor - maybe I can throw in a suggestion.
What I picked up to use for the visor on my Robocop build was a tinted polycarbonate face shield. It wasn't too tinted that you couldn't see through it and since it was polycarbonate - I was able to heat form it to fit the helmet.

I bought it for 1$ at my army surplus store - but I don't know if you're going to find it there... my local army surplus is carrying a lot of stuff that is not "really" army... this face shield was in the "Safety" section.