Carbon Fiber Iron Man Helmet

I got a PM from a member asking the actual steps I took after the paper helmet was built. I decided to add them here...


After you have built the four pieces this is what I did:

1. Join the 4 pieces together with paper clamps....View attachment 567162 I used about 20-30 of the suckers.

2. Move it all around until it looks as good as you can make it and tack along the joins with superglue (I used the little 5ml tube of Loctite superglue). CAUTION remove the paper clamps once you have sufficiently tacked the paper sections together. I resin wiped while the paper clamps were still attached and it made it very difficult to remove them as they were glued together. I actually broke chunks of paper out whilst trying to remove the paper clamps.

3. Add any stiffeners that you want to if you need to keep the shape and apply resin using a paintbrush (Resin wiping)...
I used a 2 part epoxy for my resin wipe and fiber glass strengthening plies and carbon outer plies. I love this stuff...View attachment 567168

4. Resin wipe a couple of times and you might need to only do bits at a time.

5. Once it is all resin wiped and hard its time to fiber glass the inside to strengthen it. TAKE YOUR TIME. Its best to only do little sections at a time and make sure you don't leave voids between the resin wiped paper and fiber glass. This is not good as I spent days finding the voids, cutting them out, filling them and sanding off any excess.
Apply a good 3-4 plies of glass to strengthen it. I used woven glass because it was what I had, but glass mat would have worked better. For extra strengthening you can also add thicker resin to the whole back section, BUT you do want some flex in it as it makes it easier to remove them from the mould later.

6. Time for bogging and sanding. Apply bog over sections of the helmet and sand it smooth to make a nice finish. I found it best to only do sections at time so that you have the lines on the paper to give an indication of the helmets shape/form/ sections. NOTE, re-draw what lines you can, especially the join lines as that where I cut it later.
Bog and sand, bog and sand, bog and sand......
I used and aircraft bog/filler which is pretty much the same as the car ones. There are probably other - even better- products out there.

7. With the helmet strengthened and smooth to a perfect finish its time to cut it into 4 pieces (well that's how many I decided to do). Your join/cut lines should still be on there. I used a vibrating saw....View attachment 567176as the blade is nice and fine and you cant cut your fingers off. I use these a bit at work so have had some experience. For around the ears I used a jigsaw set on 45 degrees - CAUTION - you can cut off your fingers with those suckers.

8. I did cut too far in some points so I had to refill those bits and sand them smooth again. Also take this step to tidy up all the edges. So now you have your mould plugs.
View attachment 567177

9. Now its time to wax up each plug and make the moulds. Use whatever release agents you want (I used Ceara mould release Wax).
Apply your mould.... I used and Scotch-Weld aircraft honeycomb core filler because it had expired and was free. It worked ok, not great. Other options might be (I haven't used some so not sure how good they would actually be) - Plaster of Paris, Fiber glass mat, silicon mould stuff, moulding resin, clay...
I had to fill sections of mine after because what I used wasn't great.
Then you should end up with....
View attachment 567178

10. For each mould then you wax/release agent them, lay your cloth in and I vacuum bagged it to squish it in tight.
There are certain products you can apply to the surface like gel coats to make them harder and smoother if you want. I didn't and don't know much about it.
I don't trust the top head mould or back head/ears mould to not flex under vacuum so I am going to put them into Plaster of Paris. This is a job for my xmas holidays.
 
If the pictures don't work they were.... in order...
IMG_9762.JPGIMG_9757.JPG01-multi-task-tool.jpgIMG_9150.JPGIMG_9765.JPG
 
Been camping on the beach out of contact with the world, but ill throw a couple more progress pics up soon.

Thanks KS
 
Hey all, I'm glad to say that I got the chin section and 2nd face laid up just before the holidays.

IMG_9598.JPG I did 8 plies of carbon for the face and 6-8 for the chin. It was a pain in the ass to get it out.


IMG_9600.JPG The moulds got a bit damaged in the removal process, but nothing major.

IMG_9700.JPGThe chin came out a lot better than I had expected and is nice and solid.

IMG_9702.JPGThe edge of the second face section didn't fold over like the first so it came out complete. solid as in 8 plies. Much happier.
 
With the face and chin sections getting a little tidy up and sitting together...

IMG_9704.JPG The nose area does look a bit flat in the picture for some reason??? I will do a full trim once all 4 pieces are done.

IMG_9703.JPG
 
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