Good evening everyone. I promised updates, however, this one isn’t great. There is a silver lining to it though. Monday night, when I came out to check on the paint job from Sunday, I went into the shed and discovered that somehow, a stack of random items I had moved earlier Sunday, had fallen onto the main shell of the helmet.
I had reorganized my shed earlier Sunday and I thought the stack was good as I had been moving around for hours earlier while painting and nothing wobbled, or fell, or showed any indication of toppling over. I don’t know what caused it to fall over but it did. It was an oversight on my part to not move the main piece of this now 6-month long project out of potential harms way.
I didn’t take pics of the damage I found, as I was absolutely in shock. I literally lost my breath when I saw how many cracks were in it. Turns out, the cracks only went bondo deep. The helmet was in no way distorted. Once I took my dremel with a grinding bit and grooved out the cracks, they stopped at the fiberglass. However there were some large chunks of bondo that had to come out. These pics are the start of the repair phase:
Turns out this thing was completely salvageable. I sanded a good deal back so I could start applying bondo again. Two coats of bondo later it was back to shape.
Then came the spot putty…again.
I actually managed to get paint on this thing this evening, two days after I thought I’d be starting over again from scratch.
Words can’t express how devastated I was Monday. It made me nauseous. So much work undone in seconds. The fact this thing survived dumbfounds me. I guess it can actually take a real life hit, so perhaps it’s truly a “helmet”. I contemplated even mentioning this huge mishap, but you guys have followed me from the start, so I figured why not? If anything, it can be a lesson to anyone building something like this to never admit defeat until you verify that it’s a lost cause. I lost sleep Monday night because of it. Turns out it really wasn’t that bad. I mean, my awesome paint job was ruined, and I lost a day and a half fixing it. I can say it’s out of harms way curing tonight.
Tomorrow I plan on applying 1 or 2 coats of clear, then making my decals. I’ll be applying those hopefully Sunday and doing final clear coats. I still need to apply the black accents and put the film on the eye lenses. After I clear it I’ll start reassembly and electronics, followed by the final step of lining the inside with EVA foam. I want the inside to look as finished as the outside. I’ll keep everyone updated. Have a great night!