Is this Stormtrooper mold story just Propaganda?

[JoeR]

Firstly I think that this subject should be discussed as many collectors on this forum have shelled out $1,000 a helmet based on what I believe are misrepresenatations.

Gino claims to have molds that I quote, "touched the inside of the original".

Here is the mold that was taken from the BrianR helmet, this was then sent to Gino to copy. It has been heavily modified as you can see, and secondly as Gino took copies, his helmets are quite removed from the original.

There is no way the $1,000 replica helmets came from molds that touched the inside of an original nor are un-modified.

Another point worth mentioning is that the tubes were wrong on Matt's molds, as can be clearly seen on the early TE helmets. The area behind the ear caps are all funky and not smooth like on the TE2.

Four people can corroborate this story none of which are TE (Matt G).

Before anyone shells out $1,000 based on smoke and mirrors I feel they should have access to this information.

I'm sure many lies will follow, like my molds are from different molds, blah blah blah. He lies about the origins of his Vader helmets and won't show close up pictures.

This is the truth guys.

EDIT In fairness the guy has superb finishing skills, just don't try to lie and deceive your fellow prop collectors with made up stories.

Joe

 

[sskunky]

Wow!
Just as I thought. So his helmets are in effect second generation and in being second generation I suppose you could call them recasts! They are formed on a recast mold of TE. So why all the BS that his helmets touched the inside of a screen used helmet? When what he should have said is that his helmets touched the outside of a cast that he recasted from a mold that had touched the inside of an original!
If this is true and it is from the information that has been given then all his helmets are sold on lies?

Gino, would you care to chime in and give your side of the story with of course photographic evidence to support your claims?

I can see a few "lucky people" not being quite as lucky as they thought and at great expense.

I love the picture Joe, and it certainly looks like it had been cleaned up. Not a true representation of an original helmet by any means.

This should be an interesting discussion and one I will follow with great anticipation.

:thumbsup

 

[Jumpin Jax]

Well second gen yes. The helmets look nice though.
Not much else to say.

 

[Nairod]

Considering that the screen used helmets (ANH/ESB) were made out of haircell HDPE on one side, an untouched molds taken from the inside would have this textured finish.

Finally, I guess that it's not hard to prove if a mold is really unmodified or not!

Great picture!

 

[sskunky]

Well second gen yes. The helmets look nice though.
Not much else to say.

they look nice yeah, but that's not how they were sold. The propaganda was that his helmets had touched the inside of an original. This clearly isn't the case. For someone that seems to base his whole ethics on not recasting and only selling extremely rare first generation casts I find it quite shocking.

 

[sskunky]

I own a haicrell HDPE helmet and I can tell you that on HDPE you do get a slight texture on the outside but the texture looks remarkably like the texture that is described as bad painting.
I will post a picture of my HDPE to show you. I also have a small sample of the original HDPE so know what I'm talking about.
I'm not sure the haircell would show through ABS but it would show through HDPE. If it was left on the molds then we would have had a true representation of an unaltered mold, which we don't. And this alone blows all evidence out of the water of the molds being unaltered.

 

[Fenrir]

so basicly if these was casted of a real screen used helmet they have the little tells from that time they used what ever they got there hands one and pple can tell that from the moulds end product when they get sold or held so to speak ?

cheers

fenrir

 

[sskunky]

yes that is true. If these molds were unaltered then they would have the haircell texture on them as they were cast on the inside where the texture is present.

 

[g05ty]

Hold on a min... so to quote the man himself

Absolutely. If it were up to me, I'd perma ban everyone who didn't believe in that. Luckily for a lot of people here, it is not up to me.
But participate in recasting and you are toast here.
Support recasting in any way shape or form, and you are totally blacklisted by those who have anything worth a damn to share."

His own words on recasting so lets hope he can prove differently ! :lol

 

[JoeR]

To be fair, Gino has not recast without permission, he paid for the molds.

The point here is that his molds are VERY modified and are copies of molds that 'touched the inside of an original then were sanded and filled'.

So collectors have paid $1,000 for a TE helmet with different finishing, based on a false representation.

I also believe his Jedi helmets were from casts taken from the outside, but that is for another thread. I will leave the Vader claims to the experts, but I believe Sithlord has debunked all that hype too.

Gino is a talented artisan, he doesn't need to lie to boost his work, it should speak for itself.

 

[sskunky]

I'm all up for great finishing skills and as you say Joe they should speak for themselves and they do. What I'm not up for is the hype, false claims and rubbishing of other peoples character to make your product better than anyone elses and charge an arm and leg in doing so. He may well have had permission to recast although I highly suspect that permission isn't as valid as we are led to believe if you listen to Matt. But his claims and basis of sale are all fake, if this is all true.

 

[GINO]

Joe, much like just about anytime you are involved in a prop discussion, you have your facts all wrong.

This thread is a joke.

If you want to read about the mold history, it is well documented on the FISD forum and has been since 2007.

http://forum.whitearmor.net/index.php?showtopic=1503&st=0


.

 

[JoeR]

Witness 1, Dan Laws.

Thanks for the welcome guys,

I think we can keep this discussion fair and balanced. There will undoubtedly be those who have their own opinions on this history but lets keep this focused on the facts.

Jax and TK 4510 are on the right path. Matt did make molds of the ROTJ armor in 96/97 with a friend of his who's no longer involved with armor. It was this friend Mike who made a deal with Gino and Dave for the molds. These molds were extremely rough, warped resin casts taken from the real ROTJ armor Matt owned. In a separate deal, Gino acquired the face plate mold from Matt's first screen used helmet that I cast in bondo and the bumpy cap/back mold that Megatron from the RPF (Curtis) made in high density silicone. Gino and his friend Dave made copies of the two molds and eventually returned the originals to Matt. Guns now has both of the original molds which are the only two that have ever touched the inside of a real helmet.


Starting around 2000 or so I started to make a new set of TK armor molds for Matt. These were to more closely resemble ANH parts and ended up being the really nice hybrid ROTJ/ANH set that Guns now uses.

Matt could give you a better account of his relationship with GF but I do know that GF's old molds were sold to AP.

Let me know if anyone has more questions.

Thanks,

Dan

No, it's because they are recast, altered, cleaned up, at least 3rd gen derivitives.
I'm the one in possession of the original molds that touched the suit.

Really? That is not what the photo and Dan Laws say....

Relax Gino,

You have the first and poorly recast resin ROTJ molds that Matt and Mike made. When I made the new molds for Matt (now TE2's molds) I corrected the molding errors and compensated for the twisting and warping that occurred during the original castings Matt and Mike did. The original resin molds are incomplete and garbage.

Also, the TE2 molds had nothing to do with GF my friend. I made them, you did not. And just so everyone on this board is perfectly clear, the supplemented parts from the tour suit are as follows:

inside left shin

box knee

entire left bicep

entire right forearm

sniper knee

The resin molds that Gino's has utilize two right biceps, two left forearms, an incorrect box knee, and an outside right shin to replace the inside left.

There's your history lesson for today.

And GINO's own words,

The helmet molds that were sent back to you, were paid for and owned by Dave, but since we had duplicates, Dave thought it the lesser of two evils to send back the originals just to get your crazy an impolite person off his back because at the time, you were interfering with his real life business. He was NOT obligated to do this as they were HIS property. He did this under strong protest from me, but I kind of understood why he did it. Now in hindsight, it shows that he was very foolish to do so.

So in your own words you sent back the originals and kept copies, so how have your molds touched the inside of originals?

Joe

 

[JoeR]

Matt you are missing the point of this thread.

It is about calling out a serial liar, who beefs up the provenance of his props in order to charge silly prices and rip off fellow collectors.

Joe

 

[PMTrooper]

telling a story is the one thing
to make a proof is another

nice to SEE that those moulds couldn´t have touched the inside of a real bucket
but is there any unaltered mould left on this planet?

 

[sskunky]

wether or not there are any "original molds" left on this planet or not isn't the point of this thread. The point is that there have been some very expensive helmets sold on a lie that they came from a direct untouched mold of a screen used original helmet. They clearly didn't. And that is the point.

 

[DaddyfromNaboo]

People,

as long as this discussion stays civil, it will stay open.

Any and all posts that do not contribute anything of value to this thread will be deleted, yet to come or already made. If those posts contain unjustified name calling or personal attacks, they will be removed and appropriate measures will be taken. This includes "opinions", i.e. "pichtfork and torches"-posts.

This is a very interesting topic, so we definitely don´t want any clutter in this thread, but as many facts as possible.

Thanks,
Michael
RPF staff

 

[Art Andrews]

Joe,

I'd be interested in hearing more about the photo you posted. Is that a recent photo or an old photo? It isn't important where it came from but it might be important to this discussion to point out WHEN it was taken and who has/had possession of the mold in the photo in the state we see it.

 

[propologist]

What is the general breakdown on how much Stormtrooper helmets should cost from low to high? I have always wanted one but never knew where to find a good one. ( when i had the money of course)

 

[CustomCreations]

I dunno much about lineage etc but there is something I need to say in fairness to Gino.
If that black is the resin cast from the helmet with lineage, then all I see is body filler used to 'correct' the imperfections on that black resin.
Sanding and applying that body filler to the black cast and the work involved would remove any faint texture left by the original texture of the original helmet this cast was pulled from......if you follow!
I dont see this work as modifying as more a form of repair.

Anyway, thats what I see. I dont have a bone to pick here about what else has been said, sold, or missinterpreted. !

D