I'm sure you clicked here wondering what the heck is a marine grade Stormtrooper helmet?
My trooper helmet started out as a pepakura build and from then on I've been using the products I have available to me, all of these products are designed for yachts, they are the products I'm most familiar with. Some of these products I've never seen people using before on this forum so they might be of interest to some people as alternatives to the regular fibreglass and bondo products.
I started building my trooper helmet with the PDF supplied from Feirfek:
(please excuse the shoddy phone camera photo)
For the construction I used 300gsm card (which was pretty much the thickest paper i think the printer could handle) and Loctite super glue.
After construction I started to spot the errors with the build, this is most likely my own fault this is the first paper craft build I've done in a long time, I decided to try building another build as there are so many readily available, I downloaded Spacecowboy's PDF and began to build that. The build of Spacecowboys is far simpler but felt it lacked some of the details that Feirfek's model had, so I took what i liked from Spacecowboys and applied them to my Feirfek build, namely the helmet dome and the eyes. Also I was getting a little inpatient with the development and was eager to get on with filling as I want this thing finished before Halloween.
This is the two pep builds combined taking the eyes and dome from Spacecowboy and everything else is Feirfek
I covered my paper craft with West System epoxy resin, this is a 2 part resin with a 8-12 hour cure time, I brushed on over the outside and inside of the helmet, the card didn't absorb the west system like i was expecting it to so I didn't get drastic warps with the shape.
After the initial coat hardened I put in West System with fibre glass mat on the inside of the helmet to give the helmet the structural strength. I also mixed up some west system and their micro fibre which acts like a filler and covered the dome with it and shaped it by hand to get a round shape to fill onto.
Once this was hardened I sanded it and applied my high build fairing (the pink stuff), this is Awl Grips Awlfair again this product as a very long cure time so a lot of time to work with and dries rock hard. These products are designed to take a beating from the sea for hull repairs and things like that so this helmet is pretty much hard as a rock by the time this cures.
After sanding i put on a poly filler this is a much finer filler than the awlfair but not as strong, when this had dried I sanded it then painted the dome with Awlgrips 545 epoxy paint primer, this was so i could easily identify the bumps and low points of the dome.
Now its just repeating those steps to get the desired shape, I've been cracking on with the build after work and I love the thought of getting stuck into it after work finishes and its an awesome feeling first thing in the morning when i can see it after the previous efforts have cured. I still have a long long way to go, my goal is to have this finished before halloween.
I would be happy to answer any questions you have and will love to hear any advice or tips to aid me and hopefully avoid any major pit falls with this build.
My trooper helmet started out as a pepakura build and from then on I've been using the products I have available to me, all of these products are designed for yachts, they are the products I'm most familiar with. Some of these products I've never seen people using before on this forum so they might be of interest to some people as alternatives to the regular fibreglass and bondo products.
I started building my trooper helmet with the PDF supplied from Feirfek:
(please excuse the shoddy phone camera photo)
For the construction I used 300gsm card (which was pretty much the thickest paper i think the printer could handle) and Loctite super glue.
After construction I started to spot the errors with the build, this is most likely my own fault this is the first paper craft build I've done in a long time, I decided to try building another build as there are so many readily available, I downloaded Spacecowboy's PDF and began to build that. The build of Spacecowboys is far simpler but felt it lacked some of the details that Feirfek's model had, so I took what i liked from Spacecowboys and applied them to my Feirfek build, namely the helmet dome and the eyes. Also I was getting a little inpatient with the development and was eager to get on with filling as I want this thing finished before Halloween.
This is the two pep builds combined taking the eyes and dome from Spacecowboy and everything else is Feirfek
I covered my paper craft with West System epoxy resin, this is a 2 part resin with a 8-12 hour cure time, I brushed on over the outside and inside of the helmet, the card didn't absorb the west system like i was expecting it to so I didn't get drastic warps with the shape.
After the initial coat hardened I put in West System with fibre glass mat on the inside of the helmet to give the helmet the structural strength. I also mixed up some west system and their micro fibre which acts like a filler and covered the dome with it and shaped it by hand to get a round shape to fill onto.
Once this was hardened I sanded it and applied my high build fairing (the pink stuff), this is Awl Grips Awlfair again this product as a very long cure time so a lot of time to work with and dries rock hard. These products are designed to take a beating from the sea for hull repairs and things like that so this helmet is pretty much hard as a rock by the time this cures.
After sanding i put on a poly filler this is a much finer filler than the awlfair but not as strong, when this had dried I sanded it then painted the dome with Awlgrips 545 epoxy paint primer, this was so i could easily identify the bumps and low points of the dome.
Now its just repeating those steps to get the desired shape, I've been cracking on with the build after work and I love the thought of getting stuck into it after work finishes and its an awesome feeling first thing in the morning when i can see it after the previous efforts have cured. I still have a long long way to go, my goal is to have this finished before halloween.
I would be happy to answer any questions you have and will love to hear any advice or tips to aid me and hopefully avoid any major pit falls with this build.
