Rocketeer Helmet and rocket pack because there aren't enough already.

Holy moly! An update!? Well, sort of.

As is the case with many things, life got in the way of hobbies and I was off this project for sometime. Almost a whole year in fact. Anyway, I'm back at it with a deadline to finish by Halloween so that I can go to the children's hospital and hand out candy to the kids.

Now for the stuff you want to see, I'll save you from some of the smaller tedious stuff I've been tweaking and share with you a problem of sorts. This rocket was cast super thin at the base, so thin in fact that you could easily see light through it and feel it flex. Well, I've decided to bondo the hell out of it and give it some much needed help. Here's where I'm at as of tonight, I've got the Bondo on and just need to sand and shape it.

image_4.jpg


its probably going to require a few passes of bondo and sanding but hopefully it'll turn out nice. I've also got the body 90% ready for paint and it should be going in within the next two weeks. I totally scored and an automotive painter with a paint booth is going to shoot it for me. I'll have some photos of the body up in a day or two showing its current state along with some repair work I had to do.

I also decided that my plate wasn't full enough with the pack and all that goes along with that, so I cracked open my OZ helmet kit and started cleaning that up. I got the fin attached and decided to fill the gaps where it mounts. The sculpt is so beautiful and I love how light it is compared to the ACME one.

image_1.jpg

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I'm really excited to start painting this one!

Lastly, while it's not a part of the build. I'd still like to show off and give a shoutout to Indy for making these Rocketeer boots. They're really fantastic, and for the price nothing even comes close. He was also kind enough to make them in a US size 14 for me. Once I tried them on with the helmet and jacket it really got me motivated to finish the pack so I can see the whole thing together. The boots do come with regular nylon laces which are totally serviceable, but I will be replacing them with leather ones in the near future. I truly am over the moon with these boots!

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Now a little something for the ladies(or dudes, either way).

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Careful! Photos in a suit like that could cause some serious harm and trauma to the game of others. Share the ladies, man your suit's too good.
 
All right, I've had the engines sprayed for a few days with Rustoleum hammered black. It's a cool paint with a very interesting texture. However, it's says it takes 48 hours to fully cure. I call BS. We're at 72 hours and it's still soft to the touch on the inside. I'd really like it to be fully dry so I can start weathering them.
image_10.jpg


The body of the rocket pack is going in for paint next week, so I'll have progress shots of that shortly.

In the mean time, I've got this Oz helmet I've been weathering a little bit. This is the early stages of the weathering process. Just laying down multiple black and burnt umber washes before I start picking my detailed areas for dirt and patina. Not sure if it'll be as severe as my ACME helmet, but I guess we'll just wait and find out.
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Just a bit of an update and I'm back to work!
 
The thread has been quiet, but I assure you I've been working on this. Mostly just busy work like adding bondo and sanding. Rinse and repeat.

Anyway, the pack will be going in for paint next week so I'll have photos of that soon. In regards to the pack, my kit came with these metal rods.
image_6.jpg


Does anyone know what these are for? I'm at a bit of a loss and any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
The metal rods are to attach to the flaps situated at the bottom of your pack. They designed it as to make believe that by orienting those flaps toward the engines, the Rocketeer could also influence his directional path (an up/down motion). As for Rustoleum, the drying time depends of the type of plastic/resin, etc it's sprayed on. I have sprayed it on surfaces that were dried in less than 24 hrs and others took at least a week to be handled safely. I found that spraying a coat (or two) of a similar primer before helps a lot.
Helmet looks good; keep up the great job!
 
joberg said:
The metal rods are to attach to the flaps situated at the bottom of your pack. They designed it as to make believe that by orienting those flaps toward the engines, the Rocketeer could also influence his directional path (an up/down motion). As for Rustoleum, the drying time depends of the type of plastic/resin, etc it's sprayed on. I have sprayed it on surfaces that were dried in less than 24 hrs and others took at least a week to be handled safely. I found that spraying a coat (or two) of a similar primer before helps a lot.
Helmet looks good; keep up the great job!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. The paint took a solid two and a half weeks to fully cure!

It sounds like you're talking about the push rods, which I have and these are not those. I appreciate the input either way!
 
The last person who posted that these are the tie rod arms is wrong. Those are detail pieces for the aluminum flaps. They fit into the grooves and can be JB welded into place.

- - - Updated - - -

Gewn said:
The thread has been quiet, but I assure you I've been working on this. Mostly just busy work like adding bondo and sanding. Rinse and repeat.

Anyway, the pack will be going in for paint next week so I'll have photos of that soon. In regards to the pack, my kit came with these metal rods.
http://i468.photobucket.com/albums/rr44/sundelin/image_6.jpeg

Does anyone know what these are for? I'm at a bit of a loss and any help would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
 
Wow can't believe i missed this thread. Man did you do some job on that helmet. One of the best ive seen. Did the acme helmet come with the weld joints or did you do that? What a cool build. Good work
 
Customrelic said:
Wow can't believe i missed this thread. Man did you do some job on that helmet. One of the best ive seen. Did the acme helmet come with the weld joints or did you do that? What a cool build. Good work
Click to expand...

Thanks so much, man! The ACME helmet came with the weld joints. It's really an impressive and very clean kit. The only external modification I did was reshape the fin.
 
Okay, the pack just got dropped off for paint so I'll have it back in a couple of weeks. I'm leaving it at the paint guys house to cure for two weeks before moving it carefully with white gloves back home, where it will sit untouched for another two weeks.

Now that this thing has gone off to paint, I can openly say that this has been this biggest pain in the butt I've ever dealt with. The pack fought me every step of the way, I read all these other people's posts about how easy their cleanup was and how quickly they got it ready for paint. Not me, my friends. A good portion of my pack is now bondo do to thin spots, and almost all the small grill pieces were full of air bubbles. One piece wasn't even fully cast so I made the tip out of bondo(pictured below).
http://i468.photobucket.com/albums/rr44/sundelin/IMG_0573.jpg

Now, this wouldn't be so annoying if the kit wasn't as expensive as it is. I bought this thing almost two years ago, and every time I got a good rhythm going with it I would get sidelined with annoying little repair jobs. Also because I bought this two years ago, I'm pretty sure I'm boned on trying to get spare parts for the rockets flaps. I just removed the flaps from the box last night to attach them to the main body and noticed I only have two of the four pucks that are supposed to come with it. I searched the box high and low along with all the other baggies, and alas, I only have two pucks. If anyone out there has a way of contacting the kit maker without going through MIM I'd greatly appreciate it.
http://i468.photobucket.com/albums/rr44/sundelin/IMG_0574.jpg

Anyway, not to be too grumpy but I needed to vent for a second and my wife is tired of listening to me. I'm currently painting the engines and should have those done within the next two weeks and then I build the harness.

Thanks for checking it out and I promise the next post will have a happier tone to it!
 
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What are you going to use for your harness? I found some nice marine grade vinyl in the right color at joann's, it's what I'm going to use for my harness.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Rockets are finished(for now) and I'm fairly pleased with them. The base color is Rustoleum Hammered black with a coat of matte finish on top. I then used several different rub 'n buffs to achieve the various metallic hues. All the hoses along with the copper and aluminum tubing are held in place with hot glue for ease of future removal.
 

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