Spaceballs Dark Helmet Replica Creation

[guitarpirate]

Very cool thread, thanks for sharing your progress. What is the wood CNC you are using? I wouldn't mind owning one too, despite tech difficulties you are having, unless you have a better one to suggest.

 

[grenater]

I see you have the ring.... And your SWARTCHS as big as mine!

 

[XLAutomation]

Lol, I weighed the helmet after adding the bracing, etc. It now weighs 41 lbs. I also made the support for the two pieces when on the vacuum former. I have a very generous friend that has offered one of his production thermoformers for a few hours on (hopefully) Tuesday. I might have parts by then! Anyway, their machine isn't the normal former I've seen with the table full of holes. For this one, you make a platform the exact size you need, add a port on the bottom and a way for air to escape through the port and that's it. It will make up to something like a 10'x16' part or something crazy like that. I'll let everyone know how it goes.



The mask weighs 15 lbs.

 

[XLAutomation]

Very cool thread, thanks for sharing your progress. What is the wood CNC you are using? I wouldn't mind owning one too, despite tech difficulties you are having, unless you have a better one to suggest.

Thanks for the compliment! The CNC router I am using is made by K2 CNC. www.k2cnc.com. I have two of the 39"x25" gantry type routers. Overall they have been pretty reliable, but I was just having trouble with both of them at once and it was frustrating. They will only do about 4" in the Z direction so I had to do it in pieces. My big mill has a 29" Z travel, but then the problem is needing a very long Schwartz, I mean tool, to avoid having the Z axis spindle hitting the part!

 

[RA24_4_Me]

Have you figured out how you are gonna make the faceplate hinge up inside the helmet? Working on one of these myself and have ideas but its always interesting to see how others tackle problems.

 

[XLAutomation]

I was originally thinking of using a hinge like you would see on a face shield used for grinding or welding. That way, I have good head support (adjustable!) and have a hinge that I can attach to the face mask. I calculated where the hinge needs to be to work, but I think that the hinge location will not work with this arrangement. So I think I will figure out a way to attach the inner workings of a hard hat to the inside of the helmet, and then use some scrap plastic to make some sort of hinge... It's a work in progress! Once I get an idea drawn up, I will take a photo and post it to help you out.

 

[XLAutomation]

I am amazed how well this all worked out on the first try!!! You can see the wood grain a little, but I can sand it and paint it if I want. I used ABS instead of Styrene, thinking that the Styrene would be too brittle for something so large. 0.125" on the helmet and 0.060" on the mask. The Mask features turned out AWESOME!

Thanks SO VERY MUCH to the kind folks at Plastech in Atlanta for contributing their time in exchange for some electrical work. (Not that they do this regularly!!) These folks are kind and generous!

Now onto the hinge mechanism and finishing out the mask details.

 

[xdmray]

awesome, glad you got some good pulls.

 

[fuumantroop]

Iam also interested in this! Been wanting to create a Dark Helmet costume for a while now.

 

[XLAutomation]

Hi Guys.

Looks like I got a good hinge idea going. Tonight I am going to make it permanent. To avoid any trial and error, I did some calculations to properly position the mask in the hood and have it retract appropriately. The calculations are an exercise in geometry that I tried my best to figure out, but eventually gave up and did the calculations in a Solidworks sketch. If anyone can figure it out manually, I'd love to hear how.

Here's the gist. I set the mask in the hood where I wanted it to be in the fully retracted position. Then I drew a line representing the back surface of the mask as well as a point to represent the bottom corner. Then I did the same thing with the mask in the fully down position. So now I have two lines and points at some angle apart. Knowing this, I have to find the point at which a hinge will allow the mask to rotate between these two positions. The hinge point will be some distance off the line and from the corner point of the mask. This distance "A" and "B" will be the same for both mask positions. The solution is solvable.

Here is a sketch, and also the solution. In the solution, the 1.91 and 2.03 dimensions are calculated and represent the location of the hinge point from the lower corner and rear surface. Using these numbers, I attached a hinge to the mask temporarily with some wood and PVC and it works perfectly.

 

[XLAutomation]

Here are a couple of photos of the mask with final glued hinges and headgear in place

View attachment 411913 View attachment 411914

 

[xdmray]

those links aren't working for the pics

 

[XLAutomation]

I added the permanent headgear materials and the permanent hinge pivots, etc.

 

[XLAutomation]

those links aren't working for the pics

Did they start working? The seem OK from here.

 

[xdmray]

yeah i can see em now. looking good man.

 

[XLAutomation]

May the Schwartz be with you.
May the Schwartz be with you.
May the Schwartz be with you.
May the Schwartz be with you.

I plan to take one of them and melt it into a post-ludicrous speed version. One will be for our Scout campout, one a spare, and the final one I might sell. I don't know yet. Lord knows how many hours and how much money I put into making these four!!! It was fun though.

I am now working on my own thermoformer so that I can make the belt buckle, shoulder thingies, etc. among other things.

Michael

 

[xdmray]

NIce work! those came out great! I would love to have a smashed up one. you don't need the visor for that one.

 

[XLAutomation]

I made a mini-vacuform table for small parts, while I am still working on the larger one. (pics later). I made the little round disks that are on either side of his tie. I took a piece of 3/4" poplar, cut in into a 3.5" circle and carved it on the lathe.

Michael



- - - Updated - - -

Now I am working on the shoulder/chest pieces. Cut from a 2x6 and I formed the bead around the edge out of Bondo. Pics in a little bit (waiting on the Bondo to gel now).

Michael

 

[XLAutomation]

Shoulders...

 

[XLAutomation]

Shoulders and beginning of belt. On the shoulders, I haven't filled in the defects in the wood yet, I just wanted to make a couple of parts. These are all styrene (HIPS). I am running out of time; our scouting retreat is next weekend. I will clean it up later and make a few more parts to perfect them. I just need to add the grooves to the belt, and clean it up a bit, then I'll pull a couple of parts and see how they turn out.

I noticed that the styrene is way more brittle than the ABS I used on the mask and helmet.