The Ultimate X-Wing Pilot Thread
- Thread starter Jimbo890
- Start date
LizardJedi
Sr Member
Thats the inside of mine. Not the prettiest thing in the world , still trying to figure out what I want to change.
The foam is from a batting helmet.
Reactor drone
Well-Known Member
Here's the interior of mine without padding,Visor just pops into the shell and you can see the spacers/initial joiners for the two halves.The chinstrap is attached to the popstuds glued to the inside and because of the high positioning the strap can be a fixed length and just lifted up forwards to remove the helmet.
ywingfighter
Sr Member
Your Helmet looks very nice. Did you tinted the visor or made it from amber plastic?
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jonny5
Sr Member
LJ, it looks like there is a piece of white plastic between the exterior shell and the visor tracks, what is that for... a spacer mayhaps?
jonny5
Sr Member
Your pop snaps have a very large white plastic base. where are they from? (football helmet?)
Also you mike appears to be missing in this shot. is this an earlier construction pic?
Also you mike appears to be missing in this shot. is this an earlier construction pic?
jonny5
Sr Member
I've found a great piece for the mike.
Its the shower head sink hose attachment from a Barbie(tm) beauty salon that my daughters trashed.
I put a piece of coat hanger into the hose and now I just need a way to attach it I figure I'll make a small loop and put a lot of glue, or JB weld over it (suggestions?) and cover that with a small piece of scrap styrene
I think it looks good in white. I may not paint it if the rest of the helmet turns out nice enough.
Its the shower head sink hose attachment from a Barbie(tm) beauty salon that my daughters trashed.
I put a piece of coat hanger into the hose and now I just need a way to attach it I figure I'll make a small loop and put a lot of glue, or JB weld over it (suggestions?) and cover that with a small piece of scrap styrene
I think it looks good in white. I may not paint it if the rest of the helmet turns out nice enough.
RogueSolo
Sr Member
adjustable hardhat liner
That's what I use, works like a charm. Now I just need to get a helmet that isn't 3x too big for me (bobble-head pilot ftw! :lol)
Darth Lars
Master Member
The hard-hat liners that I have come across have not been that easy to mount inside the helmet. For another helmet of mine I have had to scratch-build mounts out of styrene. :unsure
I have attached pieces of knee pads in my helmet after hearing they work great for Stormtrooper helmets. Not so for the X-wing pilot's helmet, because it is so spherical. With the ones I have managed to place inside it, it wobbles a little bit too much for comfort.
I have just made my first test of a co-molded rubber + rigid plastic X-wing pilot wrist comm pad tonight. The cast was not that great, but it showed that the concept works.
Casting material: Bake-and-Bend Sculpey + Cernit, glued together with liquid sculpey.
I'll post pics of my "helmet from hell" and other props this weekend when I get the time.
I have not found anyone that makes the Hoth wrist comm pad yet. Neither Wakal or Corellian Exports makes that one. I guess I have to tackle that one myself.
I have attached pieces of knee pads in my helmet after hearing they work great for Stormtrooper helmets. Not so for the X-wing pilot's helmet, because it is so spherical. With the ones I have managed to place inside it, it wobbles a little bit too much for comfort.
I have just made my first test of a co-molded rubber + rigid plastic X-wing pilot wrist comm pad tonight. The cast was not that great, but it showed that the concept works.
Casting material: Bake-and-Bend Sculpey + Cernit, glued together with liquid sculpey.
I'll post pics of my "helmet from hell" and other props this weekend when I get the time.
I have not found anyone that makes the Hoth wrist comm pad yet. Neither Wakal or Corellian Exports makes that one. I guess I have to tackle that one myself.
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LizardJedi
Sr Member
I think its so that the visor doesn't fall off the tracks. The plastic is glued onto the side of the visor tracks, which don't have a lip on them.
It also might make the contact between the inner shell and the outers shell more stable.
That is a DI kit though, so maybe someone here knows something I don't know
Reactor drone
Well-Known Member
When I vacformed the helmet shells I put a couple of washers on the vac table to make the mounts for the snaps.You end up with a small raised disk then it's just a matter of drilling a hole through it and the snap can be hammered onto it and the whole assembly can be glued onto the inside of the helmet.
I've only just finished that helmet so I borrowed the mike from my other helmet and just taped it in for the other shots.The mike itself is just a piece of scrap sprue from a model kit with a bit of two part epoxy moulded onto the end.
The visor is tinted,just sprayed with Tamiya clear orange,but I'm looking at getting some acrylic at some point,just need to find time to do some experimenting.
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RogueSolo
Sr Member
Umm, I used velcro... Took me maybe 15 minutes to cut to the shape of the attachments (which I probably didn't even have to do), line up the receiving side inside the helmet, there you go. Hasn't moved in over a year.
jonny5
Sr Member
I found this pic on flee-bay. It shows the inside of an APH-6.
the helmet is lined with somethign like stryofoam fitted to the shell in 3 pieces and then several headliner parts are attached (one is missing in the picture) The auction text states these are leather, presumably over some type of flexible foam.
the helmet is lined with somethign like stryofoam fitted to the shell in 3 pieces and then several headliner parts are attached (one is missing in the picture) The auction text states these are leather, presumably over some type of flexible foam.
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Darth Lars
Master Member
I think it is interesting to see that the original helmet used the ear cups for side-padding. I am planning to add a neck-strap to mine.
Maybe you could make one in the household oven also. I'll have to try it.
Yep. That is what didn't work for me. The mounts couldn't be mounted planar to the helmet's inner surface, so velcro wasn't an option.
jonny5
Sr Member
Darth Lars
Master Member
I hereby present to you ... The Helmet From Hell !
I had bought a kit in good faith on eBay, from a seller in the UK. I had laid my bid only a couple of days before Wakal outed German guy BOBATAFF here on the RPF as a recaster of his (Dreadnaught Industries') helmet kits. Only after I got it did I deduce the original source.
The kit was crap. The shells were of very thin styrene (not 3mm thick ABS as advertised), the details were very soft and most of the edges were warped. There were numerous casting artifacts: pits and warts - the mold had obviously not been touched up in any way after it had been made.
The kit could not be glued together as-is. Not only was the mohawk edges too warped for the styrene strip, the supplied strip was 1/2" too narrow compared to the front endcap.
The supplied decals were a joke. They were of very low resolution, each pixel being more than 1 mm big, and had dithered colors. He must have browsed to some web page using a 16-color screen mode and hit PrintScreen!
No other parts were included, that could have been screwed up ..
I have since then warned people about this guy almost every time I see a new forum thread about X-wing helmets.
I decided to build it up anyway, in parallel to a fiberglass helmet that was originally intended as my main project. I was unemployed at the time, so I couldn't justify to myself buying a new kit, but I did have much extra time.
The first step was reshaping details using heat. I used a candle to soften an area and then bending it by hand. I pushed in soft edges using a chisel and a soldering iron. I also pushed in the rivets/bumps on the sides of the head. I couldn't make sense of the two "sausages" that should start at the neck-end of the mohawk and go forwards along the edges, so I decided to also flatten these.
The second step was fiberglassing the inside of each side piece to stiffen it up, so that I could work on the surface without it flexing. I also did a couple of custom mods:
I filled with auto body filled underneath the "rams horns" to make them more screen-accurate. I resculpt the facemask-mounts to be more accurate to the ones on an APH-6. I also modified the "sideburns" to have one slightly curved and the other slightly fatter, as on the screen-used helmets.
This pic was taken about half-way during this step:
I cut down the height of the mohawk, glued on the styrene strip and then fiberglassed the inside of the mohawk. Only after this step did I cut the neck end of the mohawk (it ended too far back in DI's sculpt) and glued on a trapezoidal piece of styrene. Then I fiberglassed the inside of the mohawk's back end.
Because I had removed the "sausages", I decided to replace it with a real piece of thick edge trim as on a real APH-6 helmet, and for this I had to sculpt a channel for it to go through.
Now I noticed that the two halves were not identical mirror-images of eachother (sigh...) and I had to resculpt the brow rim. I glued a piece of styrene in place completing the rim and filed/sculpted the edge straight.
I sculpt a new mohawk cap, only using a few parts of the old one.
When the weather got nice enough, back in the end of May, it was time to start painting it. Now I did have a job and not much free time before my first planned Rebel Legion event as pilot in June, so I stressed a lot during the paint job, laid it on too thick at times and had to redo several steps.
I got my helmet ready just right on time (got my costume approved the night before the event! :lol), and this is how it looks today:
None of the "weathering" is intentional - those are effects of my poor paintjob. :$
The rubber edge trim is a square profile, except at the neck where there is thick foam trim. I decided to put the edge trim on the inside of the facemask mounts as an APH-6 instead of on the outside.
The chin strap is yet only duct taped to the inside until I decide where to attach it.
I made the rim for an inner helmet by heat-shaping a piece of styrene. (Of course, it snapped at a point, so I had mend it)
I plan to redo the padding and make a fabric liner which should hide the interior's ugliness.
The mic-tip is a resin-cast from Richies Armor. The boom is from a scrapped computer headset - it is on a ball-joint, so it is very adjustable. I plan to put some grey heat-shrink and a pen cap on it to make it more accurate to a Amplivox headset.
I cut a piece from a "boom box"'s speaker grille and put it inside the mohawk cap.
Edit: After some further mods, a visor, decals, and weathering:
It was difficult to put on because it was too narrow, so I added a lip, as on the original helmets:
Mic on the headset boom and swivel:
Moving visor: T-strip of styrene sliding on a bracket. Velcro so that I could adjust the cushions. Also more work on getting the inside surface smoother and painted.
I had bought a kit in good faith on eBay, from a seller in the UK. I had laid my bid only a couple of days before Wakal outed German guy BOBATAFF here on the RPF as a recaster of his (Dreadnaught Industries') helmet kits. Only after I got it did I deduce the original source.
The kit was crap. The shells were of very thin styrene (not 3mm thick ABS as advertised), the details were very soft and most of the edges were warped. There were numerous casting artifacts: pits and warts - the mold had obviously not been touched up in any way after it had been made.
The kit could not be glued together as-is. Not only was the mohawk edges too warped for the styrene strip, the supplied strip was 1/2" too narrow compared to the front endcap.
The supplied decals were a joke. They were of very low resolution, each pixel being more than 1 mm big, and had dithered colors. He must have browsed to some web page using a 16-color screen mode and hit PrintScreen!
No other parts were included, that could have been screwed up ..
I have since then warned people about this guy almost every time I see a new forum thread about X-wing helmets.
I decided to build it up anyway, in parallel to a fiberglass helmet that was originally intended as my main project. I was unemployed at the time, so I couldn't justify to myself buying a new kit, but I did have much extra time.
The first step was reshaping details using heat. I used a candle to soften an area and then bending it by hand. I pushed in soft edges using a chisel and a soldering iron. I also pushed in the rivets/bumps on the sides of the head. I couldn't make sense of the two "sausages" that should start at the neck-end of the mohawk and go forwards along the edges, so I decided to also flatten these.
The second step was fiberglassing the inside of each side piece to stiffen it up, so that I could work on the surface without it flexing. I also did a couple of custom mods:
I filled with auto body filled underneath the "rams horns" to make them more screen-accurate. I resculpt the facemask-mounts to be more accurate to the ones on an APH-6. I also modified the "sideburns" to have one slightly curved and the other slightly fatter, as on the screen-used helmets.
This pic was taken about half-way during this step:
I cut down the height of the mohawk, glued on the styrene strip and then fiberglassed the inside of the mohawk. Only after this step did I cut the neck end of the mohawk (it ended too far back in DI's sculpt) and glued on a trapezoidal piece of styrene. Then I fiberglassed the inside of the mohawk's back end.
Because I had removed the "sausages", I decided to replace it with a real piece of thick edge trim as on a real APH-6 helmet, and for this I had to sculpt a channel for it to go through.
Now I noticed that the two halves were not identical mirror-images of eachother (sigh...) and I had to resculpt the brow rim. I glued a piece of styrene in place completing the rim and filed/sculpted the edge straight.
I sculpt a new mohawk cap, only using a few parts of the old one.
When the weather got nice enough, back in the end of May, it was time to start painting it. Now I did have a job and not much free time before my first planned Rebel Legion event as pilot in June, so I stressed a lot during the paint job, laid it on too thick at times and had to redo several steps.
I got my helmet ready just right on time (got my costume approved the night before the event! :lol), and this is how it looks today:
None of the "weathering" is intentional - those are effects of my poor paintjob. :$
The rubber edge trim is a square profile, except at the neck where there is thick foam trim. I decided to put the edge trim on the inside of the facemask mounts as an APH-6 instead of on the outside.
The chin strap is yet only duct taped to the inside until I decide where to attach it.
I made the rim for an inner helmet by heat-shaping a piece of styrene. (Of course, it snapped at a point, so I had mend it)
I plan to redo the padding and make a fabric liner which should hide the interior's ugliness.
The mic-tip is a resin-cast from Richies Armor. The boom is from a scrapped computer headset - it is on a ball-joint, so it is very adjustable. I plan to put some grey heat-shrink and a pen cap on it to make it more accurate to a Amplivox headset.
I cut a piece from a "boom box"'s speaker grille and put it inside the mohawk cap.
Edit: After some further mods, a visor, decals, and weathering:
It was difficult to put on because it was too narrow, so I added a lip, as on the original helmets:
Mic on the headset boom and swivel:
Moving visor: T-strip of styrene sliding on a bracket. Velcro so that I could adjust the cushions. Also more work on getting the inside surface smoother and painted.
Last edited by a moderator:
ywingfighter
Sr Member
Hi Lars,
very nice looking helmet! I had an extra SDS X-Wing Helmet visor.If you interessted pm me.What black material did you used for the inside of the helmet for more comfort ?
Frank
very nice looking helmet! I had an extra SDS X-Wing Helmet visor.If you interessted pm me.What black material did you used for the inside of the helmet for more comfort ?
Frank
Last edited by a moderator:
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