Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet (Cut Apart on Page 2!)

Hi all!

Doing an oldschool build here of the old Mark 4 Iron Man helmet as I had the Pepakura file sitting around and the new peps for the Mark 42 and on hadn't quite come out yet. The eventual plan is to do a mold and then make a cast and install the required hardware for faceplate and jaw in it. This project will be powered by a Teensy 3.0 and an accelerometer which will look for sudden changes in acceleration (as if you snapped your head up or down slightly) which will trigger the opening and closing actions.

I'll do my best to show wiring diagrams and hinge assembly once I have them created as it turns out specifics are actually a little hard to find.

Day 1:




The exterior of the Pepakura was coated with multiple coats of Fiberglass Resin and done in sections. This was done to help preserve the existing shape of the Pepakura file and not end up with a lot of warps or sags. (Note: It does a pretty good job at preserving the existing shape of the Pepakura - warps and misshapen areas and all. Do your absolute best to get all of the funky shapes at this point (Fiberglass resin can supposedly be reheated with a heat gun and pressed into a new shape) because I spent a lot of time later fixing some of these areas.)

Once the multiple coats of fiberglass resin had dried, Rondo was slush cast on most of the surfaces on the interior of the structure. Fiberglass mat (saturated with Rondo) was pressed onto the sides of the helmet as they were pretty thin and subject to warping earlier so I figured a little reinforcement would help. Note: Fiberglass resin will retain it's shape exactly as you leave it. I left two flaps that stuck up from an interior edge (where the Pepakura file denotes the faceplate's edge) that I figured I'd cut off later. This was not possible as it was very dense and too far in for tools until it was cut apart. It also left small gaps as illustrated by the following diagram: http://i.imgur.com/8UfhEn9.png

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

Day 2-3:




A second coat for the faceplate in an attempt to get it thick enough to not end up sanding into the paper (which I ended up doing anyways!), a first pass on the right lower side and over the top of the helmet. Careful attention was paid to ensure that the two slits were left clear as it would be much harder to clean them out or put them back in later if I filled them in.

The circular space in the earpucks were sanded down using a circular sandpaper attachment for an electric drill (http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/MERIT-Locking-Sanding-Disc-1EDU7?Pid=search). This gave me a fairly effective way to stand the area flat without spending a lot of time trying to do it by hand using small strips of a regular piece of sandpaper.

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

it's the mark VII helmet . . . anyway it's a good start

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

hey！man ！this is good world

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

ironmaided said:

it's the mark VII helmet . . . anyway it's a good start

Click to expand...

The Pepakura file is definitely the Mark 7 helmet which features a different shape underneath the vent (a rounded triangular vent instead of the inset hexagon), a different chin inset (inset into the surface instead of just into the raised area), it doesn't have the raised section on the chin, and features a rounded chin. All of these will be adjusted to fit the Mark 3/4 helmet's specs, I just liked this pep much better than the true Mk 3/4 one which features a lot of really fine details that add time to the pep and would just have to be destroyed and re-created in bondo. I'm much too impatient to keep all of the little details in the pep intact while detailing!

zhao1998 said:

hey！man ！this is good world

Click to expand...

Thanks

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

Day 4:


This was my first attempt at fixing the curved stair-step of the helmet. The pepakura version wasn't totally circular and the flat ring on the surface sloped upwards and was proving quite difficult to sand down. In an attempt to resolve both of these problems, I found a circular object of the right size (a frosting container), painted it with a little release agent found in the garage and then hot glued it in place. Then a batch of Rondo was mixed up (Fiberglass Resin + Bondo mixture) and this was poured around the edge, kind of like pouring a mould.

This idea turned out alright, but not as good as I wanted. The Rondo mixture liked to cling to the edges of where it was poured, so it crept up on the sides and prevented me from getting a nice flat surface. This was filed down and produced a decent result, but still not something that I'm happy about. I figured it was a good enough approximation for now that I repeated it with the second tier (this time using a peanut butter jar lid). I'll be investigating a better solution soon.

Also: Rondo takes a really long time to dry if you forget to use the fiberglass resin liquid hardener. It will eventually cure if you only use the Bondo cream hardener, but it takes a really long time sitting in the sun.

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

Day 5:




The faceplate has been cleaned up, the upper lip raised area was added (via a poured rondo mixture. End result is incredibly dense and hard to work with).
The sides were filled in with a large amount of bondo, and the middle section of the rear has been filled in. Careful attention was paid to keep the edge where the helmet meets the jaw clear and well defined so that it will be easier to add in the small triangles later.

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

Day 6:





Today I marked out the lines for where the material ontop of the helmet needed to be bulked up to match the reference images. If you look closely at some of the images it appears that the faceplate actually sticks up from the center piece and that separation line goes in horizontally (for the center piece that sticks out).

The left side of the helmet unfortunately has some pretty serious buckles in the surface that I didn't know how to handle... so I did the the next best thing... do something anyways! I sanded down as best I could with a circular sanding disk and then patched up the holes with some bondo on the outside (+ taped interior to hold it all together)... Then we poured another rondo 'cast' around our objects to bulk up the walls and smooth them out. This is what those 'casts' look like before I spent a lot of time cleaning them up. I am still investigating a better solution for the ear-circles, but went ahead with this for the time being anyways.

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

Day 7:




The material was bulked up around where the lines had been draw (which took a lot of coats and several rounds of sanding to get profile of the helmet from the side to look right again). Lots of cleanup work needs to be done there but I'm not sure it's worth doing until I cut it apart.

Onwards!

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

Very very detail description of your work. I LOVE IT!!

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

Day 8:



Filled in the other side... sanding... sanding... Lots of sanding...

Went out and picked up some Bondo Spot Putty which I'm learning is a lot of fun and can do a lot of things, but it's not a miracle solution. It's designed for filling pinholes - it's great at that, but it's going to cause problems for anything bigger then that.

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

Loving the progress on this. Keep us posted

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

Day 9:




Today I decided to finally move forward with getting ready to cut it apart and clean it up, because I'm too impatient to get it all nice and pretty and then mess it up by cutting it apart.

I didn't have a dremel blade that I could get close enough, so I started off with a series of drilled holes which was followed up by what little dremeling area I could reach. Once this was done I had a big enough gap to fit a wood file in (which has really rough teeth) and knock down all of the remaining bits. This was fairly effective, though somewhat risky as the sections came off in chunks, only splitting on the edges because the material was thinner there.

Shakeitdavey said:

Loving the progress on this. Keep us posted

Click to expand...

Thanks!

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

I really don't know why this thread hasn't gotten many responses!
Looks great so far! I've subbed to your thread as it provides lots of tips from your work along the way.

When do you plan on etching the lines into the side of the helmet or cutting off the faceplate?
Be sure to keep us updated

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

Madosheet said:

I really don't know why this thread hasn't gotten many responses!
Looks great so far! I've subbed to your thread as it provides lots of tips from your work along the way.

When do you plan on etching the lines into the side of the helmet or cutting off the faceplate?
Be sure to keep us updated

Click to expand...

I agree, your thread is very helpful. I like how you detail every step.

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

Day 10:

Madosheet said:

I really don't know why this thread hasn't gotten many responses!
Looks great so far! I've subbed to your thread as it provides lots of tips from your work along the way.

When do you plan on etching the lines into the side of the helmet or cutting off the faceplate?
Be sure to keep us updated

Click to expand...

Thanks for the sub! I think that's just life around here as far as few responses goes. I know I tend to not visit some of the newer threads that don't have more than one page because they generally don't have a lot of work done and when I'm just perusin' the forums I wanna find something that looks good and then go back and see how it was made .

Cutting is coming soon! Once I cut it, progress is going to get a lot slower because it's going to take a lot of time to refine the edges and clean up details. As far as etching the lines into the faceplate and the helmet, I'll do it after I've cleaned it up most of the way... and once I figure out a way to do it.

The current plan (for when I attempt it) is to take my dremel with a cutting wheel and hold it sideways, but place a notched block of wood on the 'axel' of the cutting wheel (between the wheel and where it fits into the Dremel) so that I can make it so that it is a fixed height off the surface of the helmet. This should help ensure that I get an even-depth cut... as far as getting the lines all nice and clean... I'm still working on that.

xevanx said:

I agree, your thread is very helpful. I like how you detail every step.

Click to expand...

Thank you! A lot of the excellent iron man helmets I see (such as this, and this) post lots of pictures, but don't seem to go into detail about how they solve some of the tricky areas like the ear curves, etc.

That and a lot of threads get really vague when it comes to the electrical/mechanical sections, so hopefully I'll be able to cover those in enough detail. The electrical/mechanical stuff is somewhat complicated to figure out for a beginner (if you have no experience with Audrinos, wiring, etc.), but should be fairly easy to just duplicate if you're given a parts list and a wiring diagram (+basic instructions on how to read them). Hopefully (once I get there), I'll be able to present it in a way that people can follow along with

Today (as all the other days) has just been more work sanding, cleaning up edges, checking line straightness (with the side of my file), etc. I've gotten behind on my sanding as you can see in the shot with the back of the helmet and the centerpiece! I noticed a discrepancy in the shape of the curve when compared to the other side so I've been just applying leftover bits of Bondo to bulk it up so that it matches the shape again... and then i went too far in the other direction. Doh!

If you notice, on the left side of the helmet there is a spot that has a lot of Bondo Spot Filler in it... this does not work! This area chipped and gouged easily, and any bondo put ontop of it comes off and takes a section of the spot filler with it. I've been carefully going through that section with the triangles in an attempt to keep the two edges clean... the theory being that once I have both edges clean, straight and precise, I can apply a small batch between the two and level that out without issues... we'll see about that.

It appears that the jaw is coming apart on the left side at the crack between the jaw and the helmet... It has to be cut apart eventually so I'm not terribly concerned at this point, though I hold onto it while filing in that area to ensure I don't yank on it and tear/break something else!

You may have noticed that at one point the little lip for the jaw showed up on the front of the jaw: What I did there was make walls around it and then pour a little Rondo into it... I'm not very happy with how it came out, mostly because it's incredibly dense and hard to file! If you don't put the cream hardener and the liquid hardener into Rondo it takes forever to cure and becomes very solid!

The new plan is to just apply a thin layer of bondo (since it doesn't have to be built up very far) and then trim it down with an exacto knife while it cures and then do the usual cleanup.

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

Lord Ned
Omg, cant believe I havnt seen this thead before....
Well im definitely subbing because I have a lot of helmets I need to body fill. Ive also started on 1 recently and done the faceplate.

I was also hoping that you were English? so I could ask you what kind of spot putty you use?

Anyway this is a great build, and gives brilliant tips, you must be getting excited, almost there now lol - what are you doing after you finish it will you cast it or just paint it?

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

Lord Ned I agree with xevanx, great to see such detailed posts! I'm very interested to see how you tackle future problems.

And a tip from Surreal Studio's build for doing the lines across the helmet and sides of the faceplate is not to use a dremel as it's apparently too hard to control well, so what he did I believe is to cut a hacksaw blade into small 1 inch sections, and use that as a mini blade to etch in the lines across the helmet.
And if you've seen his build, it turned out amazing!
Kryro funny that you're asking about spot putty, cos I was going to ask you what kind your using in your thread just!

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

Kryro said:

Lord Ned
Omg, cant believe I havnt seen this thead before....
Well im definitely subbing because I have a lot of helmets I need to body fill. Ive also started on 1 recently and done the faceplate.

I was also hoping that you were English? so I could ask you what kind of spot putty you use?

Anyway this is a great build, and gives brilliant tips, you must be getting excited, almost there now lol - what are you doing after you finish it will you cast it or just paint it?

Click to expand...

Kryro, unfortunately I'm American English, so I'm just using the typical 3M Bondo Spot Putty.

Thanks for the compliments, but I'm afraid that every step forward only takes me a step backwards... not because I'm making it worse, but because with every step my expectations go up and I pay more attention to the details!

The plan is to make a mould and do a cast of it and then install the faceplate/hardware on the cast, and then finally investigate painting the whole thing. I don't have a lot of experience with casting or painting, so that'll be a fun learning experience.

I saw your thread earlier and was impressed with how fast you've managed to make/locate peps and have them assembled!

Madosheet said:

Lord Ned I agree with xevanx, great to see such detailed posts! I'm very interested to see how you tackle future problems.

And a tip from Surreal Studio's build for doing the lines across the helmet and sides of the faceplate is not to use a dremel as it's apparently too hard to control well, so what he did I believe is to cut a hacksaw blade into small 1 inch sections, and use that as a mini blade to etch in the lines across the helmet.
And if you've seen his build, it turned out amazing!
Kryro funny that you're asking about spot putty, cos I was going to ask you what kind your using in your thread just!

Click to expand...

Madosheet, if the hacksaw method you're describing is what I think it is, that sounds like an agonizingly slow process! Do you by chance have a link to the specific post for Surreal Studio's build where he describes the process?

As far as future problems, I'm worried about the eyebrow ridge. It's a looong strip that needs to have a consistent width from one end to the other and it's proved problematic time and time again to get the shape in, as well as the small overhang over the bridge of the nose. I'm wondering if it's another problem I could solve with a heated and shaped acrylic strip, or whether I'm just too impatient.

Thank you both for the compliments!


(P.s.) - How did you guys do the mention thing which sent me an email? Neat forum feature!

Re: Iron Man Mk. IV Helmet

Lord Ned Surreal studios mentions it here http://www.therpf.com/f24/iron-man-...lenses-pg-58-a-93299/index54.html#post2792978 and a couple other times in the thread, but he never actually goes into too much detail or shows any pictures.
I thought it sounded like a pretty good method, maybe slow, but more controlled?

And to do the mention thing just add a @ symbol before the users name
Or for your username that has a space in between I used the html code [ mention ] and [ /mention ] but minus the spaces