My Styrene Pepakura Ironman helmet
- Thread starter ColKel
- Start date
Thank you for the compliment. :love
vistaVision
Sr Member
Your patterns and your molds are so clean and neat! This is how I'd like my own work to look (seldom does...). What material is that you've used for the mother molds?
my mind is blown just looking at the helm knowing it was all styrene, then double head explosion looking at the craftsmanship of the mold itself! in a world where 95% of the molds i see are brushed on blobs, i am boggled that you could improve on molds that look like that! nice work on all fronts, my hat is off.
Nice work very clean and smooth. The styrene turned out great. Looks like you vacuum formed it but with better detail.
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Check out my attempt at Ironman MK4 http://www.therpf.com/f24/ironman-mk-4-first-attempt-foam-build-158310/
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Check out my attempt at Ironman MK4 http://www.therpf.com/f24/ironman-mk-4-first-attempt-foam-build-158310/
Governor
Member
I spent all weekend filling and sanding, if you ever decide you want to go the fibreglass/bondo way (which in your case seems to be obsolete) then in SA luxor paints make a variety of body fillers I paid ~R45 for a 1kg tin with hardener, I got the flexible polyester filler or something - I have seen it at BUCO's and other hardware stores. You have just blasted away all opposition with your helmet.
Thanks everybody for all the compliments and feedback.
I used the cheapest gypsum I could find which cost about 20 Dollars for a 40kg bag. In the past I used Denstone (the yellow dental plaster) which is very hard but for some reason the place I usually bought it from discontinued it for some reason. Also the problem with it being cheap is that it's very soft and that is why I had to make the walls of the mother molds so thick. Better safe than sorry.
I haven't taken commissions for molds yet. At the moment I'm basically just doing it for myself as a hobby.
As for heat being used to shape the helmet, no heat was used at any stage. The whole process is basically the same as you would using cardboard, except that you don't have to resin,bondo and sand the bondo, you sand and shape the styrene directly. The process does involve some traditional modelling for the more detailed parts.
Thanks for the info. I'll definitely check them out. I recently found the following company : Barkocel :: Importers of U-Pol Products
They sell the U-pol product line which seems very similar to Bondo and they have a distributor not far from where I live.
I used the cheapest gypsum I could find which cost about 20 Dollars for a 40kg bag. In the past I used Denstone (the yellow dental plaster) which is very hard but for some reason the place I usually bought it from discontinued it for some reason. Also the problem with it being cheap is that it's very soft and that is why I had to make the walls of the mother molds so thick. Better safe than sorry.
I haven't taken commissions for molds yet. At the moment I'm basically just doing it for myself as a hobby.
As for heat being used to shape the helmet, no heat was used at any stage. The whole process is basically the same as you would using cardboard, except that you don't have to resin,bondo and sand the bondo, you sand and shape the styrene directly. The process does involve some traditional modelling for the more detailed parts.
Thanks for the info. I'll definitely check them out. I recently found the following company : Barkocel :: Importers of U-Pol Products
They sell the U-pol product line which seems very similar to Bondo and they have a distributor not far from where I live.
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quovadis0920
Sr Member
It's hard to believe this isn't 3d printed. Seriously. It looks like the real deal! :thumbsup
Now that's how you make an Iron Man Helmet! Styrene would be my choice of material to do this as I use it for all kinds of scratch builds you can bend the different thicknesses to shapes and sand to get nice contours, this has been on my build list for awhile all I need is a good set of templates and clear all other projects and its a go. I stopped using Smooth On resin after I tried "Specialty Resin" I used it on my last project The JAWS shark sculpt I rotocasted it like a helmet with about 3 small cups and the plastic is strong and no need to reinforce it with any thing. You have set the bar high on Iron Man Helmet builds my friend now people will hound you for one till the day you die LOL.
Ray.
Ray.
Hi Ray.
Thanks for your post. I had a look at Specialty Resin's website but unfortunately it doesn't look like they have a distributor in South Africa. This is one of my main problems. Just trying to find the right materials is a problem where I live and if you do find the right materials they're usually expensive because they are imported.
BlackKaos
Sr Member
Beautiful moulds. Everything is very clean and symmetrical for being hand done.
Not sure if anyone said this or not but I know that other people use Smooth - on urethane casting resin 65D. They will slush cast it first then while it's in the mould after drying apply a layer of fiberglass for strength and durablilty. Slush casting is the best for keeping details and it also helps because you don't have to use alot of fiberglass.
Not sure if anyone said this or not but I know that other people use Smooth - on urethane casting resin 65D. They will slush cast it first then while it's in the mould after drying apply a layer of fiberglass for strength and durablilty. Slush casting is the best for keeping details and it also helps because you don't have to use alot of fiberglass.
What about finding someone in the states that could buy it for you? Paypal them and have them ship it to you,I don't know if that would work just an idea.
Thank you for the advice. Any advice is always appreciated. The 65D (Roto) is what I used for the first casting. I'll definitely keep it in mind. Thanks.
I think having a small quantity imported would probably cost more than if I could find a similar product in South Africa that is imported in bulk. Trying to find a similar product though is the problem. If all else fails i'll have to look into it. Thanks.
CaptainMarvel
Well-Known Member
I've been trying to research this as well ... haven't found anything yet.
VERY MUCH wanting to know how to utilize this method !!!
:confused
Man... I have no idea where to start on a tutorial. It would've been easier if I had thought of taking pictures when I started. I'll try to explain the process the best I can :
1- Find the most detailed Pepakura 3d model. The more detail does mean more cutting and glueing but in the end it'll save you a lot of time sanding the edges smooth to get the rounded shapes of the pieces of the helmet. Also, find a model or modify the model so it has as many supports on the inside as possible ( I use 2mm thick styrene for the supports). This is necessary for symmetry and ensuring a good fit of the helmet pieces.
2- Print the Pep files onto normal A4 photocopy paper. Print the pep files without the glue tabs. You wont need them (I'll explain later). Using a glue stick (the type that kids use in school which is water soluble) glue the pep files onto a sheet of 1mm thick styrene plastic. Cut the plastic using a hobby knife the same way you would if it was printed on board. You don't need to cut through the plastic. Scoring the plastic a couple of times would do and then just bend and snap the pieces off. If the glue has dried, get a bowl of water and submerge the pieces in water for a couple of minutes. The water should dissolve the glue and he paper should just slide off the plastic.
3- Now for the tabs. This part is a pain. Cut thin strips (approx. 5cm) of styrene. Now cut the strips into tabs about 1cm in length. On the under side of the pep pieces, glue the tabs approx. 2mm apart on one side of the pep pieces so you can glue the adjacent pep piece flush just like you would if you were doing a cardboard pep build.
4- Keep in mind that the objective is to build the thickness of the styrene up in layers up to about 3mm thick (you may need to add styrene in areas where there is a danger of sanding through the pieces). This means that you'll have to print each pep piece +/- 3 times (depending on the thickness you want the final helmet pieces to be) and glue those on top of the pieces you did in step 3 above. The glue I used was Tamiya Extra Thin Cement. You'll need a couple of 40ml bottles. I think I went through about five or six bottles)
5- Through the process keep checking the fit of the helmet pieces (face plate, jaw piece, main part and bottom part). Add or remove styrene as you go. Having a model with a lot of supports on the inside would make this easier and give you a better end result.
6- Once you have all the pieces glued and you're happy with the fit you can begin sanding. This is very IMPORTANT - Use a good dust filter because from what I understand, inhaling Styrene dust isn't good for you. Try sanding outdoors if possible. Start with rough sand paper to get the overall shapes and as you progress use finer sand paper until the pieces are nice and smooth.
7- There will probably be times that you do sand almost through the pieces. It happened to me a couple of times. When you do notice the piece you are sanding becoming very thin, start adding strips of styrene on the underside of the piece. Normally just printing another pep piece and gluing that to the underside should do. Any gaps can either be filled with gluing pieces of styrene into the gap and sanding that smooth or filling with a filler like Bondo or a model paste (I used Tamiya putty).
This process does require some level of modelling skill. I've been building model kits for years and it helps with scratch-building the smaller detail pieces like the screws and the eye pieces. But from what I've seen from the members on this board, if you can build a cardboard pep helmet you can probably build a styrene pep helmet. It just takes a lot of patience because you have to repeat each step a couple of times to get the desired thickness of the styrene.
I hope this gives you guys a better idea or at least an idea where to start. There are probably a lot of members on this board that can improve on the method as this is the first time I tried building anything using Pepakura although I have made an Attack of the Clones Clone Trooper and Boba Fett helmet also out of Styrene. That experience probably gave me head start on the Ironman helmet.
This is the first time I had to do a tutorial, so if anything is unclear or you have any questions, please let me know and I'll try to explain further.
Below are 2 pics of the first piece I made. Its the top part of the face plate. It turned out to be too big so I had to scrap it. The first pic shows the top and the other the underside where you can see the tabs.
:cool
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