Today I painted the helmet .
First , once I was satisfied with the filler (bondo) over the fiberglass shell , I finished sanding with 240 grit paper . Its never good to sand the filler with too fine grit as the primer needs something to grip on to . It (and subsequent topcoats) may flake off if the bondo is tooo smoooth.
Several coats of thick primer were applied , and when dry the primer was sanded flat with 1200 paper , a tad too fine really , but all I had .
Next the lower edge of the bucket was painted with a silver grey shade .
Once the silver was dry it was sanded with 1200 wet ., the lower stripe was then blocked out in masking tape, I found that one strip of tape gave me the width I wanted .
Next some fine lining tape was added to give the actual edge of the stripe.
Then more masking tape was applied to completely cover the lower silver stripe area.
Next a coat of black was applied to the whole lid .
Once this was dry , but not set rock hard , the tape was removed
Thus I had my pattern .
Nextthe black was hit with 1200 paper (wet) to give it a key , and to slightly flat down the paint ridge where the masking tape edge had been .
The key was for the clear coat . Three coats of laquer were applied "wer on wet" this means each coat was applied before the previous one was fully dry .
If you apply the next coat when the previous is too wet , you will get runs , so you need to leave each coat around ten minutes to semi dry .
Here it is with laquer applied .
Once the laquer is VERY dry , a couple of days maybe, I will flat the whole lot with 2000 grit wet paper to smooth out any irregulatities etc , then it will be polished to a glass like sheen with cutting conpounds on an electric buffer.
Phew...a long day painting !!!
I bought this full sized resin skull at a garden center , and will use it as a stand for the death helmet for next weekends show, as I wont get time to build a "judge death " likeness for it . A bit of a cop out , but the clocks ticking .....