My Early Disasters pt 2 - A Biker Scout Helmet - How hard can it be?

Because life isn't busy enough, we decided to have a garage sale this weekend too. To find stuff for the sale on Sunday, we had to spend all of Saturday going through the crap int he crawlspace. While doing all this, we were also building trees, fairies, unicorns and trash pandas for the Enchanted Forest Grad on Thursday. There was no time for helmets.

None.

So here's what I did to the helmet:
I took a defunct earbud speaker:


I drilled a neat hole in the headband of the helmet:

And I squeezed that earbud in backwards. On purpose.


There are, of course, three problems with this.
1. It's ever-so-slightly off centre. Because I didn't measure, duh.
2. I still haven't done the final paint layer, so I'll have to mask it off when I do.
3. None of this getting fairies made for the grad, is it?

Just have to get past Thursday and life will get a very tiny bit easier. At which point I have to resist the urge to start the pep TIE Pilot project...

By the way, the reason I put the earbud in backwards is because then it looks quite a bit like the helmet cam in the illustration.

Laying down some base colours. Or something.

Ok, I'm done with the surfacing. I added one more layer of wet-smoothed filler, then a layer of red paint. Done now. It's not perfect, but I don't think it ever will be. Next time (why are you laughing?) I will use fibre glass. Watch for my kickstarter or Gofundme.

Anyway, hiatus until I can get more white paint to get the colours right again. Someone wasted the last lot on Unicorns...

That's not true, is it? I could cut the holes for those bits either side of the chin.
And I could spray the chin piece black. I have lots of black paint...

Once again, symmetry is nothing to me but a word that's hard to spell.
Today I resorted to counting out change from the pocket change pot until I got to $10. I seriously tried a kickstarter thing on Twitter for the eight bucks I needed and got nowhere. Sheesh.
So now the chin is taped off, the cam is taped off, the cheek hollows are taped off and I'm spraying the semi-gloss white. That will leave:
Inserting the LEDS one more time.
Fitting the visor.
Adding the side-light on the right ear.
Painting up the right colour, whatever the heck that may be.

I can see the end. Of this project.

I'm going to say something positive I swear ... once I stop laughing at "symmetry is nothing to me but a word that's hard to spell." :lol One day I'm going to make a couple of plaques. One will say "I'll fix it in post" and the other will be your symmetry quote and they will hang proudly over my workspace. They may not provide much inspiration but at least they'll make me laugh.

Following this thread is making me itch to try another Republic Commando helmet. If I do I want to do it the right way ... resin, fiberglass and bondo. I'm just afraid that I'll invest real money only to learn that I truly am crap at building stuff.

I'm curious to see it after you install the visor/lights. The brow and whole T-shape visor looks spot on and you nailed the frown of the chin.

Thanks Wedge86. Unlike your namesake, you ARE doing some good back there. Keep it up! I made a joke a while back that my plaque is supposed to read "Slightly less crap" but since I made it, it says "Slightly less carp".

Last night the big computer died. I have one and a half doors ready to fit in two doorways, and my wife started taking things down ready for the kitchen reno we agreed we weren't doing this year because of her new job bringing in less money. She also agreed to dogsit for two friends at the same time, so we had three damn dogs running around the house. At this rate it'll be a week or more before I get this thing squared away, but at least I'll have a study door to shut and keep the dogs out. One day I'll look back on this and laugh, I swear. Or I'll look back on this and swear.

Not only did I overspray and catch the cheeks, I sprayed my damn phone too. Screen side, naturally.

LOL, I've heard of rose tinted spectacles, but never a rose tinted cell phone.:facepalm

Roughneckone:cool

Looking shiny! Oh, wait, I forgot to take the masking tape off the helmet cam...


Better. Lights, visor...ACTION!

Dtrasler said:

Once again, symmetry is nothing to me but a word that's hard to spell.

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LOL. Even my girlfriend thought that was funny!!!

Dtrasler said:

I made a joke a while back that my plaque is supposed to read "Slightly less crap" but since I made it, it says "Slightly less

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God I almost pissed my pants on this one!!! This thread is getting better all the time!

Thanks for the good times Dtrasler and keep at it!

Made with loving care. Now I can get back to those damn LEDs...

Ok, look, you all know me. I'm not one to blow my own trumpet. I don't even HAVE a trumpet. But today has kicked butt.
First of all, I made the plaque pictured above, just for a laugh. I got that done before walking the endless dogs etc. Then I had to hang a door, something I hate almost as much as I hate plumbing.
But I'm sitting here in my study with a door over there for the first time in nearly three years. Sure, it doesn't have a handle, but these things take time, am I right?

Anyway, the clock has been ticking because Mrs Dim returns from her afternoon activity at 5.30 and it was gone 4.30 before the door was done and the room cleaned up (ALWAYS CLEAN UP! THE JOB AIN'T DONE UNTIL YOU'VE CLEANED UP!)

SO I galloped down to the workshop. I had fondly imagined documenting each of the last few stages for your edification and amusement, but I flat out forgot. I glued the LEDs in place. I glued a patch of foam over the inside to hold them in. I glued more thin foam over the wires running up the inside of the dome, and made a pocket of more thin foam to hold the battery pack at the back. I tested it. It worked. I fit the visor before I lost my nerve, then I took a test shot.

Hey! It doesn't look bad! Quick, fit the side light!

Wait, now the brow lights have gone out! What the heck?
Ten minutes of cursing, new batteries and fiddly wires and....

OOOOH! Pretty! But with the visor in the front and the battery pack in the back, it's too small to fit on my head again. Damn.
I took a picture with the lights on, but honestly it's less impressive. Here:

The back is a disaster, but nonetheless, I'm proud of this effort. I got lights, I got details, I got a weird shape roughly right. I'm definitely taking a break before trying that TIE/SF mod. My god-daughter is coming out to Canada this month, so that'll take up some time, and I want to ask for a mask and fibre glass kit for my birthday. You never know. It'll make a change from books and dvds.

Thanks for tagging along. I'll add the next disaster to this thread, and make another book when I've done at least three more.

Turns out if I don't care what shape my nose is, I can fit the thing over my head:

The door may not have a handle, but that just means no one can come in and interrupt you. And it makes for a handy excuse too. "No, honey. I wasn't in my office goofing off. The wind blew the door shut and without a handle I couldn't get out."

I love the paint job. That's a great red for a commando. The lights really pull it all together and look really good. (I'm going to have to raid the local dollar store to see if I can find a set of lights.)

As a side note, noses are overrated. I have a pretty big schnoz so losing a few millimeters to the inside of a helmet might be an improvement.

Illumination! (as always, thanks for taking us along for the ride)

A whole fortnight with no posts. I'm getting withdrawal. You guys are probably breathing a sigh of relief.
My birthday is the end of next month and my entire wishlist consists of a facemask and some fibre-glass materials. Why?
Because as of next week, I'm starting on this:

Ultimately, I want to make the Special Forces Helmet from the next Battlefront game, but I'm starting with a regular TIE helmet. I'm going to pep it carefully, then try and fibre-glass it without screwing it up too badly. I'm still on a quest for the holy grail of a smooth bloody surface.
Of course, these days I'm working 9-5, so time is more of an issue than it used to be, and I'm still supposed to be writing and reviewing and even feeding the family from time to time. So progress will be intermittent, to say the least.
The main thing is, I think this is going to be fun. Right now there are no plans to make this light up, or play the Imperial March, or incorporate a remote TIE drone, but you never know. August is a week or two away yet.

Dtrasler said:

Right now there are no plans to make this light up, or play the Imperial March, or incorporate a remote TIE drone, but you never know. August is a week or two away yet.

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Plenty of time for you to work these niceties in if you aren't going to start until August Damien. I think the Imperial March is a must really TBH!:lol

Roughneckone:cool

Grabs popcorn, rubs hands together gleefully. Now prepared for the next epic build.

Step one: Print the first page of Pep onto some good cardstock. Grey might be nice.

Unless it's SO grey that you can barely see the printed lines.
Step one, and already having trouble. Situation normal.

It wasn't until I was cutting this out that I realized there were no numbers.

It's not a problem for this piece, since there's nothing to attach it to yet, but I'm going to see if there is a setting I've missed before I print off more...

Optimistic as ever at this stage. I won't try to put it on my head until I have a couple more pieces.