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[Godgoblin]

Hey guys,

This is my WIP thread but I'm going to break it down as much as possible and try to have a photo for each stage to hopefully act as a how to guide for others using the Jango 2 piece (Assuming it all works out that is  ). 

I've started work on the bucket, the plan is to get it to the painting stage before working on the plates and painting them all together. Here is the plan for roughly how I want the helmet and armour to look (Credit for the base image goes to SqueezyBat on Deviant art):


Here is the Rubies Jango 2 piece in all its freshly unboxed glory (I'm not a middle aged accountant btw, I just have the jumper...):


Next step was to remove the visor and reinforce the front. Gorrila glue, cardboard and duct tape for now. Ive also Gorrila glued the 2 halves together at this point and added a layer of Bondo the top seam:


Ive decided to reinforce the helmet using fiberglass. So far just the connecting seam but hopefully tomorrow I will do the entire inside (Except the cheeks, see end of post):


Touched up the bondo again and had a good sand. Gave a quick spray of filler primer just to get an idea of how it was looking and sanded a bit more:



Now the helmet is nice and secure Ive taken out the key slots at the back using a drill, craft knife and needle files:



So this is what the last 2 days have got me. Doesnt look like much now but a lot of the foundation work has been done.



I've ordered a pair of Deathwatch 'Grunt' style ear caps from Saz which will hopefully arrive once the rest of the helmet is ready. I'm also going to be using the craft ring method and getting some wire mesh to put behind the key holes.

 The plan for tomorrow is to continue fiber glassing the inside of the helmet except for the cheeks. Once that's dry the whole helmet should be a good solid piece and I will start to flatten the cheeks without warping the rest of the helmet.

The plan for that is- 
1) Get a rigid piece of plastic same shape and size as the cheek.
2) Heat up the cheek with heat gun.
3) Epoxy the plate to the inside of the now soft cheek
4) Put another cut out piece in front of the cheek (No glue) and clamp with a few G clamps.

 Any thoughts on this process would be great as I'm still a few days away from doing it. Hope you enjoyed my first WIP thread all comments and criticisms welcome. Hope this was easy to follow and if not please let me know and I can mix up my posting style. Less pictures etc.

See you tomorrow and as always thanks in advance!

[Bowfanny]

So far so good ner Vod! Big thumbs up to you!

As for the cheeks, you don't have to mod them in a J2P. Only the hbf needs modded cheeks, but that's up to you. I've modded one J2p and have a second one that I'm getting ready to mod so good luck to you in the next couple of days!!

[Jorad Werde]

Good start, can't wait to see it progress

[Bare Col'Mera]

Good work so far!  I'm looking forward to seeing where you go with it.  Good luck with the fiberglass.

I second what Bowfanny said about the cheeks.  I left my J2P's rounded and never got any complaints.  However, if you want them flat, by all means do so.

[Welkin]

Looks like you're off to a good start.

I'll admit I saw that picture of the helmet with the clamps hanging from the visor outline, and almost thought it'd be awesome to see a helmet with hanging jowls or something like that.

[Godgoblin]

Thanks for all the input , I've decided to leave the cheeks as they are after all. No need to make more work for myself! Also the rounded cheeks give an almost clone trooper look to the helmet which I quite like. But really its because I'm lazy.

Looks like you're off to a good start.

I'll admit I saw that picture of the helmet with the clamps hanging from the visor outline, and almost thought it'd be awesome to see a helmet with hanging jowls or something like that.

Now that would look cool, but I can barely look up in the helmet and I'm pretty sure that would stop me from looking down lol. But saying that the chances of my next suit being sabertooth tiger themed has increased drastically. Imagine it with a big fur collar and fanged helmet...


...


...No! I must stick to the plan!

And speaking of plan I've made some more progress. I was browsing an automotive forum for tips of fiberglassing and it was recommended that to help fiber glass stick to plastic you should add a layer of 2 part epoxy for plastics and glue fiberglass sheets to the plastic with it. Making sure not to saturate the sheet fully and then once dry soaking it all in fiber glass resin.

So that is what I have done and its too soon to tell if it's worked as the fiberglass resin is still drying but it looks promising! So, on to the step by step:

First thing was to rough up the inside with a wire brush dremmel attachment:


Then I started gluing the fiber glass sheets to the helmet:



I let that dry and slapped fiber glass resin all over it and made sure all the matting was fully saturated:


Thats all I have done tonight but tomorrow I'll add another fiber glass layer making sure to cover all the bits I've missed, then its a matter of trimming any rough bits on the inside and giving it a coat of primer to keep it smooth. After that its back to smoothing the dome and were nearly at painting stage!

I've also picked up some wire mesh to sit behind the open key holes. I do have a picture but Imgur is playing up. I'll edit it in later.

---------
So future planning:

While Saz's ear caps are still on the way Im also tempted to get a pair of True Mandalorian caps from Droodles and his Cody visor if I think it will fit this helmet. I do have 2 helmets so whichever set I dont use on this build will find a good home on the other bucket! Which may or may not be saber tooth themed...

I dont suppose any of you know if Droodles' visor would fit the J2P? Here is a link to his shop page:
http://mandalorianmercs.org/forum/index.php?topic=91551.0
As I'm going for a desert theme I think the visor could really work. If not I might have a go at making my own out of Sintra.

And speaking of Sintra I've found a local sign maker who can supply me with all I need! Hooray! Thanks for reading guys and see you tomorrow (weather permitting) with another update!

[Bare Col'Mera]

Here's a comparison on Droodles' ear caps with the J2P:





They're pretty big.  It'll require some creative trimming and filling to make them work for that helmet, but I imagine it's not impossible. 

Good luck with the fiberglass technique.  I hadn't seen that before, but keep us posted on the results.

[Godgoblin]

Wow thanks man! That's huge help, I think I'll get them anyway and mod them if needs needs be.

Edit: To avoid double posting here is todays progress. Been a busy few hours, its not far from being finished now aside from cosmetics. So onto the step by step!

Firstly, fiber glass the inside with another layer. This layer has joined up all the areas where plastic was showing through and I finished off with a nice thick coat of resin.


Once dry I trimmed off any excess fiberglass and slapped on some Bondo around the edge of the helmet to cover any sharp edges.


I also did the ear cap sections at this stage.


Then gave it a good sanding. Part of the reason I added the bondo to the rim was to give the impression of thickness to the helmet. Think it worked out pretty well at a casual glance.


Then I sanded the ear caps and rest of the helmet before giving the whole piece a once over with primer to see any imperfections.




And it's looking pretty good if I do say so myself. Needs some more sanding with a low grit paper and a few more primer layers but the worst I can officially say is over!

The next stage will be to give the inside a prime to stick down any rogue glass fibers and I'm going to panel it with craft foam for comfort. Then I'm going to take an exacto knife to the key slots and remove the 'plastic fluff' that developed from the filing before epoxying in the wire mesh.

While I wait for my ear caps to arrive I'm going to have a go at making my own 'Cody visor'. I haven't got any Sintra yet but I do have a lot of Worbla/Wonderflex lying around so I'm going to have a test run with that as it's a much easier material to work with.

This thread has made me SO much more productive than if I was doing it without an audience but sadly tomorrow I have an evening of fun and frivolity planned so I wont be working on the bucket until the weekend so expect another post Sat/Sun.

Thanks for reading! C&C always welcome.

[Godgoblin]

Update! Pretty much finished now until the ear caps arrive. After that its just the paint job and done!

I've added some padding to the inside to make it more comfortable:


Then another rub down and coat of silver primer. Popped in the visor with some tape to get an idea of how it will look.


So thats all there is to do for now so I decided to test out the paint scheme and weathering techniques on some scrap plastic:



So any thoughts on the scheme?

[Bare Col'Mera]

Looks great!  Good idea reinforcing the inside. I can't comment on your Bondo work since the angle of the photos doesn't show the outside, but the parts I could see look good.  And your weathering and painting look nice, too. Good job having the foresight to test it first. Many a Mando had been saddened by finding out their paint didn't work after covering all of their parts.

[Godgoblin]

Hey everyone, still waiting on my ear caps so not a big update but I have been playing around with a sun visor-




What do you guys think of the design? I'm thinking it might need to come further down towards the bottom of the helmet and have some swarzy cutouts in it too.

Also Ill be making it out of 5mm sintra, can anyone foresee any issues with that?

[Mercy]

Sintra is a breeze to work with (though Ive never seen 5mm, only 3 and 6)

Those curved marks on the side gave me an idea. All of the sunshields I've seen before have a boxey look to them. Maybe go with a streamlined version, curved across the front instead of a straight line, and maybe on the sides curve concave instead of the convex lines you have drawn on there now. Would give a unique look.

Just a thought

[Godgoblin]

Thanks Mercy, I've decided to stick to the boxy look after seeing some images of Scout Troopers and remembering how awesome they are so I've used them as my main source of inspiration.

Here is my new paper template as well as a breathing greeblie I'm thinking of using, also just stuck on with selotape.





Also I will be getting my deathwatch ear caps tomorrow! Saz posted them yesterday but the annoying thing about full time jobs is not being in to receive post... So after a trip to the post office in my lunch break tomorrow we will be good to go.

I'm going to wait for the caps and then cut the visor so it fits snugly around them. So hopefully tomorrow will be the day we get this bucket finished! And then it's back to the sanding of my armour plates...

[Bare Col'Mera]

Sounds good, vod.  Make sure to get us some more pictures!

[Bewilderedwolfman]

Loving the scout trooper inspiration!

[Russiya]

  that red visor is amazing wherein the world do you get that

[Godgoblin]

The visor came with a helmet I got from NukedEFX from Etsy. Not sure if they do them separately but worth a look!

And here is the visor stuck on with epoxy, it's been bondo'd since but have got a pic of that yet

[Bare Col'Mera]

Looks sharp! 

So, how did you decide on that design for the sides?  Some of your early options had some curves in them.

[Godgoblin]

Looks sharp! 

So, how did you decide on that design for the sides?  Some of your early options had some curves in them.

Sorry I missed this earlier. A lot of the inspiration is from scout troopers and the old templates were paper so a lot of that previous curve was the paper flexing.

Just an update to say this is still in the works, at the moment all I'm doing is sanding, adding bondo and sanding some more. It's nearly there though so but the weather hasnt let me outside with the mouse sander lately.

It will hopefully clear up soon and I'll have a helmet ready to paint to show you next week!

[jett drexel]

you've done a top job on everything so far, it's really looking the business. can't wait to see it finished vod.