Made more progress over the last couple weeks.
Now that all the pieces are riveted in place, I went ahead and brazed all the transitions and joints.



I'm still brand new to brazing, so a lot more brazing rods were used than I intended. Current count is at about 30 or so brazing rods used.
Use an angle grinder to clean up all the joints



I bought the
Milwakee M12 angled grinder for this task, and it is probably one of the best tools I've purchased in years! I highly recommend it if you plan on working on metal. The sanding head and cutoff head on this saves you so much time compared to using a dremel. Think of this as a dremel on steroids. It does overheat after a period of use and need to wait for it to cool before it will powers on again, but thats the nature of all electric power tools to begin with.
Anyways, for filling, I wanted to use something that will sand and finish similar to raw aluminum so when I weather the bucket it, I will not need to avoid certain filled areas. Got this product called Lab-Metal with Lab-solvent since their shop was near where I live. It's a aluminum filled 1 part epoxy that apparently sands to a aluminun luster.


Lab-metal has the consistency a thick, sandy putty and is dark grey. As a lot of other reviews of the product says, it is pretty difficult to do a good feathering with this putty (the instruction suggested to "wet your instrument with lab-solvent to smooth putty". From what I experienced, it didn't do jack in improving the surface of the putty), so I opted for the next best thing: fill the heck out of a spot, then grind it down.
here it is, all cleaned up with the angle grinder.

I was a bit disappointed that the lab metal was a shade darker than my raw aluminum. But no matter, black washes later on should hide the difference pretty effectively. I also noticed the putty isn't very strong. It finished well, but chips and flakes off pretty easily on places where it is really thing.
After this, I hand sanded the whole thing from 80grits to 240 to 400 to 600. then onto the masking! (woohoo, more need to prime, gloss and metalic coat first)
I found a nice patio chair at a local restaurant that has some awesome natural wear to the paint, and planned my weathering around it:

For weathering, I used liquid latex on the edges, then used a mix of salt+water+dish soap to mask out portions where I want the paint to chip. I find salt mix as mask gives a less clean chip when I feel it off, just looks more natural to me than latex. I did the edges for latex as salt past doesn't do thin lines well.



After this, 2 layers of acid etching primer was applied

Let it dry for 24 hours, then the base color was applied. I am using Rustoleum satin "Summer Squash"here. Applied about 4 layers.

Gave it 48 hours to dry, went back and added more latex and salt. Didn't add that much here, as I feel I over did it on my last bucket. A Mando who knows how to paint shouldn't have much of the "primer" layer showing if he did his paint prepping right.
Applied 8 layers of Rust-Oleum professional gloss "Metal Gray".I prefer to start with gloss, and cut down the shine with matte coat or sand paper. It's a lot easier to go from gloss to matte than the other way around. Also leaving some glossy part simulates areas where the helmet is naturally worn/polished from use.

I know.thi dome here isn't perfect, but since I'm going for a Mando who was part of clan wren, I plan on working those imperfections into the weathering. Maybe this guy survived the Dutchess from TCW.
Next, I masked off the dome, cheeks, and back and did 8 layers of gloss "Dark Machine Gray"
I did chip off the salt and latex on the checks before I masked things off to make sure my paint is sticking to the aluminum correctly and the masking looks there any I want. I was pretty happy with the result.

Let it dry for 1 hour, then started pulling off the salt and latex. I usually do the mask removal closer to the "dry for handling" time on the rattle can. The paint coat is still soft the
is way, so I can easily scrape off more paint as needed. The soft paint also gets scratches from the mask removal that is realistic and matches the chips.

Got to wait another 36 hour now before I can mask off the clan wren eyes and paint it. More WIP to come!