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[Kade Tal'Vor]

After finally getting some more work done on my kit it was time to do something to really get my enthusiasm back online and start work on the bucket.



After much cutting and a LOT of mess.



Now I'm excited about this build again

[Kade Tal'Vor]

Back into the shed this afternoon to do some more work on the bucket.

I wanted to make sure that while the rangefinder could rotate down towards the face of the bucket I didn't want it to be falling backwards if it came a little loose.

First thing I did was find a suitably sized nail and then drill a hole through the base of the rangefinder.



Then , with the rangefinder secured in the upright position I drilled through the hole in the base into the helmet. (Thanks eqdizzle for the idea for this )






Then re-attached the rangefinder in the lowered position and again drilled another hole to mark the end point of the rotation.



With both holes drilled I then used the point of the nail to mark the arc between the two holes by holding it in while rotating the rangefinder.



I then drilled a few small holes along the path and gradually joined them together.



A little filing later and we have a channel for the metal peg (nail) to travel through which will prevent the rangefinder from rotating too far forward or back.



I then measured the length required and cut down the nail and glued it into the base of the rangefinder.



The next job was to see to the fixings for the visor. I'm following a method suggested by Pointoforigin.

Using the shortest chicago screws I could find and some scrap ABS from the armour trimmings ....



It's kind like making snap plates for TK's.



and then glued in place, the plastic plates should help hold the chicago screws in place as I wasn't confident that trying to glue the base of the screw to the helmet would hold.

So some glue, clamps and magnets later ....



I'll have to leave it until tomorrow to make sure the glue has set properly to see if it's going to work.

[Drako Katora]

I think your image links are dead vod. I'm only seeing file not found images 

[Jorad Werde]

I'm seeing them all just fine

[Al'ike Gett'syc'kote]

There's a build? I got distracted by Pacman 

[Kade Tal'Vor]

The plates for the chicago screws worked, kinda. I had to redo the two on the cheeks with a slightly larger plate but the one on the brow held perfectly. I made the second ones on the cheeks a bit more square and set the chicago screws a little further down so the had the plate in contact with the helmet all the way around and that seems to have worked out better.



Then i used the other half of the chicago screws plus some rubber grommets to secure the visor in place.



Visor installed.



Then it was time for some primer. As I said earlier this did make some imperfections stand out but at least i can see better where it needs a little work.

[Kade Tal'Vor]

As I said, the bucket need a little more cleanup after a few things were highlighted by the primer. Si I filled and sanded and then painted again and then sanded a little more again.



It was only some very small things but I'm much happier with how it is looking now.



Of course this is just the primer so once this coat has dried I then still have to do the proper paint job

[Kade Tal'Vor]

It's been a week of slow progress but progress none the less

Most of it has been waiting for the paint to dry but at least it meant that I could come home from work, have a cuppa, spray a coat of paint and then leave it for the next evening to repeat the process.

So we've gone from primer.



To a couple of coats of silver/aluminium.



Followed by a couple of coats of dark grey.



I swear the bucket is getting heavier from all the coats of paint

I think it's looking good although it's too shiny at the moment of course but some light sanding should take care of that and start to give it the desired weathered look.

Next, more painting! Although it's time now to do some masking and paint the blue and white areas.

[Pointoforigin]

Looking good mate! That's the cleanest visor install I've seen.

[Kade Tal'Vor]

Looking good mate! That's the cleanest visor install I've seen.

Thanks Point and thanks for putting me on to the method.

This afternoons effort.

The prep is quite time consuming, not to mention tape consuming



and then the paint.



and now back to waiting .......

[Kade Tal'Vor]

Some more masking off and painting again today, on to the white this time around.



Getting closer, once I'm happy with the coverage of the white there will be just the yellow stripes above the brim and then time to weather it.

Speaking of weathering, seeing as this is new to me, I figured I would give it a test run on a smaller piece to start with and see how it turned out. To that end I had a go at weathering the rangefinder.



It's amazing how good a job some steel wool and a nice fine grit sandpaper does of taking the shine off the gloss paint smile.gif I experimented a little with a black wash also but I'm not sure if maybe I didn't have the mixture quite right or I cleaned it off too soon unsure.gif didn't want to overdo it either. Still for a starting attempt I'm reasonably happy.

[Kade Tal'Vor]

Finished painting the bucket!



Still got to do the weathering on it but I'm pretty happy with the way it has turned out so far.

[Kade Tal'Vor]

Had a go at weathering today, steel wool, sandpaper and blackwash.







Thoughts?

[Pointoforigin]

Very subtle and natural mate. I'd have done very similar. You could go much heavier if you wanted to.

[Kade Tal'Vor]

Very subtle and natural mate. I'd have done very similar. You could go much heavier if you wanted to.

Thanks Point as my first time weathering anything I didn't want to go too overboard and the DW troopers from TCW didn't have anything much in the way of major scarring or dents/scratches, mostly just dull and worn looking.