Getting Closer - Buildup Continues

Welcome back. It's been a few days, a busy week, but here is the next update one what I've been doing on my massive Rubie's Vader Conversion. We are getting into details here enough that it may be important to note the look I am going for is ESB - "Empire Strikes Back" Vader, as the helmets looks varied in each movie.

If you remember, I had two beach pails, and cut the bottom off of each, then covered each of them with fiberglass. Here is the result of that. I have to attach the smaller, inner piece to the mask, and the larger, outer piece to the helmet.

Here's where I will hopefully be attaching the connector to the mask. I will have to figure out how to get it attached at the correct angle. That's going to take some tricky machinations.

Progress so far

Here we see how the helmet looks after some filler, sanding, and priming. I'm pretty happy with how it is going so far, considering I completely removed the round 'mohawk' and replaced it with a 'squarer' one...

Side views...

Overall Progress

Just a top view of the four pieces I have so far...

Now It's time to get back to work! Enough admiring what's done.. back to the grind...

Locating defects...

Here i have used my favorite red paint pen to mark out where things need work. Pinholes, places that need filler, and area's that need sanding, etc.

Filing

Began filing the 'nose line' which on he old Rubie's somehow got translated into a 'fourth notch.' Also started the markings for the three notches. Will most likely dremel them later.

Hand spread filler

The time of large globs of filler is over.. now I have 'hand spread' the filler with my finger (hey sometimes its just the right tool for the job!) Will let this dry and start on the next session of work later

At some point very soon i will have to begin rebuilding vader's 'TEETH' out of styrene stock and sheet.
Also I am about ready to order screen-accurate metal tusks' to stick forward from the piping on either side of the 'mouth.'

NO cleverness here today

Well.. its 1:15 am.

Been working on my helmet and mask for 3 hours tonight.

Do I have any pictures of my progress? Well no... because its basically, filler... sand, filler, sand, sand, sand, sand, sand...

I suppose I will share what Ive been looking at for the last three hours:

;)

Lots of little parts of the Vader Helmet Project in motion today... Very Productive Day..

Here we have some foam-core molding from Lowes. Its like the wooden stuff but made from foam this particular piece was several feet long and 1 1/8 inch wide. I cut it down to 1 inch wide with a utility knife and straightedge.

Mohawk

Next i used the heat gun to soften it up a bit and mold it to the shape of my helmet to recreate the 'mohawk'. It took a few tries. Too much pressure will snap the hard foam.

Shortened the Helmet skirt extension

Jumping a bit forward here. I decided 1 inch longer in the back was TOO much of an extension of the helmet, so i cut off about 3/8 of an inch. It looks just about right now.

Sorry for the blurry pic here and there. I'm taking these pictures with my Phone, I have a much better camera but i don't want to subject it to the conditions in my workshop while I'm doing this stuff. Lots of dust and such.

Sanding

Sanded the eyebrows, Sanded the paint off the center so the mohawk glue would actually stick, and Sanded quite a bit of material off the back side so that the sides would match.

Gluing the Mohawk On

Here we see the mohawk glued in place with gel superglue.

Rear Side sanding, Mohawk

Here is another view of the mohawk attached, and the rear 'left' sanded down a bit.

Mohawk

Last shot of the mohawk You can see here its two pieces. I'll be puttying in the space between the curved and straight piece.

Kids Beach Buckets!!

Here's an ordinary plastic bucket for the beach.  I got a few red ones to destroy for this project.

The bottom of these are about the right size, and they have n indentation that allows them to 'stack' without turning.

I'm going to use these to make the mount for the mask to the helmet.

The Inner and Outer forms

Here on the left is the one that i am going to fiberglass the INSIDE of, and on the right I'm going to fiberglass OUTSIDE. then fiberglass one to the mask and one to the helmet.

This is my plan for a hopefully successful way to mount the mask to the helmet. I think I will add super strong 'rare earth magnets' afterwards to make it stay on.

Here's the fiberglassing of the inner form..

And here we have cut the plastic bucket off the inner form with the dremel. its quite a sturdy piece.

Here it is again, ready to be possibly shaped/ shortened and then attached.

The inside of the Eyelids

Here are the inside of the eyelids. These were a lot rougher looking in the last update. Here i have used the dremel sanding bit to remove a lot of material and smooth it out so i can add some fiberglass. I want this surface to be good and solid for mounting the lenses to.

Precut fiberglass pieces

I pre-cut a bunch of pieces of fiberglass as i knew i needed small pieces to do this area around the eyes without adding a ton of weight and resin.

Here's the inside with the pieces put in, I'll be cutting the eyeholes out again but this time there is enough structure in here to add some more evercoat filler  and make those eye lenses really fit like a glove.

And finally...

So here are the inside and outside forms of the mount. Very pleased with the progress so far... Got a LOT done today.

Darth Vader's Eyelids! ???

Well Here we are. The first Layer of Self-Etching Primer applied to the Mask and Helmet. As can be seen here the neck has been reconstructed and I am happy with its shape. The 'mouth' grill and Eyelids not so much yet...

 Here's the helmet with that first layer of primer. I'll be sanding the primer off the middle strip to add the mohawk back on, I'll also be shortening the helmet in back a BIT as i added a full inch to its length which is a bit much. Better too much than too little though after the work it took to do it.

 These next two photos, while showing the eyelids, are really about the 'cheekbone' I've added styrene plastic sheet to the cheekbone which i will fill with either resin or filler, maybe both. Resin will be better for the sharp edge, then filler to clean up any imperfections.. Anyhow i will 'fill in, this area with those materials and maintain the asymmetrical cheekbone shape. (they are different from right to left)

This shot shows the cheek from the side, I have to pour/stuff material in there to build up the cheek as it was too low on the Rubie's Supreme helmet this thing once was. The Styrene should come off pretty easy as i glued it onto paint, which always seems to come off when you DON'T want it to.


BELOW, Are my amber Lenses, coated thoroughly in masking tape to protect them from the procedures I'm going to perform...

FRONT VIEW
 
Here we have the results of careful positioning of the lenses, cutting pieces of styrene, and gluing them into the 'eyelid' area. Some vader experts hopefully will give me an opinion on how i did here and anything that needs changing before I SOLIDIFY this with filler/putty and resin. I may even use a bit of fiberglass for structural integrity.

View from Below

Heres the same thing from below.

Viewed from Above

Viewed from above showing the lower eyelids and position of lenses inside the eye sockets.

Side 1

Viewed from the side. Does this sit in there ok??

Side 2

How's this one look?

And thats pretty much the extent of this post. Its mainly to get FEEDBACK from those in the know. Are the eyes in the proper places to start building up the surfaces around them or do i need to make some adjustments??

Finally, Rebuilding what we tore down.

You may notice i didnt put captions on these photos. This is because its 2am and I am lazy.

 A last bit of fiberglassing for the neck was necessary. Leaving out the part where i do another layer and sand it all smooth. By now we've seen it before.

 

EVERCOAT AWESOMENESS

The above photo shows:  Evercoat Rage Gold Filler. AWESOME stuff. And the mask and Helmet with the first layer of Evercoat on it Before sanding

 Dried and Partly Sanded, the mask with evercoat building up the neck.

Evercoat Dried and Sanded
You can see above that the first layer of evercoat is dried and sanded. The helmet was 'sunken in' on the 'left side when looking at the back' so there is a lot more filler on that side. there are also holes which i will address with another layer. 

More Evercoat Applied
Above more evercoat has been applied to the helmet to fill holes. Also applied to the mask to fix the sunken cheek (but NOT to make them symmetrical) and to fix the wrongly shaped nose.

Above one more round of Evercoat fixes..

Sanded, Washed, and Ready
Next step is to paint the whole helmet with self etching primer to see how far it is from ideal. Its now much closer than when i bought it but the final smoothness is still a ways off. Also I still have to put the 'Mohawk' back on. 

 The Mask Partly Sanded
Sanding the mask completely is quite a task. So here it is partly sanded. I am very happy with the way the neck has come out.

So much closer....

Oh hey, I forgot to mention, anyone who sees this and is working on similar builds of Star Wars or other costumes, please leave me a note so i can follow your blog. Im sure some of you have come up with smarter ways to do some of this!

May 17, 2001 NOTE: This link is jumping in in the middle of the blog. NEWEST UPDATE is HERE: http://mu5a5hi.blogspot.com


TIME MACHINE

THIS IS A LONG POST. It is all copied from posts I made elsewhere and consolidated here to catch up to date..

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Thought I would go back and catch up to the present day. I originally started this helmet project by posting on the 501st Sith Lords Boards. Not everyone i know who MIGHT be interested is a member there so this post will hopefully catch everyone up.

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First off, for some reason, I forgot to take pictures of the Rubie's before i started, but if you search for 'Rubie's Supreme Vader Helmet on google you should find it.

It begain with of my trusty (and dangerously powerfun) heat gun, a red paint pen, and my multispeed dremel (80's vintage i think! I remember dad using it when I was in late high school)


One of the few pics I have of Rubies vader before any sanding or mods.


Dr. Vader says to always be safe when working with power tools.


Trimming off 1/2 inch of the left (from front)



After dremelling that extra half inch off, I got out the heat gun and got to work. The goals were to reduce the crazy neck flare on the right (again all mentions of right and left are me LOOKING AT the mask in my hands..)
fix the sunken in side on the right, and to make the side pipes more uniform, specifically following my movie observation that the upper pipes were concave (bowed inward) and the bottom ones were convex (bowed outward) .. except right up where they are about to get to the tusks. Also to do some analysis of where some of the lopsidedness comes from and what i can do about it.


Learned quite a bit with this one. The eyelids meet on the outside of the eyes at a different height on each side.

Also the plastic on the left side of the triangle mouth is much thicker than on the right side. which can account for SOME but not all, of the warped look there.

Mouth and nose centerlines are far off balance. I'm going to have to find a happy medium when i remove the 'teeth' and put them back in more evenly.


After considerable heatgun reshaping, now the both sides stick out roughly the same. You can Seethe piping edges and the neck edges all from a top down/front view. This picture is exaggerated by my camera lens curvature.


Side view. Both sides look similar now.

Next up... cutting out the eye 'rims' the rubies lenses mounted to.

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EYE SOCKETS

Begin cutting out the eye sockets to remove all that excess plastic under the lens in the Rubies.


Saw Saw Saw (and clip with sprue cutters, not shown)


Eyes done for now...


Closeup of Eye. Still needs a lot of cleanup


Sitting on paper to trace existing neck outline


This is not a pretty outline


THIS is a pretty outline. Use it to generate a 'jig' to mold the neck to (still
working out what method im gonna try on this)


Making a pattern for a wood insert to stabilize top of helmet while reshaping neck.


Completed Pattern. ready to be cut from thin plywood.


Dremel tidy Heres an example. I cut a bit off on the other side too...

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RESHAPING THE NECK

Wooden wedge to isolate top of helmet for neck reshape


Wedge inserted


Busted Mouth


Neck reshaper thought i would cut the groove with the dremel...


Dremel was not the tool for it. Used Jigsaw


Mask well secured in board for neck reshaping.


Straightening up the neck.. marking with paint pen


Reshaping neck


Neck in much better shape.


Reshaping complete

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BEGINNING THE BUILDUP

We remove a whole lot of the 'mounting' plastic.


Most of the mount removed


Decided to remove the original mount on the facemask, it was just too far from the right place.


Just checking to see what it looks like. not attached...


Finally some BUILDING UP instead of tearing down. Going to fill in the helmet ridge with evercoat to fill it for the reshaping of the outside...


Make sure to sand everything with 60 grit so it has some chance of sticking.


Mixing the Evercoat. Smells great!


Inside filled in. Drying...


Smoothing out the holes i cut out with files.


A few openings filled with bondo putty. Cant use the fiber filled evercoat on the outside.

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Next up:

- Some more filler on the outside of the facemasl.. something with no fiberglass in it but more coverage than putty.

- Sanding the inside of the helmet smooth(er) and then laying a couple sheets of real fiberglass and resin over it to really shore up the helmet before i remove/reshape the 1 inch ridge on the top/outside.

- Probably going to have extend the length of the helmet edges, have to find material to do that with. ANY IDEAS?

Not particularly looking forward to sanding fiberglass. respirator here i come.

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HERE GOES THE SANDING

Sanding off the bondo filler putty


Sanding the inside of the dome


Sanding off the rounded ridge


FIBERGLASSING PART 1







Ready to tear in to the remainder of the mohawk tomorrow night. With any luck the helmet will not break in half. If it does i will have to do significantly more fiberglassing. :)

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NO MOHAWK

No Mohawk


Warped


How to NOT cut a helmet in half

(oh hey look, a Cleaning Droid...)

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ROUNDING THE HELMET SKIRT


The facemask is at a reasonable stopping point for the moment. the 'Removal' phase is all done and the rebuilding plase will start soon.

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Here is the next challenge, since no one knew (or spoke up) i decided to make both sides rounded. seemed more logical.

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Traced the outline onto MDF board, then transfered to paper, folded at the halfway mark, and duplicated it You can still see the 'old' line on the 'left'
side, its quite off:


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Inner line drawn and ready to saw.

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Careful viewers will notice the helmet will now not go in this jig because the spars are there. In reality I cut a space out of the jig for them, but i forgot to take a picture of it that way. It was a learning experience. The jig by itself didn't work well enough like it did on the mask, i think because of the size of the helmet skirt i couldnt do heatgun work with one hand and hold the helmet in place with the other.

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Very pleased. To fix the warped skirt when viewed from front I used a triangular wood block screwed into the mdf from the bottom, not shown. there was a good half hour there where i was problemsplving on the fly and forgot my camera...

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And the end result of this round of mods:

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LENGTHENING THE SKIRT


glued the super thin styrene sheet to outside.



Styrene cut down a bit and clipped to make sure the it will stay put. and not let TOO much resin up in between it and the abs, that i will have to sand off later.

Next i will fiberglass inside the whole helmet and extend the skirt from the inside. This Will strengthen the whole thing and make it more rigid, as well thicken it up for more screen accuracy.


Incidentally while trying to do this without the jig in introduced a warp i will need to fix...

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Put in spars. The plastic on the 'left' (Right in photo cause its upside down) was still malleable from the heat gun so these spars succeeded in pushing out that side.

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AND THAT...

And THAT my friends catches us up to where i started this blog. with
A Novice Guide to Fiberglassing

Hope you are enjoying it.