The Helmet
Some people call the helmet the "Dome" and then collectively refer to the dome and face mask as the "Helmet". The ancient Japanese actually had very specific terms for each item. What we call the flange is actually a neck protector, etc. I'll keep with commonly used nomenclature but I'll stop short of calling it a "bucket"!
Now the problem with the dome is the middle rib that runs vertically down its center. It's very soft in detail and hard to make out. Like so:
Many Rubie's modders have not touched the dome but instead have basically had their domes painted gloss black. The angle of light can help accentuate the middle rib but even with the best automotive professional paint jobs the mid rib is often hard to see under regular flash photography.
I have chosen a route that is more or less duplicable with manual tools but such requires a lot of filing, and your results will vary depending on your patience and commitment. I went and purchased a sander for a separate fiberglass kit project, so my investment has definitely helped here.
The plan is very simple. First, when people regard Vader, they look primarily at the front of the face. As it turns out, the front of the dome is where the mid rib is most soft. Conversely, the mid rib looks sufficiently pronounced at the reverse side of the helmet -- so why touch it?
So let's focus on the front. After all, very few people are going to try to run up the stairs to the second level to look down and see if you filled in the little injection-molding hole and point it out to embarass you. If they do, they're uber-geeks and if you ignore them, they'll go away on their own accord!
The goal here is to remove enough material on either side of the existing mid rib to accentuate it without compromising the dome. The mid rib of the Rubie's is just a little on the wide side but of very reasonable height. So you can reduce its width slightly and accentuate a drop on either side. You don't really want to force the mid rib to be 100% screen accurate in width using this following technique, but rather observe its natural structure and try to use it to your advantage. In other words, in trying to get it "screen accurate" to the milmeter, you might grind a particular area too thin and inadvertently create more work for yourself and raise the total cost and work investment.
First, I reinforced the interior of the front.
This time around, I decided to use PC-7 to see what it was like. As opposed to being a putty, this is a paste. It's deceptively sticky, and once you scoop out equal portions you wonder how on earth you're going to mix this. But it actually mixes okay. Once you apply it, that's where the fun begins.
You do need to sand the receiving surface a bit to give the paste to grip onto, but a hint is that the paste will tend not to stick to wet/damp hands. It's like taffy or very thick peanut butter. Once it sticks to the surface, then you can actually spread it with your hands. I even wet my finger tips and used the wetness to smoothe out the surface. I don't believe a little water disrupts its hardenability.
However, being that it's been freezing cold, the curing time was more than overnight. It requires a minimum temperature of about 70F degrees, and it's been well below that here in California (okay, so much for global warming -- we have icicles hanging off of our oranges in the sunny Golden State!)
With the interior reinforced, I proceeded to work on the mid rib. What I did was use a long rubber strip and laid down what I "felt" were the best lines given the available shape of the mid rib. Bear in mind it will vary in buldge and height throughout it's length. Once I found lines that structurally and visually appealed to me, I traced them against the rubber strip using a thin red marker.
What I did was use the dark brown cutting tool and started to grind into that red line very carefully, bit by bit (you may end up making slight mistakes. You can putty it up later.) Once I established my lines, then I used the same cutting disc to begin grinding away the material outside of those lines.
Now sanding is a real pain here so I bought a sanding tool (as seen in the previous post's shot of the lone shot of the facemask on my workbench). I used this opportunity to grind the "frown" of the helmet a little. On the prop, the frown ends downwards but on the Rubie's it runs straight across, almost like a bit of a uni-brow. The degree to which you can correct the flow of the frown's eyebrow lines depends on how much you reinforce the interior. Bear in mind that how much Bondo you put in the interior may impact how the dome lays against your helmet. How far you go is up to you.
I not only used the sander to smoothe out the surfaces to the left and right of the mid rib, but I also used sandpaper by hand to soften the drop of the left and right of the mid rib.
Now a note on the shape of the mid rib. What I'm doing here is emulating the ROTJ look slightly. On the Don Post Deluxe it sort of runs parallel but then tapers and narrows about an inch before the rim. However, I'm not mandating a consistent width here. My mid rib here has a more gradual taper. Again, I'm taking advantage of the stock Rubie's mid rib's original shape; I'm essentiall making the transition more abrupt.
Right now I've done a quick and dirty primer job on it (not photographed).
More to come...
