I've contempated for a while whether to sand down the faceplate mounting tube on my DP DLX so that the dome can sit lower, like an ESB Vader. It was originally advertised as being cast from an ESB helmet.

What's your opinion, should I do this or leave it in its original state?

I've read that the DP DLX is closer to a ROTJ than a ESB. If it is closer to ROTJ, then I may prefer to leave it as-is. I don't want to try to transform it into something it's not.

Certainly the DP DLX dome sits higher more like ROTJ. But are the size and shape of the DP DLX dome and the details of the DP DLX faceplate generally considered closer to ESB or ROTJ?

Thanks!

Here are the two ways the dome and mask on my unmodified DP DLX fit on the mount, neither of which looks accurate:

1: The mask tube fits flush within the dome ring. The result is it sits too high.
2: The velcro at the front of the mask attaches to the velcro inside dome. The result is the tilt angle is wrong.

Well, the DP helmets, as well as the Rubies helmets do not have accurate dome placement. It is tilted too much forward, raising up the back, making them look more like the Hoth entrance helmet. It doesn't match anything else from ESB or RotJ.

I'm unsure whether sanding the dome mount at an angle - taking more out of the back than at the front - will help angle the dome more correctly.

My main view is that it is a RotJ style helmet taken from a tour helmet. But others are of the opinion that it is an ESB face and RotJ dome. I guess you can go either way.

Yeah, you're right about the tilt angle.

I'll have to figure out which parts of the faceplate mounting tube are actually against the dome to know where to sand to correct that tilt. It may even require sanding on the sides and filler to another side. Just trimming off the top edge may not work. I will expect even with sanding the tube I'll need to complement it with strategically placed velcro and/or additional padding elsewhere to achieve an optimum dome placement.

Aside from adjusting the tilt, I think I'd need to sanding down the tube generally so that it the entire dome sits lower than it does now (i.e. a translation not just a rotation), since when the dome is rotated back to correct the tilt angle the front will raise up, and the front is already too high.

We're probably just talking a quarter to half an inch height change and maybe no more than 10 degrees of tilt change for the correction I'm looking for.

So in some manner I'd sand this:



to try to make this:



look like this:

Definitely take more out of the back of the mount than the front.

Also, I am not sure about this at all, but a thought popped up that I believe I've read someone that the ring in the dome was also Dremeled off and repositioned. I can't recall where I read it or if I even remember it correctly, but that could be something to look into as well in case simply sanding down the face mask mount doesn't give the required effect. Also, don't worry about taking off too much, as you can fix all that with Aves Apoxie Sculpt, which is a two part self-hardening resin. But, go slow, take small steps at a time, don't rush things - basically, don't do it my way!

In fact... it is a good idea to check with other people who has fixed the dome position on a DP DLX instead of listening to me and others who hasn't performed that particular task. Hopefully someone will chime in with thoughts and suggestions.

Good advice. In the meantime I will find some ESB reference pictures and screenshots to measure some of these angles and offsets.

If it were me I would first try to carefully trim/sand short equal lengths at a time from both the facepiece ring and the dome ring. This may bring the dome down to a more desired position. I use 1/8" or 1/4" fine line masking tape wrapped around the ends of the rings to measure out my adjustments before I trim. A more complex way of adjusting the dome would be to remove the dome ring, trim both rings to your liking and then remount the dome ring with an adhesive in your desired position. Hope this helps. Good luck.

Hi there,

This is a good question. I completely re-worked a DP Deluxe helmet a number of years ago. Part of the problem is that once you trim down the pipe on top of the facemask it alters the point where it needs to connect inside the dome to get everything to align properly.

The thread is probably still around here somewhere lol (edit: found it)

1-vt2205.html

Dave

Thanks guys for your replies they are very helpful. I was coming to the same realization that some trimming or rework of the dome ring will be needed, if for no other reason than to prevent it from impinging on the top of the faceplate once the mounting tubes are sanded down. Great work Dave on your DP DLX restoration - thanks for documenting it so well years ago. Jarenmcl I like your approach of showing how the helmet matches a movie scene as a check for correctness - yours are always spot-on. I'll be looking at Vader profile views of screen captures from ESB to make sure I know the tilt angle and the lateral dome offset from the faceplate the I'm shooting for.

I made some ESB helmet measurements from a profile view. I used VLC to apply a gradient filter to better locate the edges. I then loaded the view into Paint and got pixel (X,Y) locations from which I measured distances between reference points.

To characterize the tilt angle I used the angle between the dome line at the front and the bottom tusk. After locating the 3 points of a triangle that included this angle, I calculated it to be 54 degrees (thanks high school trigonometry!).



I then measured the horizontal and vertical offset of the base of the center strip relative to the top notch of the nose bridge. This offset I measured to be 1/2" horizontal X 1/3" vertical. (To convert pixels to actual distance, I measured the length of the helmet skirt on my DPDLX which was 14.5 cm.)



So now I have some numbers I can use for what I'm trying to get to or at least get close to.

Next I took a photo of my DPDLX at the same angle as the ESB photo. I then overlaid the two photos aligning the domes. This will show me how the faceplate needs to move for them to match.

The following link is an animated gif of the blending of these two photos:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B13YyeojRHKeRnJWVnBSQWtqVEVpNlBxNm9qUGE3eTZXZkRV/edit?usp=sharing

Here is an overlay picture from a middle frame of the above animated gif (white lines ESB). On this pic I drew vectors between identical reference points that will quantify how much the faceplate should move into the dome and in what direction (0.85 inch). Because this direction isn't aligned with the axis of the mounting tube, some compensation may be needed due to that (padding or extra molding). Just about time to start sanding!

Well after all that fancy-shmancy analysis I will still take the conservative approach and just sand down a small amount first to see how things align. So I took out the Dremel, put on a sanding band, and took off about 1cm around the top of the mounting tube. I also needed to sand down the "screws" on the mounting tube used to stabilize left-and-right movement. They were preventing the tube being inserted completely into the ring. Here's the result:



Looks pretty good. Certainly more ESB-ish in terms of brow position relative to the dome, but still more ROTJ than ESB to my eye. Maybe because there's no hint of a Y crease in the center strip of the dome.



I'm about 3 degrees shy of the desired tilt angle. A bit more off the rear of the mounting tube should get it there.

I got used to how it looked for 17 years, and these subtle changes are making a substantial difference in the way it looks, I think for the better.

Much better already.

And the final answer is... leave 3/4" at the back and 1 1/4" at the front of the mask mounting tube:



Comparing the "Reset the chamber" Vader (left) to the lowered and tilted DP DLX (right) :



Animated gif of the above:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B13Yye ... sp=sharing

I'd say this mini-project is complete. It's almost like having a new helmet! Thanks guys for all the good advice which was very helpful.

Yeah, that is definitely how the DP DLX should have looked concerning the mount - dome to face mask relation.

Well done.