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 Post subject: GoldenArmor.com Fett Kit (Shrunken. Pic Heavy)
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 12:11 am 
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NoHumorMan wrote me once and asked me why on earth I was getting all this crap.

At the time, I told him it wasn't my fault. One vendor, ArmorMask, boasted, "the cast are so clean, very thick and strong cast. very little clean up work " and this is of course very subjective language; I have had to put a lot of work into it, and then anyone who could care less about accuracy could have just bypassed the work and shot it with gloss black and have been done with it in 5 minutes. After bad luck with "Darth Ugly" I sought for a lightweight alternative to my original Don Post Deluxe. I figured that Golden Armor's kit needing "some trimming, some sanding" (approximate wording) sounded reasonable. Yet that turned into a nightmare.

Quote:


Golden Armor listened to my concerns regarding the Vader. I won't re-iterate the issues so I encourage you to visit the above links.

I had asked for a refund but he offered me a helmet of my choice. Hey, no-one can resist Boba Fett. His was based on a Don Post but he modified it to look a little more like the SgtFang "Mystery" helmet which captures the width and proportions of the screen-used helmet of TESB.

For reference:
Image

Well it arrived, with another helmet, so it was a pleasant surprise to see two helmets in the parcel. Unfortunately the other one -- an Ep. 2 Clone Trooper helmet -- was broken.

Image

So here is Fett. To answer NoHumorMan's question, "Why'd you get all this crap?" pre-emptively: I didn't buy this. This was given to me.

Then I'm sure his follow-up question is, "Why do you let people punish you like that?" :wink:

Now I don't see fiberglass sheeting here. He has primarily used the same kind of "parmesean cheese" (like the twig shaped stuff you get at Costco). This is the same stuff as the one in my Vader. The only aesthetic difference is that instead of the clumpy "cottage cheese" look, this looks more like a smear.

Unfortunately it's not flat nor of consistent thickness which means any area can have both thick and thin and very uneven applications.

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Last edited by CSMacLaren on Wed Feb 28, 2007 12:19 am, edited 2 times in total.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 12:13 am 
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The first thing I noticed was how small this thing was. The attached note, Golden Armor wrote that it was cold and thus it was likely his mold shrank, so this would make a great display helmet.

Drat, now that I finally have my first Fett, it's not wearable.

Nor would I give this to a kid because the interior is dangerous.

Image

Image

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 12:14 am 
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Image

So far, it looks pretty straightforward. The detail isn't great, and the surface quality is kind of... granular. It might be an optical illusion due to the slight splattering of gray here and there.

Image

Obviously some trimming is required, and filing out the "T" of the face for lenses is going to be necessary.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 12:17 am 
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Here's where the nightmare begins. Again I am going to have to deal with this "cottage cheese" or "parmesean cheese" fiberglass.

Image

Unfortunately they don't make curved surfaced sanders, and I do not want to handle this by hand and get cut. This is a little too much work for a dremel, though not impossible.

Now if someone really wants this or would end up wanting to wear it, I'd probably try to smoothe out the interior as much as possible, but this ones' tough due to the irregular surfaces near the front of the face (cheeks, etc.)

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 12:17 am 
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Some more shots of the interior.

Image

Image

Do not fear bad kits. They can help hone your skills....

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 2:57 am 
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That looks like alot of work.
:eek


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:46 am 
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Yeah, it does.

Let's take it a step at a time. I don't know how far I will go with this. I got sidetracked with my favorite sander.

First, bear in mind that whatever mistakes I am possibly about to make, there probably ain't anything I can't fix with my ol' trusty AquaMend. Man, I love this stuff.

Image

First, I had to saw out the eyes. For this, I used a dremel reinforced dark brown disc. It was a little disconcerting because Fett is not my area of study, and it's not like I have a screen-accurate bucket to compare it against. But again if I bomb it, I can repair it, no problem.

The inconsistent thickness made it difficult to determine if I was grinding too much or too little.

Now there came a point where removing the horizontal part of the "T" was too difficult for the dremel disc, so I ended up using a very narrow diamond bit. I stayed away from edges -- those I could attack with a file or with this small attachement on my sander:

Image

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:47 am 
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Next I did some preliminary sanding of the interior. This is by no means a finished quality.

Image

I am not sure at this point if I'm going to just make this a display piece, or if someone PM's me and says "Please, I'm a smaller individual and this would be perfect for my head size" then I'll consider doing something more with it.

I could make this safe to wear and even out the irregularities a bit using PC-11 paste, like I did to the interior of the Golden Armor Vader facemask.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:49 am 
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So here's a first pass.

Image

Now I'm trying to figure out what to do. The detail is a little blurry but then again Fett's helmet is supposed to be worn and scuffed anyway.

I'll have to do some research into the correct paint scheme and paint mixes.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 11:53 am 
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You did wonders with that thing, even at this stage! :thumbsup

http://www.thedentedhelmet.com/ is a place to go for all your Boba and Jango Fett desires. Though, there is a paint tutorial on Jez' BingoBongo275's fantastic site: http://www.starwarshelmets.com/, just go to the Tutorial page.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 1:13 pm 
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Just wow man. Dont you just love these projects. Turning crap into gold is a pain but you really get a sense of gratification afterwards.

It looks like GA uses a combination of "pour-a-cast" polyester resin, or "Monster cast" resin and then combines with glass mat for reinforcement. The Vader had me guessing but this Fett pretty much confirms.

It also looks like this is a casting from a 95 Don Post and not a deluxe. The giveaway are the ear pieces. That would also be a more likely reason for the size of the helmet.

Good luck on this. I am sure it will look great once it is finished. Do you know which style you are going to go with for paint on this? (Pre-pro 1, 2, ESB, ROTJ) The tutorial on Jez's site for the ESB paint is killer if you are going that direction.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:37 pm 
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Oh shoot, I thought it was either paint it Jango or Boba! :lol

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 7:17 pm 
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Well Jango would be the easiest. But the Boba paint apps are just so much fun. :violent

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 9:44 pm 
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I just got back from Wal-Mart, and while I couldn't find any Valspar Kustom Kolors at the specific location there, there was a huge selection of Krylon and Rustoleum that looked pretty cheap.

I found some greens and yellows that are desaturated (slightly faded) in color, which would be great.

They also have some metallic silvers.

So here's a question.

If I use a chrome finish as an "undercoat" for the paint, can I rebate its gloss by doing some very fine sanding so that it has more of a brushed metal look, or would it look plasticky and fake?

I figured I might give the thing a metallic gray foundation and then add layers of paint on top of it and somehow figure out how to weather and remove the paint to create the wear and tear. Any thoughts on how to do this right? I don't want the damage to look painted on.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 9:46 pm 
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I also have a new idea on sanding the insides of helmets.

There are rubber hand-held sandpaper holders that are basically rounded on the holding side and flat on the sanding side. Simply putting the sandpaper on the rounded side and you might have something that would work for the inside of the helmet.

The problem is a lot of manual labor.

My area's Wal-mart doesn't seem to carry 80 grit. Lots of 60 grit, which may be fine for removing all that crud....

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