For those that don't want to read my ramblings for 500 words the pictures are at the bottom.
Been working on this a fair bit over the last few days and in particular the rear left dome; by working on it I mean
1). Staring at it from all angles for hours on end
2). Reviewing hundreds of pcitures of all of the helmets
I also had a very informative discussion with Lee via email on some ideas. Naturally he was the person to ask having made his own line of helmets. Thanks Lee.
Part of the issue is that the left rear dome distortion that I find disagreeable can only be seen from certain angles and that there are other distortions I don't want to alter which obviously makes this a massive question of interpretation and perception or as Fettpride might call it 'artistic liberty'. Guys, this is all artisitic liberty. In this area I'm eyeballing it. Straight up.
One thing that I observed in the Boba dome is that it has very little symmetry. For those of you who are exclaiming 'No shit Sherlock' bear with me. Obviously there is no front to back symmetry but there's also no left to right symmetry. In particular consideration of the rear left dome where I feel there is a distortion unique to the PP2 Buck and therefore the CTM there are some further considerations.
a). I feel extra material was added to the rear left quarter to repair the cutting damage. I'll add that I confused myself going round and round in circles as to whether the extra material was cast in or was as a result of a repair to the PP2 Buck post removal from the mold. For my considerations it doesn't matter either way. I feel there is extra material there that isn't present in the other helmets.
b). Going back to the symmetry issue I believe the dome curve at the rear right on all the original helmets (as one observes it direct from the back) is a softer more gradual curve than the curve on the rear left that I see as slightly steeper or squarer. Now before giving this much consideration I'd always felt and expected that the dome was pretty much evenly curved across the back from right to left.
If you consider those two factors together i.e. added material to a steeper or squarer side I might find more of a distortion than there really is because that what I was expected to find or what I thought it was supposed to look like.
Anyway, that was the mindset I took when going in; there is a distortion created by dome repair but that it's as distortion on top of a distortion already present created by lack of right to left symmetry in the dome itself. I pretty much took up the technique as described by Ryan earlier in the thread although used a fairly fine paper to sand down with and followed the philosophy espoused by Gareth Keenan of 'Softly softly, catchee monkey'. I felt it would be better to go slow and work in. I've hastily laid on some primer to even out the colour changes otherwise it's more difficult to follow the contours. This took about four or five hours and a reasonable amount of material was removed albeit slowly. I'm not done here yet I don't think but I'd really appreciate some feedback and observations from those who are willing.
Live the dream.
Andy