Hi all:

After reading many postes on the topic I decided to go ahead and mod my Rubie's Deluxe Helmet. I decided to start with the dome and try to improve the over all shape before I start hacking into it and adding filler and what not.
A before shot:


The method I used to try and reshape the dome was boiling water and I'm not sure there was much of a change.



I may try to use a heat gun on it next. I just don't feel that there was that much of a change. I am open to modding suggestions.
Thanks
Richard

I see you're dipping the rear into hot water, but what are you trying to do? And what is the improvement to this area based on?

The dome's overall shape is actually fairly decent, save for the mid strip and the frown.

Thanks for the questions Mac. As I looked at the overall shape of the lower rim of the helmet i felt it needed a little tweeking to even out the shape. So I started by heating the back and working the shape till it sat better on the table. I didn't quite get there with the water treatment so I'm going to move on to the heat gun and gently work it to a more even shape. Then I will begin on the center ridge and brow before moving on to putty and fiberglass.

BTW Mac i read your thread on the Rubie's mod and thought it was brilliant. That is what made me take the plung on this project. I am hoping that I can pick your brain from time to time as I progress through this project.

Thanks
Richard

Please feel free to do. My mods have improved of late, and I'd like to update that thread with far more current understanding, but revisiting the Rubie's plastic stuff is a step backwards for me, and I'm behind in my Vader fan sculpts and uber-mods.

I'd say, for now, leave the rear of the dome alone. Be careful with a heat gun, as super concentration of heat in one particular area will cause the plastic to blister, and I've made this mistake too often. You may need to use paint masking tape (the blue stuff) to hold the plastic in the direction you want it to bend, and shim it with cardboard or wood for areas you don't want to bend, and then heat-and-cool, heat-and-cool, until the memory of the original shape is no longer asserting its influence.

The areas to mod on the Rubies dome is really the frown and midstrip. If you want, the dome crease or fold line, but that's optional depending on the look you're gunning for.

Overall the shape is quite comparable to a Don Post Deluxe despite its issues.

Well I started to really dig into the dome today. Using a piece of painters tape, I laid out the line down the ridge and got to using the dremel tool. taking my time I worked dowm both sides till i was happy and removed the tape. I then gave the whole dome a scratch sand with 240 grit paper. I also used a heat gun on the left side to get the dome flare to look better than my previous attempt.
before and after:


Next I begin filling and sanding.

Thanks
Richard

Well done!

What movie look are you going for?

The next step is to make the mid strip a bit flatter.

I'm going for the ESB look. I hope to use this as a starter to building a whole costume.

Thanks
Richard

A very good start!

Thanks Mac,

Just wanted to know how you would go about fixing the brow?

Thanks
Richard

Eek, that's one tough puppy.

The shape of the frown suggest that they added material in the fold line where the domecap ends and the brow begins. That is problematic because the degree which they've added material exceeds the thickness of plastic. (It was a good call on their part because it would prevent the Rubie's dome from ever being reverse-engineered into a perfectly accurate ROTJ or ESB dome and then cast into fiberglass and passed off as, say, a Don Post Deluxe fiberglass dome.)

Carsten did a really good mod. He sanded it carefully enough to where he made a very passable dome:



You can add material around the fold line above the brow to increase the depth perception, but you'll need to sand this area first to remove material that shouldn't be there.

Thanks I'll try that first, before adding any material.

Thanks
Richard

Actually, there is nothing wrong with the general shape of this dome. It is supposed to be uneven and not symmetrical. The center ridge work looks pretty good. Gave me a good pointer on how to do mine. I had the general idea of how to do it, but seeing it done makes a whole lot of difference.

In fact, Rubies didn't add material at the brow. It looks like a simple common vac-forming error and also why the center ridge is soft and rounded and don't really have the sharp angles. Though their offering is injection molded... I'm sure they made their master from vac-formed parts (dome). There is enough thickness of the plastic to remove the material at the brow and reshape that area without going through the plastic. Just look at pictures of the original and study how the shapes and curves are, then try to draw the line on the dome and then simply try to work around that guide.

The dome is indeed injection-molded as evidenced by "entry-ways".

I don't think the brow's appearance was a fluke as the entire run was this way, so it points to the master being done in this way.

While it's possible the master was formed by vacforming and that details were removed to eliminate potential undercuts or "grabby" parts to facilitate easier mold release, if you were to get a silver pen and draw in the fold line, the eyebrows do not quite meet at a downward angle like the screen-used - hence my belief that at some point on the master they put material there. This does not mean the production helmets are thicker by any means, rather they mimick the shape of an altered master.

Since Rubie's stated they had the Don Post molds leased from Lucasfilm, we know the Rubie's dome's mid strip is wider and has less detail than the mid strip of the Don Post mold. It's possible some of this is due to alteration of the Rubie's template for the production.

Thanks guys,

I am going to print a few close ups of the helmet tonight so I have some reference for the brow alteration. I'll post more pics by the week end.

Thanks
Richard

Good work!
I'm actually doing EXACTLY the same mod to my Rubies supreme at the moment!

Does anyone know how wide the strip should be for ANH?

Rich