Dave,
Your work turned out beautiful so far, I can't wait to see this thing finished..
this is one of the nicest looking DP Deluxe helmets I've seen redone

Impressive. You've definitely put the DP DLX to its right.

Wow. That looks great. Makes me want to redo mine as well. Excellent work Dave.

VERY nicely done....I like the dome positioning.

Looks great! Love these restoration progress threads!

Holy cowpies, that looks great!

So how long did you wait between painting sessions? I know the can says seven days, did you wait that long?

I'd love to hear a quick rundown of your spraycan technique!

Beautiful work.

Thanks as always Gentlemen for the compliments and support It's great to receive praise from people whose work you've admired yourself.

Dann wrote:

"So how long did you wait between painting sessions? I know the can says seven days, did you wait that long?

I'd love to hear a quick rundown of your spraycan technique!"


I went to the Dupli-Color site and for Lacquers they say there is no "dry down time" so you can re-coat whenever you like. However, just to let the paint cure some, I went a full week between my first two paint sessions. Four days from that session for the third and then did the gunmetal coat three days after that.

As far as technique goes I don't think I do anything special. Start out with a light coat trying to spray with an even motion and making sure as much as possible that I've got even coating. Then let it sit for about 10 minutes and do the same thing over again. After another 10 minutes I do the "wet coat", which is just a little heavier than the first two, and try not to have any runs. I make sure to shake the can every minute or so to keep the paint mixed.

I find the wet coat stage with lacquers is a little trickier because of the grainy effect you can get at the edge of the spray but if you get it right the results are much much nicer.

I ended up with two runs to get rid of which I sanded down before re-coating. One was along the left side of the edge of the mouth and the other was on the chin just next to the left tusk. Thankfully they were both very small and sanded and buffed out perfectly without blowing through to the prime or anything.

Thanks again guys and I'll post some more pics once I've made some more progress. Soooooo tempted to strip down the dome and clean it up....

Dave

fantastic job, you gotsta be proud of that effort.

Definitely the most beautiful DP Deluxe derived mask I've seen. And I'm a big fan of the DP DLX!

Thanks again Mac, and everyone, for the kind words! (I can certainly appreciate the work you've done on that GH) I haven't had much to post as I've kind of been fighting the project lately. I had to repaint the neck after I blew through the paint while I was trying to smooth out the gunmetal a bit--that's fixed though. I also had to repaint the "eyelids" and only today completed the black parts. I still have to re-touch the fronts of the lids with gunmetal. It's at that dangerous phase where too much fiddling around will ruin it but it still has issues that I need to fix.

I painted the nose today as well. To finish the face I just need to touch up the eyebrows like I mentioned then find some decent screen for the mouth and chin vents (the only stuff I have now is for ANH). Then I'd still like to firm up the dome fitting with the "ashtray".

See, if DP had released something that looked like this I bet they would've been much more popular!

superb work there . i recently finished mine but its a low numbered copy that did not come with a dome. what color is the jellcoat on yours? mine is gray i will post up some pictures soon when i have the time.

Thanks Ian
The gelcoat on the mask is a kind of light greeny-yellowy-tan sick color. I'm working on modifying the mounting point inside the dome so I completely removed the original "ashtray" configuration (to use Mac's very apt term) and found a whole bunch of air pockets and a bunch of bondo--I'm amazed the thing held together. I checked the color where I've done the grinding inside the dome with the top piece that I cut from the mounting ring of the mask and it seems to be basically a cleaner version of the same yellowy-tan:



Don't know if I'm going to be brave and strip the dome completely to rework the center strip. I'm leaning toward leaving it as-is for now. I'm eager to get it on display but the mask still reeks of lacquer because of the touch-up work I've had to do. If I stuck it in my office right now I'd be higher than a kite in no time--lol.


Dave

(Edit to add Pic and revise text)

Great work, it is turning out excellent. Let me know when you are going to sell it. Just Kidding.

Well, at long last the DP is done. I've got everything about 97% where I want it and I'm finally going to drag it to work with me tomorrow to decorate the office

The helmet's gone from this:


To this:



I had some minor paint tweaks to work out but the major thing holding me back was the dome ring. After I trimmed down the ring on top of the facemask it never fit very well so I ended up grinding the "ashtray" completely off. I wanted to replace it with something that would help hold the mask firmly in place:



While I waited for the reek of lacquer to fade I debated about the best way to rebuild the attachment ring inside the dome. After running out of patience I bit the bullet yesterday and covered the top of the mask with "the handyman's secret weapon" duct tape. I put the dome in place then grabbed what was left of the can of Bondo-Glass and started to build up the new "ashtray". I started with the exposed back-half of the ring on top of the mask:



Then I put a big glob of Bondo-Glass on top of the mask to create the front half of the ring, patched and filled where needed, and cleaned it up with the Foredom tool and some sandpaper:



Once the ring was finished I installed the lenses and chin screen. I used hot glue so I can replace them (the only chin screen material I have is New Hope style and the lenses are a little flat):



I gave the dome a final polishing and here he is all ready to go:





This has been a great deal of fun to work on. I wish I had more time--it would have been done six months ago but you guys with small kids know how it goes. Thanks again to everyone for your kinds words, helpful suggestions, and encouragement.

Cheers,

Dave