Yeah, great thread! One question though, what exactly is PP?

Great stuff,

I never thought the helmets would be that thick? The piece I have is only 1-2 mm thick but it has been through the forming process so could have thinned down a bit. I have a couple of PP SDS helmets and a SDS HDPE and I'd say that they are about 2mm before forming. The helmets feel very sturdy and quite thick.
When AA heated the plastic up on the former it was for ages, like 3-4 mins and that is on a former that he would heat the same thickness ABS for 45 seconds or so.
The milky clear PP is pre stretched and heated until it was entirely clear then formed and changed back milky.
It is entirely possible that AA used 3mm as it was for ponds and as Paul pointed out above it doesn't seem likely that 1-2 mm would have be used for that application.

If I recall well the SDS hero stormtrooper helmet is 2.5mm High Impact Styrene, what it makes it very close to the 3mm mentioned by Paul. I own one of those and they feel very sturdy. On the contrary I heard that the SDS stunt feels somehow flimsy

Cheers

A

Looks like styrene to me. I have made them before out of ABS and always had a little bit of difficulty getting just right. Styrene is really easy to vacuum form. ABS is too but styrene and PETG are ideal. What they used in the movie I don't know but it definitely looks like a milky white substance perhaps HDPE or Polypropylene. Never tried to make one out of any of those materials but maybe i should give it a try.

http://bit.ly/nEK41I

http://bit.ly/oKIR89

Sskunky if you have a piece of the original plastic why dont you cut a slither off and do a back yard analysis on it ,
simply put it in a pan on a stove with a toffie thermometer and see at what temp it goes to liquid then look it up all plastics metal at different temps , crude but it would work?

It seems the ANH parts mixed in with the recent ESB MKII suit that was auctioned recently were both painted white. The ANH 02 canister on JB's ESB MKII suit was also painted and Simons complete ANH suit was painted too.

Coincedence?

Interesting TM. I'm starting to wonder a little about the ears on the "Hero" helmet in the archives and why they're yellowing more than the rest of the helmet... Styrene maybe?

I know that for LOTR a guy was bought out to NZ from GB, and all the armour he did was in styrene. Apparently it's favoured over other plastics for it's forming qualities and it's ability to take paint.

I'm not into props as much as I used to be, but I haven't seen any Stormtrooper pics outside SDS like the TIE stuff and Trooper helmets. Did AA form the armour? If it wasn't and was done in house and styrene's the industry norm to use, it would make sense that it was painted.

Cheers,

Kraig

Have someone looked close to the pic's of Lukes AnH suit on the blu ray specials?
The armor has begin to get yellow on the scratched areas , except of the shoulders.
Mhh.. is it from the drit while filming, or does the material get yellow on that parts where is now no more paint?
Any thoughts?

We all know that things were repainted for ESB, so it should be of no surprise that the recently auctioned suit had painted parts.

Also, on the Luke armor, that looks like grease yellowing from handling.

We don't know they painted the armour, we only assume they did.

I wouldn't be surprised if they did paint the armour as well as the helmets, but we don't they did for sure.

I just thought I wouold mention the ANH parts that were mixed up with the ESB suit was painted. I couldn't tell from the photos that they were painted and someone who went to see the suit at Christies told me they were.

Lukes suit above always looked like painted being rubbed off on his chest plate. It could well be yellowing where it was scuffed. I just wish all the found ANH parts that have surfaced weren't painted so we could at least be sure some were unpainted (if not all in the movie).

Also, even IF they show they've been painted doesn't prove they were painted from the beginning, as was mentioned regarding how different they look in the Tantive scene (shot last) from the rest of the movie.

That's right.

We need to find a couple of untouched original ANH suits in private collections so we can find out once and for all

Would that mean sandtroopers? Seems likely they painted all the troopers to have them available and shiny at the end.

Possibly.

When we checked the ear caps on Simons helmet against the armour you could see they were a different white colour and we thought they ear caps were probably Styrene, so it could be possible the hero helmets has Styrene ears too.

That said, if the hero helmets were made after the armour production I see no reason not to make them out of ABS. But, I see no reason why they made the stunt helmets from Styrene either.

Probably a silly question but do ABS and styrene age at the same rate ? Would the discolouration between the 2 plastics be uniform ? I'm not that clued up on my plastics and I am considering buying a full set of Stormtrooper armour. I just wondered what issues I'd be facing years along the line ?