My first attempt at Mk VI armor!

[boomshakra]

Not much to report other than I made the 2nd handplate last night. The weather forecast for the weekend shows that I will have a small window to get some resin & bondo work done. Tonight I'll probably start cutting the boots but doubt I'll have them glued & ready for resin by Saturday. I'm on the fence about just making a V3.0 helmet, scaling it up just a smidge, before I size and start on the chest. I am hoping to get the scaling right on the chest the FIRST time...I haven't decided what I am going to use for an undersuit yet - I would like to use something a bit more accurate than just a compression/underarmor top. Hopefully I can remember to pick up some foam over the weekend so I can have a diversion from pepakura by starting on a MA5C

 

[TheMagicNumber]

If you can't get that helmet on your head easily before resining then it's probably going to be too small.
I could get mine easily on my head before, but by the time it was finished I can't even wear my tunnels (earrings) when I wear it or I can't get it off (yes the first time I found that out was not fun) and that's after cutting out the bottom edges of the ear areas, if you look at my build you'll see what I mean and this has nothing to do with padding - it's the inside edge of the helmet.
Your handplates are pretty much perfect though.

 

[boomshakra]

*sigh*...yeah, I have pretty much resigned myself that helmet V3.0 is going to be necessary. But, on the bright side is that I know better what to expect when doing the pep work on the Flying Squirl file . I'll still go through with the resin & bondo stages on V2.0, just for grins and practice with bondo!

thanks for the feedback!

 

[ViperB77]

Not bad man! i like your second helm there! did great IMHO.... don't scrap it! I know a thing or two about making... scrap...

 

[boomshakra]

Not bad man! i like your second helm there! did great IMHO.... don't scrap it! I know a thing or two about making... scrap...

No worries about scrapping - the experience to be gained from building even incorrectly-sized parts outweighs the cost of extra resin & paper . Plus I already told my kiddos they can have whatever parts I make that don't fit me...as a result I am getting a lot of encouragement in this project

 

[ViperB77]

Niiice. You should maybe look into having them help you score...

Its not child labor if they are your kids... right?

 

[boomshakra]

Niiice. You should maybe look into having them help you score...

Its not child labor if they are your kids... right?

True dat

I'd love for them to get interested in pepakura - might help them learn more about patience and perseverance

 

[spartan IV]

In theory the idea of farming out your pep to your children sounds great. In practice though, sadly, my bet is on the results being less than stellar. In all seriousness though way to keep at it. I know how hard it is myself to continuously rebuild the same pieces till they fit just right.

 

[boomshakra]

In theory the idea of farming out your pep to your children sounds great. In practice though, sadly, my bet is on the results being less than stellar. In all seriousness though way to keep at it. I know how hard it is myself to continuously rebuild the same pieces till they fit just right.

They are very interested in all of my projects and me trooping in my TK armor - fortunately, they think it is pretty cool instead of "oh.my.GOD - what is our Father doing?". . But while they are interested in armor of their own...not enough to plop down next to me at the table with exacto in hand.

I managed to squeeze in a quick coat of resin on the bottom half of the helmet & most of both handplates before losing sunlight and time to work on projects of my own (need to get dinner started ). I used my last brush so will pick more of those up so I can take advantage of what little time I will have to work on these pieces!

 

[boomshakra]

weekend update - some rain snuck in so the resin I put on V2.0 helmet isn't curing properly...the humidity is keeping me from doing any more on it. I got some fiberglass laid down inside the hand plates, and had intended to experiment with Rondo today...but decided to just work with Bondo on V1.0 helmet. This is the first time i've used it so some batches started hardening up quicker than others. I finally decided to embrace the fact that I will probably end up being intimately familiar with a mouse sander to smooth things out anyways, so I laid it on pretty heavy. Again, this helmet is the V1.0, so i'm using it for experience...not to be the final product for my armor.

You can see here that I need to scale my V3.0 helmet inbetween what these two are...

I didn't quite get the helmet completely bondo'd...

Another view

And here you can see the lopsided visor and droopy "nose"...I'm going to try to correct them with Popsicle sticks or something before I finish with the resin on this

And the weather is turning against me again - cold front blows in tonight But, that gives me time to start sanding (as there is going to be a LOT of that happening...which is fine) and keep on cutting other parts. I'm almost done cutting the right boot, might have it done by tomorrow night. Once it drys out I'll experiment with rondo inside V1.0 and the handplates. I couldn't quite get resin onto the fiberglass inside the nooks & crannies of the handplates, so hopefully the rondo will fill it all in. Stay tuned!

 

[Halex]

A little warpage here and there is nothing, and yours isn't bad to start with. Very nice looking helmet.

Wanted to share a couple things about bondo on helmets that I learned the hard way with mine. You may already know them or it may not matter depending on skill, but either way...

First, it isn't always necessary to bondo the entire surface. Some of the sharper angles (such as the middle ridges on the Mk VI top) are, I found, easier to leave as pep faces with resin on them. It looks the same painted, and getting those small inside corners to look good with bondo isn't as easy as I thought it would be. For mine, I ended up scraping off almost all of what I had applied and getting back to the resin pep faces.

Another thing I learned the hard way is that it's sometimes easier to work in sections. I found it significantly easier to tell where some of the smaller faces are in reference to others if the entire helmet isn't an amorphous blob of bondo. Again, personal preference, but it's another way of doing things.

Best of luck with the new helmet!

 

[boomshakra]

Thanks, Halex - yeah, I had the thought while I was slathering bondo into every nook & cranny "Is this necessary?"... I can definitely see how leaving the ridges down the top alone would be a labor-saving step. I very likely, as you said, "...end up scraping off almost all of what I applied" . Good point about working in sections as well - I probably buried some detail under there that would make the helmet look better and will have to sand down to find it again. It's all good - will be busting out with the mouse sander tomorrow to see how much of that stuff I can take back off .

There's still a 40% chance of rain tonight & it will be colder tomorrow, but the sun might peek through and warm things up. I doubt that I'll be able to resin, and obviously have plenty to keep me busy in lieu of that!

 

[boomshakra]

No sanding done - too damn cold to be out in the garage!

But, I did get my right boot glued up - not 100% pleased with some parts of it, but I am learning more & more with each piece I assemble. Hopefully the left one will look at least as good as the right, or if nothing else they will both have the same flaws so they are a matched pair

It is leaning a bit on the back part - I have it 'held up' straight with a couple of pieces of tape right now. Before I resin it I'll get some popsicle sticks glued in there.

Edit: I also just noticed it is sagging a bit on the center piece, between the 4 "divots"...need to shore that up too...

After the left boot is done...it's time to start on my V3.0 helmet .

 

[Hells Badass]

People are always more critical on stuff they made themselves. Don't worry too much, its looking good so far and keep up the good work.

 

[boomshakra]

People are always more critical on stuff they made themselves. Don't worry too much, its looking good so far and keep up the good work.

thanks - it seems to be getting slightly easier with each part, as far as pepakura goes, at least

 

[boomshakra]

Quick update - the weather warmed up a bit so I finished the resin on helmet v2.0 and got a coat on the right boot. Finished assembling the left boot last night & it should get some resin tomorrow, weather permitting. No pix - can't access my photobucket from work ...but they aren't that exciting in the first place! So, hopefully some sanding on helmet v1.0 will get done as well as a coat of rondo inside both helmets & the hand plates...and if I have enough resin I'll lay down some fiberglass inside the right boot. V3.0 helmet will start tonight, most likely - would be ideal to have it assembled by next weekend, but we'll see how it goes

 

[boomshakra]

Not quite 70 degrees, but while I waited to see if it would get any warmer I did a little sanding (LITTLE being the operative word ):

Only so much I can do with a rasp & 60 grit sand paper - a mouse sander will be procured before the weekend is done!

So, first attempt at rondo, or a rondo-like substance, if nothing else. I used the last of my bondo & hardener and mixed enough resin (and its hardener) to make it pourable - still kind of thick, but it poured. Using a little at a time, I spread it around v1.0 helmet and got most of the interior covered - hard to tell if I got enough inside of the visor.

Unfortunately I forgot to pour some inside of the handplates - but, i'll be mixing more for v2.0 helmet soon, so I'll get them done then.

The cup I used to mix/pour from never got 'hot'...so I'm not sure if I used enough hardener. I'll let it sit for the rest of the weekend to see if it cures. Should it stay tacky...is there anything I can do to solidify it?

Here are the boots & v2.0 helmet ready for another coat of resin. Tomorrow I'll get them glassed

 

[Hells Badass]

I've had a problem with pieces not hardening before. If it doesn't harden after leaving it in the sun for several hours, what I did at least, was to just slather another layer on top with 2 or 3 times the hardener and it seeped through a little to the layer below and cured on top. I don't know if this means that the layer underneath is still not hardened or not and it is a bit wasteful, but it did fix the problem for me.

 

[Tigersgrace]

Just came across this build (+1sub) this is going to be an awesome build. And dont worry Boom i had to build 4 helms myself before i got one that fit me and i'm only doing a MKV build.

 

[boomshakra]

Thanks guys - it appears to be curing quite well, I'm happy to report . If anything it has added some weight to it - but a lot of that is from the thick layer of bondo i'll be sanding through for the next few days... . But, the cutting of helmet v3.0 awaits...