Ironman pep helmet.W.I.P will be PIC Heavy ..

[Pigglywiggly1973]

Updated 2-13-2014....



First off. Hello again all.. been a few months since i posted any thing in a while.. month or two. Here's what i've been working on lately..
Started with Sharkmas's small Chin file .....
Moved on to pepping and first layers of bondo/rondo and inserting screws..

Youll notice paper around the screws .. thats to give the correct "gappage" between the screws and the "plate metal its attached to ...
Here's the same areas after bondo dried up and paper was removed.

Next up is the Upper area sanded down after a coat of primer and sanding down again.. (i love sanding by hand) really i do ..


Theres a few areas that need some work to them still but so far im happy with the progress.. i also started carving in the slide plates where the face plate would flip up to , since this is goign to be a static helemt for display im not going to cut and robotic the face/chin area's. I'm doing this for a friend since he's a fan of Ironman and is in a rough period in his life .. hopefully it'll brighten him up. ( I've had thoose periods in life as well being a wounded vet and i get down as well but creating something brings me up in spirits untill i finish a project then i start another)

IM carving the lines by hand right now just to rough them in and will go back and straighten them up later.. for right now they are there for is guides.

As always.. comments are welcome..ill post more later this week as i move down and around the helmet..My time frame is to have this done in 3 weeks.. sooner would be nice.. but i cant stress taking time ...time frames kill you in the mind

 

[Mstruvmgc]

Looking good

 

[Pigglywiggly1973]

Update: with good weather here in California in the early mornings i was able to get some decent work done over the last few days.....


Was able to get the Nose area in and roughed up.. too awhile to get it nice and clean. First i had to sand down all the paint from the brow area. then draw out a socket area and cut it in.

Finished roughing in the sockets and was going to start sanding down when i noticed this...bad bondo assistant...
Fixed that area then went to other side...
NOt alot of issues here on this side....decided to spend a little time to fix the mouth area

I like this alot better now that i have taken my time and gone back and spend the first few hours of each morning looking at what i did the day before and correcting it.

After that i started in on the rear of the helmet...
Working this area by hand was little crampy... cutting sand.. cut ..sand.. rinse repeat... for about 2 hours getting it flush and edged just right. then i decided to cut in the jaw details...
..
Lotta work left to do but looks good so far ..

 

[Jen A266]

Nice job on the bondo work! not sure why but Bondo and i can never seem to get along..

 

[Pigglywiggly1973]

Update time..
First off this is how my weekend started
Alot of rain and temps in the upper 50's.. cold.. LOL yeah right...
Anyways i decided this weekend i would work on the ear plugs as i call them. the following show my progress..

I started with a reprint of the ears and detail part...


Got them cut out and test fitted before any work is done to them ....
Moved onto the bondo and filling stages of the ears caps...


Then i went ahead and test fitted everythign again checking for size and placement issues....fitting well i then epoxed them into place..


After fixing them into place time to move to helmet to cut out ear caps there


Moved on to sanding and trimming down the ear area and placement testing...


So over the weekend i was able to adjust, cut , test , fit and place only one ear.. not sure if that is huge progress , but it was alot of stuff done for one ear LOL. Thats my update for now... will continue in the morning and update after the other side is done..
As always ...comments welcome.

 

[Pigglywiggly1973]

Update... weather was good today so i was able to get the other ear on...

THen it was time to do a ton of sanding and priming.. over and over ....

then it was time to do last prime coat before tomorrow's base coats....

hopefully all will go well and the sun gods will be on my side again.. then again with a micro climate like in my area.. it could be raining all day and kill those plans...
As always ... please comment..

 

[CasualCosplayer]

Hats off! Awesome work so far!


Pat-

 

[Pigglywiggly1973]

Update again... Weather was awesome today.

Started the painting process. Used Dupli-color paint codes for Ford Sunburst and GM Dark Cherry Metallic. Was able to get Sunburst color on.



This is what it looked like before tape removal... AWESOME!!! 10 light coats of paint misting..And then off comes the tape...


And then i saw this when i was removing the last tape run...

a rip in the paint.. so i did as i usually do and took out 1000 grit paper and sanded for about a hour and retaped and painted..

All better now.. the dirty spot is tape residue left over from removing the tape a little to soon. I wanted to get it off so i could cure it inside over night inside the house since we are actually moving into a new house i set the temp to 110 degrees.. and baking it inside over night (dont tell the wife) so tomorrow when i get there i will add about 4 layers of Silver base to the back of helmet and then 6 light layers of the dark cherry.

Barring any weather issues tomorrow and any other issues i should have this rough painted in. The next foreseen issue isthis..

I've seen ppl leave the paint job as is. Orange peel and all. Im a stickler for not liking the way new paint looks on things. Auto paints leave that orange peel and i cant stand it. And being new to the whole "fresh from the factory" paint jobs, is there a way to get rid of that other than wetsanding it? Reason i ask is because ive read that wetsanding metallic colors can cause them to "flip". Ive looked for info on this here on the forums and cant find anything. that or i didnt read past page 60+ ( which i just broke my own rule) , any help on this would be great. Any way ...

Untill Batman and Megatron get along.. I bid you all a fond Captain Kangaroo....

 

[Pigglywiggly1973]

Well Update time again. Sorry for crappy pics also

Spent most of the last 2 days laying down the Dark Cherry Metallic over a base run of chrome paint to keep it from darkening up to much and here is the results...


Whats left to do ? Paint the eyes and mouth area black after these layers dry up. Which will be done on Tuesday, Due to final move in to new house..finally...