Metal Hayabusa Helmet

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Awesomeness said:
I'm not accusing you of not knowing what you're talking about, I'm stating it as a fact. You don't know. I don't know.



You know, when I signed onto this forum, I was told that although there was a wealth of information here that some of the people here were arrogant and difficult to deal with. I was told this by someone who spent over a year building a full Masterchief suit that rivals the best I've seen on here or anywhere. He has seen thousands of posts here and does not post anymore himself. I thought I'd give it a try anyways because I am a pretty humble guy and didn't think I would elicit such reactions. You are correct in that I have not built a metal helmet before but you are wrong in stating it as a fact that I do not know what I am talking about in regards to working with metal. Some things you have said to me in your last two posts tell me that you are good at doing research on the internet - congrats. I will leave it at that.



I am a very hardworking individual and typically work 80-120 hours a week just to barely pay my bills. I really don't have the time to work on this project but I am going to make time somehow. I especially don't have time to deal with responding to posts that attack me in this way. If you continue to act arrogant and attack my personal knowledge with no real basis I will simply stop posting here and you will be responsible for the rest of this community not being able to watch this build.





Awesomeness said:
14ga steel weighs about 3.5lb/sq-ft. A 12" sphere has a surface area of about 6 1/3 sq-ft, meaning it would weigh about 22lb. The helmet obviously isn't a sphere, but is probably somewhere in that neighborhood in terms of surface area. It could be less, because of the mask cutout, or more, because of all the varied faces. That's probably way too heavy to actually (i.e. comfortably) wear, especially when you add bondo, paint, lights, padding, etc. I would personally stay under 20ga (1/2 that weight), and maybe even under 24ga (1/3 that weight).



This is the first piece of constructive response you have given me, and I am actually very happy to respond to it. To summarize what you said - it will be heavy, and possibly too heavy to wear for extended periods. True. Very True. The point of this project though, is to make something different than what has been done before, and have fun with it! I personally think that it will look really cool - in bare steel, not bondoed and painted but just the look of plain bare steel. I think that the most something like this would be worn would be for a few hours at a time at a convention. If I wanted to wear something useful for a full day, I would borrow a close friends full S.W.A.T. gear (although I think that would be highly illegal! haha) Although I am going to make this out of steel, I certainly hope that everyone realizes it isn't being created to be a functional helmet.





Anyway, let's just see what happens and try it out! I'll (probably) start posting some pics soon!



-Darren
 
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There is a difference between arrogance and experience/elitism, and you don't seem to understand it. Stated quite simply, making the helmet out of 14ga steel without tabs means that you are going to have to weld every seam, and that is going to take dozens, possibly hundreds, of hours just for the welding, and weigh enough to make it unrealistic to wear (especially if you plan to make other metal armor to go with it). It will not produce a result that gains you much in terms of advancing towards the goal of a finished (e.g. Bondo'd, painted, wearable) helmet. If you're just going to make the helmet out of metal, and lacquer it to prevent corrosion, it's more of an artistic piece than something you intend to use, and you should use whatever construction method will achieve the best finished look.



I submit that accusing me of only being a good internet researcher makes you far more arrogant than I am. I have a great many successes that have led me to my attitude, and you'd probably just accuse me of lying if I told you. Everything I've said so far wasn't researched at all, it was from memory, and in fact you'll probably find that what I've said is a little off if you look it up because I didn't go research specifics. I've built my own 14-16ga SCA combat armor, several award winning costumes, and done a lot of fabrication in the auto racing and offroad world. I think we all need to be good internet researchers, though, if we're going to attempt projects this challenging without reinventing the wheel all the time.



I just don't see the benefits to the way you described wanting to do it. I think creating a metal Pepakura model is a fantastic idea, that I even said I've been considering doing myself (here and in other posts). Unless you just like doing things the hard wary for extra challenge, you're passing up the opportunity to "work smarter not harder" and end the journey with a bunch of advantages over a paper model. Although I guess if you just want a conversation piece, not a wearable replica (painted) helmet, you may not be interested in any of the advantages of metal (stiffer shell, can retain mechanical fasteners, no need to resin/fiberglass, tack welding is faster than gluing, etc.)



If you're working 12-18 hour work days, 7 days a week, to get 80-120 hours of work in, and still just paying the bills, why do you want to get into this? These costumes take hundreds or thousands of hours of work, and as many dollars. The paladin costume in my avatar and gallery probably took me 1000 hours of work across about 8 months, and about $2500 to build. Not that one metal helmet is going to break you, but doing things in extreme ways (e.g. metal instead of paper, or any other outlandish step beyond the normally accepted tried-and-true ways) is just going to inflate the time and money costs. Maybe do a small scale test, with another piece of armor, because when you go into uncharted waters, you're getting a fantastic challenge/reward, but also blazing a trail with your time and paycheck (neither of which you say that you have much of).



Sincerely, I really look forward to seeing the pictures. I'm currently tied up in another project for a couple months, and wasn't going to be able to try my metal Pepakura until then.



-----EDIT----

I also wanted to mention that metal makes this stuff very heavy, very fast. And wearing it for extended periods of time isn't as easy as it seems on paper. It's hard to see in the picture, but the armor in my avatar has a shirt of bronze chainmail under it, that I made out of 7/16" diameter 16ga rings. The chainmail weighs 26lb all by itself! The whole armor suit weighs 73lb, including the urethane casted armor plates, the 14ga steel neck gorget (kind of hidden), leather, and buckles. You end up wearing it practically all day at conventions, because you don't want to leave and miss anything, and because it's so much fun. When I was in the Army, carrying around that much weight all the time was more annoying than seriously uncomfortable, but if you're not used to doing it regularly, it honestly does push to very uncomfortable very quickly. These costumes are very cool, but highly impractical. You often need help putting them on / taking them off, and they take a lot of time to do so. So I typically end up wearing it all day, or maybe with one short break with some of it removed. I recommend planning for it that way if you end up working towards something to actually wear.
 
TwiztedEng said:
...The point of this project though, is to make something different than what has been done before, and have fun with it! I personally think that it will look really cool - in bare steel, not bondoed and painted but just the look of plain bare steel. I think that the most something like this would be worn would be for a few hours at a time at a convention. If I wanted to wear something useful for a full day, I would borrow a close friends full S.W.A.T. gear (although I think that would be highly illegal! haha) Although I am going to make this out of steel, I certainly hope that everyone realizes it isn't being created to be a functional helmet.





Anyway, let's just see what happens and try it out! I'll (probably) start posting some pics soon!



-Darren



I like it. I think that this would be cool just to have around as a ..."prototype Busa?" You know like.. the UNSC would have tons of blanks hanging around when they were first making and designing these. I guess you could say like a raw construction. If you wear it..it will be heavy. But hey.

Its metal. Whats made out of pure metal that isnt heavy? haha. Ill be interested to see how this turns out for sure.



you planning on doing anything else using your cutter? Or is the busa the first step??



-Loki
 
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Metal armour shouldn't be too heavy, especially if it's made from aluminium. Remember that a medieval suit of plate armour weighs less than the standard kit of many of today's elite forces.
 
Awesomeness said:
There is a difference between arrogance and experience/elitism, and you don't seem to understand it.



Bro you should have stopped when you had the chance.



Anyway - beast build. With that CNC machine you could probobly do a lot in the way of armor and you could proboly even sell some peices and suits to make some extra bucks.
 
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009-SPA said:
Metal armour shouldn't be too heavy, especially if it's made from aluminium. Remember that a medieval suit of plate armour weighs less than the standard kit of many of today's elite forces.



Except that he's not making it out of aluminum, and is using steel, and the helmet itself would weigh about 20 pounds, if not more.



On the tldr rant that just terrorized the last page and top of this one, I'll say this: If your time and expenses are of that much importance to you at this point, this is probably not the project to take on right now. It's a great idea that many have dreamed about (including myself), but there are a lot of obstacles you'd have to overcome before actually constructing it. Awesomeness has brought up quite a few of them, although in a less reasonable way than was warranted (does nobody use the PM system anymore? Talk about thread hijacking).



You might want to PM Moz and see what he thinks about the project. He made some very detailed Mark V armor out of metal a while back, he might be able to give some pointers on what you should do to suit your build for the pep process.
 
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I have 16 years of fabrication and welding experience under my belt, with 0.5mm steel, tig welding this could easily be lighter than some of the bondo builds here and a hell of a lot less cleaning up to do.
 
Awesomeness, there are a few things I'd like to say, especially about "elitism" but I'm not going to continue down this road and fill this thread with that sort of stuff. If you truly are interested in seeing some pics, then feel free to watch and see how it comes out. If you want to post more between you and I then please PM me.



Trickster Loki said:
I like it. I think that this would be cool just to have around as a ..."prototype Busa?" You know like.. the UNSC would have tons of blanks hanging around when they were first making and designing these. I guess you could say like a raw construction. If you wear it..it will be heavy. But hey.

Its metal. Whats made out of pure metal that isnt heavy? haha. Ill be interested to see how this turns out for sure.



you planning on doing anything else using your cutter? Or is the busa the first step??



-Loki



Loki, you've got it! My original thought was to have this as a showpiece, and using the thickness of steel I am going to should allow it to be welded easier and quicker at the expense of it being heavier. Maybe if it goes together really well I will try out something thinner and make it more bearable to be worn.

As far as doing other things, sure! I currently only use my plamsa about 50% or less of the time I am here (making automotive parts) so I am looking to fill it's time more wisely with anything I can think of! You gots any good ideas??!?





009-SPA said:
Metal armour shouldn't be too heavy, especially if it's made from aluminium. Remember that a medieval suit of plate armour weighs less than the standard kit of many of today's elite forces.



I would actually really like to make this out of aluminum, but due to the setup I currently have, steel is what I can do more easil and much cheaper. Maybe something for the future though!





Fuzzy the Bear said:
Bro you should have stopped when you had the chance.



Anyway - beast build. With that CNC machine you could probobly do a lot in the way of armor and you could proboly even sell some peices and suits to make some extra bucks.



That would be awesome! I don't necessarily think I could recover my costs in terms of time spent, but getting something back from a build (If I could part with it) would be really cool - I consider that a compliment if someone likes something of mine enough to pay a little for it. :)



ImaGonnaGetYou said:
Except that he's not making it out of aluminum, and is using steel, and the helmet itself would weigh about 20 pounds, if not more.



On the tldr rant that just terrorized the last page and top of this one, I'll say this: If your time and expenses are of that much importance to you at this point, this is probably not the project to take on right now. It's a great idea that many have dreamed about (including myself), but there are a lot of obstacles you'd have to overcome before actually constructing it. Awesomeness has brought up quite a few of them, although in a less reasonable way than was warranted (does nobody use the PM system anymore? Talk about thread hijacking).



You might want to PM Moz and see what he thinks about the project. He made some very detailed Mark V armor out of metal a while back, he might be able to give some pointers on what you should do to suit your build for the pep process.



I agree that I am probably getting myself in over my head. Although there is always the time between 2:00am and 7:00am which is currently devoted to rest that I could tap into :) But seriously I need a vacation badly and since that isn't in the cards right now a diversion will do. Making something like this will be a great diversion for me, and I'm gonna give it a shot :) Hopefully it comes out decent and doesn't take me too excessively long!



Rebostar said:
I have 16 years of fabrication and welding experience under my belt, with 0.5mm steel, tig welding this could easily be lighter than some of the bondo builds here and a hell of a lot less cleaning up to do.



Exactly what I was thinking about with the cleanup. I really am surprised that the weight has been brought up so many times - I really didn't consider it something that I was going to wear for very long if at all at the start, but that's why I joined this forum and brought up the topic. It's something I am thinking about much more seriously now.





SO, short of going and getting a new TIG machine (I haven't had one in years now... sad :( ) I think I am still going to continue down the path of steel, however I am now much more seriously considering a TIG soon, for an aluminum build if this one goes well. Although I might go borrow a TIG for this anyway- it would certainly make it easier and less cleanup.



Well, that's it for now, I took on 2 extra jobs today so I might not be able to get the steel today - hopefully, but tomorrow fo sure if I can't get it today!



-Darren
 
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Well guys, I did an HID headlight conversion on a 2010 Tundra this morning, and fabricated a custom Airbag install on a lifted 4-Runner this afternoon. Now I still have to finish up an engine swap in a Cherokee this evening, so no steel today. I am going to try and get up early tomorrow AM and get to the steel yard then. I'll keep you posted tomorrow!



-Darren
 
You realize you did about 3 times more work than the mechanics I know do in a single day?

As for the helmet, I'm not going to go on about the weight or anything, but I think it should be pointed out that with the way the helmet's designed there's going to be hard to reach places when you're welding/grinding
 
Tango 89er said:
You realize you did about 3 times more work than the mechanics I know do in a single day?

As for the helmet, I'm not going to go on about the weight or anything, but I think it should be pointed out that with the way the helmet's designed there's going to be hard to reach places when you're welding/grinding



Haha! Yeah, I work my butt off every day, but when you own the company, you have more initiative :)



And yes, there are def. going to be hard places to weld, but I think I can do that. The grinding/cleanup in those ares will be the most difficult. That's going to be one of the biggest challenges I think. I can't wait to get there and figure it out!



-Darren
 
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If you're going to leave it bare metal, it would be cool to "engine turn" it.



The process of polishing known as engine turning, swirling or jewelling dates back into the 1800's. Engine turning or jewelling is a process of polishing stainless steel or other metal items with small overlapping swirls that form a moiré pattern. This jewelled pattern creates a dazzling finish that reflects light and makes the surface seem alive. Probably the most famous application of engine turning can be seen on the cowling of Lindbergh’s “Spirit of St. Louis”.



EngineTurnClose.JPG
 
If you manage to pull this off nicely, I would really like to see it when it's finished!



You BETTER show pics! LOL
 
Awesomeness said:
If you're going to leave it bare metal, it would be cool to "engine turn" it.



I agree with you there! I was thinking I'd wait and see how it looked after grinding the welds alone. If it needs something more, then I was thinking of a quick sandblast and then something like what you sugget. Then I was also thinking of spraying it with an automotive candy color (Candy Blood Red by Alsa maybe?) and a good clearcoat for extra shiny-ness! Any thoughts?



HaloGoddess said:
If you manage to pull this off nicely, I would really like to see it when it's finished!



You BETTER show pics! LOL



But of course!!
 
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TwiztedEng said:
I agree with you there! I was thinking I'd wait and see how it looked after grinding the welds alone. If it needs something more, then I was thinking of a quick sandblast and then something like what you sugget. Then I was also thinking of spraying it with an automotive candy color (Candy Blood Red by Alsa maybe?) and a good clearcoat for extra shiny-ness! Any thoughts?



Well, if you're going to make it out of metal, and you don't intend to Bondo it to make it look like a smooth finished helmet, then you should leave it unpainted to show off the metal. Otherwise it won't look any different than a painted paper Pepakura build. Like has been suggested already, leaving it unfinished metal give it a little bit of a story, where it's a metal blank for a helmet waiting to be finished. A painted faceted helmet, that isn't smoothed to look like a finished one, doesn't have a story that I can think of.



And then adding some sort of industrial finish to the metal (engine turning, heat discoloration with a torch, wire brushed, etc.) just adds to the effect.
 
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Awesomeness said:
Well, if you're going to make it out of metal, and you don't intend to Bondo it to make it look like a smooth finished helmet, then you should leave it unpainted to show off the metal. Otherwise it won't look any different than a painted paper Pepakura build. Like has been suggested already, leaving it unfinished metal give it a little bit of a story, where it's a metal blank for a helmet waiting to be finished. A painted faceted helmet, that isn't smoothed to look like a finished one, doesn't have a story that I can think of.



And then adding some sort of industrial finish to the metal (engine turning, heat discoloration with a torch, wire brushed, etc.) just adds to the effect.



If I was to paint it with a solid color, yes. But, a candy color with no basecoat allows all the grinder/turn marks in the steel to show through. It is a really neat finish and very eye-catching, however my biggest hesitation with that is that it might take away from the overall look of the helmet. I think the helmet will speak for itself and not need such a finish. But it looks really cool so I just don't know what to do!
 
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Oh, and I was able to get up early enough this morning to get over to the steel yard, so I now have some of the right size steel for it :)

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-Darren
 
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