The creation of the helmet


Page 02
So you decided to stay to see the helmet after the visor had been screwed into place, well there you go.

Observe the extra added length of the visor sticking out from beneath the mandibles.
The visor was trimmed down to the proper size with a Dremel tool, making the bottom of the visor flow with the bottom of the mandibles.
The dome I chose to use for this helmet appeared to be a vacuum formed military play helmet that had a commercial sticker on it.

As you can see after having removed the sticker, the paint was fairly simple to remove.
After all the paint was stripped off, the helmet looked like it was already primed, but it was just the color of the plastic.
Having made a line around the helmet dome with masking tape to show where I should cut it, I then pretty much cut it.
The helmet dome fit right into place and had the perfect shape for the helmet.
A few small lines of hot glue were added to the inside of the helmet dome to temporarily hold it in place until I got to secure it in place with fiber-glass and bondo.
The base for the ear cap was also glued onto the helmet using a hot glue gun.
The templates also came with a template for the helmet arrows that should be located in the middle of the helmet's front.
Having cut out the shapes of the arrows in the template, I used a blue marker to mark off where the plastic should be cut away.
The templates for the ear pieces came along with reference plans as well that were very helpful.

Most of the panels for the ear pieces were made out of thin aluminum plates, the same as the one in the photo.
A grinding Dremel bit was used to make the various panels flow better together.
A few other staples were added around the back also.
It's not much, but it will give the helmet dome some additional strength.

Standing in full Mandalorian armor while donning the helmet, making the helmet dome rip apart from the rest of it might not be as funny for me as to the people watching.
To make the helmet dome sit more stable on top of the helmet, two small holes were made where a staple was added and bent closed on the inside.
Masking tape was added to the outside and inside of the visor to protect it from scratches and also bondo and paint once this was applied later on.
Getting no air bubbles beneath the foil to work with after having applied it, the visor could quickly be screwed back into place.
And of course I had tinting foil lying around for the visor.

To apply the tinting foil, one has to spray the visor with water, but air bubbles will sometimes get trapped within the foil when it is applied, so I thought that it might be better to apply the tinting foil under water instead, and it worked.
The end result can be seen over there somewhere.
After the arrow holes were cut through the helmet dome, a small piece of the same plastic was glued onto the inside of the helmet dome behind the arrow holes.
Since I had a thick plate of Plexiglass that had just the right thickness for the range finder stalk, I made the stalk out of it by gluing on the template for the stalk.
The outer base for the ear cap was made out of three layered aluminum plates since it would be easier to achieve the roundness at the top this way rather than bending one plate.
Bondo was also added inside the holes that were drilled earlier, and a Dremel tool was used to give the holes the correct tubular downwards structure.

Or something like that.
Bondo was applied around the edges of the parts to make them all into one solid part.
After all the parts had been bent to the right shape, they were all glued together onto the base.
The angled bottom part of the same ear piece was also made out of thin aluminum.
To make the base of the lower right ear piece, the edges of an aluminum plate were bent down to create the proper height for the base.
After the paper templates were removed, three holes were drilled through the part seen in the middle of the photo.
After the parts were cut out, they were bent to the right shape.
After having cut out the various templates, they were glued onto the thin aluminum plates.

The plates were about 0.5 millimeters thick, so the parts could easily be cut out with a regular pair of scissors.
The inner base for the ear cap was made out of a thinner plate of Plexiglass.
To power up the LED's inside the range finder, I found a small rotation switch that had the same diameter as the bottom of the stalk where it is to be located.
And even threaded so that the ear cap could be screwed onto the rest of the helmet once all its parts come together.
Then the holes were drilled.
After placing the guiding track base onto the side of the helmet where it should be, a few crossing lines were made where holes will be drilled.
After having filed the parts to the proper flatness, the edges and surfaces were sanded smooth.
A hole was drilled through the bottom of the stalk.

Indeed.
Guess what tool I used to cut out the guiding track base.

Here are the two parts anyway.
The guiding track base for the stalk was also made out of the same thick Plexiglass.
A jig-saw was used to cut out the stalk from the Plexiglass.
A small hole was made through the outer base of the ear cap to make clearance for the screw used to hold the stalk in place.
Not wanting the range finder to fall down on its own, I made a narrow track along the inner base where a small pin on the side of the stalk would slide from one holding pit to the other on either side of the narrow track.

Of course the bottom holding pit is not necessary to hold the range finder down, but it will relieve the pressure on the pin once the range finder is placed downwards.
A screw was put through the stalk and the rotation switch and held in place by two nuts.
The bottom of the stalk was shaped to fit onto the rotation switch with a Dremel tool.

Two wires were probably also added to the rotation switch.
Once the inner base was put into place, it all fit nicely together.
Some extra clearance was made for the rotation switch.
Having removed the metal from the area, the helmet held itself together nicely anyway, so it didn't matter that much.
Hawing marked off the area on the helmet where the metal should be removed, a small problem occurred.
After the hole was made larger, the opening for the wires was also made, along with a small clearance area for the soldering points of the rotation switch.
To make the rotation switch fit inside the hole of the inner base, it of course had to be bigger, but a smaller hole was made first to make it easier to properly center the larger hole.
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