LittleOne

got fed up and sanded the stripes off..not the end of the world...i put a new hope on and within no time they were gone! good motivating movie ...i should do a mister no stripes helmet ahahahhaha. on to my tests, well as you can see it did not work out and i got fed up..i ll have to find a way to use the stencils without bleeds...but i sure as hell won't test anymore on my bucket until i get it right. on the plus side i got this in the mail today... anyone else collecting the vintage redos? cheers!

If my tests fail i might end up doing that....i ll sand off the stripes and do your trick with the sealer.

i have spare ears, i am testing on... i am running a test: I put a coat of liquid mask on the piece of plastic, then i pressed on the stencil over the liquid mask and made sure the stencil is very tightly applied to the surface, i cleaned up the space where the tube should be painted then i applied some paint lightly. in my opinion the masking fluid should seal the edges of the stencil and prevent bleeding under ( i hope )... i have done this morning and i have to wait to get home from work to see the results. i ll let you know how it turned out...

yep you are right, i cant use thinner i am gonna have a worse mess than what i have right now. I ll have to find another way... sand off mask the blue stripes and repaint the blue bleeds with white over it... i ll have to find a way

i think i ll try this on a piece of scrap plastic... i ll wet the undercoat of the stencil with soapy water then apply to some plastic surface,,i believe the soap should create an even stronger seal than the tack of the stencil when it is dried and also seal the edges of the stencil design...i ll carefully wipe out the excess soap within the stripes before it is dried up and try to paint.. i ll go buy some cheap for sale plastic signs to try different things on them... it is not the stripes per say, it is the tackiness that is not strong enough... i did paint from edge to insides of stencils just like mike but somehow the paint still got under even though i had made sure the stencils were well pressed against the surface... boy, i ll be able to write a book on helmet making when i am done for sure...

I was using mike stencils to paint the tube stripes and did everything according to his vids, even painted the same way but darn be, they all leaked out and are all ugly when i pulled off the stencils. I have had nothing but beginners bad luck with this helmet. Now i have to find a way to salvage this.... I could repaint over completely white and restart the process again with the stencils but i ll likely end up with same results. My idea in the end was trying to cover the blue parts of the stripes and then spray some white gloss over until the spills are gone after removing the mask revealing just the blue stripes... Kind of a cheat way to do it but it seems i have no real alternative. What i would like is to have an airbrush so i could airbrush the tubes with the stencils but that would set me back another chunk of money. i was thinking about using liquid mask to mask those parts but again the stuff stick too much and it kinda hard to get on since it is gooey after a while. i tried a toothpaste test tonight wherein i masked an area with toothpaste and painted krylon over it...the results were not too bad but still not precise enough for me. i need to find a way to mask those tiny little tube stripes properly... i cant do any scratching or thinner thing because it attacks the paint below... any suggestions is welcomed. I think after this part i will be able to handle the rest without too much aggravations... cheers!

Hi all, this applies to HIPS helmets dont know if this is gonna help anyone but after painting my helmet so many times because of different reasons, i finally discovered a way ( sort of ) to paint properly ( please feel free to disagree completely with this) In the end what i found is this: step 1: shake you can of krylon pretty well and for a long time before you paint. step 2: test your paint can by painting away to see how the spray turns out out of the can. Step 3: hold your can at a distance of the surface where your paint starts to drop by gravity. The idea is to let the paint drop on the helmet, instead of trying to cover a specific area and have runs. I think it is better to have to do several coats than just one thick coat full of ugly runs. step 4: start painting outside the helmet and moving in...like drawing a long line on a piece of paper. then exit out of your helmet while spraying. do this at fairly brisk pace or fast movement of the arm. you ll lose paint but better to lose paint than have it looking ugly on the helmet and "always" buy 2 cans just in case....you may need to do some touch ups some time later! step 5: i found out that if you do 4 to 5 pass of this line where you paint you will avoid runs. Meaning: i pass quickly doing my line 4 to 5 times then i let it dry... step 5: after your 4 to 5 th pass, wait let the paint dry for at least close to 5 minutes and up the more you wait the less chance you have a chance of generating bad runs. While waiting shake your can, and when you start to paint again spray away from the helmet a few times then continue painting your helmet again. Step 6: repeat until you are satisfied that the job is done. TiP: put your helmet high, as high as you can reach the top with the can. The chin part gave me the most problem because i was spraying over the helmet and all the paint went down, created gobs of paint that i had to sand. It is easier to paint under the chin area if you helmet if high and you get less of a chance of having runs or gobs of paints in the end because you will be in a natural position when painting. If you have an adustable height stand the better so you can bring the helmet down when done the under the chin part or up and down depending on the part you are painting. the pause in between sprays is crucial i think because the more you try to put on at one time the more it will turn crappy on you. I learned the hard way that it is better to put in 10 lights coats in succession with pauses in between than trying to put 3 thick coats and then having to sand off gobs of paint. I am not an expert at all, and i am sure that you tube can show how to paint properly. But even then, seeing and doing is 2 different things and it takes practice to be a better painter but knowledge and tips are great too. please fell free to ad your tips for others.. so quick spray 4-5 times then take a break then do this again. update: Today i have tried to paint the traps and temples on the side with crappy results. ( lack of experience i am sure ) but i always got out of my mess so far so i ll clean this one too. I also did the frown which turned out real cool. I masked the part i did not want to paint with some liquid mask , let is dry out then painted away the humbrol gray and let it dry...roughly 6 hours later i checked and the humbrol was dry, so i rubbed the mask off and the frown looks crappy, just like in the movies, so at least that part i am very satisfied with. so that is another tip, you can mask the frown if you think your hand is not steady enough to do a proper job, that paid off for me. If i ever decide to do another helmet, i think i am going to invest into an airbrush to paint the details because my hand is not steady enough and i got crappy results that i have to fix... cheers! opinion: I am inclined to say that you should paint your bucket but not do a “final coat†until your detailing is done… What I mean by this is that if you make mistakes on your details, traps, tears, frown, or vocoder and you have to sand off stuff, chances are you are going to hit the paint below and curse like I did. It is some work to clean the stuff off the masking liquid but it beats having to repaint the white parts over and over.. For me, my solution is to paint the details and then mask the details with liquid mask so you can peel it off after your final coat of paint… There is no point in trying to obtain the perfect paint “shinny glossy look†if you know that you are going to have defects while detailing that you are going to have to clean up by sanding most likely which will void your cool shiny paint job... Perfect example: my tubestripes were messed up so I had so sand them off which took some of the paint below so I have to paint some part of the bucket again so might as well wait until the very end and then do the white do-over after all the detailing is done… Some will say this is not the way to go, but as a beginner and facing a lot of unknown in doing your bucket you will find that you will do the same thing over and over again which is going to upset you. The older troopers are better at doing this and they know what to do and avoid the mistakes so they can safely build their bucket without running into any problems…

the move along helmet as white insides, the grill is painted black which gives the impression that it the inside of the mic is painted black, some guy blew up a picture and showed it up... so i would say all white...

Hi again, i have seen some tutorial on how to put the mesh in but i can't recall where to find this. can anyone give me tips or where to find this. thanks

thanks again folks

hi, i need to paint my hovi mix tips but i was wondering which black should i choose... gloss satin or flat? thanks

Thanks as always you Rock!

I could not find any Humbrol paint around here so i had to order a kit from Mike and they were delivered lightning fast to my door. testors also was hard to find...i located some in case i could not get the humbrol from Mike... I was able to find the gray and the black color at a local Michael's but i could not get the same shade of blue close to french blue... I was able to find an awesome site that compared humbrol to other companies...i was able to get some testor blue that was very close to the french humbrol blue but it was a shade above or below french blue...to the untrained eye there would not have been a problem...but all of that settle down when i got the paint from Mike. Plus i believe that Humbrol colors were used on the screen used helmets so if u use humbrol, you are making your kit even more authentic so to speak... Mike's kit is dirt cheap so it is worth it to get it from him and save yourself a ton of research and aggravations... cheers!

Hi Mike, In your case, how long do you wait to remove your stencils after you have applied the paint.... example: tube stripes... thanks

Hi all, I know another painting question... i was looking at Mike's helmet painting videos and i was wondering how long it is recommended to let the paint dry before removing the stencil... it is not really specified so just wondering... thanks

Hi Guys, I was wondering if i should sand the primer a little bit...i got a fairly smooth eggshell liek surface out of the primer coat i made but i got a few minor things to fix though, what grit of sandpaper would you recommend? thanks

thanks, yes i can hold that long.... after the khaki for the gloss white can you tell me how you would proceed? like multiple coats of it within a short amount of time?

I have primed my helmet and was wondering how long i should let it dry? ( Krylon white primer ) panda says 1 week between each different coat of paints...is that a realistic figure? here is what i want to do...primer is done...I want to paint Khaki on, then some gloss white...i am just wondering if you gotta wait long after the primer stage...

yep ATA kit, Hips version...just to show off his work....

that sig is so funny Ctankep! where is this gif coming from?

not to hijack this thread, and it is also a little OT but ATA makes some cool HIPS helmet too... for those who are wondering.... ------------- primer stage... ---------------- playing with the brow and the move along look...

now i get the whole thing as to why Lucas is suing or was trying to sue him... at one point i was like, why is George trying to sue this guy and i was a little dissed but now that i get the whole story i see why... Lucas is a man of principles and it makes me admire him that much more!

Bah Humbug! He charges way too much for his stuff anyways and when the simon suit will come out and the word is spread he is gonna fade away... also sometimes if you do something that is shady and you advertise yourself too much, you run a chance of doing an Hara Kiri and by him running a facebook page to argue with people is just the way this guys is gonna do himself in. People are not dumb and from facebook will go to other page and to ohter pages and finally end up in places like this place and find out that the man might not seem what he seems to be. that is how i eneded up here...i started on his page and went from page to page and found this site and now i know what he is up to...that is a "possible sale" he lost even tough i would not have bought from him anyways.... if you are smart you are gonnae do more research before forking almost a 1000$ on a repro helmet. the only thing he can claim to himself as legit is to have worked on the original movie...just because of that should his helmet command premium prices juste because he was part of the original movie making process... i think that is the question we should debate and i think this is whole philosophy. "I worked on the original movie and my hands touched the screen helmets so you can consider that if my hands touched your helmet therefore they are as genuine as the screen ones" some people actually think like that you know... if they participated in something they feel they are entitled to charge a hefty price from you to get a sample of themselves on whatever they are selling...look at the celebrity autograph industry...go to a convention and you got to pay thru the nose to get an autograph on a cheap photo from a celebrity... i seem to recall that captain Kirk once got some awful bad publicity when someone asked him for his autograph and he said to that person, "if you want my autograph, its gonna cost you 50$" actors charging for autographs of course the person asking for this did not appreciate that kind of attitude at all and probably thought that the celebrity was "cool" enough to sign a piece of paper just because he likes his fans...but like i said some people who are famous will try to cash in in any way they can for different reasons good or bad... i think Andrew suffers from this type of problem...whatever a shrink may call it... it was in the news for a bit...

Well, to answer you honestly...i dont care who does what ....waht i care about is the quality of the kits being offered and the honesty of the reseller. However some people here do care about who does what and where it is coming from because they paid big bucks for their kit at one time or another...... we have all read a thousands recast debate and we know the outcome of those discussions and it is always nasty in the end... Should we care about VT? I dont see him trying to sell his stuff here... and if someone is playing games with people, that person will usually slip up at one time or another and get caught in his game...

I really don't think we would get a confession from anyone at this point and i dont think someone would come forward and admit to everyone that he has been doing other type of deals somewhere else on the internet..."if this is the case" i am not accusing anyone by the way.... another way to prove anything is if someone who got an actual VT kit would come forward and provide us with the contact inforamtion they have received from VT on the purchase...when VT shipped his helmet, he must have put his return adress on the box as any normal person would do, unless he coevered his tracks by not doing it. i don't know if we should stir any more of this... since we have nothing to work with....