Zarlon

It is finished! Like everyone else has mentioned, I'll can still see a lot of areas I can tweak, but for now I'm calling it a day and I'm going to begin building the rest of my armor...Stay tuned.

Well the bucket build is coming to an end. All that was left to do was install the mic tips, mouth screen, and the lens. The mic tips were not as easy as i thought. They're installed but soem time down the road I'm going to try to shim them up some for strength. The lenses were a pretty easy job. I did end up drilling two holes on the left side but you cant tell from the outside of the helmet.I cut a notch to allow clearance from the side rivet and also cut away a section for the nose. After that, the only thing left was to install the teeth screen. For this, I used screen repair tape that I found at Menards. Once the screen was installed I added the bottom S-Curve seal and the bucket was finished.

After waiting for the paint to dry it was finally time to remove the stencil and see how the tube stripes came out. The left side was great but the right side was a mess. I tried to use a little bit of paint thinner to clean it up but in the end I decided to start over. For the second try I used very light strokes with the brush to try and avoid as much bleeding as possible. I ended up giving three coats of paint during the evening and in the end, I'm happy with the way both sides turned out.

I'm still four episodes behind on that show but I've loved everything on it so far.

After painting working on the black outlines, I decided to give the tube stripes some attention. You'll notice that I had to take the ears off to get the template to lay down properly.

I tried to thin out the black outlines yesterday. It looks better but still not very straight. I don't have a steady hand at all. For now though, I'm going to continue on with the rest of the painting and come back to it later once I get everything else done.

I agree and actually already worked on them this morning. I'll post updated pics when I get a chance.

Tonight it was time to try and and work on the black outlines and stripes. Since I don't have a very steady hand I let my daughter have a go at it. Some of the lines a re a bit thick but nothing a little touch up won't fix. I'm glad she did most of it for me because now all always think of her when I wear the helmet

Looking great good luck!

After the coat of white paint had dried, it was time to add the gray. I ended up using the Testors paints instead of the Humbrol. I had originally bought the Humbrol but after a quick coat of gray on the tear area I realized it was too thin for my liking.

Well I have been painting this week so it's time for another update. I started out masking all areas of the helmet that I thought would be difficult to paint free hand. Once I got everything taped up I coated the taped area with a base coat of white paint to help prevent bleed through.

Looks great! Hope mine turns out that well!

Thanks...time to get started on the paint!

I did some more work on the teeth last night and I'm much happier with how they turned out. Here is the before photo: And here is the after:

I thought about using the ABS paste on my ears for a second then decided I'd rather have it look more natural. I think you made the right choice!

I'm no expert but it looks great to me!

Thanks for the info. I'll check them out!

I'm still trying to decide if I should play with them some more tonight. I think I'll mess around with one of the extra ones to see if I can get it to look better.

The ears are definitely a pain. Just don't try and over due it. I don't think they'll ever get perfect. I gave up on mine and decided to just leave them with a bit of a gap.

QUESTION: What do you guys use for padding inside of your helmet and where did you buy it? I've read a few threads and got some ideas but I'd like to see what everyone else did before I choose. Thanks

Thanks for the feedback. I'll take another look when I'm cleaning it up.

Well I got some more work done on the left ear tonight. I started with a new ear to see if I could get it to look any better. I usual, I traced a line a little below where I thought I would need to cut. From there I took the trimming shears and cut the larger pieces off. After that it was grind and fit for about an hour. After a while I finally got it to a semi respectable level. I never was able to get the gap out completely but I'm not going to risk screwing it up any more so this is how its going to stay. I just need to clean up some of the edges by sanding them a bit and then the ears will be finished. Hopefully they will pass the EIB test when I go to apply.

Thanks Joe! Hope to get back at it tomorrow night.

Here are close up shots of the eyes.

I knew the teeth still needed some work but didn't realize the eyes could do with some trimming as well. I can see the they could use some leveling from the inside but what other part of the eyes needs some work?