rwmead10

The next step took a few weeks between work and paint drying. I painted the black outline first, filled in the grey and then used the trooperbay stencils for the tube stripes and tear and trap lines.

I wanted the frown mesh to look clean but still be removable. Following Spyder’s tutorial I used .030 styrene and created a frame and sprayed it with plastidip. Then I super glued the mesh to the frame and applied Velcro to secure it to the interior.

I prepped for spraying the plasti dip by lightly sanding the interior with 400 grit sandpaper. I left the screws in the posts and taped around them since the tape didn’t want to stick to the sugru. I used Scimitar’s plastic bag trick for the teeth.

Prior to applying the plasti dip, I installed t-nuts with sugru following scimitar’s instructions. I used the trooperbay lens and traced the eyes and cut them to shape. I wanted the lens to be flush but with only 2 posts on the edges, the pressure kept popping them off. To fix this, I added a center post and two lower posts. I also used Spyder’s method of using a heat gun to shape the lens on a mixing bowl which relieved some of the tension. In hindsight the inner screws nearest the nose could be eliminated.

After years of researching I finally purchased an AP trimmed helmet last year. My Tie Pilot build got in the way and after a year of procrastinating, I decided to purchase the untrimmed armor and get started. I have finished the helmet and will be posting my progress so far in a few posts.I am less confident with the trimming and assembly of the rest of the armor which is why I am starting this build thread. ~Ryan

I thought the vocoder was coal black satin?

I am about to paint my ANH helmet. Do you use the gloss black for the trap and tear details or the satin black like the vocoder?

I am working on padding for my helmet. I have the army pads that seem to work ok but the bottom of the face plate hits my Adam’s Apple and is very uncomfortable and tilts forward with my eyes at a weird angle. Does anyone else have that issue? Any ideas? I also have a hard helmet liner but haven’t tried fitting it.