CT 1977

Thanks, Glenn. I forgot to ask if you think a near-completed helmet adds any value? Also, my main reason for selling is that I've put on weight, and more than I had expected, and not really into looking like a pudgy storm trooper. So, I'm working with my next door neighbor who is seamstress and will be coming up with an "older" Ben Kenobi set up. Should be cool. I'll send you some photos once I'm done. I'll carry a light saber but for those really aggressive negotiations, I'll have my mandolin in my robes. I've come up with a Star Wars version of the Dead's "friend of the devil", I call it "friend of the Jedi".

Hey Glenn, I'm finally getting around to selling my armor. I'm going to use this thread to document the building process on my helmet. If you're okay with it, I'd like to use you as a reference as well. I'm going to find my receipt and paperwork from my original purchase as I know the ATA armor is highly respected and sadly, not really available anymore. Any advice or recommendations from you would be welcomed. Thanks for all your time and patience in the past in helping get my bucket to this point. Bill

Thanks, Terry. That kind of encouragement goes a long way. Thanks for helping.

wow, that is really cool...great information. Will get that done. thanks.

MUCH BETTER!! I was able to realign without changing the brow. You can see my mark made prior to the realignment. THIS, I can work with. There's a bit of a gap at the tube bend but I feel like if I take a bit more off the top of the round part it will lower the overall level. Of course, your tips are invited!

I think I found the problem. As I mentioned earlier, the left tube is 7mm lower than on the right - see below. I'm going to drill out the rivets and then realign and re-rivet. I've got tracings and two marks to show the reposition as well as a mark 7mm below the left-side rim. its going to be a bit tricky in moving it so as to be sure to maintain equal brow alignment.

Hey Glen, hold off on comments on my questions above. I just measured and found the tube on the left side is 7mm lower, or away from the top than it is on the right side. I'm going to drill out the rivets and do what I can to put it all back together so that it looks acceptable.

In this position, I get the best fit along the tube, but is that too much edging showing? The next photo will be with the ear covering up the entire seam but with a substantial space between it and the tube. See below - even when I press down on the ear as I'm doing here, that's the best I can do with completely covering up the seam. Also, the back of the In this position, the back is a little better, maybe even workable but in person vs the photo, the gap seems worse...in person. Let me know your thoughts. The right ear came along really well, this one I really screwed up. Also, on a previous post you mentioned posting on WTB to see if anyone had extras...I'm not familiar with that abbreviation. Can you provide me a link? Sorry to keep hitting you up like this, I really appreciate your help.

Thanks, Glen. I can use all the tips I can get. My thought on the step was that I was going to wait until I felt comfortable that I knew pretty much the precise area that the year was gonna go to cut that in. Thoughts?

These are the photos of the little bit of work i got done today before my Dremel battery died. This photo is ear #1 at the upper location which I just can see making up enough space to bring it to the tube "curve-out". The second photo is with the #1 ear closer to the tube but shoes the helmet side-seam. So, I started to work on the #2 ear. Here is the #2 ear that I think has better potential. If you look at the pencil mark, it looks possible that, removing material to that line, will bring it to the "tube-curve" and still have the upper helmet seam covered. It will definitely involve very small changes to bring the lower part of the ear to congruence with the rest of the tube. And yes, getting old sucks and is not for sissies! Its a good thing, even though we're getting older, we're not growing up Let me know your thoughts on my progress. Thanks.

Hi Rebecca, I'm finalizing my bucket build and starting to look at the electronics. Five years later after your quote above, would still say the iComm is your preference, if its still available? Also, do you have the link handy for that product? Thanks.,

Ha, yeah, flipping off those rebel scum . Thanks for the tips and encouragement. I retired last summer and recently got a part time gig at REI, I'll be working the next three days but will have some time after that to work on the ears. Then, more hand surgery on Friday for carpal tunnel syndrome from the swelling from the original surgery. After a couple weeks, maybe sooner, I may be able to get back to it. I should have some updated photos by Thursday. thanks again.

Hey Glen, I got a really good suggestion from my occupational therapist (I recently had joint replacement in my knuckles of my index and middle finger, which makes taking photos as well as most anything to do with this project a bit more of a challenge). She does leather work and suggested that I practice with the original ear before I tackle the second year. So this is the original ear or the number one ear that I felt I had messed up. My main question is as you can see, a few drill holes that are apparent outside of the lower portion of the ear. The question is do you think the rim gasket can come up far enough to cover this up, or meaning that I trim it enough to where the gasket can cover it up. The following photos are of my helmet looking at various views from the bottom. I am cautiously optimistic about how well I was able to recover that ear however let me know what you think about the left ear, good and bad, And if you think that this number one year can be used. Also any additional tips and thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your help on this.

OK, I think I see what you're saying. If I trim the rounded part to make it thinner it should be able to extend further to reach the tube. As far as the step, yeah I saw that on this exact post, which I have bookmarked to use for this part of the project. That's great information and I appreciate you getting back to me. The touching base from time to time with more photos to get your thoughts. Thanks, mate!

The right one is looking OK. Still a little bit of work to do on the back part. https://imgur.com/PBTUOCy It seems to be the left side that I'm having the difficult time with. I feel like I cut the angle to go up into the curve too soon. Possibly with some trimming in the curved part I could possibly recover it but I feel like if I had another one I wouldn't be spending so much time on this one just to find out in the end that it won't work. Let me know what you think.