PGHtrooper21

When Painting the Lines I painted from the top to the center and from the bottom to the center to help stop the paint from going underneath the “Stencilsâ€.

When putting the “Stencil†it is good to use your fingernail to rub out the “Air-Bubbleâ€. Similar to when putting a window cling decoration on a window. Also I used some “Blue-Painters Tape’ to secure the “Stencilsâ€. Then I used “Testors†Gloss Black to paint the lines. I made sure to shake up the bottle of paint for a couple of minutes and then used a “toothpick†to stir the paint.

Next up is painting the lines in the “Traps and the Tearsâ€. I watched Mike from “Trooperbay†videos a bunch of times to get a feel of what to do. The trickiest part is lining up the “Stencil template†on the “Tearsâ€. The area is hard to work with. I had to realign it a few times till I was happy. I did the same for the rear “trapsâ€. After I was finished painting, I let the paint sit for an hour.

I used “Testors Grey†to paint the “Traps, Tears and the Teethâ€. Last time when I was painting my helmet, I used â€Humbrol Grey†and the paint took a good while to dry. That is why I switched for this time. When painting, I noticed that “Testors†was drying while I was painting. When I was painting the “Traps and Tears†I did not use any “Painters or Masking Tape†The pencil guide line helped out. I used a no. 0 Royal “Flat Head†brush to paint the “Traps, Tears and the larger teeth. For the smaller teeth and for the “touchupsâ€, I used a no. 10/0 brush. When painting, I used Mike’s tip to hold and secure the helmet. You will need to reposition the Helmet to get to the different angels on the “Traps, Tears and Teethâ€. Also, when painting I tried to get close the pencil line and paint toward the center. This helped, because I did not want to go over the “Pencil Lineâ€. During the painting, I tried to have a little more fresh paint around the area where I was painting. This helped to “Stretch†the paint to the hard to reach areas and to have a smooth flow when painting. Before beginning to “Hand Paint a Helmet†I recommend watching Mike’s Trooperbay’s YouTube videos several times to get an idea on how to begin.

I am going for “EIB and Centurion†Stunt. So I ordered ANH Stencils from Trooperbay.com to hopefully prevent the mistake I made before. Also I could not find my screws for my “Helmetâ€. So I went out to Home Depot and picked up some. After watching Mike’s videos on YouTube and emailing him back and forth to answer some questions, I decided to proceed. The first thing I did was to take the “Rear Trap†decal and place it on the “Trap†where I want it and use a pencil and trace the outline of the “Decal†This is to give a guide line for where to paint. I did this for the other “Rear Trap†and the “side Trapsâ€. After you are done using the “Decal†make sure you put the “decal†back on the “Decal Paper†for use later. Then I took one of the “Side Tears Decalsâ€, and placed it on the “Tear†and when I got it to where I want it, I used a pencil to make an outline like I did with the “Trapsâ€. I did the same with the other “Tearâ€. Then I took my pencil and drew lines on the “Teeth†to give me a guide for painting them.

So I decided to “Spray paint†the whole helmet. So I went out and bought a couple of cans of “Krylon Fusion White Gloss†spray paint. I took my Helmet apart, I got some newspaper and some rocks to hold down the newspaper and went out across my street and set my helmet on the wall and started to spray paint the individual pieces of my helmet. I sprayed a couple of coats and let it sit dry for a few days and put on a second coat and let it sit dry.

From the top. AP Helmet Redo. Back in August, I decided to redo my helmet. I was disappointed with the outcome of using “Sharpie Paint Markersâ€. I saw the “Sharpie Paint Markers†and though to give it a try. Mistake number 1. At first, I tried to use “Sand paper†to remove the paint. I even tried to use “Mr. Clean Magic Erasersâ€. Bad mistake! It made it worse! Mistake number 2, the “Sanding†and the “Magic Erasers†caused the paint to smear the helmet. Here are some pics of my AP Helmet before the redo.

IT WORKED!!!!! After talking to Lucas and he suggested not saving my Journal in a full Word doc, but rather saving it to a Rich Text or txt.file! THANKS to Lucas and to all who was giving advice. This was driving me crazy!!! I have 25 pages of a doccument journal with pics I want to share. Andy

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Still having problems posting for some reason. I have Windows 7, using Microsoft Office 2010 as my journal, using photobucket and IE8. I copied the IMG code from Photobucket to Word. Then I copy the post from Word to here. It worked fine over Garrison Carrida and here in the past. When I tried using bbcode it asked me which one? Andy