Helmet ridge

[Tray[TK]]

Because of the late time I have sent an email to MC. I will see what he says about doing new helmets. If he can't do them without the lines I would be happy to send a discount refund. For that I would prefer to move our conversations to PM's.

 

I will be gone for a week to help my sister find a new home in Kansas and won't have access to a computer. I will do my best with my phone but somethings might have to wait till I get back.

 

Again, I am very sorry.

Tray

[pandatrooper[TK]]

Props to you Tray for a prompt reply, customer service and support.

 

I have a few TMC and other MC items and the quality and service is generally very good. Hope this works out for everyone.

[BlueGrot]

I have a cooling ridge on my TE2 lid, maybe I'll do this cover treatment when repainting.

[Jorran]

I hope MC is able to fix his molding process, because I don't want you guys to stop producing these kits. Like Sarah indicated before, I'm more than happy with every single bit of what you guys created, with just this one exception. Your communication and service are top notch as well.

 

I'll PM you later this morning when I get free of some meetings here at work.

[Sarathe]

Thanks, Tray! I agree with what Michael said, this isn't your fault in any way. I definitely don't want you to stop selling the kits, I love mine, as I've said

 

Tim says we can fix this, it will just add 2 weeks to my build time. I think to get another one would take a lot longer, and my goal is to be approved by Dragon*Con.

[Sonnenschein]

Even my AP had a faint cooling line.

 

The originals were even worse

[Sarathe]

I bet they were! It probably wouldn't be so bad if mine were faint, but this is *really* visible, and forms an actual ridge that can be felt as well. Being new, I would have no idea how to fix this. I'm lucky to have Tim in my corner! And hopefully the experience and build thread will be able to help others.

[TK-4510[TK]]

I dont think I ever mentioned ATA, if you were referring to me. I agree with Terry that just sanding and polishing may be a better approach. No matter what, its going to be a ton of sanding, trust me.

 

Cooling lines are in fact a "normal" side effect of vacuumforming. The only way to relieve the issue is to preheat the molds or change the angle of the forming to make the line minimized or make the line somewhere less visible. You can also minimize cooling lines by "pre-streching" the ABS before forming it, like industrial machines do. Its tricky there too. Too much pre-stretch and you create webbing. With ABS its a REAL challenge, no doubt.

[Tray[TK]]

it was another Michael. Sorry. I should start using peoples forum name next time. I always feel silly when I do. Mine is my name so it never seemed weird to me.

[cojake]

I have 3 different Helmets, a TE ANH style, TE ROTJ, and a mystery bucket of some sort. They all have a ridge or cooling line of some sort. I think they add character and realism as the screen helmets were pounded together as quickly as possible and had all kinds of bumps, lumps and lines.

[TK-4510[TK]]

True. The HERO I saw at Celebration 4 had fish eyes and cooling lines. Nobody likes them though

[TK bondservnt[501st]]

this is a great pictorial view of a bad pull..

 

this should have been thrown into the bin ( trash can )

[Sarathe]

Oh, hmmm, do you think it's not worth saving? Tray said he could maybe send me another one...I'm not sure how quickly, though.

[TK-4510[TK]]

I would save it for sure. You can always use it for another trooper lid or as a back up.

Edited April 4, 2011 by TK-4510

[Sarathe]

I think Tray wants it back if I get another one. Otherwise, I would do as one friend suggested and Zombie it out

[TK-4510[TK]]

Oh I see...Well...hmmm. If you have to pay for sending back and all....no I would just do the best I could with it. If he is willing to pay for your shipping it back to him then I would say send it back. OR just have him send you another and keep the bad one no charge. He should be willing to just send you another one. Its not like he can sell yours to someone here

 

When I make a decal or shirt error I rarely ever ask someone to send me back anything.

Edited April 4, 2011 by TK-4510

[Sarathe]

Yeah, I've emailed him asking about the timeline. Tim and I would like to be done with my build in time for some troops here this summer, plus I would love to do Texas Comic Con with Jason. So I'm worried about that issue, as much as any other.

[BananoPower22[TK]]

If you get to keep the helmet with the ridge, you could make an esb version out of it ----------

Edited February 26, 2022 by gmrhodes13
link not working removed

[TK8776 jgarrettg]

Wow! that's quite a defect. I imagine it's the point where the plastic lifts off the buck just before the vac is applied. After the vacuum pulls the plastic in on the buck it kind of stretches or pulls at that point probably because there is a temperature difference between the plastic touching the buck on top and the plastic that hasn't lost as much heat. I can think of a lot of reasons for this. An extremely cold buck, a sticky buck (more talcum powder to allow the plastic to move on the surface), Thicker plastic that won't lose it's heat so fast as it touches the buck or quicker vacuum application. Interesting problem to solve. I hope you get it worked out with the vendor Sarah.

[TK-4510[TK]]

Hey...I may have a solution for you. Did you get taken care of?

[ABS80]

because the top/cap is a tall mold it's difficult to completely eliminate stretch marks, with ABS the heating temp and timing has to be perfect to achieve a consistent stretch over the mold otherwsie the plastic chills as soon it touches the top of mold and thins out stretching down, ABS has to be heated longer and sometimes you need a plug assist, meaning you need to manually help the plastic stretch over the mold as soon as platic touches top of mold to avoid the chill factor, the top will always be thicker then the sides and forehead, no matter how good the pull you will always see some kind of stretch marks, in my case when the stretch marks are not accepatble I just sell them as B grades.

 

Mark

Edited April 8, 2011 by ABS80

[TK bondservnt[501st]]

when I look at AA's forming videos he pre stretches the ABS with air. it's blown inside like a bubble.

 

and you can also see that he uses air to cool it almost right after it's formed.

 

he uses a glove and a bamboo stick to handle webbing, and detailing the faceplate

 

you can see that he blows quite a bit of air into it

Edited April 8, 2011 by TK Bondservnt 2392

[TK-4510[TK]]

Yes you are correct. You have to form on a professional machine to achieve professional results. But that machine costs like $30,000.00 too

Edited April 8, 2011 by TK-4510

[ABS80]

when I look at AA's forming videos he pre stretches the ABS with air. it's blown inside like a bubble.

 

I didn't see the video but I assume this is to help release parts from molds but has nothing to do with eliminating stretch marks, my helmets are made on a 50,000+ machine but you still need the proper setting for ABS, it doesn't mean using a top notch machine the results are going to be automatically good, these big machines are made for mass production forming less complexe parts, a trooper helmet is formed one at a time, then manually remove each formed part from mold then reset machine for the next drop, I could easily pull 5+ AFX helmets in the same time frame it takes to make 1 ANH, AFX have no undercuts and can be self released by machine.

 

Mark

Edited April 9, 2011 by ABS80

[TK-4510[TK]]

he does that too, but his former pre stretches the plastic so that there is no cooling lines.