Looking for advice on fixing ear gap

[Arch27]

 

As the title says, I'm looking for advice on fixing that gap around the bottom part of the ears where the tube meets it.

Thanks!

 

The helmet is an RT-MOD, and the ears are a replacement that came pre-trimmed like that. Do I sand down the top round part enough to tighten the gap or do I fill that in with something? Or a combo of the two? 

 

EDIT: Follow up - is there a painting template for the black chin/mouth/vocoder part? The one on there is a sticker that is coming off. I'd rather blast it with paint so it doesn't come off anymore.

[Elumusic[TK]]

I have done about 20 of these.  So yes, you are going to have to sand down the round portion of the bud.  I use a dremel tool.  Pay special attention to what portions of the bud are touching the helmet and which areas are not.  You also need to look at the back side and take down everything that touches.  Again, only take down the areas that touch until it starts to fit better.  I usually trace the contour of the helmet onto the bud.  So take a pencil and set it against the helmet with the lead touching the bud and run the pencil along the helmet tracing a line onto the ear bud where the touching areas are.  You will need to tilt the pencil so that the line is traced close to the bottom of the bud so you dont take too much off.   Just a little at a time until it starts to fit.  And it's gonna take a while.  The issue you are going to have is that is a big gap and your ear bud is going to be almost flat by the time it works.  I would be prepared to live with a little bit of a gap...but that is way too much for my taste as well.

[gazmosis[501st]]

This is do-able. Jeff's guidance of saying that the solution lies in the round area is correct.  Although I can't see how the back is trimmed (you CANNOT ignore that) On the front, I can see a really tight fit in the cheek/face corner and at the top. There is a slight gap in the middle of the round portion. I would start by taking down the lower portion near that corner and just a little off the top most portion just under your brow trim. Trimming the top will bring the whole ear a bit closer and trimming near that corner will allow the ear to rotate slightly downward closing the gap. DO THIS SLOWLY. A millimeter at a time. Look at the back of the ear, too. Make sure that is trimmer properly as well.

[Arch27]

Excellent, guys! Thanks a ton. The ears were replacements. I forget what was wrong with the original ones, but they needed to come off.

 

Any pointers on the black chin part?

[Elumusic[TK]]

I hate stickers...I would peel the sticker off as best as possible.  You might be able to soak it off in warm water.  Use goo gone to remove residue, clean it with alcohol and then paint it back on.

[Sly11[Admin]]

Ear gaps are authentic, not a screen used helmet didn't have gaps.

 

 

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[Crusader_6[TK]]

Mine haVe gaps and I didn't mind it.

 

 

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[Arch27]

I hate stickers...I would peel the sticker off as best as possible.  You might be able to soak it off in warm water.  Use goo gone to remove residue, clean it with alcohol and then paint it back on.

 

Is there a template for painting it back on? I was hoping to find something to scale, because I could have my Cricut cut it out of masking film.

[Elumusic[TK]]

Gaps are definitely necessary. But it's not so great to see the construction underneath. And I do not know of a chin vocoder template. I usually just paint it like the screen shots.

 

 

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[ehinote2187[TK]]

I recently painted my vocoder. I looked at many screen caps to determine how to go about it (and many were different from each other). I used a fine tipped brush to paint the outline. I followed the curves of the raised parts as the basis for the outline. Then I filled the rest in with a 3/4"  flat brush. 

 

In another thread on what paints to use, it originally pointed to a gloss black, but it has since been deemed inaccurate to use gloss black. I had a bottle of Testors Semi-gloss Black #1139 on hand, so that's what I used. 

 

Hope this helps.