KS and newbishness

[Katsu]

So this is my first real foray into posting here. I am not too used to the rules on naming and stuff, so I do have a few questions as I go as well.

 

First, my helmet!

 

I got a KS, because I have a fairly large head, it's got barely enough room that I could pad it, and I am under the impression the KS is as big as they get, despite my reservations on it (I was partial to getting a LW but before I knew of this site I had no idea where to find those, and they were probably going to be too small anyways) It came in and has been a lot more work than I was expecting.

 

I was disappointed the smoked acrylic visor was just a tiny flat rectangle with the rough shape sharpied on. I layed a piece of wax paper inside the faceplate and poured some rondo onto it, making myself a buck. Though the piece of acrylic they gave me is too small to vacuum form, so I just heat formed it instead, after I did the visor, I realized the right eye of the faceplate wasn't cut wide enough (you can see it in the picture above, being a bit more narrow than the left eye) so this picture is of the buck halfway through expanding the right eye hence the holey-ness of it. I intend to get a larger piece of smoked acrylic and do a real vacuum form off this to better fit the helmet.:

 

The real problem is the helmet itself, though. The big main piece that wraps around the back of the head came splayed very widely. it was clearly a very poor pull of of their vacuum buck. I don't mean to disparage too much, but it was open wider than the faceplate, and sort of hugged it from the outside when closed. I hadn't been bothering to take pictures before, but I ended up cutting off the flap on the wraparound, and tried unsuccessfully to heat form it to be more narrow. I know NOW of the strict guidelines put on these helmets, and it may very well be too late for me to save it.

 

1) So my first real question is, will I need to try again to pull in these overlapping bottoms of the back wraparound? 2) I also had trouble heat forming the ABS they used, the acrylic wasn't hard as you can see in the first picture, but I am really having a hard time on the wraparound, are there any good ways to do this? I don't often work in this medium, so it's still new territory for me.

 

3) The other part is, there is a dip in the wraparound here, do I need to shave this to be flatter?

 

4) My last question is, in light of the problems I've had with this, I am considering making my own from scratch, are there rules I didn't find in regards to WIP on scratch making armor? I don't much like to mess with this stuff, and would just as soon route and vac-form my own, but that may be dangerous speaking? I may even need to edit this post to not mention what I am mentioning now??

[Chef]

Hmmm, looks like you've really got your work cut out on that bad boy.

 

I'd say yes you do need to pull that faceplate out to match the helmet. You'll be better off trying to widen the faceplate, rather than trying to squeeze the main bucket in.

You could do this with either some gentle heating or by adding in a brace, of say a bit of stiff wire.

 

And the little dip, er yeah... I'd try and push that up a little.

 

Again, GENTLY heat that area and use a flat block to re-shape it. There is a thing called a heating iron that some people use. I've never used one personally, so can't help there.

 

 

The visor, a flat sheet does work. I use that on mine. You need to push the visor in at the nose section and get some hot glue on that bit to hold it in place. When it's stuck, you can just go around the rest of it and glue it in place.

 

 

The last bit... if you're building your own armour, go for it. Nobody on here minds a good WIP'ing.

[Chex]

I just keep hearing more and more bad things, and seeing bad things when it comes to KS helmets...a shame about that.

[Darth Voorhees]

The only reason anyone wouldnt want you to make your own, is if you were recasting someone elses. But if you want to make a set from scratch, like Chef said, go for it! We would love to see your progress!

[Katsu]

Thanks for the input guys.

 

I am happy with the visor, it's the only thing to go right really (I guess since I made it), and will vacuum form a final draft once I am happy with the faceplate.

 

There is concern though, that in widening the faceplate I'll make the piece look smashed in, since it would need to come out about a half inch on either side which would make it an inch wider than default, I'll have to see what I can do with the thing. The dip shouldn't be too hard to fix though.

 

My only concern with WIP was the legal issues, since such great measures are taken here to... y'know.

 

Is there any other helmet available on a similar size to the KS one in case I find it too much to fix this one, and too hard to make my own (I am not GREAT at 3d modeling, and the two models I've found online make the KS helmet look like a work of art, but I was going to try modeling it if the KS falls through)

[Katsu]

well, I bashed the helmet a lot. I'm getting better at heat forming it I think, and the flaps are basically aligned with the faceplate:

 

I tossed on the stickers just for fun. Since the entire helmet is going to need to be repainted, I'm going to use the negatives on the vinyl sheet to make stencils, which I hope to use to airbrush the designs on!

 

 

Next is to clean up more of the warped parts (like the ear vent). And finish my model for the snout and print it out. Is it okay to hollow out the cylinder on the snout for a fan to breath out of? I am not sure where people put their "Not suffocate" fans on these, or if they will ruin the officialness of it.