TB 80225 WTF Helmet Build

[Thax]

I figured I'd post some of my build work for my Walt's Trooper Factor biker scout helmet, since I finally got it to approval.  I didn't take tons of pictures, because I didn't think about documenting it until later. This helmet is a good amount of work. The bucket comes in 2 pieces, the visor comes in 2 pieces, then the face mask is a 5th piece. That's not counting eye glass, greeblies, etc.

You may want to immediately start trimming everything. DON'T! You need the mohawk left on the bucket to glue and clamp the 2 sides together:

We used Devcon plastic weld. We clamped the hell out of it and then let it dry overnight.

Several of us were working on these together. Working as a team did lots to help us address challenges as they came up.

Once this is done, cut off the mohawk. You'll have a seam left, and how bad that is/how wonky your two parts mate will vary by your individual helmet and how you aligned it. Sometimes the two halves just don't align well.

Our solution - Bondo. But prior to fixing that, we applied a fiberglass strip to the interior with Devcon, as well as some ABS strips to help reinforce the seam on the inside.

So, Bondo - I had to do it a few times because it didn't mix well the first time, so I had peeling and chipping problems. I think my helmet went through 3 rounds of completely doing/redoing Bondo.  Apply, allow to dry, and sand. Repeat until lines are smooth. Pics in next post...

 

 

[Thax]

3 helmets drying prior to sanding.

The visor is tough. This has big mohawk-like ends on it like the bucket, but you need to chop them off. Plus a whole bunch of the rest of it. Cut each side down to about 3.5" (I left a little more in case my angle was bad). Before applying any sort of glue, you'll want to do a couple of thigs:

1) Trim as much as you can on the sides of the bask and visor/bonnet near the places they intersect. I didn't take great in-progress pictures here, but basically anything that impacts how the pieces sit on each other and anything that would be difficult to access beyond assembly should be trimmed. (I left most of the front alone so I could trim it post-gluing to better match the sides).

2) Test fit and clamp before you touch any glue. You'll need to do this to refine how your visor is cut. Here you can make your cuts to better align the two sides, but make sure you look at the helmet from the side to check angle relative to the snout, and from the top to make sure it's not bowing in or out weird. Additionally, there are molded lines on the inside of the sides and the face mask that should align that can help you (I didn't get pics of those).

Pre-glue - with clamps on the side and the front face of the visor untrimmed. After my test fit, I trimmed the lower portion of this more, because I didn't want to risk damaging the face mask later.

 

Check your snout angle. It can slide around on you.

I did go back and trim the eyes before gluing, because I was afraid of hitting the visor when I did so.

Once you've glued it all, you'll need more Bondo to cover the seam.

After you do a good amount of sanding, you may need some gap filler to fill voids in the Bondo for the bucket and the visor. Thus, the red spots in the next pic...

Once everything is good, you'll need to prime it (the grey bucket above). This will highlight every freaking imperfection of what you just did. If there are still pits and edges, sand some more, apply gap filler, sand some more, and re-prime.

 

[Thax]

Prior to painting (and honestly, prior to priming, oops!) - fit check your visor/mask combo on your bucket. You probably have more trimming to do! Also attempt to rotate the mask up. I iteratively trimmed the portions impacting mask rotation a whole lot...

It can be after priming, but prior to priming I did cut the ears out. I applied a sanding drum on a dremel to the inside of the ear and wore it down from there. After that, I used painters tape to close the hole until I was done priming and painting.

We chose to use Plasti Dip on the helmet interior, but there's no reason you can't just spray paint it black. You'll want a good chunk of the interior to be black if you've cut out the ears. We also did this prior to applying the white paint to the exterior.

Now, once you've got the priming where you want it, it's time to paint! We used a white spray paint here.

 

 

Sort of looks like we had a bad run-in with the murder bears...

Here are 4 of our helmets, in various primed/painted stages. The upside down bucket with the plastic bag around it just had interior Plasti Dip applied.

 

 

[Thax]

So, I was originally inserting images directly and I bumped up against the limit. Pasting in code for embedding generated by Flickr doesn't seem to work - suggestions?

[BikerScout007]

10 hours ago, Thax said:

So, I was originally inserting images directly and I bumped up against the limit. Pasting in code for embedding generated by Flickr doesn't seem to work - suggestions?

I use Tapatalk when posting photos to the forum.  Tapatalk will host the photos for you.  

If you are embedding photos from a photo host, just be careful you are entering the right code.  The tags should use brackets "[" instead of "<"

It looks like flickr provides a way to format code to post into a forum:

https://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157697695697532/

[Thax]

Thanks, that helped a lot!

[clockworksoldier]

On 5/15/2019 at 9:38 PM, Thax said:

I figured I'd post some of my build work for my Walt's Trooper Factor biker scout helmet, since I finally got it to approval.  I didn't take tons of pictures, because I didn't think about documenting it until later. This helmet is a good amount of work. The bucket comes in 2 pieces, the visor comes in 2 pieces, then the face mask is a 5th piece. That's not counting eye glass, greeblies, etc.

You may want to immediately start trimming everything. DON'T! You need the mohawk left on the bucket to glue and clamp the 2 sides together:

We used Devcon plastic weld. We clamped the hell out of it and then let it dry overnight.

Several of us were working on these together. Working as a team did lots to help us address challenges as they came up.

Once this is done, cut off the mohawk. You'll have a seam left, and how bad that is/how wonky your two parts mate will vary by your individual helmet and how you aligned it. Sometimes the two halves just don't align well.

Our solution - Bondo. But prior to fixing that, we applied a fiberglass strip to the interior with Devcon, as well as some ABS strips to help reinforce the seam on the inside.

So, Bondo - I had to do it a few times because it didn't mix well the first time, so I had peeling and chipping problems. I think my helmet went through 3 rounds of completely doing/redoing Bondo.  Apply, allow to dry, and sand. Repeat until lines are smooth. Pics in next post...

 

 

I'm in the process of putting together my WTF bucket. I very generously applied the DEVCON plastic weld (definitely have some sanding to do)Would strips of "FOR SALE" plastic signs be an acceptable material to use as a reinforcement strip?

[Thax]

Maybe? Probably not as good as ABS. You’ll have plenty of abs scrap from trimming things like the belt and thermal detonators. Also, fill gaps with more weld once you’ve trimmed the Mohawk down. 

[clockworksoldier]

AAAAAAAH!!!!! Those are the strips I'm looking for! And you just glued it to the seam using more devcon?

[Thax]

Out of 4 of us building together, I think 2 of us used devcon for that and 2 of us used E6000. Both seemed to work fine.

[Thax]

Meant to post this earlier - here are shots of the post cut/dremel'd helmet, prior to SO many rounds of bondo...

 

 

You can see the "oops" devcon mess in the second pic. I eventually sanded that down.

I mentioned before filling gaps in the seam with devcon - I should emphasize that I did that at the same time I as applying ABS strips to the interior. Some people filled gaps from the outside, too, but I didn't at this point. I wish I'd taken more pics of the helmet interior as I was working on it.

I also used a heat gun and a scrap piece of wood to help shape the ABS strips for the helmet interior.

[Nrosadob]

Thanks so much for this thread! It's helped me to follow along with my own WTF TB build.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[Thax]

2 hours ago, Nrosadob said:

Thanks so much for this thread! It's helped me to follow along with my own WTF TB build.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 

Glad it helped! One of our struggles was there were few examples we found that really went over the build. There were some, but everyone emphasizes different things and runs into different challenges.  We didn't get our bolts delivered until super late in the build, so we were improvising for getting the visor and bucket lined up with small nails.

Looking good! Now gotta get those seams sanded down. Because we were Bondo novices, this took us WAY longer than I expect it would others to do. Does your visor rotate well?

[Nrosadob]

Glad it helped! One of our struggles was there were few examples we found that really went over the build. There were some, but everyone emphasizes different things and runs into different challenges.  We didn't get our bolts delivered until super late in the build, so we were improvising for getting the visor and bucket lined up with small nails.
Looking good! Now gotta get those seams sanded down. Because we were Bondo novices, this took us WAY longer than I expect it would others to do. Does your visor rotate well?

My visor rotates fairly well. Im still tweaking and seeing where to trim slightly. I did have to use the heat gun a little to get the face plate and visor to sit well enough to be glued (E6000). Worked out pretty well and it still fits on to the dome.
Im also a first time Bondo user so I'm sure itll be a few rounds of Bondo until it's ready for Paint. But it's getting there!

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[clayorrnot]

Bumping this in hopes my helmet can be saved before I trim too much. Anyone with a WTF helmet got any pics of their lines they trimmed down to? Your mostly finished pictures have given me an idea but while waiting for stuff to dry I've been nipping and trimming and I'm afraid to do anymore without some sort of ref pics. Any help possibly?

[Thax]

Which parts in particular? Bucket? Visor? Face?

[clayorrnot]

Mainly where the pieces have lined up. I’m worried I’ve trimmed too far. Return edges and whatnot. Mine is still in pieces. The dome is all put together but the visor lining up with the dome and the face. Thanks!

[Thax]

Got any pics? I totally get the "trim to far" fear - I was constantly in fear of that, and part of why it's also taken me a year to work on my ANH TIE kit.

[clayorrnot]

Got the bucket lined up fine. I’m good with bondo, so that’s no sweat. It’s just the fear of over trimming and having to sand a ton more or build something up after I’ve messed it up.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Thax]

A few things:

1) Trim the return edges off of the sides and top of the face piece.

2) The sides of the face (where it bulges out even with the ears) should be trimmed to fit inside your visor.  Anything not touched by the visor you can further trim later.

Don't worry about trimming the visor more until you attach the face to it.  After you do that, you can tell better how things will naturally lie.  So after you do 1) and 2) above, I think it's time to go ahead and attach the face mask to the visor.

Do you have the bolts or maybe some screws you can try attaching he visor to the bucket with? We just put some small screws or nails through at first to check alignment (we didn't receive out bolts until very late in the process).  Then you can pivot the mask up and down and see what other trimming you have to do on the visor portion near the bucket.  I over-trimmed mine a little on the top of the visor trying to fix that interference, but it's really not bad.  It's only really noticeable during outdoor troops with certain sun angles, because light gets through.

I can already tell that the rounded portion near the pivot point is going to need to be trimmed/rounded, but you won't know how much you need to until you start putting somethings together.

[clayorrnot]

Yeah that rounded portion near the pivot point seems too long to fit in the area, and I heated it up to possibly reshape then changed my mind a little. I'll have to have it all in hand again to be able to use your suggestions effectively. I'm sitting here bored at work just dreaming of sanding on this thing right now. Ugh!

[Thax]

Behind on forum reading and costume work - did you make any good progress?

[Alan Von Goodleef]

On 5/15/2019 at 10:54 PM, Thax said:

3 helmets drying prior to sanding.

The visor is tough. This has big mohawk-like ends on it like the bucket, but you need to chop them off. Plus a whole bunch of the rest of it. Cut each side down to about 3.5" (I left a little more in case my angle was bad). Before applying any sort of glue, you'll want to do a couple of thigs:

1) Trim as much as you can on the sides of the bask and visor/bonnet near the places they intersect. I didn't take great in-progress pictures here, but basically anything that impacts how the pieces sit on each other and anything that would be difficult to access beyond assembly should be trimmed. (I left most of the front alone so I could trim it post-gluing to better match the sides).

2) Test fit and clamp before you touch any glue. You'll need to do this to refine how your visor is cut. Here you can make your cuts to better align the two sides, but make sure you look at the helmet from the side to check angle relative to the snout, and from the top to make sure it's not bowing in or out weird. Additionally, there are molded lines on the inside of the sides and the face mask that should align that can help you (I didn't get pics of those).

Pre-glue - with clamps on the side and the front face of the visor untrimmed. After my test fit, I trimmed the lower portion of this more, because I didn't want to risk damaging the face mask later.

 

Check your snout angle. It can slide around on you.

I did go back and trim the eyes before gluing, because I was afraid of hitting the visor when I did so.

Once you've glued it all, you'll need more Bondo to cover the seam.

After you do a good amount of sanding, you may need some gap filler to fill voids in the Bondo for the bucket and the visor. Thus, the red spots in the next pic...

Once everything is good, you'll need to prime it (the grey bucket above). This will highlight every freaking imperfection of what you just did. If there are still pits and edges, sand some more, apply gap filler, sand some more, and re-prime.

 

This is exactly what I was looking for. I have a Walt helmet also. My question is when I glue the two halves together. Do I put Devcon on the Mohawk or just on the inside seam?

[Retrofire]

You’ll want to cover that whole inside seam from back to front. If you slop some higher onto the Mohawk then that’s ok since after everything dries you’ll be cutting it off anyway. Take a look at the first pic in this post.

[Thax]

Yeah, put it all over the seam from back to front. One reason of the reasons to leave the mohawk is so that you don't have to worry about being neat with applying it. Excess Devcon will just be trimmed off with the mohawk pieces after it dries.