How to kill boredom when you're not building observatories.

[ASIGN_Baz]

The answer to my boredom prayers, to keep me sane and creative.

Found a cool site called the 405th. It's very geeky and nerdy so it's right up my alley. These guys use scratch-building and Pepakura techniques to build 3D wearable armour. It could be just a helmet, or full-body complete with lighting, mini arc-reactors and energy weapons.

There's Stormtrooper helmets (Clone Trooper and the newer ones), Halo armour, Predator heads and much more. I'm thinking of making a collection of sci-fi helmets to adorn the observatory.

The cutting, folding and shaping is very fiddly, technical and requires a lot of concentration, patience and planing.

Once the paper/card is shaped, resin is applied to the outside to stiffen, then the inside is lined with fibreglass matt, sanded and trimmed.

The outside is then bogged with car-body-filler, sanded, shaped and cut in with fine details.

Lastly, it is primed, painted and clear-coated with high quality automotive paint for a movie-grade finish.

Humble beginnings with stunning results. (I've included someone else's pic of their attempt.) Here's where I am at so far. Just applied the first coat of resin to the outside. It looks a bit rough, but you just wait.

P.S. the old paper shuttle is one I made a couple of years ago. Need to dust it off and repair it to hang in the observatory, along with my paper Cassini and Galileo models.

Baz.

1. Humble beginnings

2. Assembled and painted with first coat of resin

3. Someone else's effort, hopefully mine will be as good.

[HyRax1]

That looks fantastic! Well done!

[ASIGN_Baz]

Thanks mate.

Here's the latest work from last night.

Reinforced the inside with thick fibreglass mat tonight and left it to cure overnight. Today it is rock-hard as a motorcycle helmet. Next step, sanding and cleaning up the edges before starting the bog-work on the outside.

[ASIGN_Baz]

Tonight's work. I was able to borrow a Dremel tool and some wonderful mini-cut-off disks and sanding wheels. Makes light work of this!

1. Fully fibreglassed, faceplate separated and eyes cut out.


2. Faceplate test-fit. Initial sanding begins.


3. I see potential here. Would make a great motorcycle helmet or downhill ski helmet yes?

[unmaskedgrunt]

Welcome to the 405th mate!

I'm currently creating an ODST suit from Halo 3. Spent about 10 hours all up pepping the helmet together only to have it shrink during the outer resin hardening. Luckily a mate has a smaller head than me and is going to take it and finish it off.

Going to restart with some smaller, less detailed parts of the suit to get some more experience before tackling the helmet again.

An Iron Man suit would probably be my next project, yours is looking good!

It's definitely a great time passing hobby. Just blast some music and you'll lose entire nights to folding and gluing.

[ASIGN_Baz]

Originally Posted by unmaskedgrunt

Welcome to the 405th mate!

I'm currently creating an ODST suit from Halo 3. Spent about 10 hours all up pepping the helmet together only to have it shrink during the outer resin hardening. Luckily a mate has a smaller head than me and is going to take it and finish it off.

Going to restart with some smaller, less detailed parts of the suit to get some more experience before tackling the helmet again.

An Iron Man suit would probably be my next project, yours is looking good!

It's definitely a great time passing hobby. Just blast some music and you'll lose entire nights to folding and gluing.

Thanks mate! Yep, I let the radio blast out of the shed and get quite focused. I hope your ODST goes well. Next part I do I will definitely be printing the pep with the numbers.

Baz.

[SVD115]

don't mind me, im just posting for cupcakes...

[ASIGN_Baz]

First layer of body-filler applied - roughing out the shape. Curing to rock-hard overnight ready for sanding tomorrow.

[ASIGN_Baz]

First sanding and shaping layer of body-filler done, ready for the next layer. Got some edges to match up a little, but fitting together better than I expected.

[hotsuma]

Originally Posted by ASIGN_Baz

3. I see potential here. Would make a great motorcycle helmet or downhill ski helmet yes?

looks awsome , but no, the point of a motorcycle helmet is the foam inside , the carbon just protects the foam, when you hit your head the foam compresses and absorbs as much of the impact as possible, but then again you may have been joking , is there like templates for the paper or did you figure that out some how?

[unmaskedgrunt]

Originally Posted by hotsuma

looks awsome , but no, the point of a motorcycle helmet is the foam inside , the carbon just protects the foam, when you hit your head the foam compresses and absorbs as much of the impact as possible, but then again you may have been joking , is there like templates for the paper or did you figure that out some how?

There are templates for the pieces that you open with a program called Pepakura Designer. These are 3D models that are 'unfolded' to make a flat layout of the faces of the model, that you print onto card paper and cut out and glue together.

Have a look on the 405th for the different files that people are building from:
http://www.405th.com/forum.php

[Deliverancexx]

Wow that picture after the first sand looks much better then I was expecting!
When I first opened the thread I thought the final step was the shaped paper from pic 1. I thought that was cool enough until I scrolled down haha.

[ASIGN_Baz]

Originally Posted by hotsuma

looks awsome , but no, the point of a motorcycle helmet is the foam inside , the carbon just protects the foam, when you hit your head the foam compresses and absorbs as much of the impact as possible, but then again you may have been joking , is there like templates for the paper or did you figure that out some how?

Cheers mate. I must remember to stop joking. You're not the first person to take me seriously and start throwing caution at me.

Mind you, I just spent a day on the snow fields with NO helmet as do most people. So, as a ski helmet, it would look cool, but of course would offer no more protection than the beanie I wore.

The Pepakura files are available online for download, but you need the programs to view and size them, modify them and print them. A degree of know-how with hand and power tools is needed, as well as an adaptive mind to modify and solve as you build.

Baz.

[.Radiant]

Originally Posted by ASIGN_Baz

The Pepakura files are available online for download, but you need the programs to view and size them, modify them and print them. A degree of know-how with hand and power tools is needed, as well as an adaptive mind to modify and solve as you build.

or open enough to realise you've buggered up and it's time to reprint certain pieces I've been working on a mech lately and some of the pieces are so small it's ridiculous - especially cylinders and other circular objects.
e.g these go onto an a4 page


Many reprints needed

[orby]

This is going to be good, looks sick already! Keep up the good work