The One-Day V-Fin Diet

Weight reduction: 

The v-fins were still heavy. Too heavy to have on comfortably. To alleviate possible neck strain, I'd have to reduce some weight on it. And since I know the resin inside is the major culprit, I'd have to gut it out from the backside. Time to break out the dremel tool again.

Don't want to take away TOO much material. Leaving some behind for structural integrity. Everything seems to be still solid, so, I'll clean her up a bit and close it up.

5-min epoxy to glue the new (plastic) plate over the hole

Contact cemented some Velcro strip to each side. Since the v-fin is still considered heavy, I'm not going to rely on the velcro's default adhesiveness. Didn't think it would be strong enough to not rip off. So, some contact cement will put it on permanently. Strong stuff. The plastic or helmet would rip off first before the velcro now!

Random Progress

Hotgluing in the "sideburns"

I accidentally cut too much of the head. It was meant to be an area where I can put Velcro tape. The plan was to hinge the entire "Mohawk" piece open. The intent is for easy access if I ever needed to. Gluing down the mohawk would limit the light into the helmet if I ever needed to fix anything or add anything. Thinking ahead! (Ironically.. I didn't)

So, I had to insert a piece of plastic to serve as a base.

 

The head brace is attached to the helmet by a combination of epoxy putty and hot glue. Strong bond. 4 anchor points.. for now. I'll add in 2 more later.

Now for the comfort part. I cut up small strips of anti-fatique matte (I had some leftover from another halloween costume)

Hot glued them in.

I'll save you the obligatory silly dance in the helmet. At least for now...

Lock that face

While I got the face to retract all good now. It doesn't have a stopper on either the down or up position. A lot of ideas were thrown around for this. I even wanted it to be motorized using servos and stuff. But, that may be too complicated. And more importantly, too heavy. That's a lot of weight.

So a simple magnet system was made. One to catch it when the face is down, and another to catch it when it's up.

I used rare earth magnet. 3 total. This one is on the face. No 2 magnets actually touch each other. Because they're just too strong! I had to separate them with a  piece of plastic. 

The second magnet is on the brow lip. This one would catch the face when it's in the down position.

 And the third magnet would be up on top. To catch the face when it's in the top position.

The magnet on top is held down by epoxy putty. Love this stuff. Dries hard. Like cement hard. 

(that's what she said)