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...

Horns: part 4 (Assembly)

"Crown" or Base:

The Base is where the horns will be attached to. And the base itself attaches to the forehead of the helmet

Inside (and out of focus), you can see 2 black strips. These are metal plates. (Random junk I found around the house) These are glued down with superglue. Their purpose for which I may or may not use, is the contact points in which the magnets would attach themselves to the rest of the helmet. (the forehead)

 Ripped up a square of paper towel.

These are for "fillers" inside the "crown" and the "horns". It would fill the empty space inside, grabbing the wooden posts and sticking them onto the inside walls of the horns.

Backside of the entire assembly.

- Metal plates (shown in light brown)

- Paper towels (shown in green squiggly lines) - They fill the volume of space inside

- Wood with screws (shown in grey) - The paper towels are soaked with resin and would 'grab' onto the wooden dowels and nails. Just randomly wrapping around them. Making sure the towels also touch all sides of the walls.  Both unifying everything and giving it strength.

You can see the entry holes where I pour my resin into. Filling whatever space there is. This would give the proper solid feel to the entire assembly.

80% done. Ready for details and paint!

Horns

Horns:

I think for the next little bit, I'm going to focus on the "horns" or antennas or whatever-you-call-ems. They are the 4 long protrusions that come off the forehead. I had a concern where these long horns where I would bump into walls and doorways constantly and eventually break off. Totally see this happening because I have zero peripheral vision. Only looking out of 2 tiny holes directly in front of me.

So the solution would be to make them strong and maybe 'break-away-able'. So, if I do hit something, it simply comes off.. and I can put it back together again without any damage.

My solution for the strength part would be to use a different material. Metal would be too hard to fabricate with and it would be too heavy. The paper/resin would be too weak since it's hollow. Difficult to reinforce the insides. So, I'm going with plastic. I picked up a huge sheet of plastic at Industrial Paint and Plastics. (They sell all kinds of cool industrial building stuff. Same place where I picked up the measuring cups and resin kits)

(Small) Obstacle: I had to go back into Pepakura to print these shapes out on regular paper. Since I'm not going to use them in the same fashion as the rest of the build. I'm just using them as cutting templates. So, I left out the tabs and numbers too. Had to go back into Maya to adjust the model of the long horns. This way I can break them into 2 shapes that run arcross 2 pages. Couldn't fit the horn onto one single 8.5"x11" paper.

.080 gauge plastic

TIP: Make sure that blade is still sharp! You have to make a few SLOW accurate runs on each cut. Being extra careful not to swipe that blade across any of my fingers! Don't really need to cut all the way through, once it's past halfway.. you can just bend-break it off. Still has a clean edge. Sand if not.

Plastic Cement is what I used to sandwich them all together

Love modelling putty. Goes on easy. Cures fast. Sands smooth. 

(Picked up a couple tubes at the local hobby store)

Sanding the putty down smooth. Then sanded the entire piece. Same reason why I sand down all my Gundam models, to rid the plastic of its manufacturing oils. This will give the primer a good surface to paint on.

All edges sanded down smooth. It's got a great solid feel to them now. Not worried about banging them around.

Again.. with the mock fits. Liking it!

The solution for the 'break-away' horns.. so they don't actually BREAK. I think I'm going with rare-earth magnets. They're super strong and can easily hold the weight of each horn. (In the above picture) I've tested the magnets' strength. So far so good. If that isn't enough, I can always go with hook and loop (Velcro). Or maybe a combination of both. This is also a good idea for when it comes to storage.