So I know it's strange that my first project post on letsmakerobots isn't a robot. But be that as it may I decided that I would still post this, even though I'm not really doing anything unique here. You can find loads of Iron Man helmet and full suit builds all over the net. But I realized there were none on LMR, besides hardmouse's awesome Clone of IronMask. So I figured I would post my build. Anyway on to the actual project.
So I really didn't take any pictures during the beginning part of the build. I started by downloading the Pepakura Viewer and Pepakura files for an entire Iron Man suit. For anyone that doesn't know, Pepakura is a really cool program which is often used for papercraft but which can be used for all kinds of other things.
To the right is a screenshot of Pepakura viewer, it provides a 3D model of the project as well as the 2D pieces which create the model. I printed these pieces out and glued them to some 5mm craft foam. Then I cut them out with a boxcutter. With all the pieces cut I began the process of hot glueing them together. A heatgun was used to curve the foam to the shape needed. There was a lot of freehand and guessing angles based on the 3D Pepakura model and pictures from the internet. The helmet still doesn't fit together perfectly, there is a bit more bending to do. But unfortunately my heatgun broke...so I may have to use a hair dryer to finish the bends. I plan to fill the seams and other rough spots of this helmet with Bondo body filler. Then I will make a fiberglass cast of the helmet which will be fixed up further. Eventually I want to cast a few helmets in aluminum...but we'll see how far I get. Once I get a bit more finished I'll post an update, which should be in another day or two.
7/16/2013 Update
Not much to update really. I didn't do any more work on the helmet itself but I bought and tried out some spray paint which I may use on the helmet.
I did the paint test on scraps of regular foam and scraps which had been coated in Elmer’s White School Glue. The coated pieces had 3 layers of glue. The glue helps to seal the foam and provide a smoother surface finish once the paint it applied. It also hardens the coated surface of the foam a bit. The two pieces on the left are the uncoated pieces and the pieces on the right are coated. Some of the white or black splotches that you may see in the paint are just bugs which got stuck to the drying paint. I sprayed two coats of paint on all the scraps. On the actual helmet I am going to apply a number of layers of primer, with sanding in between coats, to ensure a glossy smooth finish, this was just a test of color. All in all I am impressed with the red but I think that the gold needs to be a bit darker. I might buy some Rub 'N Buff to put on the gold parts to give them the variation I’m looking for. Also, sorry for the weird almost white golden piece, the flash on my camera caught the finish of the piece weirdly.
