Bondo touch ups, Painting, and Visors

    In my last post I commented on how much easier the cereal box cardboard was to use for the cheeks. Here I replaced the regular cardboard with an Eggo box on the first helmet.

On the right you can also see how the helmet looks once the initial cut is made for the rest for the T-visor.
This is best done with the original pattern lined up and traced. Slowly scoring the plastic with a matte knife seems to be the most effective way of getting smooth, straight lines for this part.



If you remember from my vacuum form post, I mentioned that the dome form was a little too deep for the vacuum form process and caused some wrinkles that needed to be cut off and filled with Bondo. I did this by covering the outside of the holes with scotch tape and filling them from the inside with Bondo.

Having extra 5-gallon bucket pieces lying around makes a great platter for mixing and using Bondo. Because of the relatively small amount of Bondo used for each touch up on the domes, a tongue depressor was an adequate tool to apply a thin layer.
You can also see the Bondo that appears on the seems of the cheeks. While seems are close they seem to rarely match perfectly and the Bondo provides a good way to smooth those edges out. For this part I actually used my fingers, a) to limit the amount that ends up on the cheek and, b) they are about the right width to effectively cover the seam. (**Note to self and others: when using fingers with bondo, gloves are a good idea. Its hard to wash off.)

Currently the 3 helmets are undergoing a final round of sanding and painting. By the post next week the tinted visors should be installed as well.