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Name: Chwbcc Location: Florida Website: http://405th.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=22686 Materials: Pepakura "I've peped my Corvus Helm. I didn't use any glue, I used Masking tape. This is fine for my purpose because I tend to used the Pep as a mold for my next step, filling the helm with expandable foam. I am not worried about the detail because I already plan on sanding the foam and adding details with clay or bondo. From there I will create the molds. O.K. first can of Expandable foam in the nose area. This will be a great success or an epic failure. The idea is to build sort of a Milliner's block as a base for the helm. This will allow me to add pieces and detail without having to rebuild a basic helm every time. I will still bondo and sand to perfection then add in the details around the light and the ears pieces as desired OK in another thread I asked someone to Pep me some Patience, I should probably ask them to Pep me some common sense too. I was told this was going to happen by some veterans on the board. But like any good Noob, I can't let my people down, I ignored them and did it anyway. Partly because I believe that I could do it differently and make it work, partly because my ego wanted to make it work! Well, the only way to really see if I was the chosen one, was to pep up some files and buy some $3 expandable foam... The rest is as they 'Clich-say' is history! The most extraordinary part worked like a charm! I stared by spraying the interior of the resin'd helmet with PAM cooking spray, this was my release agent. It worked perfectly. Then, I applied the foam as directed filling cavities less than 50% full allowing the foam to expand into the areas as it cured. I started with the nose and allowed it to cure for an hour before applying a second layer to the ears followed by the top and back of the helm. Over the next few hours I sat like a father in the waiting room of Labor and Delivery! I checked it ever hour or so and things were expanding exactly as I expected. But as the night drew on I couldn't play anymore ODST and I finally went to bed. When I a woke the helm looked a bit bloated, as you can see from the photos below. That impatience stared creeping in and I knew that I had to do something. I figured that if I could relieve the pressure in parts of the helm I could possibly save the build or save the pep with minor damage. Enter Mr. Matte Knife! I tried to segment the pieces into easily removable pieces. The first 5 or so came off with out a hitch, the piece looked a bit worse than I expected, but that only means I was going to need more bondo than I planned to fill the cracks and crevasses. The PAM worked great! The pieces actually separated just as I expected and the foam was smooth and very sturdy. But of course this is a tragic story, love lost and all that epic failure junk. When I started to remove pieces closer to the top of the helm the foam had separated and fail to expand. As I pull back the section of resin'd paper all I was left with was a bucket full of gooey space marine brains. I don't know why, but I suspect that the temperature change last night and the fact that I had this part of the helm sitting directly on the concrete, prevented the foam from curing and allowed it to separate back to it's liquid state. So it was an Epic Try for my Ego, and an Epic Fail I can wear as a ribbon on my Noob status. But there was a lot learned about the whole process and give more time it could work but the messy alternative of Fiber glassing and slush casting are probably the best as far as time and effort for the money. So, stay tuned and enjoy the pics, I am off to print a new helm! Yeah I'm just going to do it the normal way this time. Pep, Resin, Glass, Bondo, wear it, look cool! I still can use it the same way I intended, I just wanted a less messy alternative to fiber glassing, and I didn't want to try the slushing method just yet. So, I have the second helm Peped and I am going to take my time on this one. Peping the Helm takes two good evenings and I don't feel like Peping another one any time soon. Definitely take your time and glass this in stages for the best results. I have placed two layers of fiberglass on the questionable areas. The eyes, the light and the neck hole. Then I removed the masking tape. I found that the masking tape came off really easy even the pieces that were under a good bit of resin. You can see from the photos that after I removed the tape many of the paper areas were not really saturated with resin. So I decided to resin the outside of the piece to allow the paper to be come completely saturated with the resin. Note to self masking tape repels resin! And so the slow arduous process of bondo begins... I have decide that I am going to take my good old sweet time with this helm. I am strategically working my from top to bottom with the bondo and applying it in stages. I also have reduced the amount I am applying two about a golf ball size. With my previous MC helm I though that I could just cover the piece and sand down the areas as needed. Ugh yeah! That was a time consuming mess. So this time small segments, sand smooth, and feather the edges. I am going to build an internal head gear system similar to that used in Theme park characters. The version I plan to use is dense foam blocks lining the interior cover them with Velcro with then place a form fitted helmet and chin strap inside. The helm will have Velcro on it so the Helmet can be adjusted depending on the wearer. The Chest is going to be mounted on a back packer's harness/frame. The Upper arms are going to be padded and buckled to the Chest. The Fore arms are going to just slide on the wrist. Hockey Gloves for the hands. A Pant/shorts set up with the Cod piece and upper legs that will buckle to the bottom legs. And of course a pair of bottom Velcro shoes placed in a pair of shoe shells to complete the outfit. Parts that really restrict movement are the upper legs, and the torso. Because if you really can't move your arms who cares because you still look awesome. But if you can't walk or bend down for photos the you might as well be a refrigerator box! I was thinking about getting some wrap-around sunglasses or even a couple pair of cheap ski goggle lenses, I should be able to trim them and fit them in nicely. The cost for paper and ink hasn't been that bad. I have build a MC for my daughter, and 2 Marine Helms, a chest, the shoulders and an arm with one pack of 150 sheet 110 card stock $10 and on black ink cartridge $30 so it's not that bad... The time on the other hand has been over 100 hours... If I were to have been paid Minimum wage for the time spent I would have about $200 invest in time Here's a note about these Peps: These files are really good but you have to resin and glass some of these parts rather quickly because the weight of the paper will distort the paper or in my case the humidity popped the seams. After working on the Helm the masking tape method is by far the best method for assembly. Use masking tape on the outside seal all the seams and saturate the inside with resin and layout the glass in small sections. When this drys and you have covered the interior complelty, peal off the masking tape and resin the outside until the paper is completely saturated. Let this dry and start the bondo process... Which I recommend using the spot filler for the entire piece. It's a lot easier to use, it's premixed and you don't have to do alot of sanding... This will cost a bit more but I think it's worth the time saving. " 
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