Cardboard Boba Bucket - Range Finder

We're getting very close to the end of all my old progress pictures. I did get the helmet down the other day intending to do some more painting, but gave up before I'd even started, it's just so tedious, marking out all the shapes.




Originally Posted 27-Jul-2009


Next up is the rangefinder housing. If I remember correctly this part isn't detailed in either of Antman's threads 
(which I have been following fairly closely) So I'll try to show a bit more detail.

First of all print out a set of WoF's templates from the gallery.

I'm using 1mm thick mattboard (scavenged from an old sketch book)
So I then began to mark the various places I would have to trim 1mm off of to keep the correct shape.

The dotted lines show where I'm going to angle both edges at the corner rather than just trim one of them.

Here are the pieces cut out.

I began to angle some of the pieces with a knife and sandpaper. I also drilled out the LED holes using a 5mm wood bit.

Then I just began assembling all the pieces.

I had to be careful, trying to make sure the sides were square.

One of the pieces didn't quite fit, overtrimmed, but I'll sort that out later

After letting it dry a while I decided to paper mache' the inside, to cover the small cracks and strengthen it a bit.

Then I brought out my circuit and did a test fit, bending the LEDs into roughly the correct place.

The circuit fits easily into the housing. The only problem is that it infringes on the lens' space more than I would like. 
But I can't be bothered to move all the stuff onto a smaller board.

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Electronics

A huge gap here, bringing us closer to the present. Now working on some rangefinder electronics.

Rangefinder Electronics

Originally Posted 27-July-2009
I haven't posted anything in ages because I've been away (doing an Architecture degree)

But now I'm back and have got thoroughly stuck into making my rangefinder.

First of all I purchased a metronome kit from Maplin as well as some green LEDs.

As soon as I got the kit I assembled it according to the instructions and then began to sync the lights up to the right speed (2.13 Hz), by adjusting the two pots to 40KΩ each.

That was fairly easy and formed the basis for my rangefinder circuitry.

Next I desoldered the 9v clip, the LEDs and the capacitors. I re-soldered the capacitors, leaving longer leads so I could fold them down flat.

I had to extend the leads of the LEDs, this was fairly simple, I just soldered on some short lengths of wire and added heat shrink tubing.

I then re-soldered these longer LED's into place.
Also I filed off the unused areas of the board.

Until I could scavenge another resistor (maplin only sell them in massive sets) I'm leaving the circuitry here.

Total spend is now £9.58.

- Large card for main helmet & mask : £2.00
- Pint o' PVA Glue : £3.00 
- Metronome kit : £3.99
- Superbright green LED : £0.59

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Indentured

A slave to perfection. That's the problem with this build, the longer I spend on it, the more I want it to be right (definitely never redoing it).

Redoing The Dent

Originally Posted 26-Oct-2008 Very small update, I wasn't happy with my dent. It was too deep and lacking in detail. It's probably in the wrong place too but I can't be bothered moving it.

Any who I filled it up with polyfiller and sketched a design onto it with pencil. I over exaggerated the shape because I knew I would loose some detail when sanding. 

Then using a small half round file I began to etch out the main lines.

After that I filed out the main, depressed areas.

Then with the file I began to round off the raised areas. After that I moved to sandpaper and ended up with this.

Not perfect. But I think it's better than before What does everyone else think?

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Venti

Something about a bucket of coffee? I dunno,  I'm redefining tenuous puns.

Anyway this time I'm constructing the vent.

The Vent

Originally Posted 04-Oct-2008
Tiny update, I still have none of the proper materials at my new house but decided I wanted to carry on anyway.

With no printer I had to construct the keyslot pieces using a pencil, ruler and set-square. It took forever.

After that It took me ages cutting out the delicate vent piece. Going over each line several times very gently.

Its worth doing this slowly to get those sharp, square edges.

These are all the pieces necessary, the frame has an extra bit of trim so it will attach to the rest of the helmet.

Unlike the rest of the build for this I had to use Uhu glue. It left the piece a bit scrappy, not generally how I like to do things. Hopefully with a bit more work I can tidy it up.

Note: remember when wetting and bending the vent, the good (best looking) side should be the inside curve.

That's all for now

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Dome Wax

The following is a documentation of the hours I spent at uni polishing my helmet. 
Note: May be unsuitable for minors.

Finishing the Dome

Originally Posted 28-Aug-2008
This part wasn't following Antman's tutorial, because he hadn't posted that stage yet.

Still it was fairly simple,  get out my pot of dodgey polyfiller and cover the dome in it.

You may also notice I've painted some of the edges, this was just to stop them from being damaged too much during the next stage.

I was fairly happy with the finish on the cheeks and didn't see the need to cover them in polyfiller.

Next ( after hours of sanding )  The dent.



Originally Posted 22-Sep-2008
Right, only a little bit of progress. I bought some Tesco value sandpaper for about 50p. Then started sanding away at the mass of polyfiller. Working down from 60grad to 100. I wrapped the sanding paper round a block of wood to try and get better control.

After a lot of sanding here it is.

I also started on the dent, This is where accuracy went out the window. I cut a random sized hole in roughly the right position. Glued a bit of card behind and filled it in with polyfiller (had to do this in layers)

I then made the main lines using a small file. After that I've been slowly shaping it with 60 grad sandpaper.

That's all for now I need to finish the dent and then when I get some supplies I'll work on the vent.



Note: these are now camera phone images as the camera I used previously wasn't mine and I couldn't bring to Uni.


Total spend is now £5.50. 

 Large card for main helmet & mask : £2.00
 Pint o' PVA Glue: £3.00
 Sandpaper: £0.50



Originally Posted 23-Aug-2008

This was taken with the webcam on my laptop, hopefully its a bit better.

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Cheeky?

Well they can't all be winners, I'm too tired for punning.

Cheeks

Originally Posted 20-Aug-2008

Several steps missing here.
Cut out cheek areas and added the plates. Then added the dome arches. 

The cheeks took some time but I followed Antman's instructions and am very pleased with how they came out. If you're trying this leave a good couple of hours, as you need to hold each section, letting it dry before moving along the line.

Also the top visor part has been cut out ('cos I wanted to try it on)

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Doesn't Hold Water

Forming the Bucket

In the last post I just had a few pictures of my first attempts at making the ear pieces.
This time I begin actually making the bucket.

19-Aug-2008

Unfortunatley the largest helmet pieces won't fit onto the A3 bits of card I salvaged from sketch books, so I went to an art shop and bought a large A1 piece ( 4x size of A3 ) of cardboard (£2) and some more, stronger PVA (£3).

Which meant I could make the main helmet piece.

I don't really have a decent set of clamps so to hold this together while drying I used a combination of Quick Grips (yellow things), G - clamps, rubber bands, and for the hard to reach spot at the bottom I clamped it with a pair of rare earth magnets. :D

Basically whatever you can find.

PVA is definatly the best glue for this, easy to use, strong and inexpensive.

As long as you don't get the watered down stuff, meant only for paper.

The next part is poorley documented (starting to see a pattern here :s ) because I was frantically trying to get the mask to stick.

This shows the mask attached to the helmet and the wooden blocks clamped to flatten out the ear areas.

As I've said the hardest part was getting the mask to stick on evenly. The clamps I have only allow you to reach about 10cm from each edge, I needed more magnets really, but I had to make do.

That's all for now, next time I'm working on the cheek sections.

Cardboard Boba Bucket - Intro

So far this has just been repostings of my Hellboy Corpse Locator project.
What follows is still old work, it's a project that I started over 4 years ago, a Boba Fett helmet built entirely out of cardboard.  I've been stuck on the painting stage for the past few years, but hopefully posting all the old photos will give me the motivation to finally finish it.

Boba Bucket

Originally posted: thedentedhelmet.com 18-08-2008

Sady this is before I started taking loads of pictures. 

For making my helmet I'm using 2mm fibreboard type stuff, which is actually the stuff on the back of sketch books. So for these first pieces I just printed out the templates and began cutting out the pieces.

The primer was a solvent based primer I found in my shed claiming ' good for wood and metal'

Unless you're picky I reckon almost any primer will work on cardboard with fairly good results, and definitely anything made for mdf will work.

19-08-2008

As you can see the edges aren't quite as sharp as they could have been. In my constant refusal to buy any proper stuff I was sanding these using a fairly rough file, and some old sanding blocks I found.

The biggest problem I had was when I was clamping layers together. It was hard to find a flat surface in my room, and they often skewed during drying. (I have a workbench in my shed, but this is England I'm not freezing my arse off out there all day)

19-08-2008

My favourite thing about this method is that, however bad it initially looks, you just cover it in polyfiller and get a nice smooth finish.

Again whilst rooting around the shed I found some old polyfiller, from the 80's, it was grainy, had lumps and came in a tub not a tube. But it seemed alright and has served me well so far. 

Next I went and got some proper materials so I could actually start making the bucket.