Ren's awesomeness had to be scaled down to enter our mundane universe...

[Darth Justicar]

Had no problem with the regular stuff or even it getting on my skin.  I think my next step will be to go react a little of this stuff outside over the weekend just to see how serious the heat and fumes really are before going full steam ahead.  If that fails I suppose another option might be to find a putty of some sort, not necessarily Bondo.

Otherwise I'll just have to paint without filling the seams and use the accent detailing/weathering to distract from them.

And you're welcome Knox!

[DarthScrub]

Have you ever worked with Bondo?

[Darth Justicar]

No...hence my reluctance to get involved with that.

One alternative I am even contemplating is wood putty seeing as it's getting painted over.

[Darth Justicar]

All right...before we begin, I want to make the point again that if you use superglue on a Black Series Kylo Ren helmet, you are COMMITTING to giving your helmet a new paint job, or at the very least, going over the affected areas with a Sharpie.  This is the area I glued last week.  The glue was in the INSIDE part of the helmet.  The white stuff around the seams (not the silver "battle damage" streaks is a chemical reaction between the plastic and the superglue.  See where it got to in a week's time:



Since I will be doing a full repaint, this does not bother me in the slightest but I want to make sure anyone else who works with this helm is aware of it.  Also, be aware that Superglue stinks well after the fact.  Thankfully my con is not until March, so I am going to be having this mask air out for a looooong time, sitting on its side.  If it STILL stinks by con time, then I will be careful how much time I spend with it on.  Fortunately since Kylo Ren himself doesn't have his mask on all the time, there is no rule like with Vader that the mask has to stay on.

Given the Superglue reaction though, it is probably a GOOD THING that I changed course and did NOT use the superglue+baking soda method to fill the seams.  Instead, since I also did not want to work with Bondo, I went with wood filler.  Will this be a perfect selection?  Heck no...I'm sure it won't be, but after three coats of spray paint AND added battle damage/weathering, I don't think it will be horrible for the budget I had to spend on it.  So this is what it looked like after I first finished applying some Elmer's Carpenters' Wood Filler (walnut, which was the darkest that my local Wal-Mart carried).  Looks like a nice big mess, doesn't it?



So of course I was going to have to sand that down.  Since I don't have a nice sander and only needed it for one project, I found some sanding sponges at Wal-Mart to use in order from left to right:



I am VERY grateful that I took precautions and wore a respirator mask, because once I saw the resulting dust...it went well beyond what I imagined, and I am glad I did not breathe that in.  So, here is the result after sanding.  The seams seem to be fairly well filled in now, though I'll watch and see how it looks tomorrow.



So that's this week's progress report.  The BIG stage happens next weekend: spray painting.  I am really hoping I can get some temperatures above 50 F and good weather without too much humidity or wind, because my plan is to take the car out of the garage, put down tons of newspaper, and spray in the garage.  IF the forecast holds, that day might be this coming Sunday.

[Noctis]

Looks awesome so far!

I don't wear the mask I have for mine because I don't have to know-how to customize it the way you've done and it's ill-fitting and uncomfortable.  I'll just paint the scar across my face and call it a day.    

[Darth Justicar]

Looks awesome so far!

I don't wear the mask I have for mine because I don't have to know-how to customize it the way you've done and it's ill-fitting and uncomfortable.  I'll just paint the scar across my face and call it a day.    

Hah, there's not much in the know-how department here, and truthfully the fit is not AS good as it could be, but it at least doesn't put me in any pain like it would have completely unaltered.  I'm just blundering my way through it as I go, chatting with people, and watching YouTube tutorials.  Once I get into the weathering/drybrushing stage I'll be a lot more comfortable though, as I do know a bit about that kind of painting, drawing, etc.

The catch before I spray paint is going to be to get all of the remaining dust off of there, and that is not going to be easy because of how unbelievably fine said dust is.

[Darth Knox]

Hah, there's not much in the know-how department here, and truthfully the fit is not AS good as it could be, but it at least doesn't put me in any pain like it would have completely unaltered.  I'm just blundering my way through it as I go, chatting with people, and watching YouTube tutorials.  Once I get into the weathering/drybrushing stage I'll be a lot more comfortable though, as I do know a bit about that kind of painting, drawing, etc.

The catch before I spray paint is going to be to get all of the remaining dust off of there, and that is not going to be easy because of how unbelievably fine said dust is.

I found when I am woodworking and need to get rid of all the dust before I can start painting or varnishing that using a vacuum with the curtain attachment really helped. I have a Henry's vacuum which has really good suction. Just a thought, should work just as well for your helmet. Maybe

[Darth Justicar]

Well, I don't have that type of vacuum.  However, you HAVE given me an idea to get creative with it if conventional methods don't work to get rid of the dust...

[Darth Knox]

Well, I don't have that type of vacuum.  However, you HAVE given me an idea to get creative with it if conventional methods don't work to get rid of the dust...

 glad i could help

[Darth Justicar]

I derped and assumed that by "Henry's vacuum" you meant some kind of specific tool.  Are you talking about the regular vacuum cleaner using the hose attachment?  If so, then maybe I got the right mental image in spite of myself. Maybe this is a sign I need to go to bed now.

[Darth Knox]

I derped and assumed that by "Henry's vacuum" you meant some kind of specific tool.  Are you talking about the regular vacuum cleaner using the hose attachment?  If so, then maybe I got the right mental image in spite of myself. Maybe this is a sign I need to go to bed now.

I did just mean the regular vacuum cleaner! Lol.

Henry's vacuums are awesome as they don't lose suction and pretty much last forever (my dad used them on the building site back when he was working and we had them is halls of residence when I was at university. Surviving those proves how sturdy they are).

[Darth Justicar]

Well, as some of you may have read in another thread, for whatever reason, my hilt and crossguards have arrived, but the main blade hasn't yet.  So while I try to get hold of customer service to see if they can give me the tracking number for my main blade (or get it shipped in case they goofed), I went ahead and did some drybrushing to weather the hilt.  And by "weather," I mean severely weathered, since as we know, Kylo Ren does not treat his stuff nicely.

When the whole saber is assembled, this thing is going to be awesome because...wow.  I had no clue how LOUD the speaker was.  I am impressed!

[Darth Knox]

That is looking awesome! Point to you

[ThreadJack]

I like the weathering on that saber. You're making me want one!

[Darth Justicar]

Thanks!

The plain black Flamberge looks "meh" when you first get it--but if you are planning to do any type of custom painting/weathering/whatever, it makes a REALLY nice blank canvas to work with.

BTW I decided to order a second blade, now that I know they're 5-10 days deep in emails and that the backordering is getting worse.  A spare blade was on my agenda anyway, but this way if it takes a REALLY long time, like past the con, to get this issue sorted, it won't be a problem.  And either way, I have a spare blade so if I do something stupid (or I decide to get really adventurous and try to figure out a way to convert one to a more unstable one at some point later), I'm covered.  I'm sure Corey's going to give me a "what the heck?" look when he sees that (he's the guy at US I've been working with), but it was definitely intentional.