Life-Size Buzz and Neil (enlarged 1/4 Ken West "Apollo Astronauts on the Moon")

[Algebraist]

Dear all

It was time to start the awkward glue of joining Neil's visor to the helmet. However having already done Buzz's I felt it would be not too bad. First up was to remove the troublesome stiffening I had added



and then to add location markings for where the visor attached (just as in Buzz's case



I don't know why but from this point on everything was just a real struggle trying to get everything to sit in just the right position to glue the tabs. It was "any port in a storm" to do this as the the next photo shows even the 1/4 model parts were used to "assist"



I don't know if it was because the visor was a slightly different shape to Buzz's or what but it was not as easy going. However with head torch on red and back in the helmet, gradually one by one the tabs were glued and then stronger joining tabs added



Closing up was difficult but eventually got there



In the end it was not a perfect join. There was some stress damage



bits of the side were a little uneven



and the closing join at the chin did not quite match the line it was supposed to follow.



Overall this was the end result of attaching Neil's visor



I am really glad that bit is over and it is better than I thought it would come out. I am sure I will never do a glue as awkward as the visor joins to the helmet ever again!

Regards

Kevin

[Viator]

Wow-ho-ho-ho!
Quite impressive, sir!

[rifleman]

fine work ,well done on getting this far looks awesome ,

[Algebraist]

Originally Posted by Viator

Wow-ho-ho-ho!
Quite impressive, sir!

Cheers Andrew. Glad you are enjoying the thread

Regards

Kevin

[Algebraist]

Originally Posted by rifleman

fine work ,well done on getting this far looks awesome ,

As always good to hear from you rifleman. You are always very generous with your comments. Much appreciated.

Regards

Kevin

[Algebraist]

Dear all

Having attached the visors to the helmets it was time to strengthen them. They would be prone to being "dented" so wanted to make them pretty strong. So I decided they would be triple layered (counting the actual visor parts as one layer).
I decided to make the second layer from black sugar paper. This was for two reasons, first I thought it would be a strong layer. But (mainly) second, I wanted no "white bits" (or points of light) to come through the visor. This meant I would have to thoroughly overlap all possible joins inside the visor.

First up I had to mark the "edge" where I needed to overlap up to (at least) and then I started to add the black strips



It was virtually impossible to see where the edge of one black strip finished on top of another. So I used a white "china" pencil to put markings to help find the edges



Here is the details of the china pencil I used. In the UK such pencils are called "china pencils" since they were used in the pottery industry to make markings on the pottery and can write on virtually any surface, including glass. Thus were used to draw outline patterns on glazed fine bone china ( to assist the decorators, hence the name. They really are excellent pencils for lots of different things including making the marks I needed.



I then decided to cut back as much of that (bad idea) strengthening card I had added, which had caused such problems in the hope it would be too weak to do any more "damage".



It was then a case of slowly and carefully adding strips. I used uhu to avoid any warping and was extra careful in handling the visor to avoid damage to the picture.



I wanted to avoid any "air pockets" and since the visor is curved in all directions this meant the strips had to be relatively small, tailor cut, and placed in specific directions. However I eventually got there. Here is Buzz's visor completed blackout layer



I then had to go it all again for Neil's visor. Here is a photo of part progress



The black sugar paper is very "thirsty". When doing this sort of laminating I found I needed something like 8-10 times the amount of uhu glue than white glue on usual white paper. Just before finishing I needed to do another refill of the uhu glue bottle.



So that was about 100ml of glue to join the visor gores, attach them to the helmets and add one blackout layer to each! So here is Neil's finished



When I look at this picture, all the white dots on the black background make it look a little like a "window to the stars in a night sky" (to me).

Regards

Kevin

[Algebraist]

Dear all

I have been putting on the third layer of Buzz's visor. For this layer I went back to using white paper (as I think it is a bit thicker than the black sugar paper) but still using uhu glue to ensure no warping. The white paper takes a lot less glue which I forgot on the first couple of pieces (my mind being on auto pilot). Thankfully the third layer is quicker to put on since the first two layers are quite stable so it is much easier to press down against when doing the third layer. Here are some photos of the progress

Starting



part way through



and finished



The finished visor is really strong and should take all reasonable handling. Now got to do the same for Neil.

Regards

Kevin

[rifleman]

really nice work ,your doing a great job keep the photos coming

[Algebraist]

Cheers rifleman. Will do.

Regards

Kevin

[Algebraist]

Dear all

I next moved onto adding the third layer to Neil's visor. First a good supply of strips of paper is needed. It takes a lot of the "off-cuts" to do these strengthening layers. Here is a photo of getting some of these ready.



As you can see all paper is used including parts that are no longer needed. Here is the layer in progress



And then finished



I have decided that next I should strengthen most of the rest of the helmet (so all but near the chin section. Then add the chin section and then finish off the remaining strengthening. I must admit I am loosing enthusiasm for all this strengthening. Still it needs to be done so just keep at it.

Regards

Kevin