David sent us this guide for making guidelines on complex shapes with InstaMorph.
“One of the toughest parts of constructing a trooper helmet from a kit comprised of vacuum formed parts is how to trim the ears. There are many accounts on whitearmor.net of those who can’t quite get the fit right or end up overtrimming and require replacement.
For the best fit we’d want to trim the ear to match the 3D contour of the helmet where the helmet and the ear meet.
I’ve tried various techniques in the past such as using sculpting wire or a compass to draw the trim line onto the ear, but the best solution I came up with that works the fastest and maintains the most precision is to use InstaMorph.
I’d start by holding the ear above the helmet in the location where I want to install it and lightly draw the ear’s outline in pencil on the helmet. Then I would heat about 2 teaspoons of InstaMorph and roll it out into a 20 inch long cylinder.
Most of these parts are made of ABS plastic so to protect them that I would wrap theInstaMorph in plastic wrap (cellophane).
With the InstaMorph in warm moldable state I would place it along the outline as drawn on the helmet and let it cool. After few minutes I would remove the cooled, hardened instamorph and remove the plastic wrap.
I can now place the instamorph over the untrimmed ear which i can rotate in angle to see of a variety of potential ear trim lines i can draw along the bottom of the instamorph which I know will fit the helmet well.”
Thanks David for sending this in, along with the great pictures of your project in action.
