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I've said it a few times already but this looks amazing!

Wow!

Look really good dude,

How much hair do you think you have used so far? all 5 pounds?

Deimos wrote:Look really good dude,

How much hair do you think you have used so far? all 5 pounds?

I reckon about a third of all the hair has actually been used on the two plumes.

Thankfully not too much has been wasted trying various methods out.

Will really need to get the finger out and get these finished!

Eureka!

That's such a lovely word at times and rather appropriate in the saga that has been the plumed Senate Guard helmet.

I have hunted high and low and tried just about everything (apart from the Cameron Diaz method ) to stiffen the horse hair used in the two plumes.
At last I came across the following fabric stiffener and tried it for the first time when I got in from work.



It has the consistency of watery porridge but brushes on very easily and gets into the fibers of all the hair and does'nt just "stick" the surface hair together. Once it was brushed on I just used a common hair comb to spread it more evenly through the crest and I cannot be happier with the result.

Here we are before applying the stiffener.



And a couple of shots of what the 'crest' looks like after being stiffened.





This stuff does'nt leave the hair looking as if a mad hairdresser went over the top with the 'ol hairspray and it leaves the hair looking very natural and glossy. It certainly does not leave the hair clumpy or sticky and still allows the hair to be easily trimmed with scissors.
The old sections of broken plume I have been using to experiment on have come in extremely handy and I am glad I did'nt bin them.

So!Not much of an update for this time but just thought you guys would like to see how things are going.

Got some "life" type stuff to get sorted out and a bit more work on the actual helmet to do yet but I am well chuffed at finding a product that is better than ideal for getting the two plumes stiffened up.

Hopefully not too long to go now!

Would it be possible to work on the plumes (or the helmet) while they are upside down so you're not fighting gravity? Let the stuff set and then turn it back over. Of course doing it that way you run into the issue of not knowing how it's actually going I guess.

JesterTDA wrote:Would it be possible to work on the plumes (or the helmet) while they are upside down so you're not fighting gravity? Let the stuff set and then turn it back over. Of course doing it that way you run into the issue of not knowing how it's actually going I guess.

Been thinking about that and my idea at the mo is to put the crests (one at a time!) into the lid and flip it upside down and give them a wee spray of clothing starch to give them bit of 'initial' stiffness.

Then I will turn the crest the right way around and apply the new stiffener!

That's the plan at the mo so hopefully it may give the illusion that I actually know what I am doing!

Bugger! Damn! S***!

What the frack is it with these little, itsy-bitsy, teensy-weensy pin holes that keep appearing??

Been trying to finish off the actual helmet prior to getting the plumes ready to be finished and I had sprayed the lid with the 'ol undercoat (so far!so good!) and about 10 little pin holes appeared in various places so I rubbed the areas down again (after applying some fiberglass resin to the offending spots) 'til the where as smooth as the proverbial and sprayed those areas again and bugger me if the frackin' little holes did'nt appear all over again!

So!Your mission (if you decide to accept it) is to give moi any ideas as to how to finally get rid of those damn little, annoying pinholes.

Have gone back to the car filler E40 (I think that's what it's called) to see how that goes and will leave at least 24hrs but I am not crossing any fingers here.



Admittedly there are'nt as many now but they are still there and I am rapidly getting to the point where I am just going to "To Hell With It" and leave it as it is!

If I could just finish off the lid I would be happy and the final bit of work needed for the plumes can wiat 'til I'm off work at the end of the month.

But!Any suggestions would be gratefully appreciated!

If they are tiny pin holes (which the name really makes it sound like) then I say don't worry about it. Show it to 3 or 4 people who don't costume and ask their opinion from about 5 feet away. Chances are they'll think you're crazy for seeing things. If they all say, "Yeah..you've got these little holes all over the place" then keep working. I'm not saying to go for a substandard look but most times when you troop people aren't 8 inches from your helmet checking it with a laser to look for imperfections.

Slowly but surely getting there now.

Started work on getting the plumes into their final shapes once I applied some of that stiffener I showed in a previous post.

Plume no.1 ended up a bit of a distaster as I put the stiffener on straight from the bottle and this stuff sets like concrete in minutes and of course I applied it along the length of the plume so by the time I got to one end the other had set solid and was a total b***h to comb through so that one had to be washed and is currently air drying in the garage waitng on moi to try again tomorrow (but it's double XP on COD Black Ops II so it may wait 'til Monday).

Anyhoo!Before I waffle on too much I got the second plume and put the stiffener on after watering it down with water first and doing it a couple of inches at a time a combing it through before it set.

Because the plumes where all floppy to start with I had a wee brain wave and that was to hang the lid upside down at first so all the hair stood on end. This worked pretty well to give the plume its initial cut and shape and the next part of the master plan was to take the plume off and apply more stiffener which I did later on.




So far!So good sez you!

Not quite sez I.
I really should have seen this coming but as I was taking the helmet off the cords holding it upside down (c'mon guess what happened next!!) it of course slipped, fell onto the floor and cracked the left side of the crest. Not too badly to be sure but I was'nt a happy bunny. Just applied some good 'ol superglue along the crack and when that had dried I just applied some fiberglass to the area and that will get sanded back at some point soon. Not really a disaster but one I could well do without at this stage.

I did forsee one wee prob in that due to the curve of the crest the hair would not want to follow that curve naturally and leave gaps between each tuft which is exactly what happened, but thankfully I had saved all the old tufts from the previous plume attempts and they filled the gaps in perfectly.

Once that was all sorted and I was reasonably happy with life, the universe and so on I went over the plume again with the stiffener but this time straight from the bottle and again a few inches at a time and combing it through.

Then it was out with the new hair dressing scissors (thanks to a certain auction type site/place) and the templates I had made up all those months ago when I first started down the plumed helmet road.

The next pic was taken before I plugged in all the gaps



There we have it for now.

Will get the second plume started soon and that will be both done at last. At least I will have the first plume to use as a template for the second one so no upside down helmets (that really p***ed me off that did!).

Just got to try and bend them over ever so slightly once in the lid but that will be story for another day.

Tune in next week for more thrills, spills and so forth!

Thanks for following this thread folks.