Introduction: Mandalorian / Boba Fett Paper-thin Helmet

Hither'southward a fun project for Halloween or just to create your own crazy Star Wars inspired creation. You can either download the files to light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation cutting or impress, trace, and cut your own cardboard or other ~1/4'' thick material.

Note: This visor is super narrow and difficult to see through if you are planning on wearing information technology. It may expect a bit more accurate, but it is more dangerous to wear. If y'all are planning to take this helmet play a trick on-or-treating or to the con, consider cutting the visor a bit wider. I am in the process of creating a safer template with a wider cut for wearability, but in the meantime, consider cutting it wider and e'er compensation hunt with a buddy who can help you go on your dome condom.

Also- E'er wear safety spectacles for every project. Utilize gloves to avoid paper-cuts from laser cutting cardboard (and hot glue). Sand the edges a bit for less risk of injury.

Supplies

  • PDF files linked below. The circumference of the template helmet is well-nigh 14 inches around, and then utilise Inkscape or Illustrator to scale up by a cistron of nearly 1.7x (or better- measure your own head and practice math) before printing these templates.
    • By pop request, I've created NEW 8.5" 10 11" templates for desktop printers. Download the eleven "V4" files below.
    • I accept also included 18" x 24" files for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation cutters. (If your laser software use reddish-blue lines as cutting/ etch, edit the template and switch all the red/ blue lines to black and all the black lines to your cutting colour.) Download the two "V3" files below
  • 6 viii.v-inch past eleven-inch cardboard sheets
    • OR Two eighteen" x 24" paper-thin sheets for laser cutter files
    • Likewise - cut the pieces from a cereal box or example of beer to create a wacky bounty hunter.
  • Safety Glasses - ALWAYS
  • Hot glue
  • Wood Glue
  • Masking tape or packing tape
  • Metal straight edge ruler
  • Scissors or Exacto knife or
    • https://www.brand.practice/products/safety-saw-005
  • Rolling pin or some other cylinder for rolling (baseball bat, chair leg, paint roller, etc.)
  • vi-inch dowel rod, chopstick or pencil for the range finder stem

For finishing:

  • Bondo, Rondo, or Tap Plastic's Magic Smooth
  • Sandpaper
  • Paint
  • Modern Podge or clear finish
  • GLOVES! Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation-cut edges are sharp! Use gloves specially if working with laser cut templates and hot glue

Step 1: Fold and Glue the Helmet's Top Dome

Impress out the templates on a desktop printer or CNC cutter. Check out the printing tips folio to programme for your tool or printing strategy.

Let'southward beginning with a few tips for gluing as you start on the helmet's main dome. Curl each of the prongs of the washed around a rolling pivot to loosen them upwardly and begin to help them get into shape. I rolled all of the prongs along their length, so rolled the function perpendicular to its longest edge. The first 2 images hither show the effect from the top and them bottom of this part.

Next glue each prongs to the adjacent prong. When gluing, apply the glue into the corrugated edges and either hold or tape the edges together equally the glue dries/ cools. Gluing into the corrugated edges is my preference, just it also works well to concord the edges together and glue along the back. In this case, I did both.

Personally, I recollect wood glue gives the cleanest and most sturdy finish, merely hot glue is faster. Hot mucilage tin can also exist more than forgiving as you can re-heat and re-gum if you lot're unsatisfied with your seam.

Stride 2: Roll the Face/sides of the Helmet and Glue the Visor Into Place

Employ your rolling pivot perpendicular to the longest edge, roll the facemask part into shape. Take a little extra time to curl the curves on the front, every bit they're non going to fall into shape equally hands as the dorsum. When y'all're finished, mucilage the pocket-size tab in the back to create a complete circumvolve. (You can see in the photo that I covered this area with masking tape likewise, and I can cover it with Bondo or Tap Plastic'south Magic Smooth after, or simply remove it once the rest of the helmet parts are holding this into place.

I'm going to attach the cardboard visor with tape here, but y'all may desire to terminate and take a minute to create a plastic visor. I'll have to remove the record and this cardboard office later, merely this will assistance me to become the helmet in shape, add on the residuum of the parts, and create a sturdy helmet and then I can go back and shape a visor subsequently.

The dotted lines on this template file piece are alignment lines showing you how much to overlap. The dotted line across the top of the visor should be lined upward with the lesser edge of the circlet piece that we assembled at the beginning of this step. This is super helpful for me when constructing a solid helmet for finishing. I won't add together Bondo to the visor slice itself so that I can cut information technology out with an Exacto knife after the Bondo or Magic Smooth (Or whatever I'm finishing with) has cured and I take a solid helmet.

Stride 3: Fold and Glue the Insets in the Face Mask

Use your metal straight edge ruler to connect the endpoints of the blue lines (Come across the template files for bluish lines if you did not ink print them out) Use the edge of your metallic ruler or straightedge to connect these points and fold.

The dotted lines on this template file piece are alignment lines showing yous how much to overlap. When folding, you may need to mash the ruler edge down a fiddling to crush the corrugation. Then fold the edges forth the ruler.

When you brand these folds, the edges should start to align when they encounter at the angle created by the fold. Endeavour to trust the edges when working with a pepakura based template similar this, they are usually adequately perceives, just often a little frustrating to fold.

Glue the role along the edges to create the concave shape.

For corrugated cardboard, I overlap the edges a fleck here to arrive easier to create the depth of this shape using the thickness of the cardboard. Endeavor it with painter'south record a few times to go it all in place and making sense to yous before gluing.

Footstep 4: Create the Concave and Convex Rectangular Prisms

I am a teacher afterward all, and then allow'southward dig out a bit of geometric vocab and put these terms to good utilise.

There are three parts in this template that look like a distorted iron cantankerous before they're folded. Ii of these shapes volition form a rectangular prism and the tertiary will form trapezoidal prism. Utilize the metal straightege ruler technique from the last step to fold the edges inward and glue the corners.

The trapazoidal prism forms the concave inset at the back of the helmet, so let's glue that in identify right now. The other two volition form convex features on the left and right side of the helmet.

Step 5: Adhere the Dome and Insets to the Facemask

Slide the dome upwards through the inside of the hemet (watch out for the inset yous just attached in the back). Let the dome to sit down only slightly inside the facemask to create a piffling overlapped ridge around the helmet. Glue in place working at the front, and then back, and so left, then right before adding glue or record all the way around. This will ensure that the dome stays centered.

Add the insets by gluing the long directly edges first and then close upwards the curved seam.

Step 6: Attach Convex Features to the Sides

Glue around the edges and press this rectangular prism onto the side of the helmet. Line up the middle of the part with the middle ridge in the dome.

Step 7: Fold and Glue Range Finder (antenna) Parts

Use the metal straightedge technique to fold the base of the range finder as shown in the commencement image in this footstep. Then glue the shape together as shown in the second image. Both photos are taken from the inside to make it a fleck easier to see exactly where I put my metal ruler and creased the cardboard.

To fold the end of the range finder, apply the PDF template fastened to this instructable to draw your fold lines (prototype 4) and fold them with your metallic ruler (image five). Considering this is a smaller stand-lone function, I adopt to create this role from poster-board or mat-board as it folds and finishes better than corrugated cardboard (image iii). Glue along the inside to avoid sloppy seams, and apply images 6 and 7 equally your guide.

I attached a chopstick for the range finder (image 3), merely I'one thousand sure you could roll some paper-thin around a pencil or employ a paper straw or something for a pure paper-thin finish.

Footstep eight: Finishing

To attach the range finder, line up the base of the antenna with the top of the rectangular prism on the left side (left if you lot are facing the helmet, right side if y'all are wearing the helmet.) Run across Image ane and 2 in this stride.

Slide your chopstick and range finder end in, and you're done!

Bank check out JF Custom's post on the RPF to cheque out the original versions of their foam template that I used to create these templates. He also has a number of not bad tips for building and more cool mado stuff.

For a sturdy stop, heres what I use for finishing:

  • Tap Plastic's Magic Smooth is my number one get to for creating a study finish easily that looks amazing. Magic Sculpt is besides a great sturdy finish and great to piece of work with and piece of cake to clean
  • Plastic measuring cups for mixing
  • Craft sticks, also for mixing
  • cheap ane.five" - two" brushes
  • sandpaper - lxxx, 100, 120, 180, 220 dust

mix a fiddling ball of magic shine or sculpt. This stuff is WAAAAAAY better than Bondo, IMO. It allows for plenty of work fourth dimension, easy to sculpt, and smooths with water! (And please dont permit your hard work crumble apart by using plaster to finish) Put some magic smooth in each of the cracks and around the visor. (I left the paper-thin visor part taped in every bit I sanded and finished. (Paradigm four)

Start sanding with 80 dust. Have down all the rough edges. If you hitting cardboard, stop, you went a little as well far. NBD, add a niggling magic shine resin, sand, resin, sand, with sparse layers and increasingly fine sandpaper as you lot go (Images 5 - 7). When y'all're happy with the finish, paint. I've sent this ane off to a immature padawan who isn't every bit concerned with the finish as he is with bounty hunting, and then I didn't become as far into detail every bit I would for myself, nor did I spend much time on the facemask, just this should requite you the info yous need to see how I did it.

Go become 'em, but NO DISINTEGRATIONS!

Step ix: APPENDIX - Printing Tips

If you are desktop printing and hand cutting parts:

Download the template parts for your printer size. Print and cutting out the template parts. Record together the two largest parts and any other parts that demand to be taped together and reassembled before tracing onto paper-thin. The templates go to the edges, so make certain the printer crops the edges rather than scales the print down. It may be helpful to download and open the full size template (labeled v3 18 x 24) files to get a look at the fully connected template parts if you are unsure of how to reconnect whatsoever of the template parts.

if you are laser cutting or CNC cutting on Cricut or Silhouette machines:

download the full size 18" x 24" template (labeled v3 18 x 24). For Cricut and silhouette users, you may prefer the 8.5"10 xi" templates for machines with 12"x12" cut area. The cuts should be immune to become to the edges (my goal was to make reattaching the largest function simpler) Also note that the dotted lines on the visor template file piece are alignment lines showing you how much to overlap. I thought this was handy, only you may want to accept them out if your material is delicate or you lot desire a faster cut.

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