SKG:
Old School indeed. It took two weeks to generate that image in the '486 era. Now it could be done in real time on the crappiest PC graphics card. I had a 20 machine cluster of SGI Irises chewing on it and just about every other UNIX box on campus I could get my hands on. Even an Ardent Titan. They wouldn't let me have time on the Paragon. And I had to walk 10 miles to work, uphill, both ways.
I wanted to do something not helmet related for a bit so I decided to make a shoulder buckle master and a mold. The master is sheet styrene cut and glued in a stack. It's symmetrical front to back so I only had to make one. A little bondo was added to fix a couple of details.
I made a box from sheet styrene and filled it about halfway with clay (in the future I think I'll use wax). I embedded the master into the clay and dimpled a couple of registration keys before pouring the other half of the mold.
I used Smooth-On's OOMOO 25 RTV rubber.
After the RTV set up, I flipped the mold and removed the clay. A little clay stuck to the rubber but it won't affect the quality of the parts pulled from the mold. I could have cleaned it up some more but I'm lazy. I next coated the the rubber with Vaseline and poured the other half of the mold.
It's hard to get the corners in nooks and crannies to have sharp lines by sanding so I create a mold of sorts so I don't have to. I carved out a rough hole in the helmet were the vent detail goes and made a form from sheet styrene. I coat the form with a generous portion of bondo and stick it in place. After it hardens a bit I pull the form out and I'm left with a perfectly formed recess that needs minimal clean up.
Old School indeed. It took two weeks to generate that image in the '486 era. Now it could be done in real time on the crappiest PC graphics card. I had a 20 machine cluster of SGI Irises chewing on it and just about every other UNIX box on campus I could get my hands on. Even an Ardent Titan. They wouldn't let me have time on the Paragon. And I had to walk 10 miles to work, uphill, both ways.
I wanted to do something not helmet related for a bit so I decided to make a shoulder buckle master and a mold. The master is sheet styrene cut and glued in a stack. It's symmetrical front to back so I only had to make one. A little bondo was added to fix a couple of details.
I made a box from sheet styrene and filled it about halfway with clay (in the future I think I'll use wax). I embedded the master into the clay and dimpled a couple of registration keys before pouring the other half of the mold.
I used Smooth-On's OOMOO 25 RTV rubber.
After the RTV set up, I flipped the mold and removed the clay. A little clay stuck to the rubber but it won't affect the quality of the parts pulled from the mold. I could have cleaned it up some more but I'm lazy. I next coated the the rubber with Vaseline and poured the other half of the mold.
It's hard to get the corners in nooks and crannies to have sharp lines by sanding so I create a mold of sorts so I don't have to. I carved out a rough hole in the helmet were the vent detail goes and made a form from sheet styrene. I coat the form with a generous portion of bondo and stick it in place. After it hardens a bit I pull the form out and I'm left with a perfectly formed recess that needs minimal clean up.
