1. Prototype three now a bigger fit by 15mm. Much more comfortable. I've modified it so that the bottom plate at the back of the head now swivels up inside the helmet to allow room to put the helmet on, then swivels back down into position behind the head.
2. Resized helmet on the left 15mm larger than the one on the right.
3. Aluminium templates marked ready for cutting.
4. Cutting aluminium templates on the bandsaw.
5. Cutting with the bandsaw, staying 1/2 millimetre to a full millimetre outside the edge line to be filed flat.
6. Chin piece cut out.
7. Stitch drilling the shaped hole out, staying a couple of millimetres inside the edge line to be filed flat.
1. Chin, sides, top and one back plate cut and pre-polished.
2. Beating it into shape using a curved-face rubber mallet and a foam mat on concrete. Got to be careful to hit it in key points and not too much, or it begins to stretch the metal.
3. For the tighter curves, I re-shaped the end of an old plastic mallet on the grinder.
4. Curves looking good.
5 & 6. Temporarily tacked together with a bit of hot-glue to get an idea what needs to be bent more or less.
I made a few tools today to help me shape the metal for Iron Man.
1. A short piece of an old post, reshaped into a mallet-head with a wide and narrow end, an old broken sledge handle, cut down to make a good handle for the mallet.
2. A thick piece of steel with a slot cut in it at the thickness of the aluminium I am using, then a spanner on the side to provide enough torque to bend the sheet-metal right on the line.
3. Finally, a short but thick piece of steel, shaped on the grinder to act as a battering ram to achieve very tight and precise curves.
1. These tabs all fold up to form a step to the next piece. The large blank bit in the middle needs to be cut out, but it is best to do that after the tabs have been bent. I'm thinking that instead of these clunky tabs, I will cut them all off and just cut a long flat strip, then curve it into a ring to form the circular step instead.
2. Shaping one of the overlapping aluminium plates at the back of the helmet around to the ears.
3. Earpiece showing folded tabs to be ground and sanded smooth. I found that if I tried to simply bend the tabs to 90 degrees, they would invariably fatigue and crack or even snap off. Fix? Clamp it between two pieces of thick steel and beat it over with a hammer and flat punch.
Iron Man suit slowly progressing. Managed to get all the old paint off this second-hand aluminium. This is the armour at the lower back and around waist to meet up with the abdominal plates.
