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I have created a penny saving tutorial for everyone to be able to enjoy the wonderful world of Steampunk. Meet… The Helmet.
I purchased this Construction Hard Hat at a local Thrift Store for 2 dollars and fifty cents. You are welcome to buy one brand new for less than ten d...
Remove all the straps and harness that are located inside the helmet and put them aside for later. Spray paint the helmet by using a flat black spray ...
While your paint is drying, gather up your other materials you will need. I got some stencils, Rub ‘n Buff - Pewter, white colored pencil, half pearl ...
Once the paint is dry, use a white colored pencil to trace out lines or designs you would like on your helmet. I used cogs and gears as my stencil. Ti...
Use your glue gun to trace the lines you made with the white colored pencil. Add your embellishments along the lines you made or in the corners. Tip: ...
After all the hot glue cools, take the Rub ‘n Buff - Pewter, add a little to your finger tip, and finger paint the hat. Tip: This is really potent stu...
Finally place the harness and straps back inside your hard hat and there you have it! The Steampunk Helmet! You are more than welcome to add other th...
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Posted:
Aug 23, 2011
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Since we're not in Rub'N'Buff country, I used silver paint. I used sandpaper on the helmet first, to get a better adhering coat. Then put the hot gle on.Then the flat black went on, over the hot glue.
All my paints are acrylic so they won't bite one another. I sprayed the silver paint on a small paint roller and rolled it over the flat black, rather sparsely.
The circuit board was sprayed with the same silver paint to make it more one with the helmet. The batteries for the LEDs are on the inside of the helmet. I cut a hole in the helmet that the battery holder fits through.
Folks at my local hackerspace are impressed and want one of their own, so I'll be doing a workshop soon :-)
Thank you!
Good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you for your comment!
One question - has the finish felt "secure" (can't think of a better word), or is it starting to flake off? I made my daughter Ruby Slippers wa-ay back in the 80's before you could buy them, and used red patent leather shoes as the base. Various-sized clumps of my glittery ruby application began flake off, and I didn't think about roughing up the patent leather shoes before I sprayed the adhesive on them. I don't know if that would have helped or not, but it seemed like the smooth, glossy surface of the patent leather contributed to the flaking. My thought would be to rough up the surface of the hard hat (after washing it) with a fine grit sandpaper before spraying it with the black matte spray paint.
Now I want to go steampunk something thusly. Thanks for the ible!
Rub N Buff is more of a waxier type of paint, so it spreads and clings very well.
Awesome job.
There were a few minor hiccups. I will have to download some pictures and comment on the process. In the end we were delighted with the results! Thank you so much for this great concept and tutorial!
So maybe I should share things I had to do a little differently and how they worked.
It was extremely hard to find the Rub-N-Buff, but after hours of driving and phoning I found it at Opus Art Supplies. In my city here in Canada, Michael's doesn't carry it; nor do Home Depot, Rona, Home Hardware, Canadian Tire, Walmart, or General Paint.
Also the half-pearl embellishments were terribly expensive at Michaels, besides they were much smaller and fewer of them on the sheets than yours. So I went to the dollar store where they also only had smaller ones, but cheaper. However at that point I'd already bought some half-sphere sticky soft plastic dots for putting under your ornaments to protect your surfaces. I found that neither of them stuck all that well. I am hoping that the clear coat will help keep them on. The large dots were punched out with a die that was too big so they look like washers under each rivet.
You can see the size of the small ones on the little rectangles on the lower sides, just above the ears. I think it would have looked cool too with only the smaller "rivets," a little more subtle.
Also, the black paint was really easy to scratch off. At least during the process, before the clear coat. If one is hoping to wear it a fair bit I'd recommend a specialty paint for plastic, or, even better, find a hard hat that's black already! (if that's even possible.) If I tried to remove a line of glue gun glue, it pulled off the paint too.
We also used a Q-Tip for getting the Rub-N-Buff a little closer to the corners, it didn't look quite right before, but now it may be a little too close.
And the colour and sheen doesn't look like yours, though perhaps that is due to your lighting for your photo vs. mine being daylight. Or did I use too much Rub-N-Buff? I think I should have buffed it with a rag to get some of it off for a more distressed effect. I may have missed that on the directions.
I wondered whether using actual or plastic gears, raised from the surface, would have been better. Real gears would of course not be welded on, as they have to turn. I know I'm being nitpicking because so far no one else has mentioned that! ;) My glue hand was unsteady and the gears were much less neat than yours.
Oh, and I bet this would look fantastic in many of the other Rub-N-Buff colours. I thought I saw a bronzy or coppery colour there in the shop too. If a few friends were doing them it would be great if they were in different "metals," and I note that a lot of steampunk stuff is in brass etc.
Oh, one last thing. My clear coat actually reacted with the black paint when we sprayed the underside and made it all wrinkle up. The exact products were: Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch Flat Black (not Ultra Cover as that wasn't in the shop) and Krylon UV-Resistant Matte Clear Acrylic Coating. I will have to ask my brother if it stayed like that though I assume it did.
Anyway, that was probably way too much feedback, but I thought I'd put it in there for any nitpicky creators out there!
Thank you again, Yamiguru! Now I am off to steampunk anything that's not nailed down around here! ;)
In regards to the color and sheen of your helmet, it's probably both differences in the pictures as well as differences in the amount of rub-n-buff. However, it still looks really good in my opinion, as you took the project and made it your own.
In regards to using actual or plastic gears, I found using either a problem to secure, as they kept falling off for me, and as you mentioned peeled off the paint as well. You would have to literally find a way to bolt them on, or use a stronger adhesive (I didn't try using something like crazy glue, or other similar adhesives, as it may have a reaction with the plastic).
In regards to the paint, I asked a friend, and I just found out that there is the potential for wrinkling to happen when you utilize two different types or brands of paint/clear coat, so if your flat black differs from your clear coat, this can happen. I'll make a note on my tutorial regarding this. I didn't know this could happen until now.
Thank you again for the feedback and have fun steampunking everything that's not nailed down. :-)