How to Make a Mandalorian Helmet | EASY Trick for a Metal Finish On Your 3D Prints!

yeah so you're sitting there you just got done watching the Mandalorian and you're like man I really want to get myself a Mando helmet so you pull up a quick Google search and you start to realize that not only do half of them look like scams there's no way you're getting a Mandalorian helmet for 69 the other half including the officially licensed Hasbro replica kind of looks like junk so in this video I'm going to show you how to turn a roll of filament into something even better let's get started [Music] [Music] all right hey guys what's up welcome back to the channel my name is Frank and there's a lot to cover in this video so I want to jump right into it but throughout this entire video I'm going to show you how to 3D print sand paint and make your very own Mandalorian helmet this is my old helmet but I know I can do better now so I want to show you through this entire video how to end up with results that are even better than this now I will say right off the bat I'm going to be using a very particular finishing process called graphite powder you probably heard this term if you're in the Mandalorian cosplay building scene but this is the finishing process I'm going to use however you can use 90 of this video to still make your own Mandalorian helmet whether you're going to be spray painting it or doing something like a Luma luster or duralume to get that really nice screen accurate finish most of this video is going to apply to any of those processes but the very last step to get that nice metallic finish is going to use this if you want to use something else you can pretty much stop watching there and go do your own thing but this is what I'm going to be using for this video now in my personal opinion this is the cheapest and easiest way to get the best possible finish without having to use something like an HVLP gun or an airbrush those do look better but but I haven't seen cans of spray paint be able to do something like this but let's get onto the computer start looking at how to print and slice this thing and we'll get Off to the Races okay here we are let's look at the files oh sorry let me get this uh filth off the screen anyway I have a couple files laid out here this is a free Mandalorian helmet by the Broken nerd a very accurate file and it's broken up exactly how we're going to be printing it those little ear pieces I don't know what they're called I'm going to call them ears this entire time deal with it and the vent is all separated you can download this file or you can get something from the galactic Armory 15 bucks beautiful file set um the Holy Grail seems to be by great ape Studios his helmet pretty much broken up the exact same way he just has a couple little extra pieces in the ear section for this video though I'm going to be using the file set by Akira uming he's made a bunch of Iron Man helmets and stuff and uh his file set's only 10 bucks it looks pretty accurate and I like it a lot you can see he's included all the same Parts he even has a template for the visor but I don't really print that so let's look at what these files look like now for this video and build I'm going to be using the bamboo p1p uh it has a rather small build plate for making helmets I actually had to scale the helmet down to 97 just to get it to fit onto the build plate you can use whatever slicer you want whatever printing method you want I will go over a couple settings however if you want my settings for Cura go check out my original how to 3D print a Mandalorian uh video up here this tells you the uh the cura settings how to block out the top support bar so you don't you know use a bunch of material that will help and I'll put like a little time stamp to start watching it right here and that's the only information you're going to need from this video because there's a lot newer updated information in this one we're not going to be using the visor here so we can just delete that we're going to make the visor later from hand so I just arrange all the little ear bits kind of like this always stand them up as much as possible this is going to help you extract the most quality out of your 3D printer if you lay them flat you're going to get something called top layering and it's just going to be a lot more work to sand so go ahead arrange them however you want I print them all at once as close as possible it uses less support material because it doesn't have to spread out as far and in this case of the p1p I had like I said I had to scale it down to 97 twist it a little bit to just barely get it to fit but it does fit not only that if you go up here to seam painting or support painting sorry you do not need to print the top of the Dome if you look in here I've gone and blocked out all of this if you're using bamboo right clicking or sorry left clicking paints on supports uh right clicking deletes the support so I'm going to erase all of the required supports for the top Dome area it's still going to print fine don't worry you can do this on a lot of helmets there is no need to flip this helmet upside down to print it you're gonna ruin a lot of the details on the top Mohawk part so just print it like this as for settings and quality on the bamboo I'm running a 0.12 millimeter layer height again you can raise or lower that the better quality you can extract from the printer the less post processing and sanding you have to do pretty simple as far as strength goes I'm using a 15 infill you can pick whatever pattern you use I'm using grid in in this case in Kira I really like gyroid I'm leaving all the speeds the same my friend Nick actually slowed his down to like 150 for a little bit of better quality but the 200 millimeter second average worked fine for this make sure you enable support I pretty much leave all the support settings how they are in bamboo you can increase and decrease certain things but that's totally up to you and I just make sure that bed adhesion's on in some way shape or form I have a very small brim let's slice this so the little detail bits are going to print just fine you can see here on the top that's what I mean by top layering that's very easy to sand down you don't want this across the entire face or sides of those little parts so standing them up gets you a much better quality and this is going to take five hours on the p1p not bad at all as for the main Dome we're looking at 22 hours 23 hours and if you look inside you'll see there are no supports on the inside you don't need them it'll print just fine and it's going to use a little more than half a roll of filament that's pretty good for a full-size helmet so in less than one roll of filament you're getting a whole Mandalorian helmet for what 20 bucks for a roll of filament now don't turn it into this contest in the com comments or on the Facebook groups about oh well I printed mine in 20 hours or mine what are you doing you can block shut up print the helmet get the helmet printed so you can actually work on it who cares if you were able to shave an hour or two off if the print fails it doesn't matter so just print the helmet so we can move on to the next step so that's pretty much it for the computer work so now let's get into the garage get everything printed and start attacking the post processing of this project and make the best Mandalorian helmet we can [Music] foreign [Music] okay moment of truth let's see if it fits at 97 percent and oh yeah oh man my nose all right my nose doesn't stick out that means the visor is gonna fit man I look goofy as heck like this but that's per oh man that is perfect just a little bit of padding to bring it up right there oh we're in business let's get the ears printed and keep this project going [Music] the first thing I'm going to work on doing is getting any big layer lines knocked down I do not need to hit this with 60 grit um typically if it was a lower quality I would I'm going to actually just start off on 220 grit sandpaper this guy right here smooth this down as much as possible by hand there's only some layer lines up top I need to clean up and then these detail lines and I can hit it with a first coat of primer so let's sand this down by hand okay so I decided to get all of the little side bits and parts to fit first I went and sanded down the back vent and it fits in there perfectly I don't have to do any modifications that just locks in there as for the little side ear bits everything lines up great I will glue these on after the fact this way I can take advantage of gravity when painting this um that's something a lot of people don't really talk about is if this has layer lines on it don't stand it up let gravity do a little bit of the work when you spray paint something especially filler primer it is still kind of a liquid so if you lay it down like this the paint's going to be kind of self-leveling so as you spray it and do wet coats it's going to settle a lot more so all of these little pieces I'm gonna just spray them flat I hit them all with 220 grit they look great the only thing that's not fitting are these little alignment pegs right here um they're just they're blown out just a little bit they do fit but they don't close perfectly I could do a couple different things but I'm actually just going to take a drill bit and make these bigger real fast so let's do that [Music] boom look at that goes on all the way now and I have a good alignment point so yeah let's do the other side good to go they'll fit everything's looking good so let's now start sanding the helmet and uh that's gonna take it's gonna take a little bit [Music] okay I think we're sanded enough it's pretty smooth with this 220 grit um I got home from work around 5 p.m and I went in and ate dinner it's almost 8 P.M so this is about let's say about two and a half hours of just hand sanding and I made you know really good progress on it so you can see there's still some lines in it some deeper areas like that but I'm gonna hit it with its first coat of primer this you can put time into either side of this you can spend a lot of time sanding it getting into the details getting it as smooth as possible and using less primer or you can do a quick scuff and cover it in primer it's tomato potato at that point um since in my mind sandpaper is cheaper I mean not you know sandpaper is much cheaper than primer I try to always get it as smooth as possible I just didn't want to break out the power sander right now I could get this smoother but again I'm all right with this I know it's going to start coming out good so let's go let's go get some primer on this helmet we're gonna be using the gray DupliColor filler primer because I can't in the red anymore and first we're going to do a nice little dust coat on all the parts and once that gets a little tacky like you can touch it but the paint doesn't come off then we're going to start doing uh some heavier wet coats [Music] okay it's the next day and the primer is dry it came out pretty good but I'm gonna do a good pass of 220 grit um the back is particularly smooth that came out really nice um the worst layer lines right now are just in these cheek areas so I'm going to do another passive sanding with 220 and then I might even be able to do some 500 great maybe dry or wet but we'll get there so yeah let's get back to sanding [Music] okay sanding's going pretty good um this is just a pass of 220 grit now I was able to layer up and cake up a lot more primer on the top so this is nice and smooth but you can see I don't know areas like back here I can still feel some of these lines so I'm going to do one more coat of filler primer over this probably not as heavy as I went before but this is looking really good I'm actually really happy with the results of this this is one round of sanding and then one round of primer now a lot of people ask this a lot um oh how many coats of primer did you do a lot a little um what do you consider a coat do you consider a coat one pass or a full coverage and it just it doesn't really add up like it's not a good metric to follow um so I do one pass of primer so the entire thing gets covered a couple wet coats I build it up if it runs a little bit oh well it's primer sand it back down so that's just one round of primer I think I used like a quarter of the can didn't use too much um so now I'm going to do another round of primer on top of this so where this took about uh half an hour to sand back down plus all these little pieces so I'm Gonna Keep rinsing and repeating this process until we move into the black base coat we're gonna do a gloss black base coat on this after the last round of primer so once that's smooth um we'll be able to move on to the next step so yeah [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] okay so I'm almost done with the primer and sanding stage however I've gone and done a light coat of matte black paint now this isn't to get ready for the actual gloss black that's going to be on it this is something called a guide coat this is a trick that's used in Bodywork in the automotive industry and I can't believe I haven't talked about it earlier in the channel um basically you're going to start spraying opposing colors my next goal here is to sand off all of this black because there's gray primer underneath it now if I can't sand off all the black there's going to be black lines left all over the helmet those are your valleys those are the spots and the layer lines that I haven't filled yet and it'll be very apparent when I sand this part of the ear so I'm going to try to sand all of the black off and then I can do another coat of primer and then I can do another coat of black or you can just keep going back and forth so I try to sand the black off and then I do more black and then I do gray you're basically just trying to get the opposing colors on top of each other so let me start sanding this down I I had a couple runs on the primer not a big deal we're still in the priming and standing stage but this is going to help us get a much smoother finish hey yo disembodied voice Frank here now it's time to start applying the color I went all the way back through the sanding and priming and I love how smooth this helmet looks this is exactly what we want this was the final coat of primer and it looks near perfect I'm happy with it we're gonna be using a gloss black Krylon and just start layering it on go light it first a nice dust coat and then you're going to start building up a Sheen or wet coats practice on some scrap pieces if you've never used this paint before and take your time just you do not want to rush this and mess something up you do not want to mess this up don't mess it up so I ruined the paint um this is what I get for rushing I I I I knew I should have recorded myself spraying another coat of black and I'm like no they they know they figured it out they're up to this point so I just went upstairs and I sprayed it and everything orange field you can see it right there through the reflections on the top uh yep there it is look at it all um it really happened on the top of the Mando helmet um every single little piece on the side orange peeled and this was uh this was because this will happen I'm kind of glad it happened this can happen for a couple different reasons Orange Peel can happen when um your first coat and your second coat don't play well they don't adhere well even if it's the same paint maybe I didn't shake the can long enough maybe I was spraying too close too far a temperature differential um I did take some 220 grit sandpaper to the first layer of gloss black to try to knock it down I could have left some dust particles on it I could have left some oily fingerprints on it you can have orange peel or bad paint reactions just for a couple different reasons this is why it's very important a to take your time and B to test things there's no perfect way to avoid Orange Peel it's just understanding the paints you're using um this isn't the end of the world I'm gonna sand this down and I'm actually gonna dive vert a little bit I think what I'm gonna do is sand this back down a little bit and then go ending I'm going to end up using a satin black paint get that nice and smooth and then I'm going to clear coat that instead of just trying to use the all-in-one gloss black which you can do I just I want to see if I can get it to look better the other way so let's sand this back down I'm not sanding it back down the primer by the way guys I'm just trying to remove some of the orange peel honestly this little vent piece came out pretty good I might not sand this back down this actually looks pretty good um I'm okay with this so yeah we have one Survivor and everything else yeah sucks but it happens okay so I totally lied to you guys I did not end up doing the matte black with the high gloss clear coat I went right back to the normal gloss black I was just more patient with my layer application and as you can see it started to come out really nice and smooth but I did want to take it one step farther and I used the 1K Dupli-Color high gloss clear coat started misting it on very lightly I know it doesn't look like I'm missing it here because it has a lot of overspray but after I did a Mist coat and let that get tacky then I started doing the wet Sheen coats and you can see here that the entire helmet is starting to get a nice gloss reflective finish you don't need to do this if you just use the normal gloss black but I wanted to give it a little bit more protection so I really caked on the high gloss clear coat and once this was dry and make sure you give this plenty of time to dry I think I let it sit there for like a day and a half and it cured up beautifully and then it was on to the next step okay so now it's time for my favorite part of the process applying the graphic powder or graphite rub this helmet came out beautiful I could probably sit here for another day or two wet sand buff polish and then do another clear coat but I am more than happy with the shine and reflectiveness on this and it's not supposed to be 100 perfect you know it's a forged metal best car helmet whatever now at this point you could stop and divert to a different paint Scheme most paints you're going to do a Luma luster Dura aluminum even spray paint are gonna require a nice gloss black finish so if you want to do graphite rub like I'm about to do you want to do a Luma luster or some HVLP or airbrush totally up to you but getting to this process the better this part looks the better the next step will look so make sure you have a really nice eye man that looks great yeah so for doing graphite rub all you need is some graphite powder you get it on Amazon or some cotton swabs and gloves because this stuff makes a absolute mess you're going to stain your fingers even with gloves on um but it's worth it so I'm gonna move the camera we're gonna top down kinda of you and we'll uh we'll get to work take the cotton swab just dip it into the powder nothing crazy and then what I do is I dab it on the part and then once it's kind of spread around that's when you're going to start buffing it into the paint foreign and you'll end up with something that looks like that oh man that came out that came out so good let's do the rest of the ear part whatever you want to call it I don't know the official name Sue me [Music] look at that so here's a nice little see if I can get the reflections right a nice little before and after of just how much of a difference this makes that is beautiful it's a little up close here let's do that neat all right now the best part the whole helmet huh hopefully I got some good footage of this we'll see how it goes just just gotta dive in I guess [Music] foreign [Music] all done as for protecting the graphite rub um you don't need to or at least I never have as long as you wipe everything down really nice at the end there just wipe it down with a cloth or a rag that's it look not like nothing came off I had already wiped it down once and I can touch I can touch this I can get my fingers all over it and it's not coming off like it stays on it you're you're actually pushing the graphite flakes into the clear coat and paint it's permanently staining it like that's what's happening um now if it does start to rub off over time put more graphite rub on it like if it starts to fade or dull just do more graphite it's not that hard the other complaint people will have is saying oh well it gets fingerprints on it you know oh you know I have fingerprints on it have you guys never touched real metal before anything this smooth and shiny that's metallic It's Gonna Leave fingerprints you can't have the best of both worlds you can't expect something to look and operate like metal but not have the property is the material properties of metal something smooth and shiny like this is gonna get fingerprints it's just kind of unavoidable but it wipes off just be careful with it um I do know some people who have had some success putting 2K clear coat over this with an HVLP gun or an airbrush I've never really seen the need to do it in this case so definitely you know play around with it experiment but I'm more than happy with this finish and if it's just a display piece that you're not wearing as a cosplay this looks absolutely great and like I said if it starts to rub off over time um just reapply more why not but that's it for the paint oh God this looks so good in the camera I can't stop looking at it especially with the hexagon lights above um anyway yeah it's time for it is time to assemble this thing get the visor in glue the side Parts on that's pretty much it so let's get back inside and do that move over Rover it's a voice over yeah I'm dubbing over this because I'm an idiot and I didn't talk during this process anyway I just started super gluing the ear parts on um two-part Siana acrylite works great the accelerator did not affect the graphite rub at all just make sure you don't get super glue where you don't want it for this next part I started tinting the visor this is a clear sheet of ptg plastic you can get them for a vacuum former on Amazon there's links for all of this stuff down below so you're gonna spray some soapy water on it you're gonna take the window tint you get it at AutoZone or wherever you lay it down lots of soapy water and then you start working the bubbles out it does take a lot of patience to do this stuff but once you figure out how to do it it is very rewarding and you can make visors super easy at any tints and shapes or whatever make sure you have a good razor and a clean environment and just have at it I have a full tutorial on how to make cosplay visors like this for Mandalorian helmets and Samus helmets or Halo wherever you want to use that is linked down below as well or in the little box that probably just popped up right now so go check that out making visors is super easy and it unlocks a lot of possibilities and once the visor was done I kind of phoned it in and duct taped it into the helmet you could super glue it you could weld it do whatever you want but the duct tape worked while playing now this window isn't that dark I want to be able to see through this helmet pretty good but the problem is because it's not that dark you can see my nose through it it pushes up against the lens so what I've gone and done is I've layered up a couple extra bits of petg tinted from leftovers so there's two strips sitting behind there to layer up the tint even more now you could put a piece of black acrylic or black tape something to cover that up so I can just see right through here you can see the difference in visibility from the top and bottom and where the cutoff is and you really can't tell from the front that it's even there and it just stops you from seeing my nose which I'm happy about so feel free to cover that up however you want but that's pretty much it for this helmet oh yeah padding we have to put some padding in it to make it comfortable let's go do that foreign [Music] okay all done um just gone and thrown some pretty standard foam inside of there I've actually started using soundproofing foam because you can get this stuff super cheap in whole sheets it's really flexible easy to cut down and I put it on the sides like the ear spots um it just squishes down great so yeah however you however comfortable you want to make it you can spend as much time as you want on that hot glue and foam go a very long way so that's pretty much going to do it for this video guys I love how nice this helmet came out there are a few blemishes on it I got a little weird Speck uh right there you can kind of see it oh well this thing's gonna battle damaged and weather and over time anyway I mean have you seen his helmet in the show it's never clean but just seeing the quality difference in my own work I'm I'm super Blown Away how far I've come with this and it is such an easy process to do no I still think this helmet looks pretty good this one looks better though and you can apply this method to really any type of armor about full Mandalorian armor or whatever I think like I said before this gives you the best finish that doesn't involve um you know hdlp or some Advanced type of spraying even airbrush now those do look amazing and Luma luster is literally what they used in the show but I think bang for your buck this graphite rub it's just hard to beat it so that's totally up to you but hopefully throughout this video you did learn something new how to print the Mandalorian helmet some tips in post-processing and sanding how to get a good gloss black how to make visors all of that fun stuff it was a fun video to do and I'm super happy to have this new Mandalorian helmet on the Shelf if you guys have any comments questions or concerns about anything you saw in this video drop some comments down below I read all of them and I do my best to respond to as many as possible and if you like what you saw please consider subscribing to the channel I have a lot more tutorials and work kind of like this Blue Beetle helmet oop can't show you more than that so I have a lot more stuff in work and I would love to be able to show you guys oh hey look I've been holding this helmet this entire time and touching it and none of the graphics come off weird but that's gonna be a wrap for this video guys as always thank you so much for watching and you have a good day foreign [Music] how to 3D print sand paint and build your very own Mandalorian caught it well there's the blooper who

Channel: Frankly Built

Views: 220,720

Keywords: mandalorian, the mandalorian, the mandalorian season 3, how to make a mandalorian helmet, how to make a mandalorian costume, how to make a manadalorian mask, star wars, star wars cosplay, graphite rub, graphite powder, how to use graphite powder, how to use graphite rub, using graphite rub, how to get a metallic paint, how to paint metallics, how to paint metal, how to make cosplay look like metal, mandalorian cosplay, metal 3d print, 3d print, alumaluster, duralumen, metal

Id: 8d99KvGiynA

Length: 26min 45sec (1605 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 22 2023