Fettling

This is the bit of the build that takes time, fettling everything to make it look good, fit well and be as smooth as possible for a good metallic finish.

The Head

First up was the head.  I wasn’t happy with the eyes I’d drilled and as it’s 3D printed, I decided to hollow out the eyes and the centre of the head and then reprint.  A couple of attempts later and I printed 6 copies to practice the different paints jobs with.

I went through all the normal cleaning and tidying stages…

and this was the end result…

My old drilled eyes are front right and the new ones front left. Much happier!

I bought a big LED for his ARC reactor in his chest but filed the top flat to diffuse the light.

I wasn’t happy with the rounded tops on one one leg so I built them up with some acrylic putty so I could file them squarer.

I built up the right hand side of this arm which was cut away so it didn’t hit the body.

Lighting

Like all fettling, this took a while to get right.  This was mark 1 but didn’t light up as the LEDs were in series not parallel… school boy error…

Now in parallel but major snag, they don’t fit inside the head easily.

This is mark 5, the head lights up really well.  Obviously the head is translucent so shines but when painted, it won’t.

And this is what mark 5 looks like inside.  I used an O scale copper clad sleeper with a cut down the middle so that the two sides are electrically separate.

I need to find a way to diffuse the LEDs so that they shine out the eyes but there’s enough wattage to make a nice glow.

Priming

I washed the pieces and then blew them dry with my airbrush – yes, I’m impatient.

I used hot glue (hoping it will pry off easily) to attach the hanging wires so that they can be hung to dry.  I wish I’d noticed one of those hot glue strings all down the torso before I painted…

Here’s the heads with sticks hot glued in so that they can stick in some expanded polystyrene.

Paint always sprays well if heated in hot water and I was spraying outside as I haven’t tidied my garage enough to spray in there yet.  It was 16C outside and very gusty winds but still better to have the fumes out there.

Ready to go!

I improvised this paint drying box recently and am really loving how useful it is.

Can’t beat 8 Iron Man heads on sticks!