It was still hot this past month, so we're behind schedule now. I would still like to get these finished and formed before October 31st, but I don't know if we'll make it.

On the bright side, we have our helmet situation under control. One of our members is an aquaintence of a gentlemen named Tom (TK-118) who is allowing us to use his original helmet form to cast off of. All he wants in exchange is a new helmet (since he doesn't form anymore). Thanks Tom!!!

So, this weekend, Tony came over to help cast the helmet. He purchased a 50lb. bag of Hydrocal and away we went. Before he showed up, I was working on finishing the lower back/butt piece and the ab/crotch piece. The first has been plastered and I'm still working on the other.

On to the fun stuff (maybe). We mixed a batch of the HC and thought we would cast the one piece cap first. But, because of the "lip" on the back half of the form, it was a "b" do get out. We tried shaking, prying and heating the plastic with a hairdryer. It would just not come out. So we had to take a chisel to the mold and break it to get it out. We finally did, but as you can see it broke into about 5 large pieces. To "correct" this problem we cast the front half again. We plan on trying to glue both pieces together to make it whole again. We can then fill and Bondo the seam.

After the first "incident" with the cap, we knew a little better what to expect and all the other pieces formed without too many problems. There's some issues with pits and cavities, but we planned on sanding and Bondo'ing the whole set anyway. One things for sure though, when Hydrocal reaches its optimum water/mixture ratio, it hardens within a few minutes. And I mean rock hard.

Hopefully more of the guys can make it next week and we can really get this project moving. But I think Tony and I made some great headway today.