After seventeen months, and countless hours 28 year old Harrison Krix fashioned his very own Daft Punk Helmet from scratch…
Now, for the build. We last discussed the golden bucket nearly a year ago. It was a last-minute test piece with a webbed visor and so-so chrome. The wiring color on the rear dome was incorrect, and the visor was tinted much too dark to see out of comfortably.
This time the chroming task was handled by yet another shop – Creations N Chrome in Valencia, California. After an initial teething process in which we learned NOT to bake the helmets in an oven for them to dry, I was treated to one of the glossiest painted chrome finishes I’ve seen yet on my hand-sculpted form.
I also took this time to create a color-accurate wire dome for the rear of the helmet. Despite the holiday feel to the color scheme, its canon-accurate to Guy Manuel’s actual piece. In it went.
The last of the lighting was the color bars at the “chin” of the helmet, and the EKG meters in the ears. I sourced a local printer to laser-cut vinyl decals for me, and adhered these over translucent white acrylic to make masks for the LEDs.
When mounting the lighting rig, I wanted to make sure no light escaped into the inside of the helmet. All of the light areas were blacked out with thin foam 3M weatherstrip adhesive to make sure they stayed put.
Both the lighting rig and the rear wire dome were affixed to the helmet using T-nuts and allen screws. The bases were glued in place with plumbing epoxy.
On top of this and on the sides of the helmet, I added layers of foam padding to grip the wearer’s head.
And finally, the inside was fully lined in automotive headliner fabric for comfort and style! Despite how it looks, visibility is actually quite good! Hearing anything with all this padding around your ears? Thats another story.
The final piece. Finished and it feels so good.
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