Carbon Skinned Darth Vader Helmet

Being that I mainly use silicone moulds for my helmets, skinning an existing piece seemed like the way to go for a first attempt with carbon fibre.

About the project itself, the Easy Composites tutorial on skinning was super helpful, though it was difficult and mistakes were made on the first attempt. It is a very complex skinning project, but a lot was learned from the first effort. The helmet itself is one of our regular helmets that’s made with polyurethane resin and fibreglass cloth. The epoxy resin is Easy Composites EL2 laminating resin.

For the skinning, 210gsm 2x2 twill carbon fibre was used on the helmet part, split into 3 pieces. One piece on either side, and another down the middle. The face mask uses 8 pieces of 240gsm twill carbon fibre cloth. The pieces were tacked down with Fusion Fix Spray Adhesive, then XCR Clear Epoxy Coating Resin was used to build up layers of clear resin. That was sanded and clear coated using a 2k clear. All products used for the actual skinning came from Easy Composites.