A message by Gino on Rebelscum regarding the fiberglass Scout helmet and maybe fiberglass Hero Stormie helmet:
eFX Stormtrooper Helmet - Legend Edition (Hero) - Page 6
As you know, the only criteria for an EFX product to quality for Legend Edition status are that it must be primarily created by either :
1. directly molding a screen-used/production made original or...
2. utilizing original production molds from the LFL archives or ...
3. a combination of the two.
When it comes to finishing a Legend piece, prop accuracy will not always necessarily extend into areas that you cannot see from a display standpoint, such as the interiors of the pieces, (like for example under the dome or inside the face mask of the Vader helmet).
It also may not always apply to the original materials of the screen-used piece.
Every situation is unique and evaluated on a case by case basis.
Some of these aspects are mass-production prohibitive and some are just not practical when taking into consideration the product's durability, consistency from item to item, or any miscellaneous aspect that we feel would be counter productive to providing what we consider a quality collectible that would satisfy the greatest number of our customer's expectations.
We try to find the right balance of complete accuracy and what makes strategic sense all things considered (and there are a lot more things to consider in mass production vs when we are making a prop for ourselves out of our garage).
Our goal is to as much as practically possible, create the visual appearance of screen accuracy when viewing the item from the outside (ie when being displayed).
For those unaware, the original Scout Trooper helmets were vac formed in 6 pieces, fit together like a puzzle, and then painted white.
At this point in time, out plan is to make the Scout Trooper in fiberglass.
Reason being that several of the the Scout Trooper helmet pieces were created in vac formed halves that were glued together with scrap strips of ABS and hidden with body filler spread on top of the seams then sanded down to a flat finish, then painted. These seams were very fragile and would not hold up to general consumer handling over a period of time (you can even see the seam line broken though on the originals).
For the Scout Trooper molding masters, we had to form, assemble and finish a helmet in ABS just like the originals so that it could be molded for fiberglass production.
This way it would still have the proper look of an ABS formed helmet...but in fiberglass.
I can say first hand that creating the helmet in the same manner of the originals in ABS was EXTREMELY laborious and time consuming.
Upon making the master, it was immediately apparent there was a total lack of confidence in a factory performing this task with a high level of quality, with any sort of consistency, and in anything approaching a timely manner (ie time spent working on each unit).
Switching from ABS to fiberglass for this item was for certain the only way to go.
For the Hero Trooper helmet, we are in the process of evaluating what is achievable in a factory setting in terms of quality/consistency with making them in vac formed ABS.
If we find that we cannot guarantee consistent parts (ie, some being sharper/softer than others or trimmed/assembled differently than what we consider ideal) then we would opt for doing them in fiberglass.
At least that way, we could guarantee that each item would be representative of our original vision of how the product should look vs. some product turning out better than others.
It could end up being a quality control nightmare that we would like to avoid.
We realize that there is a small percentage of our customers who are the hard core prop guys (like myself ) who would be disappointed in a materials change, but there are also a larger percentage of those who would actually prefer a fiberglass version that still retains the complete look of the originals via being cast from original - Legend.
