Want to build your own X-Wing Helmet?
A tutorial by Steve LaBoyteaux

1. First you need to start out with a Vietnam era flight helmet (APH-6B).  This is the one that has the rams horn on either side of the visor housing.  This helmet can run anywhere between $100 to $400 and that depends on the markings and if it has the electronics.  Well, for what our needs are neither of these things are necessary, so you can most likely get one fairly inexpensively.  You will also need for this project a Don Post x-wing helmet  (this is needed for the visor and the chin cup).  If you don’t care if the visor is round, you can do without the Post version for the parts but you will still need it to make a mold of the mohawk.

2. Take the APH-6B and strip the paint, remove the visors (not the housing), the ear cup stays & remove the black edging .

3. Take 1 visor and cut the glass out so you are left with the side attachment and aprox. 1 inch of the glass left.  Remove the visor from the Don Post and remove the side attachments.  Glue or rivet the Post to the original visor.  (OPTIONAL: You can leave the visor but they will have to make cuts at the sides to make it be able to slide up and down because of the front portion is covered on the tracks.  And that they can use a chin cup from a hockey helmet or football helmet with some elastic.)

4. Loosen the housing to install the visor into the APH-6B (go ahead and tape off the visor so no over spray or resin gets on it).  You will need to cut down the screw attachment to the hard plastic so you can glass over the slots where the knobs were

5. Take the Don Post helmet and use bees wax or spray re-lease on the mohawk and take fiberglass dry cloth and resin take a splash with aprox. 3 layers. (Note: The Don Post is smaller that the flight helmet).  Let that cure and then remove.

6. Cut the mohawk in three places and tape it to the flight helmet.  You will have to use more fiberglass to fill in the two areas that are void.  When that cures it should hold the correct contour.  Remove the mohawk and add some more glass to the I.D..  this is so it is more rigid and you can do the sanding without going through.

7. After that has cured attach the mohawk to the helmet using fiberglass and resin.

8. Take the filler compound and use that to form the areas on the underside of the rams horns. Fill in the openings where the O2 mask attached and where the ear cups stays were. Now cover all areas with a later of glass.  Also use the fiberglass to cover the front portions of where the visor is installed (this is where you can see the visor tracks).

9. You will also have to machine the heads off of the attachment screws of the visor housing or replace them with counter sunk screws.  And over the entire housing apply 3 layers of glass and let that cure.

10.  Sand the cured fiberglass to a uniformed smoothness (is that a word?).

11. Take the ear cups and install them to the location of you choice and install the chin cup to fit.

12. Prime the helmet (I used Duplicolor primer and auto paints to paint mine.  I felt these paints would be durable).  And wet sand.   Use auto body filler to touch up any pin holes and irregularities that there might be.

13. Mask off and paint gloss white.  Let cure and do final painting.  I used electrical tape for the edging.

14. Now you might want to add a mic.  You can get one at an office supply store or radio shack.  All you need is the boom part and the cord.  The rest won’t fit in the ear cup.  You will have to make a small cut in the ear pad for the mic to stick through.

So there it is.  I’m not sure if it is very good but if I can help someone build one that would appear as a true X-wing helmet then great.

I’m trying to locate another APH-6B to make a Wedge’s helmet so I hope to have picture to go along with the text.  I think that will help a lot.  Please feel free to call or e-mail me with any questions I can help anyone with.  If anyone has any good pictures of x-wing helmets and there a some cool ones,  please let me know.

May the force be with you and it sure help to have good stick skills.
Steve LaBoyteaux

E-Mail Steve

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