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Hello, I am thinking about creating an iron man helmet but am not quite sure which way I should go with it. I think I want to do it with copperfill. Now I can get the iron man .stl online but there are different types. Some helmets come in pieces and some are printed as one piece. I want mine to look as realistic as possible (no seams)?. How should I go about this? Should I use copperfill? What micron level should I use? How can I get it as close to the real colors as possible? Do I paint it or is there a copperfill/ other material that is close to the color? I am not looking for the generic gold and red colors though. Maybe something like this Mass Portal 3D Prints a Metal Iron Man Helmet Using ColorFabb Metallic Filament - 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing At least this is where I got the copperfill idea. Thanks for your help, Kyle.

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Hi there!

I wouldn’t recommend the usage of Copperfill for this project, Copperfill is relatively brittle and very expensive. At best you’d search for larger 3d printers so that you dont have to print the helment in pieces and go with a material like Colorfabb XT, NGEN, HT, PET.

ABS wouldn’t be dimensionally stable and PLA might be too brittle and can’t be finished that easily.

Go with rougher layer heights like 0,2-0,4mm, as long as the outer wall is thick (1,5-3mm) you can use fillers and sandpaper to remove any surface errors.

Lower resolutions will reduce the cost and you’d probably anyways had to do some reworking, filling and sanding to get the helmet right.

Next up get some primer, spray colors and clear coat colors and apply them in the same order.

99% of fillers should work flawlessly with the selected primer, but if you’re unsure just check out the description of the respecitve products. I got fillers and paint from the local hardware store and it allways worked out as planned.

Given that you have invested enough time with sanding (work the way up to 300 grid to get a good finish, if desired you can also leave it at 100 grid or go up to 1000 grid). The better the filler surface the better your paintjob.

Most plastics get a dull white color when sanded so you shouldn’t invest too much time to find a hub with the right colors.

Pro tip: Tell your hub that the color doesnt really matter, then the hub can use left over small filament bits and might cut the cost for you :wink:

Good luck!

-Marius

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Hi Kyle,

Can’t wait to see the end results! You. Must. Share. :wink:

Good luck!

Sandra

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Marius,

These are some pro tips, I will use them myself!

Thanks,

Sandra

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Person building an operational Iron Man suit here! My advice to you is follow pretty much what that guy is saying on that post. You’re going to want to test print a few different helmets, due to the fact a lot of the files online are “paper” thin because people just upload converted Pepakura files. Support structures are important as well. If you want as real as colors as possible you will want to just paint after, I have not seen any filaments that resemble the toreador red or sunburst gold that is used. Best of luck:D

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Thanks, so much for your help. I’m going to research your suggested materials to find which one will work the best. Thanks, for the pro tip as well it’s really makes it easier to get this project started.

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Thanks for all your help. I have a question for yo about how people are getting the iron man helmet files. How are people getting these .stl, .obj, etc files? Are they designing them or where are they getting them? I guess these question applies to all files like this as well. Do you recommend that the helmet gets printed upside down like in the link below or does it not matter?

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Thanks for your support! I will definitely share this when I am done!

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Ok, so I have been doing my research on copperfill and bronzefill. As you mentioned copperfill and bronzefill are brittle. How brittle are they though? PLA tensile strength is 61.5 and copperfill tensile strength is 25. What I need to know is will copperfill and/or bronzefill break if I drop being the size it is(about the size of a head)? Thanks, Kyle

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Copperfill and Bronzefill are REALLY brittle, not like glass but still a 5mm thick helmet will break when dropped on the floor.

Especially due to the copper and bronze particles the material is weak (the metal pulver doesnt improove physical properties) and the material is REALLY expensive because it’s priced by weight. Normal plastic has a density of around 1-1,1 gram / cm³.

Copperfill has 3,9 gram / cm³ meaning that your model weights more then 3 times more. With 3x the weight the cost triples too, i really dont think that you consider such an helmet out of a relatively instable, difficult to polish and 3x more expensive material.

When you’re sanding or anyhow machining plastics you should be aware of the temperature uprising on the surface.

Especially sanding causes alot of heat due to the high friction.

Plastics have different glass transition temperatures (called Tg), which specify the temperature spot at which the plastic gets soft and deformable (the deformation will stay once the pastic cooled).

Copperfill and alike are based on PLA, which has a Tg of 50-60C and let me tell you this temperature is reached within seconds while sanding, not to mention electric sanding tools.

ABS, Colorfabb HT, PMMA and PC have a Tg of around 100-130C which is much better and allows for rough and quick machining / sanding.

Colorfabb XT and Colorfabb NGEN have a Tg of 70 / 80C,which is not THAT good, but due to the physical properties of these 2 materials they dont build up heat that quickly. Besides ABS, PMMA and PC can be dimensionally instable (warping when printing large parts) so I would prefer Colorfabb any day (it’s my personal favourite filament supplier due to quality and price too).

Good luck and feel free to ask anything else that might concern you.

-Marius

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Thank-you so much this is really helping me out. So I want a strong Iron Man helmet that looks like metal and extremely realistic. I think asking it to feel like metal (with texture and weight) is asking too much and jeopardizing strength like you mentioned the copperfill and bronzefill would do. Given what I said is your best recommendation Colorfabb HT? Are Colorfabb XT and Colorfabb NGEN your 2nd and 3rd choices. Thanks so much! I trying to get this as realistic as possible. Thanks, Kyle.

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Thank-you so much!