Trying to make itself a cool visor
this one decided a while ago to make a visor for itself. This was going to be accompanied by a guide on how to do so with cheap materials, but it no longer thinks that is a good idea (for reasons it will outline shortly) so it has decided to just log the project instead.
It started with the idea to make a visor from one of the cheap, not-quite-6800-clone masks that litter ebay. The plan was to buy one, tint it, maybe add some LEDs, and done. But it did not go like that.
it bought one of those cheap masks. At first it planned to tint the visor using polymer dye, as shown in the guide at https://oxie.me/posts/visor-tinting, but then life got in the way (and a few other setbacks happened, like finding out it was allergic to the hood it bought to wear under the visor, not having a space to dye things in with good ventilation, and needing to buy a dye bath) and it sat without working on it for months. Then, it read the guide at https://999eagle.moe/posts/visor/ which used window tinting film, and decided to try that.
It then tried to tint the mask with 15% VLT window tinting film. Visiblity was good, but the film was hard to apply well/evenly, and could not cover most of the mask due to compound curves that the film could not cover. Despite its best efforts, the results sucked. The tint results were pretty poor, and the visor itself fogged up constantly, couldn't make an actual seal, and generally was just... awful.
unit 3A29 visor, tint attempt 1
results: possibly acceptable, not ideal
comments: someone else could likely apply film more consistently than this one can (better is beyond its fine motor skills) but even with that it could still not cover the compound curves at the bottom of the mask, and these not being covered (and having to wear filters even when it does not want them, just to cover the missing side-panel is not something it wants, and the clear part in the middle is too visible). Attempt 2 will try using polymer dye instead of film.
unhappy with these results, it decided to continue. It bought a proper mask as a base (a new old-stock Scott Promask 2), and continued on. It decided that it would try the film on the new mask first (because it's a much simpler shape, so it should be able to get a much cleaner application) and if not, use the ebay mask as a test subject for dye tinting.
after waiting ages for the Scott mask to arrive, it found out too late that it uses a weird filter connection and not the standard thread that it thought it did, so it planned to make some adapters (this is not for heavy duty use, just limiting disease spread at events, so this seemed fine). The actual plastic visor part comes off with a torx driver.
It first tried the film again but it just sucked, so planned to dye it.
dying the visor was.. An experience. Due to the poor ventilation in the house, it had to do so over a camp stove, with its housemate's help. The stove did not have the power to keep things actually at a boil, so the dye sadly did not take super well. It would talk about the process, but the blog post it linked above does a much better job than it could to explain this. And this resulted in visor v1!
It was far from perfect, and the tint was inconsistent, but it was willing to accept it. for a drone-hound unit, the battle-damaged vibe is actually cool, and this is a very, very gender thing to it :3
the problem was that this RUINED visibility. Here's a photo taken through the visor to give an idea:
its first thought was to try and polish this out. It tried doing so with toothpaste, but with very little effect, and so ordered what its hackspace friends said was most likely to work, a car headlight restorer kit.
using that kit, with the sandpaper and polish, made things a bit better, but, not a lot. It's still hard to see through. So, ugh. it's going to be usable for drone play, but, not for casual wear, not for events, and not for gender affirmation. Great thing to do to its outlet-stock, no-replacement-parts, expensive gas mask... overconfidence and trying to get by without proper gear kills, folks.
If this post has a moral, it's this: do test runs with cheaper gear. Don't try and makeshift a dye bath with a camp stove. if something can't be fixed, find ways to still use the broken one (for this visor, in scenes). And maybe consider just buying an MSA mask with the outsert like everyone else.