The original stormtrooper helmet had elastic strapping under the chin and yellow foam padding shaped like a clover on the head.
My stormtrooper helmet
I have replicated this in my helmet. This feels great while wearing it. The helmet stays on, and it follows the movement of your head. The clover shape makes the padding fairly adjustable, so it will fit most heads.
Inside the helmet – before
There are also disadvantages. Everytime I wear the helmet, I get a sore throat. This happens because my larynx is bruised by the strapping. It is too tight. I could loosen it a bit, but that doesn’t solve another problem I have with it. I can’t actually reach it while wearing the armor. My arms doesn’t bend properly, and I have thick rubber gloves on my hands. This makes putting on and taking off the bucket immensely difficult. I’ve tried to fix this by adding velcro instead of buttons, but it is still really cumbersome.
The chin strap hurts my throat
After trooping a while, I’ve reached a point where I feel like the chin strap is too much work and pain. On the latest troop, I tried to not use it just to see if this would work. It didn’t. The clover leaf padding do not cling to my head enough to keep the helmet in place. When I walked around, the helmet kept bobbing like a bobblehead doll. And it has a weight imbalance due to a battery pack, so it has a tendency to tilt to one side, making me look like I’m constantly puzzled.
The old padding
I found some inexpensive helmet padding. It is supposed to be memory foam, but I think it is a cheap imitation. It feels a bit too stiff. But this is just a dry run – if I like it, I will invest in the real thing.
The new padding
I removed the leaf, stuck some double sided tape on the pads and placed them inside. After some testing and ajusting, I found the perfect placements. I took out the pads one by one, adding the velcro tape patches that came with the padding. I also removed the chin strap, and then walked around in the apartment to test the new setup.
Inside the helmet – after
It does work better than the clover leaf padding alone, but is still not as good as the leaf with the chin strap. I’ve eliminated the bobbing, and the helmet follows my head, but the weight on one side is still a problem. I think this will work fine for troops where I mostly stand guard, but for marching I need thicker padding.
But it will suffice for now. I’m happy with the end result.