CodingBat (Strings-2 starOut) Trouble with Strings

I know there are answers online but I don't want to copy them. I have started with most of it but do not know how to take out the spaces and convert back to a string? Also if you guys have a better solution feel free to provide that. Thank You. Please no Regex code.

public static String starOut(String str) {
    char[] array = str.toCharArray();
    for(int i = 0; i < array.length; i++) {
        if(array[i] == '*' && i != 0) {
            if(array[i - 1] != '*') {
                array[i - 1] = ' ';
            }
            if(array[i + 1] != '*') {
                array[i + 1] = ' ';
            }
        }
        //Rest of Code...
        if()
    }
   return str;

}