Questions on some materials

[Creativity4ever]

Hello everyone! I am currently in the process of completing my remake of my 2nd armor set and I just happened to have some questions on some materials that I may have missed because I may have forgotten some information.

1: What does heat sealing foam do again? I've forgotten sometimes to heat up foam pieces with a heat gun sometimes and I noticed on my previous build that the acrylic paint stuck better on pieces that I did use a heat gun on. Why is that so?

2: What does plasti dip do?

3: What other materials other than plasti dip can I use to seal/prime foam?

4: What does using a primer material on foam do for painting?

5: I used masking tape when painting and sometimes it rips off a little bit of the painted sections and some foam. Why is that and would it be better if I used painters tape to solve that problem?

6: I've heard from some members that they add fans in their armor to stay cool in the summer. What fans could I use in my next build? Any recommendations?

 

[TurboCharizard]

Heat sealing effectively closes up the pores on the surface of the foam by slightly shrinking the foam. This also has the added benefit of adding a memory for the shape of any bends you've added while also reducing how absorbent the surface is for coatings like paint.

PlastiDip is a rubberized coating so it's flexible and acts as a decent primer for foam.

Leak Seal is another commonly used primer coat on foam with the benefit of being designed to be a permanent coating as opposed to peeled off a surface like PlastiDip or FlexiDip are. Another one I've heard of in some cosplay communities is Frog Goo but there's also other regional variations like GummiDip. Basically any spray rubber is worth trying.

Primer in general is to help with paint adhesion and having a base colour and tone to work off of. Sometimes you need primer for one property over another but with foam it's mostly to help make a nice surface to paint onto.

The peel up from your masking tape could be from either the tape or the paint type you used previously. You can get painters tape or other masking materials to help with this but without more information about a few other things it is likely safe to say that you can stick with the cheaper option for now. For certain paints you want to remove the tape shortly after painting and before they cure so that a shell or surface doesn't form, others don't so it's unfortunately not a definitive answer and a more pick and choose depending on the situation.

If you have room for fans, add them. It's a night and day experience. Personally I use 5V case fans and connect a USB power bank so that I can save money over the life of the suit by just recharging the power bank but other people prefer to use different voltages and fan shapes. A good general search term for something easy to install is either "blower fan" or "ducted fan".

 

[Arcane]

personally, I've used wood glue and/or spray paint primer to seal

 

[SgtSaint]

Don't try to re-invent/reverse-engineer the science and art of foam work from scratch.
Its new to you, but that doesn't make it new. Learn from those that have built careers or at least entire YouTube careers on it.
Spend a weekend watching every YouTube foam armor and foam paint video and you'll gain a man-decade of knowledge and understanding before making your first cut.

• https://www.youtube.com/@KamuiCosplay
  Amazing foam work.
• https://www.youtube.com/@punishedprops
  Foam, printed, metal, leather, modding toys to props

Both of these even sell books on "Foam smithing".

 

[N8TEBB]

5: I used masking tape when painting and sometimes it rips off a little bit of the painted sections and some foam. Why is that and would it be better if I used painters tape to solve that problem?

Masking tape is a bit stickier than painters tape if I'm not mistaken. Though, sometimes even painters tape can take paint off if it's old or if it's applied over paint that is not quite dry. I try to make sure I use a roll of painters tape that I've bought recently when masking

 

[Cadet]

Something you can do try to mitigate the tape peeling off your paint is to stick and unstick it to another surface a few times to remove some of the adhesive or tack, then put that "used" tape onto your piece you want to mask. Since you toned down the adhesion it will stick less strongly to your piece, and while you might have to double check and be sure the masking stays in place, it will now be a little less likely to pull the paint layer beneath it

 

[Creativity4ever]

Something you can do try to mitigate the tape peeling off your paint is to stick and unstick it to another surface a few times to remove some of the adhesive or tack, then put that "used" tape onto your piece you want to mask. Since you toned down the adhesion it will stick less strongly to your piece, and while you might have to double check and be sure the masking stays in place, it will now be a little less likely to pull the paint layer beneath it

Thanks! I'll try that out the next time I use masking tape!