Advice Needed! - Butchered Bondo

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Xentryn

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Hey all,

My first attempts at fiberglassing and bondo have proven... interesting.

No issues with the fiberglass, very easy to use.

The bondo body filler on the other hand, ohh boy! I am hoping to salvage this and the details from the helmet. As well as not run in to these issues on future piece builds.

I have watched many tuturiol videos but one in particular had exceptional detail retained but no huge amount of information about that process. I want to complete something to its caliber.

--

This is what I did:

1. Pep & built
2. Glass the outside
3. Glass the inside
4. 2nd coat of glass on the inside with cloth
5. Bondo body filler on the outside... attempted to sand (Blocks, small files and Dremel)
6. Frustrated with the loss of detail cut out the visor in attempts to sand detail at better angles... smoothed out much but not happy at all with my mistake.


Here are my question:

1. Should I glass the outside, rondo the inside than dremel all the detail on the outside first?

2. Does using Rondo on the inside AND outside prove easier to retain detail and not lose it?

3. After having detail sanded down do I still bondo the ENTIRE helmet or simply use it as a material to round out or fill in gaps?

Greatly appreciate the help folks!


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Here is the embarassment.

Pep'd

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Butchered from poor bondo user ;-)

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Here are my question:

1. Should I glass the outside, rondo the inside than dremel all the detail on the outside first?

2. Does using Rondo on the inside AND outside prove easier to retain detail and not lose it?

3. After having detail sanded down do I still bondo the ENTIRE helmet or simply use it as a material to round out or fill in gaps?

Greatly appreciate the help folks!

It doesn't look so bad actually ;-)

Here are a few tips:


  1. You should do as little to the outside as possible, especially not glass it. A few layers of resin are ok and neccessary, but anything thicker (by that I mean both more viscous and in thicker layers) and you will lose a great amount of detail.
  2. Use putty only to correct imperfections in your model. Fill holes, make surfaces smooth, that kind of thing. The idea is not to bury the whole model below a centimetre of Bondo, same reason as above. If you do it like, that, you might just as well fill a bucket with resin and sculpt your helmet out of that the old fashioned way :)
 
get a block of wood and some sand paper and some pics of the helmet u are making the using your pictures mark out the details with a pencil and the use the sand paper with the wooden block if u have a dremel that will come in handy too and also get some wet and dry sand paper it black that will help tp smooth it out
 
That helmet is fine dude, just needs some TLC. Remember bondo isn't an integral part of building these, you dont need to cover it in Bondo, just use it to smooth curves in the pep.
 
Hey. your nowhere lost there! However the bondoing isnt perfect and i know why it came out like that.
First i would recommend that you get picture of the helmet that is nicely detailed and that you like so you can copy off all the detailed parts.
Secondly, you need to be patient applying the bondo takes for a long time, so when you apply the bondo only put a thin layer of it, once it fastens you are able too smooth off the uneven parts etc.

Forgive me for my bad English. Hope it works:)
 
yeah dude, this is basically what a helmet looks like right after you bondo it. granted it doesn't have to be the ENTIRE helmet, but for adding detail, it comes out to a good most of it. I know there is no substitute for good ol' elbow grease, but I usually start my sanding off (since you will be needing to take quite a bit off to get it smooth anyway) with a small palm sander and then I carve out details with a sanding wheel dremel attachment and engraving/carving bits.
 
Get some 40 grit sandpaper? It will speed it up but dont go too close to the end shape as the 40 grit will leave a rough surface and you need to work up to a minimum of 120 grit before you paint. The finer (the higher the number) you finish off with, the fewer marks/scratches in the bondo. Mr Dremel can make fast work of detailing but not as good as a sanding block or sander for large areas.

As said above, add bondo in thin layers to build it up rather than slosh it on. Its easy to add more bondo, not so easy to sand off. Keep going, took me ages to sand mine by hand.
 
Thanks!

Guys,

Thank you very much for the quick responses here.

Gotta make mistakes to learn from em :)

I went and ate a battery with the dremel and the detail is starting to come back. Certainly helps big time to know that this piece is not lost to a n00b mistake.

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A couple more questions than:

1. Sanding the detail in small areas, is sand paper and pateince the recipe for this to look good? (Around the "ears" of the helmet)

2. After it is nice and smooth does the primer sit fine on both the bondo and fiberglass? (I assumed that the glass was only used to make the helmet sturdy not paint)
 
Guys,

Thank you very much for the quick responses here.

Gotta make mistakes to learn from em :)

I went and ate a battery with the dremel and the detail is starting to come back. Certainly helps big time to know that this piece is not lost to a n00b mistake.

--

A couple more questions than:

1. Sanding the detail in small areas, is sand paper and pateince the recipe for this to look good? (Around the "ears" of the helmet)

2. After it is nice and smooth does the primer sit fine on both the bondo and fiberglass? (I assumed that the glass was only used to make the helmet sturdy not paint)

1. I would dremel the rough shape then wrap some 80 or 120 grit around a dowel/pencil/pen for around the ears. It will take some time but thats bondo, easy on, long time off ;-)

2. As long as you can key the surface (sand the shine off), resin takes paint/primer very well.
 
1. Sanding the detail in small areas, is sand paper and pateince the recipe for this to look good? (Around the "ears" of the helmet)

Patience is definitely important while sanding. Aside from the Sanding bands and discs, you may also want to look into carving accessories. There's a great variety of tips available, in particular a few very fine ones, which can be extremely helpful for tiny details, and lots of differently shaped ones, which may be useful to achieve rounded shapes. Toothed carbide cutters can also be useful to remove lots of material, fast (and I mean that), but they're rather expensive.

If you don't have any of these accessories, try finding a physical shop to look at them before buying. The photos on the internet are usually quite misleading.
 
Everything that gets bondo'd looks horrible, then you just sand the crap out of it, and repeat as much as nescessary, put on some primer to find low spots and imperfections, and add spot putty.
 
Rather than bondo I prefer rondo or mud, it is a mix of fiberglass resin and bondo. It goes on smoother and takes a lot less sanding than bondo (you still need to sand it though) It is much faster and a little bit more expensive (resin costs more than bondo)

Here's a great tut on it: http://www.405th.com/showthread.php/7215-Muddy-Secrets-Tutorial

Just a suggestion though if you want to use bondo its up to you, though I've used both and I'll never go back to plain old bondo (except for teeny tiny details)
 
Another thing, I don't know if any one has said it, but use thin layers of bondo and or rondo. Thick layer can get gloppy and tedioius to sand, when thinner layers at a time are controlable and you won't use up material too quickly, I saw a few other member talking about using this technigue, one of them is the Red Spartan from Scotland, I think. Bradinator is another who has a current build that use the thin layer method. Just some info I decided to pass along, Hope it helps ya.
 
- Used the dremel to sand down most flat surfaces and reveal the edges on detail

- Filled in the vent location... way too difficult to sand and make it look good again inside there. Will simply drill in a cosmetic piece created at a later date.

- The picture does not do a lot of justice, it looks blotchy but it actually feels very smooth.... used finishing blocks on most of it.

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I plan to continue sanding down certain areas but am looking for a tad bit of info as to when I should look at applying a think primer.

- Any preferance between primer that is applyed by brush vs spray can?

- Is there a quick trick to smooth those sharp cut edges? The helmet has been reinforced with fiberglass cloth.

- Do I apply the filler putty after the primer has set or do I sand -> Putty -> Re-prime -> Repeat if needed?




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Glad you were able to salvage it

I prefer spray primer/paint but I'm no master artist.
Here's a tip though, your first coat of primer will pull out some imperfections that you can't see without it (ranging from a few all the way up to FFFFFUUUUUUU!!!)
I've never used spot putty, I just keep detailing with bondo to fill in the imperfections but that's just me.

As far as smoothing the edges you should be able to sand them down (even fiberglass is sandable) I don't think you need a mouse sander or anything just a small sheet of sandpaper and some patience.
So spray paint to spot small nicks and such (there may even be a few you can see now. They are 10X magnified by the painting so you do need to fill em in)

Best of luck!
 
- Filled in the vent location... way too difficult to sand and make it look good again inside there. Will simply drill in a cosmetic piece created at a later date.
[...]

- Any preferance between primer that is applyed by brush vs spray can?

- Is there a quick trick to smooth those sharp cut edges? The helmet has been reinforced with fiberglass cloth.

- Do I apply the filler putty after the primer has set or do I sand -> Putty -> Re-prime -> Repeat if needed?


I think it's progressing very nicely.

Areas like the vents are great places to use those carving accessories I mentioned earlier.

You probably get a more even coat with spray-on primer. In fact, I haven't seen primer being brushed on in a single project so far.

To make the edges smoother, you can basically use any abrasive you like. If you want the edges to be rounded just a tiny bit, try finishing buffs for your Dremel, they take very little material away. For medium weathering, I'd prefer hand sanding over the Dremel sanding bands, because those bands have a tendency to take too much material away. Sanding sponges are great here, they slightly give away and help you make curves.

Let both the putty and the primer dry/cure before continuing.
 
It is always a good idea to spray a 'blind' coat of primer. Once everything is the same colour, your eyes will see al the imperfections. Add bondo/spot putty, sand, repeat til your happy.
 
After priming many of the imperfections have come out.

Pros:
- First time and I LOVE spot putty

Cons:
- A substantial amount of work is still needed for the cakes of body filler still plauging the helmet

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Sadly I think I am going to shelf this one and remake it... without the first timer mistakes :)

A few things has brought me to this conclusion,

This was the Jorge by Raziel and the default size is way too small for me. It was obvious about half way through the helm but I wanted a test subject to attempt fiberglassing, body filler ect for the first time. It bearly fits my girlfriend (5'0" 100 lbs) and I am much bigger than her(6'4" 200 lbs).

First time pep and attempt so I have learned a fair share of "do nots." But I am the type of person that would prefer to do it right the first time not have to plow through and re-do huge mistakes. The amount of time that I have invested in to sanding I could have already pep'd a helm that would fit me. :)

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Next helmet battleplan!

1. Scale scale scale!
2. Pep!
3. Beer!
4. Resin the outside(I liked how it turned out, did not lose much in the way of detail and I know I can get much of it crisper with the dremel)
5. Mixture of Resin & Body filler on the inside, slush!
6. Beer break.
7. Detail work with the dremel on the outside
8. Beer break.
9. Sand, apply only a -LITTLE LITTLE LITTLE- I will ONLY use a small amount of body filler where needed.... *fingers in the shape of a cross* I hate you body filler...
10. Spot putty!
11. Sand
12. Prime
13. Spot putty, body filler as needed
14. Sand
15. Prime
16. Beer break
17. Repeat


Is this a reasonable plan of steps? Am I missing anything? I am the type of guy that will settle for nothing less than a great job. Being a rookie I defer to the excellent first hand knowledge base of the 405th!


 
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