Need some advice

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Syko

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Greetings!

I have scoured the forums looking to see if anyone has done a set of Reach armor using both foam and pepakura. My plan is to use fiberglass reinforced pepakura for the rigid armor parts, and foam for the parts that should have some give. My goal is to create something that has the detail of pepakura with the comfort and mobility of foam. All of my costumes to date have been rigid costumes from Star Wars, so I'm not too familiar with the foam. Before I start on this I have a few questions that need to be answered.

1) What would be the best way to attach the foam to the completed pepakura sections? After resining and fiberglassing the pepakura of course.
2) With rigid armor the strapping system is pretty straight forward in terms of attaching the straps and buckles, is there any change with the foam?
3) I know coating the foam in plastidip(or similar product) is the preferred method for sealing the foam, but with the foam being placed specifically to flex what would the recommendation be for the paint or an additive?

My goal while it is winter here in CO is to complete the pep work, get the foam cut out, and find the best method for completing the final assembly. The helmet will be done out of pepakura with styrene details. Any advice and recommendations are welcome.
 
Greetings!
1) What would be the best way to attach the foam to the completed pepakura sections? After resining and fiberglassing the pepakura of course.
2) With rigid armor the strapping system is pretty straight forward in terms of attaching the straps and buckles, is there any change with the foam?
3) I know coating the foam in plastidip(or similar product) is the preferred method for sealing the foam, but with the foam being placed specifically to flex what would the recommendation be for the paint or an additive?

1) Superglue (cyanoacrylate) should work. However, I'm not sure if the superglue will melt the foam. I recommend that you complete everything in form or pep. Don't mix pep and foam. You can make the helmet using pep and the rest in foam.

2) Strapping on foam is easier than on pep fiberglass method. Hot glue works extremely well with foam. Unlike pep method, resin does not like hot glue. I made 4 suits and all of them had hot-glue-failure.

3) No special paint is needed. My kids' ODST suits torsos are made from foam. We flexed the neck opening quite a bit and the regular auto paint (from cans) never chipped once.
 
From having worn TK armor (Stormtrooper for non 501st) and RC for 6+ years I want a costume that has the best of both worlds... yes I want to have my cake and eat it too.

I plan on using the EVA foam mats as they are thicker and would help prevent painful armor bites. They should hold up to CA glue.
 
I've mixed a few of my pieces with some success so far. I don't have any examples in my thread though, its 100% fiberglass.

I made a tester thigh piece for the MK 6 and the outer shell is fiberglass but the inner part of the thigh is foam floor mat. It looks pretty good, and since I used the foam for a part of the armor that is black, I don't have to worry about painting it. I cut some grab holes in the foam so the epoxy would hold better and so far its working pretty good.

I have not yet tried to coat the foam in plastidip. That is the same tip I received though, if that helps. On my MK 5 "clown shoes" I just spray painted them and it did the job, but it needed a lot of paint. A lot. normal bends are ok, but if you really flex the foam or crumple it, you can see wrinkles in the paint job. Then again, most of your armor pieces shouldn't be flexing THAT much anyway, especially if you do a hybrid of foam/glass.
 
I made a tester thigh piece for the MK 6 and the outer shell is fiberglass but the inner part of the thigh is foam floor mat. It looks pretty good, and since I used the foam for a part of the armor that is black, I don't have to worry about painting it.

That reminds me. I did the same for my kid's ODST thighs. It took me a while and a lot of hot glue to secure the foam to the fiberglassed thighs. I tried Gorilla glue and some other epoxy. None of those work. In the end I used probably more than 10 sticks of hot glue.
 
Greetings!
My plan is to use fiberglass reinforced pepakura for the rigid armor parts, and foam for the parts that should have some give.

Can you elaborate what you mean by this? By definition, the armor doesn't have much give. Does this mean that you'll just make some parts out of foam and some Pep? If so, how will you decide which pieces to make from which material? The only way I can interpret what you mean is the inner thigh sections. While some Pep models have them, you can cut them out and replace with foam for more comfort. And I think some of the edges of the Reach torso can be lined with foam. Other than that, there's no real sections of the Spartan armor that isn't rigid.

I used a combination of hot glue and bolts + blind nuts to attach foam pieces to hardened Pep parts. It's holding up fine so far.
 
I did this with the soft parts on my reach build. All i did was clean the fiberlgassed part with acetone, and then attached the foam to the glass with a HIGH TEMP HOT GLUE GUN. And like CoolC said, it takes a few sticks of glue to get a good bond of the pieces. I recommend the high temp glue gun cause it seemed to be hot enough to soften the foam and let the glue get in to the pores for a good bond. Just make sure you use a liberal amount of glue to get a good bond, it has worked fine on my suit and ive worn it around like 5 times and is still in decent shape. Also as Spitfire mentioned, it doesnt make your suit much more flexible with this combo method, but it DOES make it a lot more comfortable to wear! :D
 
Can you elaborate what you mean by this? By definition, the armor doesn't have much give. Does this mean that you'll just make some parts out of foam and some Pep?

What I mean by this is using the foam mats to "top off" the parts of the armor, like you mentioned the thighs and torso, where the rigid armor would make it extremely uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time. I apologize that I am unable to provide a sketch of my idea.
 
Hmmm can't you use pepakura as the base for the foam armor? Also why not try and harden parst of the foam armor for that rigid look?
 
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