Hours spent on Pepakura parts?

Status
Not open for further replies.

KirbyHalo117

Member
I was wondering about how many total hours should I expect on the cutting, folding, and gluing of the paper parts to take? What averages have you guys had? Then after that, how much spent on fiberglassing, then bondo and sanding and painting? This will help me out a lot. Thanks.

- - - Updated - - -

I should mention, for an HD Halo suit build. Or maybe iron man if it really differs that much
 
Expect to spend all your free time for the next month or so. I spent days on just cutting, folding, and gluing. It took me about a month just to finish a master chief helmet, and that's about four hours a day. But seeing something created by your hands being completed is so worth it.
 
I wish I had exact hours for you but for my helmet the paper part definitely took days, like 4-5, maybe a week, fiberglass and resin took a day, bondo and sanding took months. Painting took a couple of days because dry time. It is very time consuming to go this route. I did the rest of my suit in foam and that took less time to do, I could usually get one shoulder, leg, arm etc. built in one weekend. Of course the plastidip coats took a couple of days and the painting did as well but the cutting and glueing turns into wearable armor basically right away.

I should mention that when I did my helmet, I was in school for 6 hours a day and most of the work was only done on the weekends.

Even if you work on it just a little bit each day or week, don't get over whelmed by what is left to do. Take your time and enjoy it!
 
KirbyHalo117, don't think about how many hours it would take. It will only discourage you. Think of this as a marathon rather than a sprint. Pace yourself, step by step, piece by piece. If done right, you can build a full suit in under a year. It's not uncommon for people to take longer. Some times much longer. If you're looking to do it quicker than that, I would suggest foam as Ruby indicated, you can turn out pieces in just a matter of days.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jme
I agree with Dirtdives. My own suit took 14 months once I really beared down on it; granted I was attending grad school full time, so it would have taken much less time had I not been attending. I focused on one or two pieces at a time. It's kind of fun watching the suit take shape as you progress. Take lots of progress pictures, if not for a build thread then for yourself to see how far you've come during the course of the project.
 
The progress pictures is probably the best advice in the thread. It's a huge motivator just to send it out to friends, toss it up on facebook page or just squirrel it away to look at later. I was dumb and used Snapchat to show friends in progress shots of most of the body and now I have none for myself. :(
 
I appreciate the replies. I'm asking for hours so I know what to pay someone for doing the work for me. I'm outsourcing the work to some manual laborers in India, paying them almost twice as much as they usually get paid (18 cents an hour) and I'll have the custom suits hand made for pennies on the dollar. No, this is not inhumane. Paying them more would upset the economy out there, and they need work to feed their families. So I can do them a favor and also get all the work done super cheap.

This means I could produce a few dozen suits in just a few months or so. What's your guys' thoughts on this?
 
Oh, crikey. Where to begin?

If you're experienced with actually assembling the Pepakura form, you might find that you don't spend as long as you thought on that stage. I personally take perhaps two days to knock out a reasonably-detailed helmet, a chestplate could take me up to a week depending on the quality of the file I'm working on. Once you get into a groove you'll find that the basic product assembly won't take you as long as you thought it would - just practise, make sure your edges and corners all line up nice and neatly.

Following that... the 'hardening' stage might take an afternoon per piece. Getting your resin applied in nice, even, thin coats won't take long if the weather is on your side and you're working at a measured pace, and if you're working a piece at a time, you should be able to perhaps get a layer or two of fibreglass on your piece as well before it's time to pack up and head back inside. I certainly recall a few instances over some weekends where I could get an assembled helmet hardened (resin and fibreglass) in an afternoon, if I got outside in the late morning and packed up mid-afternoon or when the temperature began to drop.

The last stage - smoothing - is The Big One. This will take you as long as it takes, honestly. This is dependent upon how large the piece is and how much attention to detail you're putting in. If you've nothing on your hands but time, and you're working on a piece full-time, expect perhaps a week or two from applying your filler to getting it finished and ready for paint - though, if you're working on this project as a hobby, this will obviously take a considerably longer period of time to finish up. The important thing to remember here is to be patient - smoothing takes a lot of work, but it's definitely worth every bit of the work you put in when you see the results at the other end.

And, most importantly of all: don't rush! Any part of the project you rush on risks producing sub-par results - as Dirtdives said, it's not a race. Don't impose deadlines on yourself, work calmly and don't force yourself if you're not in the mood to do anything.

If you're looking for a 'quick and easy' build you could throw together on a shoestring, I might suggest looking into foam instead.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top