Can I add Fiberglass resin to EVA foam for Hardening?

[HyperDaniel]

I haven't heard of anyone doing it before and was wondering if it even could be done before I waste time trying it

 

[BuildsByBaz]

If you are talking about just resin and no mat, then I think you would need massively thick resin, (Like ten mm) or every time the foam bent it would crack the resin. I wouldn't. If you are going to use fibreglass then why not go the whole hog and just do a pep/fibreglass build instead of EVA?

SB

 

[FlyinPhil]

If you are talking about just resin and no mat, then I think you would need massively thick resin, (Like ten mm) or every time the foam bent it would crack the resin. I wouldn't. If you are going to use fibreglass then why not go the whole hog and just do a pep/fibreglass build instead of EVA?

SB

This ^^^^^

One of the merits of foam is having a light and slightly flexible armor with some give. After plasti dip and paint, my suit has a solid feel to it (definitely not soft), but can still give slightly without any cracks.

I tested a light layer of resin on some foam once, and all it gave was a slightly tacky, not super smooth finish. Trying to add any bondo to it in thin layers just cracked due to the flexibility of the foam, and was nearly impossible to sand flat due to this reason as well.

 

[LoneLegionary]

If you want to harden foam you can first put a layer of PVA glue on and then use a smooth on product, like smooth-cast 65D. I tried that once and it didn't crack. Although usually, as stated above, if you chose to use foam you should probably take advantage of the lightweight and flexible nature of it.

 

[B1ondeange1]

In short, yes you can. As to whether you want to is a different matter.

We have tested it on our foam built pistols to give them a bit extra strength and hardness and in our case it worked well. For us it was because we had one foam build, one resin build so we already had the resin and didn't want to buy another product for such small amounts needed. However it can be a messy thing to do and it depends on what type of fibreglass resin you use. Some wont fully cure in the presence of oxygen so you would then either need to put it in an oxygen free environment to fully harden or seal it. These types of resin don't sand properly so even if you want to smooth down your runs and bumpy spots you can be left with a mess of clogged up sandpaper and bally/ smeary surface. Honestly can't remember at this point which type we used because my husband (Jobe Devian on here) dealt with the resining itself, but we had wax in ours to help it cure. We did very fine layers which we built up slowly and sanded in between to prevent runs and big built up areas. Too thin and the resin can be too brittle, at that point you might as well just use a few layers of unwatered PVA glue because you'll get a similar finish. Put it on too thick and you run into issues of loosing detail with something like what we were doing. For us it worked out okay, because we trialed it first and were patient.

As far as hardening a whole suit goes there are products out there that are more suitable while still leaving it lightweight and fairly flexible. One of our local costumers has an amazing ironman that looks full on legit and his armour had a beautiful finish and is more durable as a result of the plastic based product he painted onto his (again, cant remember it's name atm, sorry I'm not much help there!). We also have a few local guys who use foam to build things like helmets (because it is quicker and easier than pepping card) then they resin/ bog the helmet to make it more solid. Personally I would prefer to just start with card pep, but each to their own and they get good results.

If you did want to try it I would suggest testing it first with some scrap EVA foam and small amount of resin, before going ahead and wasting the money on the resin, and potentially loosing all that time and effort on your EVA build if it doesn't work out for you or you arent happy with it