Clay Sanding Technique

[tonsofhoopla]

Okay, so i've been scanning the molded armor topics and found that a lot of people are having a hard time smoothing out their clay to a nearly perfectly flat surface, so for about a week i've been experimenting with sand papers and such and found that this works ultra good.

So in figuring out that using sand paper doesn't work to well i thought of using bondo's plastic spreaders when that sparked an idea,
why not just use paper, so i put some plain computer paper on a sanding block and tried it out on my helmet to be molded on the areas where i touched up the pepakura with the oil based clay, and to my amazement it worked suprisingly well.
I tried it just running it over with the paper in my hand and it worked great, so before you blow $30 on smoothing tools for clay give my method a try, it worked well for me but i don't know how it fairs against all hardnesses of clay, but i think it'll be fine. Hope this helps some people. Take Care!

-Justin

 

[xisox]

So you didn't actually sand it, you just smashed it with the block with paper on it?

If the clay isn't being removed, then the laws of the universe say that it will simply be displaced somewhere else, meaning that it will distort the edges of the piece, while making one face smooth.

I think the best way would be to make a clay model, then mold and cast one from plastic and coat it with spray-on filler, then sand it with a really fine sandpaper and make another mold from that.

Bit expensive though.

 

[tonsofhoopla]

So you didn't actually sand it, you just smashed it with the block with paper on it?

If the clay isn't being removed, then the laws of the universe say that it will simply be displaced somewhere else, meaning that it will distort the edges of the piece, while making one face smooth.

I think the best way would be to make a clay model, then mold and cast one from plastic and coat it with spray-on filler, then sand it with a really fine sandpaper and make another mold from that.

Bit expensive though.

No, it actually removes some of the clay, it's not smashing it with the block it's actually rubbing it off to a fine surface, (Just like Ultra Fine Sand paper, seemingly havine no real textrue but actually works) this technique is universal for anything not just helmet application, i was just figuring it out on some spots of my helmet where it needed minor touch ups and it would be pointless to mix a bunch of bondo just to fix a little dip or pot.

-Justin

 

[xisox]

Ooh, I get it, I didn't figure the oil based clay would actually be "sanded" off like that.

I'd think my method would be good for a mold that would be seeing 5+ pulls, with extreme detail.

Then again, I haven't gotten to the actual molding yet, so I might have a bit to learn.

 

[tonsofhoopla]

Yeah, well that's how things sorta seem to work out here, Trial and error. LOL
Yeah it's not so much of sanding off as it is rubbing off.

-Justin