top_shape, yes for the most part. climbing the stairs was proving to be difficult, so I took the legs off.
Thanks S-MExtreme. I am sure after I get over the exhaustion and let down of it being over, I'll appreciate it. I know my son will. I may send it as part of a resume package to Marvel to work on Ironman III and whatever else they will be doing. I'm sure that at least they can use my structural engieering background, but I wouldn't mind working in the prop shop and on the CGI stuff. Its a dream anyway.
SamoanHitman - all told it took me about 300 hours (and about $750+) from pep to paint. I still almost ran out of time. Here are some of the things to avoid:
1 - Don't build two prototypes when you can exploit 'duality'. The shoulder bells and biceps are good examples. I pepped, glassed and bondoed both before I realized I only needed one prototype each to build the molds.
2 - I began shaping everything by hand at first after bondo. DON'T. Buy a mouse sander for the bigger areas and shape them with that. It'll cut your time down significantly.
3 - plan ahead and buy in bulk if you are building the molds. My equivalent amounts of Smooth-on silicone was about 2 gallons of part A and 2 gallons of part B but I didn't order it all at once so it cost more. Much more. The same can be said of the Pasti-paste. Buy a trial size, apply it to one part, then try to estimate how much extra you will need.
4 - do not glass the inside with mat and resin if you are just making prototypes for molding. Its too hard to use on small parts. Use Bondo's Resin Glass which is a gel type resin with fibers embedded in it. It conforms much better to curved surfaces. Add cream hardener and away you go.
5 - When casting plastic pieces they get hot with too much liquid plastic inside. I got some buckling and warping of the finished pieces when adding subsequent layers. To repair these larger flaws, DO NOT use bondo. Offgassing seems to foul up the paint job. Use electrical tape, build a dam around the area of damage, pour in a few small layers of plastic, hope it doesn't leak, then sand smooth when cured. To prevent too much leakage, doubled up the electrical tape dam.
