I know that everyone says not to fiberglass the outside, due to the ugliness of fiberglass mat and the rough surface it gives. But what if I used fiberglass cloth? The fiber glass cloth would be the last layer, I wouldn't cover it with bondo. And how easy is it to paint fiberglass cloth? Leaving the shiny white look wouldn't be very good, but would painting it black so it could look like carbon fiber work?
"Help!" for: Fiberglassing, Resin, & Bondo
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Gokussj5okazu
Well-Known Member
Any type of fiberglassing on the outside is generally a bad idea. You will lose a lot of detail, and it won't turn out like carbon fiber like you're thinking.
Silver Gooch
New Member
Bondoing The Tight Spots
Hello all!
I recently started on my first Iron Man Helmet build of the Mark VII. I already finished pepping my piece, resining the outside, fiberglassing the inside, and began bondo work. I have the entire first coat of bondo finished; however, I am not quite sure on how to approach bondoing the earpieces. The gap between the side of the helmet and the ear pieces is very narrow so I'm not too sure how to efficiently apply the bondo. These pictures are from when I was fiberglassing and reining my pepped helmet, they just show the narrowness of the earpieces the best.
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Hello all!
I recently started on my first Iron Man Helmet build of the Mark VII. I already finished pepping my piece, resining the outside, fiberglassing the inside, and began bondo work. I have the entire first coat of bondo finished; however, I am not quite sure on how to approach bondoing the earpieces. The gap between the side of the helmet and the ear pieces is very narrow so I'm not too sure how to efficiently apply the bondo. These pictures are from when I was fiberglassing and reining my pepped helmet, they just show the narrowness of the earpieces the best.
Definitely check these videos out:
http://www.405th.com/showthread.php...-Chief-**-A-Step-By-Step-Tutorial-(My-Way)-**
He talks about and shows the entire process for smoothing bondoing detailed and everything the outside of a pep piece. Good watch and worth the time.
I could say what you do, but honestly seeing someone do it in video form gets the point across much better than text could.
http://www.405th.com/showthread.php...-Chief-**-A-Step-By-Step-Tutorial-(My-Way)-**
He talks about and shows the entire process for smoothing bondoing detailed and everything the outside of a pep piece. Good watch and worth the time.
I could say what you do, but honestly seeing someone do it in video form gets the point across much better than text could.
Silver Gooch
New Member
Although informative, his videos don't really help me with my current problem. My issue is different in the fact that I am attempting to get bondo into a tight curved area, whereas his problem area was out on an open edge that was easily accessed by a razor blade and a needle file.
RobotChicken
Well-Known Member
I've watched the videos too and although they're very well done, I agree that some aspects of detailing aren't covered. I will be having the same issue in my Master Chief armor as with your Iron Man helmet, and I can tell you my plan will be to smoothly apply spot putty using a thin applicator (like a piece of scrap plastic) so at best it doesn't require any sanding and at worst only minimal finishing. If it needs additional smoothing after applying, I'll simply wrap a piece of rigid plastic with sandpaper (I'm fortunate in that my "tight areas" are straight) and insert it into the channel for sanding. You should be able to do similar on a curved channel by using a flexible core for the sandpaper instead of something rigid.
The videos are there to help get started, and point out some tricks and tips that are not readily apparent. You also should take the ideas and adapt them along.
Taking a close look at your pictures, there are a number of ways you can tackle it, some of the methods are derived out of Cereal's techniques, others are from experimenting.
The curved region is divided into three sections from what I can see.. The most raised surface that serves as the temple, The circular ear cup, and the little recessed area between the first two.
If you want to smooth it well, I would probably take masking tape and cut it to fit on the floor of the recessed area. Then press bondo against the "cliff" between the temple plate and the recessed area. When the bondo is half dry you would pull the tape up to cut the bondo into a smoother curve. Then use an exacto knife to clean it up a bit while it is still pliable. Finally, when it's dry you would take a piece of mid grit sandpaper and hold it against your fingertip to sand down that cliff, or get a good diamond file (they make curved ones that could be useful).
I used a similar technique to raise and sharpen the edge on my ODST visor buck:
To smooth the floor of the recessed area, you would do the opposite, and tape off the cliff and the earcup, then carefully use a cut popsicle stick or chopstick with a flat head and smooth bondo over it, peel the tape to cut it and then sand it with sandpaper on your fingertip, or a flat headed file.
Spot putty is great, but it does not get the grip strength needed over a large area, so be wary about applying it as a filler of anything larger than a couple millimeters. Someone once mentioned possibly using spot putty to completely replace bondo, but it suffers from major chalking, cracking, and lack of grip strength on large areas and the idea was ditched after failed attempts. Definitely a staple of my pepakura kit though, as it is fantastic for getting a high quality smooth and filling the little bubble holes in bondo. It'd be interesting to see how it would perform on the recessed curve in the iron man helmet.
RobotChicken
Well-Known Member
My "trenches" are 1mm wide by 3mm deep. A toothpick barely fits in there. I'm not anticipating any issues using it to smooth out the sidewalls of such tiny areas, and primer will seal it.
markvo1987
Active Member
hey i am sorry if this question has been answered already but im working on my very first armor and i cant figure out what im suppose to buy to make the card stock hard and ridged any help would be very appreciated
Carpathia
Sr Member
hey i am sorry if this question has been answered already but im working on my very first armor and i cant figure out what im suppose to buy to make the card stock hard and ridged any help would be very appreciated
This is what the stickies are for, read them, you'll be happy...
http://www.405th.com/showthread.php/30542-NOOB-reading-list
http://www.405th.com/showthread.php/14613-Complete-Noob-List
The short answer is that it takes time and a lot of work. To get the real small details it takes a lot of sanding or grinding. Id recommend a file to sand the details. When you Bondo you should use light coats and not glob it on thick.
Good Luck.
Silver Gooch
New Member
The videos are there to help get started, and point out some tricks and tips that are not readily apparent. You also should take the ideas and adapt them along.
Taking a close look at your pictures, there are a number of ways you can tackle it, some of the methods are derived out of Cereal's techniques, others are from experimenting.
The curved region is divided into three sections from what I can see.. The most raised surface that serves as the temple, The circular ear cup, and the little recessed area between the first two.
If you want to smooth it well, I would probably take masking tape and cut it to fit on the floor of the recessed area. Then press bondo against the "cliff" between the temple plate and the recessed area. When the bondo is half dry you would pull the tape up to cut the bondo into a smoother curve. Then use an exacto knife to clean it up a bit while it is still pliable. Finally, when it's dry you would take a piece of mid grit sandpaper and hold it against your fingertip to sand down that cliff, or get a good diamond file (they make curved ones that could be useful).
I used a similar technique to raise and sharpen the edge on my ODST visor buck:
To smooth the floor of the recessed area, you would do the opposite, and tape off the cliff and the earcup, then carefully use a cut popsicle stick or chopstick with a flat head and smooth bondo over it, peel the tape to cut it and then sand it with sandpaper on your fingertip, or a flat headed file.
Spot putty is great, but it does not get the grip strength needed over a large area, so be wary about applying it as a filler of anything larger than a couple millimeters. Someone once mentioned possibly using spot putty to completely replace bondo, but it suffers from major chalking, cracking, and lack of grip strength on large areas and the idea was ditched after failed attempts. Definitely a staple of my pepakura kit though, as it is fantastic for getting a high quality smooth and filling the little bubble holes in bondo. It'd be interesting to see how it would perform on the recessed curve in the iron man helmet.
Very good advice! I just finished up the earpiece (save for the sanding after it is fully cured). From what I took away from your post was this...
I took some masking tape and cut it so it fit along the bottom of the "trench", then proceeded to bondo the sides (forgot to take a picture).
After I cut off the excess with my razor and pulled the tape away I then taped the sides that I just bondo'd (after it cured of course, tape doesn't stick well to wet bondo...). The tape didn't want to stick in some places so I had to add some extra tape.
Then I cut an applicator small enough to efficiently smooth the bondo onto the "floor" of the trench.
And here is the final result... I cut away the excess with my razor and trimmed what I could while it was still a bit tacky.
Now I'm just waiting for it to fully cure so I can go ahead and get to sanding!
Frankyboy440
Jr Member
Question about type of bondo
Hello.
I'm almost done with the resin part of my halo mark IV Helmet build but now I'm confused..
I know that I'm supposed to put bondo on the outside and then sand it. but I don't know which bondo to buy.
I live in sweden, and here they don't have one type of bondo. so I was wondering if someone could take a look at this site:
http://biltema.se/sv/Bilvard/Spackel/Spackel-36052/
and maybe tell me which one to choose.
the first one if a fine putty (or how to say) used for small damages and the other one is for larger repairs.
The same company is also selling gelcoat. but I don't think I need that :/
or maybe I should go with the "2-component synthetic metal mixture." but that would probably be difficult to sand afterwards XD
Thanks for reading
-Frank
Hello.
I'm almost done with the resin part of my halo mark IV Helmet build but now I'm confused..
I know that I'm supposed to put bondo on the outside and then sand it. but I don't know which bondo to buy.
I live in sweden, and here they don't have one type of bondo. so I was wondering if someone could take a look at this site:
http://biltema.se/sv/Bilvard/Spackel/Spackel-36052/
and maybe tell me which one to choose.
the first one if a fine putty (or how to say) used for small damages and the other one is for larger repairs.
The same company is also selling gelcoat. but I don't think I need that :/
or maybe I should go with the "2-component synthetic metal mixture." but that would probably be difficult to sand afterwards XD
Thanks for reading
-Frank
Good old americans and naming things after commercial products, Why print something when you can xerox it.
That is probably small minded of me.
You are wanting an automotive body filler,
The "fine putty" I believe is what you are after. It seems similar to the product I use in australia -> http://www.supercheapauto.com.au/on...ler-500g.aspx?pid=287584&menuFrom=80303#Cross
Xeroxing is actually photocopying, we call printing hp laserjetting! (kidding). A lot of it is because "bondo" is a lot easier to say and type than "automotive body filler".
I did a quick poke on the internet and this is a quote from theRPF for Sweden bondo:
If that makes sense let me know.
Good work! You might be applying a bit too much bondo on the main helmet area (temple and faceplate), it looks a bit gloppy there. Spreaders are very handy to make sure you don't use too much. I bring this up because I know maintaining details was an important factor, and less bondo means more details preserved.
I did a quick poke on the internet and this is a quote from theRPF for Sweden bondo:
http://www.therpf.com/f24/bondo-europe-info-122487/
If that makes sense let me know.
Very good advice! I just finished up the earpiece (save for the sanding after it is fully cured). From what I took away from your post was this...
I took some masking tape and cut it so it fit along the bottom of the "trench", then proceeded to bondo the sides (forgot to take a picture).
After I cut off the excess with my razor and pulled the tape away I then taped the sides that I just bondo'd (after it cured of course, tape doesn't stick well to wet bondo...). The tape didn't want to stick in some places so I had to add some extra tape.
Then I cut an applicator small enough to efficiently smooth the bondo onto the "floor" of the trench.
And here is the final result... I cut away the excess with my razor and trimmed what I could while it was still a bit tacky.
Now I'm just waiting for it to fully cure so I can go ahead and get to sanding!
Good work! You might be applying a bit too much bondo on the main helmet area (temple and faceplate), it looks a bit gloppy there. Spreaders are very handy to make sure you don't use too much. I bring this up because I know maintaining details was an important factor, and less bondo means more details preserved.
Silver Gooch
New Member
Yeah I figured as much. The only sanding that I had done (when the pictures were taken earlier today) was with 80 grit quickly to get off any clumps and lumps. Tonight I went over the entire thing with 150, 220, and then 320 to get everything as smooth as possible. For the most part I got a lot of the excess bondo off.
I noticed on the underside of the helmet (the area that would rest on a table if you were to set it down) that the jaw piece was warped a bit, when the piece was pepped or during resining is my guess. Normally this would not be an issue because people would not generally see the underside of the helmet when they are looking at you; however, seeing as I am 6'5" people will DEFINITELY see it. Any ideas on how to improve/fix this?
Here are two pictures of the warped area.
Either cut it out and use fiberglass to build a new one, start over completely, or build up the existing chin with a lot of bondo.
The first option is slightly better because bondo is sort of brittle and the closer to the fiberglass backing it is, the stronger, if you drop it with the last option it could crack (I've done it). But the first option is a lot more work. Realistically, I'd just grind down the higher side, and build up the lower side to even it out. You can get it "close enough" that when painted no one will be able to tell. If you don't own one yet, these two tools are invaluable to smoothing and grinding a pep piece (and are really good additions to any toolbox anyways, I've used mine for home repair projects)
You'd want to grind down the high side, bondo up the low side, and then maybe use a box mold to rondo up the square piece in the middle (Cereal's Playing Cards trick).
If you want the sales pitch, I'd probably use the dremel to lower the high side to the right point, then the mouse sanding to smooth it out (dremel cuts away broad areas fast but leaves them rough).
The first option is slightly better because bondo is sort of brittle and the closer to the fiberglass backing it is, the stronger, if you drop it with the last option it could crack (I've done it). But the first option is a lot more work. Realistically, I'd just grind down the higher side, and build up the lower side to even it out. You can get it "close enough" that when painted no one will be able to tell. If you don't own one yet, these two tools are invaluable to smoothing and grinding a pep piece (and are really good additions to any toolbox anyways, I've used mine for home repair projects)
You'd want to grind down the high side, bondo up the low side, and then maybe use a box mold to rondo up the square piece in the middle (Cereal's Playing Cards trick).
If you want the sales pitch, I'd probably use the dremel to lower the high side to the right point, then the mouse sanding to smooth it out (dremel cuts away broad areas fast but leaves them rough).
Silver Gooch
New Member
The issue is, though, that the higher side does not have much bondo on it at all... There is only a very thin layer of bondo on that bottom portion of the helmet, so nothing to really sand or dremel away. I could build up the other side with bondo, but as you said it would be subject to cracking if dropped later. I've never used rondo before, nor heard of it much at this point. From what I read you use bondo and mix in fiberglass resin? Must it be fiberglass resin because I still have some left over smooth-cast 321 from strengthening my pepped piece.
Much appreciated.
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