How do I resin a chest piece?

[AverageAce]

I've resined a helmet before but this seems like a whole 'nother animal. For the helmet I just stuffed the helmet full of trash bags and put it on a stand to avoid warping. A chest piece seems awfully big/open to be stuffed with plastic bags. How do I avoid warping in the chest piece? Thanks guys!

P.S. The armor I'm doing is recon armor. Is it easier to rondo the little pieces--poking out of the shoulders, chest, and whatnot--seperately and then glue or screw them in or should i just attach them via pepakura and rondo it all together?

 

[Jax Archillies]

im sure there is a tutorial here somewhere.

but, in short if you've made the piece correctly with 110 lb paper and so forth, there will be NO warping at all. resin the insode first twice, and on the third coat add fiberglass matt.

i actually FG'd the outside of my halo rig in places

 

[Hickeydog]

Do a VERY light coat of resin for the first one (ask me how I know this. 2 chest pieces later......), and do the front and back separately. It's best to have a mannequin (you can make one out of duct tape and lots of news paper) to set the chest piece on.

 

[AverageAce]

ahhhhhhhh it all makes sense now

 

[Deathbox]

i am doing a War Machine and just did a chest piece. i went to Walmart and bought a 100 pack of bamboo skewers for $1.00 and basically made a spider web of supports on the inside to make sure it held its shape. i was going to make supports out of card stock but they might warp or not stay at full length and shape. then when i resinned the outside of mine i made a pvc stand that was basically a 5' piece of 3/4" thickwall PVC pipe on a Christmas tree stand that i attached to the supports. the stand held it just fine while i put three coats on the outside.

i am in the middle of putting the mat down now, i just did the first bit about an hour ago. i am leaving the supports in while i do the inside and just glassing around them. after everything is dry and well set up i will remove the supports and put small piece of mat where the supports attached to finish it up.







the bamboo shewers are great for a lot of things like supports structures, stirring, making stands, etc. i hope this helps.

 

[Carpathia]

I agree with deathbox, supports are the best way to go. You may also think about backing the inside of the chestpiece with a rigid material, like 1/2" foam core or cardboard, much like I did on my first Carter chestpiece.

 

[Deathbox]

i was thinking about that Carp but it raises the price tag quite a bit if you are doing a full set of armor. i figure if anything warps ill just redo the area with card stock and re-fiber glass the area. there is a tad of warping in the chest piece i did but i think thats because i did too much at one time when i did the resin. the one in making, im not too worried about wearing the actual pieces im making because i plan on using them to make molds so my final armor will be plastic.

just out of curiousity, what is foam core?