I've Read Through All The Stickies/faqs, But I Still Have Questions.

[adirtygaspump]

Ok, so, I've read ALL of the possible stickies before trying to ask too many questions. I still have some questions left over though.



If I use regular letter paper for Pepakura, will it be weaker than if I used cardstock or A4?



Ok, I get the mountain-valley concept of the Pepakura, but how do I know which pieces to connect to which?



When I start my Mark VI armor project, Do I use fiberglass resin, or aqua resin, or did I miss something along the way? (I'm doing Pepakura)



Can someone point me to some sort of step-by-step instruction for Pepakura armor? Because I get the concept of printing the cut-outs of the armor, then cutting them and folding, but what do I do after that?



Please, I'm sorry If I did a wrong thing by posting a new thread, I've searched all over the place, but I still can't find anything on these questions.

 

[Burke]

1. Regular letter size printing paper is too weak, it wont hold shape. Use 110lb. cardstock and it will help the pep file to retain its shape until resining.

2. At the end of the piece are little wing tabs these are to be folded and glued to the next piece, these tabs line up by numbers printed on the edges of the pieces.

3. Uh Im not sure which is better soemone will asnwer that.

4. after you do all those steps you use glue and glue the numbered peice togetehr 1 to 1, 2 to 2, 3 to 3 etc etc etc and evetually itll take shape into the file you are making. Smaller objects are sometimes easier to see how a 2d plane can be manipulated and transformed into the final 3d object.

 

[The King Cobra]

As long as you read all the stickies I will answer as many of your questions as I can.



You will want to buy Card-stock in letter size for your Pepakura making because paper is very easily warped and can ruin the look of your armor.

There is an option in the 2d menu saying 'Edge ID' you want that checked on and then it shows you which tab goes with what piece

When you start your Mark VI I personally use fiberglass resin because I can buy it from across the street. But aqua resin is a much safer and more expensive substance.

There is a thread by ben streeper which is a fully step by step instruction thread on pepakura file to finished armor



Hope this all helped you out. If you have anymore questions hit me a PM.



-The King Cobra

 

[momoss]

Ok, so, I've read ALL of the possible stickies before trying to ask too many questions. I still have some questions left over though.



If I use regular letter paper for Pepakura, will it be weaker than if I used cardstock or A4?



Ok, I get the mountain-valley concept of the Pepakura, but how do I know which pieces to connect to which?



When I start my Mark VI armor project, Do I use fiberglass resin, or aqua resin, or did I miss something along the way? (I'm doing Pepakura)



Can someone point me to some sort of step-by-step instruction for Pepakura armor? Because I get the concept of printing the cut-outs of the armor, then cutting them and folding, but what do I do after that?



Please, I'm sorry If I did a wrong thing by posting a new thread, I've searched all over the place, but I still can't find anything on these questions.

Hey welcome to the 405th! I'll try to answer your questions to the best of my ability.



1)If you use regular paper for pepakura yes, it will be weaker than cardstock. Way weaker. It will be more prone to warping when building and it will not withstand being fiberglassed and probably turn into a big pile of mush so I highly recommend cardstock.



2)Each piece has a number on it, you have to match the same numbers and glue them together by their tabs.



3)From what I learned aqua resin is like fiberglass resin only non-toxic which means you dont need a respirator for it and its also less picky about curing temperatures. Regular fiberglass resin you definitely do need a respirator and it has to be a warm temperature to cure correctly. Aqua resin tends to cost more than regular fiberglass resin and I dont think you can find them in local stores, at least I couldnt find any.



4)When I was first starting out and had no idea how to put together a model this video helped me get started and on my way to assembling my armor.

Hope this helps!



Edit: Ah 2 people beat me to the punch :lol

 

[adirtygaspump]

All of you, thank you for helping a Pepakura noob.



One more question, why would I need the Bondo filler? Or do I?

 

[momoss]

Thank you both for helping a noob, All I need now is the supplies.



One more question, why would I need the Bondo filler? Or do I?

Well you dont need bondo, but it would help smooth out the rough areas of the armor so you dont look like a walking polygon chief from Halo 1 :lol Bondo can really add the finishing look to armor before you paint it.

 

[adirtygaspump]

Thanks again, If you guys don't mind, I might PM some of you if I ever have any more questions.

-117



Edit: Do any of you have a time estimate for a Mark VI Pepakura armor? I would preferably like to get done with my armor within 3 months, because football season starts in 3 months.

 

[LMNOspartan]

Ok answer to your last question: When making armor, Bondo auto body filler is used to smooth out the edges of the polygons from the pepakura armor. It is also used to add small intricate details such as a small raised platform of indent that was not included in the pepakura file because it would be really hard to make. (this is done basically by adding it to the resin(ed?) and fiberglassed armor and then sanding it to the correct shape etc.!



Hope this helped!



Cheers,

Me lol

 

[momoss]

Edit: Do any of you have a time estimate for a Mark VI Pepakura armor? I would preferably like to get done with my armor within 3 months, because football season starts in 3 months.

Well it took me from late Janurary to now, so around 3 months give or take a few days :lol But some people can be faster or slower. It really depends on how much time you dump into it. I slacked off a few days or was too busy on some days to work on it, I didnt go at it non stop for 3 months. So I probably could have done my armor faster...but not by that much.

 

[adirtygaspump]

Well it took me from late Janurary to now, so around 3 months give or take a few days :lol But some people can be faster or slower. It really depends on how much time you dump into it. I slacked off a few days or was too busy on some days to work on it, I didnt go at it non stop for 3 months. So I probably could have done my armor faster...but not by that much.

Awesome! All of you have been a HUGE help to me, this really is an awesome community. I'll probably start on my armor project in a week or so, I'm so excited!

 

[momoss]

Cant wait to see your work in progress. Let me give you a tip. When your building your pepakura, it can get boring at times cutting folding and gluing for hours. If you got an ipod handy you can listen to that while doing it or have the TV running in the background with a movie or 2, or 3 :lol Makes the time go by much easier. The pepakura part typically takes the longest when it comes to making your armor. Fiberglassing wont take nearly as long as it takes to assemble all the paper parts especially HD parts which was what I did. If you decide to bondo it may add some time to your project cause of all the sanding you will be doing But the outcome afterward will be worth it. Then just figure out how your going to strap it all to yourself, painting it should be a breeze. And before you know it you'll be done.

 

[adirtygaspump]

Cant wait to see your work in progress. Let me give you a tip. When your building your pepakura, it can get boring at times cutting folding and gluing for hours. If you got an ipod handy you can listen to that while doing it or have the TV running in the background with a movie or 2, or 3 :lol Makes the time go by much easier. The pepakura part typically takes the longest when it comes to making your armor. Fiberglassing wont take nearly as long as it takes to assemble all the paper parts especially HD parts which was what I did. If you decide to bondo it may add some time to your project cause of all the sanding you will be doing But the outcome afterward will be worth it. Then just figure out how your going to strap it all to yourself, painting it should be a breeze. And before you know it you'll be done.

Mental notes taken, thanks for the tips! :lol

 

[LMNOspartan]

To the time thing: I may just be a real noob but i have been working on my odst armor for about 4 months now and am still not completely done with the pepakura part... so i think it really depends on the person. Cause some people may work on it every day. But other people (those like me) may work on it for maybe 2 or 3 days a week so....



hope this helps again

 

[Sean Anwalt]

117, good to have you on board. I myself am about to construct a Mk VI armor piece. I have a Mk V I've been practicing on, but due to weather and a lack of supplies, had to post pone completion of it. (finals in college aren't helping anything, either. ) But if you listen to the advise these other guys have given you, you will be alright. The biggest problem that I can forsee for you is the resining part. The cardstock-construction part takes the longest, but you need to work fast with the resin, because it dries way super fast. use it a little at a time to begin with. Also, just as a note, you might consider a different piece to work on to practice, because garaunteed, the first one won't be as good as you hope. Be really super patient, and take a break when you need one, because getting mad at the thing before you finish it is the perfect way to destroy the part and lose a lot of money. Anyway, hope this helps a bit. Good luck.

 

[adirtygaspump]

117, good to have you on board. I myself am about to construct a Mk VI armor piece. I have a Mk V I've been practicing on, but due to weather and a lack of supplies, had to post pone completion of it. (finals in college aren't helping anything, either. ) But if you listen to the advise these other guys have given you, you will be alright. The biggest problem that I can forsee for you is the resining part. The cardstock-construction part takes the longest, but you need to work fast with the resin, because it dries way super fast. use it a little at a time to begin with. Also, just as a note, you might consider a different piece to work on to practice, because garaunteed, the first one won't be as good as you hope. Be really super patient, and take a break when you need one, because getting mad at the thing before you finish it is the perfect way to destroy the part and lose a lot of money. Anyway, hope this helps a bit. Good luck.

So working fast means once I start resining the pieces of armor, I have to do it fast because something will mess up?



Sorry for all the questions too, but how do I scale the armor to my size on Pepakura? I figured out I'm 72 inches tall.

 

[Ral Partha]

So working fast means once I start resining the pieces of armor, I have to do it fast because something will mess up?

In a manner of speaking, yes. Depending on the amount of hardener you add, the resin will start to cure and harden in 5-10 minutes after mixing. Because of that, you only use small batches of resin and you never mix more than 3 ounces at any given time.

Sorry for all the questions too, but how do I scale the armor to my size on Pepakura? I figured out I'm 72 inches tall.

That's the million-dollar question. Use the phrase "scale your armor" (Xtreme TACTICS 101's tutorial) or "proportionate sizing" (abrant3's tutorial) in the search function. This will also help you become familiar with the board's search feature.

 

[adirtygaspump]

I searched "armor scaling", "scaling your armor", "proportionate sizing" etc.



The only thing I could find was on changing the scale. Like decreasing the scale 10%, or increasing.



I haven't found anything yet on how to change the armor proportions to accommodate myself. Is there some sort of setting in Pepakura that I've missed?

 

[Foxw]

Welcome to the party John 117.



easiest way to figure out scaling is to go read Tactics tutorial, which should answer all your questions.



best of luck dude

 

[Ral Partha]

I searched "armor scaling", "scaling your armor", "proportionate sizing" etc.



The only thing I could find was on changing the scale. Like decreasing the scale 10%, or increasing.



I haven't found anything yet on how to change the armor proportions to accommodate myself. Is there some sort of setting in Pepakura that I've missed?

No, I mean search this website using those phrases I told you. Follow their instructions and then use the values you arrived at to change the armor scaling by going to 2DPatternWindow --> Change the Scale of Development --> Specify the Scale.

 

[Sean Anwalt]

Ok, so the resizing bit was the biggest pain in the neck for me to figure out. This is what's up: In the pepakura viewer, you cannot re-size your armor; there just isn't a feature for that. You will need pepakura designer 3 (or 2 or whatever. I use 3) which you can find online if you look hard enough. in this program, there is a feature for editing the scale of your armor. open this handy little doohicky, (it's in the 2-D menu...) and a little window will pop up and have 3 options for you: height, width and depth or whatever. Been a while since I re-sized anything. But basically, you change one of these numbers, and the others will all change with it. So enter your height in inches, or cm, whichever it asks for, and the other numbers will change for you. You may need to re-adjust the fittings on your 2-D side, the part on the right with the paper layout and all, but your armor should be re-sized for you now. Hope this helps, it's a little cryptic, but I don't have my regular pepping computer with me right now. I'll get ya some better info when I can. Clear as mud?