Preserving detail when resin'ing?

[zgSHADOW]

Dear 405th,
For prop and armor building, I've recently started to resin the inside for the first coat. I'm scared that starting with the outside may create drips and deformities that come inward . Is this a very good idea?

I'm trying to avoid using Bondo too often by pepping as carefully as possible and starting the resin process from the inside first.

I'm referring to my Recon, HD Mark V (Combat Evolved), and my HD Kirrou ODST helmet. They're all unresin'ed or very lightly coated in some areas. I'm mainly looking for hardening tips for the ODST and Mark V helmet. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

 

[Lord Ned]

I don't think you'll be able to avoid using Bondo. When you coat the pep'd piece in fiberglass resin it's akin to rubbing water on a piece of paper with your finger - go ahead and try it with a piece of scrap cardstock, just get your finger wet and rub it on. The cardstock will sag inwards from any edges. You'll then have to flatten these faces back out with Bondo (after potentially knocking down the high edges with a rasp to reduce the amount of filling you need to do) - the end product will almost entirely be covered in bondo.

Good pepping will help with preserving potentially hard-to-add detail (Ie; a crevice) and you should definitely make clean peps. When you do apply resin, do it in small batches with light coats and work in SECTIONS on the object. Do not resin the entire object at once, instead resin a small area and let it dry - this helps you prevent warping of your piece. The other tip for preventing warping is to place paper supports inside of pieces (some pep files come with them, others you have to make) and those will help hold the objects shape.

 

[rundown]

the pep just serves as a base, not detail really. If you want it smooth you will have to smooth it during the bondo process.

 

[Miguel MK107]

Normally I start resin the outside and then do the inside with fiberglass, for the drips you have to use sandpaper, deformities i don't think it would happen, i just finish a Noble 6 helmet pep, and next week end will be starting the resin process, i have some videos on you tube if you wont to check out

http://www.youtube.com/spartam1171

 

[Maverick Hunter]

Lord Ned is totally right on this one. While I personally have never had problems with deformation during resin application (the more compact and structured your piece, the less it will sag), the best thing is patience. Just do one section at a time, or one side at a time. Inside or outside doesn't really matter. Cereal Killl3r has an excellent tutorial on this

that does a good job of explaining how to avoid deformation and pooling resin.

However, I don't think it's too wise to try to avoid using bondo. Resin is good stuff, but pepakuras tend to be much more angular than the end armor and you can only reduce that so much with resin. Additionally, it's much easier to work detailing, such as battle damage, into bondo as compared to resin. It also lends a good sense of weight to the end product and stops it from looking flimsy or plastic-y.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by hardening though. Do you mean just general ways to strengthen it? I personally fiberglass the inside, but Rondo is also quite popular, especially for helmets, and is a bit easier and cleaner than trying to get fiberglass into all the nooks and crannies of a pep.