glassedplanets
New Member
Uh, pretty much what it says on the box. This is my first build (MK VI, Wash from Red vs Blue) and my first time working with EVA foam (my helmet was done in early fall via the pep/resin/bondo method) and I've basically just been banging this thing out for the past week and a half straight. Yay, vacation!
I decided to go with both PVA glue and Plasti-Dip as sealers for my foam because a) I've used PVA glue to seal craft foam before (for a dinky little crown) so I knew how it'd go, b) I still wanted to keep some of the foam's flexibility, via the Plasti-Dip, and c) I don't want any of the foam texture showing through, so 5 million coats of junk should do the trick, right?
Now, y'all might be thinking, "but Bee, if you use PVA glue you're killing all flexibility, why would you think that PD would magically bring it back," then you're 100% right and that's something I didn't consider at all until I had, like, my third coat of PVA glue on. When I realized this I went for my two inner-thigh pieces and flexed them, which, naturally, made all the glue not only craze, but straight-up crack into the foam, a few mm deep.
THEREFORE, knowing that I had some pieces that absolute require flex for me to put them on (notably the shins -- I removed two pieces from the calf area because I'm a pipe cleaner of a human being, to the effect of the shins being tight enough to just sit on my legs without any velcro support, but also requiring me to heavily flex the foam as I shove my foot through), I put on all of the pieces once I was done sealing with the PVA glue, so that everything would flex, crack, and craze where necessary. I then went back and went over those cracks with some more glue.
And then, yesterday I had my first (and unfortunately not last) experience working with Plasti-Dip. I have to say, honestly, I hate this stuff. I hate the way it applies, I hate the way it dries, I hate the way it smells (lucky me, I'm a weenie and I was wearing a respirator just for the smell, before I found out that the vapors are apparently toxic), I hate everything about it. However, I'm going to recommend it (and keep using it) only because I went back to the inner-thigh pieces and flexed them (hard), and they flexed without issue -- though, granted, they were already cracked, so I'm not sure how much of that was purely the result of PD.
I (just now) tried everything on again post-PD, and I'm very pleased (and incredibly relieved) to report that I had no cracking issues! Go me. My next step is going to be to go back and re-fill some of my seams before I throw down a primer. I didn't fill them all the way before sealing because I wanted to see how the sealant would look on top of filled vs. unfilled seams, but now that I've seemingly popped open a few caulked seams, and now that I see how the non-popped, previously caulked seams look, I'm going to try and make the seams I don't want disappear fully.
Mostly I decided to start this thread because everything I read seemed to have wildly different opinions on how to seal EVA foam (Plasti-Dip! PVA glue! Mod Podge, which is just PVA glue! Gesso! Flexbond!) and I didn't actually see anyone detail their experience with using both PD and PVA glue, so yeah. Clearly I've got no photos attached, but I can definitely post some if anyone's interested, and I'll also probably do another flexibility update once I've got primer down.
UPDATE: The primer did great job of highlighting every single imperfection ever, and then some. I sanded some stuff down (mostly uneven caulk), and then, because the PD did that awful bubbling thing and the primer didn't help with that at all, I threw some more PVA glue over it, and I'll probably do one or two more coats of PVA before buffing everything down a bit and adding (hopefully) one last coat of primer.
I decided to go with both PVA glue and Plasti-Dip as sealers for my foam because a) I've used PVA glue to seal craft foam before (for a dinky little crown) so I knew how it'd go, b) I still wanted to keep some of the foam's flexibility, via the Plasti-Dip, and c) I don't want any of the foam texture showing through, so 5 million coats of junk should do the trick, right?
Now, y'all might be thinking, "but Bee, if you use PVA glue you're killing all flexibility, why would you think that PD would magically bring it back," then you're 100% right and that's something I didn't consider at all until I had, like, my third coat of PVA glue on. When I realized this I went for my two inner-thigh pieces and flexed them, which, naturally, made all the glue not only craze, but straight-up crack into the foam, a few mm deep.
THEREFORE, knowing that I had some pieces that absolute require flex for me to put them on (notably the shins -- I removed two pieces from the calf area because I'm a pipe cleaner of a human being, to the effect of the shins being tight enough to just sit on my legs without any velcro support, but also requiring me to heavily flex the foam as I shove my foot through), I put on all of the pieces once I was done sealing with the PVA glue, so that everything would flex, crack, and craze where necessary. I then went back and went over those cracks with some more glue.
And then, yesterday I had my first (and unfortunately not last) experience working with Plasti-Dip. I have to say, honestly, I hate this stuff. I hate the way it applies, I hate the way it dries, I hate the way it smells (lucky me, I'm a weenie and I was wearing a respirator just for the smell, before I found out that the vapors are apparently toxic), I hate everything about it. However, I'm going to recommend it (and keep using it) only because I went back to the inner-thigh pieces and flexed them (hard), and they flexed without issue -- though, granted, they were already cracked, so I'm not sure how much of that was purely the result of PD.
I (just now) tried everything on again post-PD, and I'm very pleased (and incredibly relieved) to report that I had no cracking issues! Go me. My next step is going to be to go back and re-fill some of my seams before I throw down a primer. I didn't fill them all the way before sealing because I wanted to see how the sealant would look on top of filled vs. unfilled seams, but now that I've seemingly popped open a few caulked seams, and now that I see how the non-popped, previously caulked seams look, I'm going to try and make the seams I don't want disappear fully.
Mostly I decided to start this thread because everything I read seemed to have wildly different opinions on how to seal EVA foam (Plasti-Dip! PVA glue! Mod Podge, which is just PVA glue! Gesso! Flexbond!) and I didn't actually see anyone detail their experience with using both PD and PVA glue, so yeah. Clearly I've got no photos attached, but I can definitely post some if anyone's interested, and I'll also probably do another flexibility update once I've got primer down.
UPDATE: The primer did great job of highlighting every single imperfection ever, and then some. I sanded some stuff down (mostly uneven caulk), and then, because the PD did that awful bubbling thing and the primer didn't help with that at all, I threw some more PVA glue over it, and I'll probably do one or two more coats of PVA before buffing everything down a bit and adding (hopefully) one last coat of primer.
