How to plastic coat foam costume pieces

XRobots

Well-Known Member
I've been doing some testing with plastic coating plastazote foam, although I've only tried it a couple of times, I'm pretty sure it could give some amazing results with practice. Essentially this gives you the speed and ease of foam building with the finish of plastic or fiberglass pieces.

Here is my foam test piece:

coating11.jpg


It also works for expanded polystyrene and other materials, so I think my next project will be a Terminator Endoskeleton made out of foam, carved polystyrene, cardboard tubes etc, all plastic coated and painted up like metal.

Here's an article with words: XRobots.co.uk/coating

And a YouTube video showing the step by step process: XRobots - How To plastic coat foam & expanded polystyrene prop and costume pieces - YouTube

YT01.jpg
 
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wow great idea. I'm building a foam costume and was worried about how i would not have that look of painted foam. Thanks I again I can't wait to try this method out. Plus the video was very good and detailed.
 
Nice!.
Please excuse my ignorance, but what is the advantage in using the smooth on rotocasting stuff over say just fibreglass? Could you use the same process you described using fibreglass resin? (nice tip on using PVA as a primer :thumbsup)
 
Nice!.
Please excuse my ignorance, but what is the advantage in using the smooth on rotocasting stuff over say just fibreglass? Could you use the same process you described using fibreglass resin? (nice tip on using PVA as a primer :thumbsup)

Yes possibly, but without reinforcement polyester resin would be quite brittle, the Polyurethane is much better in thin sections.
 
brilliant, bloody brilliant. you allways surprise me

did i catch that right that you used 10 mm foam for the im suit? isnt that a little hard to work with?
 
loved the tut man it was excellent. iv always had problems with seems in my foam armour and my outer layer cracking this seems like it could be the answer to all my problems ordered some resin of ebay gonna give this a go on one of my shoulder bells and see how they come up thanks very much buddy
 
Very nice tutorial. Your website is very informative but I am also wondering how strong it is and will there be much cracking if this is used on an Ironman suit?
 
Thanks guys, to answer a few questions:

-Yes I'm using 10mm foam, but you could probably use 5mm thinnest I'd say. I had some lower density 5mm foam and it was quite 'floppy', so you might want to put cardboard formers in the piece before coating it.

-I've only used Smooth cast 65D which is a rotocast resin, which means it 'self levels' and gives a nice smooth surface - normally on the inside of the piece. You could try other Urethane resins, but you probably want lots of thin coats to avoid lumps.

-In terms of strength it feels pretty good, but what you see is all I've made using this process so far. It might be worth coating the inside as well as the outside of the piece for extra strength, and at that point you could always reinforce the inside with more resin as thick as you like.

-The foam I'm using is Plastazote from: Thames Valley Supplies - Rubber & Foam Converters - Rubber Snow Plough Blades
 
What an ingenious idea, thanks so much for sharing :thumbsup

I've just got templates for the M7 armour and helmet. I'm planning on making three, one for me, and one each for my boys :)
Oh yeh, and thanks for the link to a foam sheet supplier in the uk, it's really hard trying to find alternatives to materials that are used in the US.
 
What an ingenious idea, thanks so much for sharing :thumbsup

I've just got templates for the M7 armour and helmet. I'm planning on making three, one for me, and one each for my boys :)
Oh yeh, and thanks for the link to a foam sheet supplier in the uk, it's really hard trying to find alternatives to materials that are used in the US.

hey man im in the uk to i was having the same problem but i found out that those camping and yoga matts are made of the same stuff and they come in good size rolls i buy them form argos and a place called B and Ms there very cheep and work really well. make sure to inspect them before bringing them home cus you get some denser than others. check out the facebook page it shows some stuff iv made with the matts Iron man armour uk | Facebook
 
hey man im in the uk to i was having the same problem but i found out that those camping and yoga matts are made of the same stuff and they come in good size rolls i buy them form argos and a place called B and Ms there very cheep and work really well. make sure to inspect them before bringing them home cus you get some denser than others. check out the facebook page it shows some stuff iv made with the matts Iron man armour uk | Facebook

i used camping mats for my ironman build and im in the uk i started off buying the garage floor mats but found them at 12 mm that they were just to think for what i wanted to do with them, so then i brought 3 mm camping mats which was ok.i made the shoulder armour with it painted them up and since finishing the suit have relised they are just to thin as they have start to rip in places.the rest of the suit i brought 6 mm camping mats which i found at a good price in wilkinsons :) and find these perfect strong enough to take some stick but flexible enough to bend into any shape you want :)
 
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