Impact resistance of bondo? (armor applications)

[bigbisont]

No, im not foolish enough to rely on any real protection, but at the same time i need to know if anyone has any experience with it!

Back in highschool I made a set of USCM armor from aliens out of pretty much pvc pipe, a paintball vest, and plastic flower pots & garbage cans from the dollar store. It didnt turn out as bad as it sounds. In fact I got a couple halloweens under my belt and it proved useful in college, both for me and for pledges. Good times...

But what I learned quickly, is that my buddies, after realizing I was wearing 'armor', all felt the need to punch me in the chest.

I plan to revisit the project very soon. I hope to use more advanced techniques this time around though! Looking at scratchbuilding a set with fiberglass and/or bondo. I really never thought to test bondo, but nothing would ruin my day more than "finishing" and feeling great, only to have a d*^&head friend give me a cheap shot and see my gear crack.

Any success/failure/FYI stories involving fiberglass/bondo coated armor out there?

 

[NelBearPig]

From my experience with it if you have a solid base the thicker it is the least likely it will be to crack. However, the thicker it is the heavier the armor will be. My favorite material for armor is sintra, you can heat it up and bend it into the shapes you need and depending on the thickness it is not terribly heavy (at least not to me and I'm a smaller than average person).

Hope this was helpful.

 

[markkNL]

I think the bondo can hold enough, since it is also used for car repairs. I would be more worried about the glass fiber. It can hold large amounts of longitudinal force, but it's not very useful for transversal force. If you work a large force directly on the surface, it might bend too much(and eventually break, amount of bending depending on how strong you made it), thus making the bondo bend with it and break it. I dont know how strong the glassfiber bodies are when you make them the normal way, I haven't done it yet, but if it's half as strong as industrial produced fiberglass parts, I would not worry about anything. Though if the normally used method of applying resin over the cloth with a brush isn't that strong (which I suspect), you might want to look for alternatives if you're really worried about breaking it.

When I will be making my fiber suit, I will try and make it so strong that I can at least sit on it easily. Hopefully it can be done.