JFcustom's FOAM files

[George]

May I ask how one would properly make a crevice/gap in foam for a magnet,especially if all sides around the magnet are closed?
And how would you smoothen the bottom of this gap?
I'm asking in particular for those who do not own or do not have the skills (yet) to work a Dremel (unless this is the only way)...
Thank you all for your reply

 

[laellee]

May I ask how one would properly make a crevice/gap in foam for a magnet,especially if all sides around the magnet are closed?
And how would you smoothen the bottom of this gap?
I'm asking in particular for those who do not own or do not have the skills (yet) to work a Dremel (unless this is the only way)...
Thank you all for your reply

Old soldering iron. I burn out the hole, and then go round and round until it's big enough. The bottom will be more flat than you'd expect, and any epoxy/whatever adhesive you run into the bottom will self-level when you put the magnet in.

Also, side note, Dremeling isn't too bad at all on eva. I have even used the generic pink grinder bits like you see from Harbor Freight, chuck those into a cordless drill, and bore holes with that if I'm in a hurry. Regular drill bit will also let you route holes, but it's good to still come through with the soldering iron to smooth and heat-harden the hole sides.

 

[George]

Genius :thumbsup I never considered the soldering iron because it's not on my workbench yet,but it's probably one of the better options.
I was walking around with the idea of using the heatgun to seal the foam,but once you have magnets in place,that would no longer have been an option,as you demagnetise everything; the soldering iron eliminates this problem.
I bought superglue for the magnets; with the glue leveling the bottom and the soldering iron heatsealing the foam,I should be good to go.Thank you so much (again),Laellee :thumbsup

 

[laellee]

Genius :thumbsup I never considered the soldering iron because it's not on my workbench yet,but it's probably one of the better options.
I was walking around with the idea of using the heatgun to seal the foam,but once you have magnets in place,that would no longer have been an option,as you demagnetise everything; the soldering iron eliminates this problem.
I bought superglue for the magnets; with the glue leveling the bottom and the soldering iron heatsealing the foam,I should be good to go.Thank you so much (again),Laellee :thumbsup

Of course dude, that's what we do . I took some pics of this process actually for the Igor build a while ago, you can take a look at those too if you want to see the 'cauterizing' effect of the iron. It's post 69 on this page, might help to see what it looks like as it gets cooked/burned out:

http://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=209533&page=3&highlight=magnets

 

[George]

Thanks so much for sharing that IM build thread! I haven't seen this type yet.I will take my time reading the WIP pages :thumbsup
You mentioned toxic fumes being released when burning holes in foam...will a regular dust mask and working near an open window suffice,or do I need a respirator for this job?
Also,what would you suggest to clean the iron tip after burning a crevice for the magnets?
Thank you again

 

[laellee]

Hey there,
The foam smokes a little bit, I didn't wear a mask, but I'm stupid so....

As for the soldering iron, it's best just to buy a garbage iron from Radio Shack or Harbor Freight for $5 and just use it for that. The foam will foul the tip and make soldering pretty much impossible without really good cleaning otherwise.

 

[George]

Do I understand you correctly that you recommend buying a soldering iron for the sole purpose of detailing foam and burning holes for magnets,and buy a separate/better one for electronics?

P.s.: I 'devoured' 3 pages of your Igor build thusfar...awesome crafting

 

[Mr Echs]

Do I understand you correctly that you recommend buying a soldering iron for the sole purpose of detailing foam and burning holes for magnets,and buy a separate/better one for electronics?

P.s.: I 'devoured' 3 pages of your Igor build thusfar...awesome crafting

Not to hijack the thread by any means, but definitely err on the side of caution when it comes to fumes. A quick trip to the Home Depot and $15-$20 will get you a 3M Organic Vapor respirator mask. A necessary tool when burning foam and/or mixing Bondo (or MEKP and polyester resin for fiberglass). You'll still need adequate ventilation as the mask doesn't create oxygen, but it will effectively filter out fumes and particulates saving you from nasty cancer and respiratory complications later down the line. Cheers and be safe!

Sent from my LG-D850 using Tapatalk

 

[laellee]

Not to hijack the thread by any means, but definitely err on the side of caution when it comes to fumes. A quick trip to the Home Depot and $15-$20 will get you a 3M Organic Vapor respirator mask. A necessary tool when burning foam and/or mixing Bondo (or MEKP and polyester resin for fiberglass). You'll still need adequate ventilation as the mask doesn't create oxygen, but it will effectively filter out fumes and particulates saving you from nasty cancer and respiratory complications later down the line. Cheers and be safe!

Sent from my LG-D850 using Tapatalk

Just to kick in again, what comes off of burning and rounding holes in EVA is no more than a whif of evil. Yes,safety first, and masks, and a dome....

...but having said all of that, No. You will be absolutely fine. And honestly, 5 seconds of smoking EVA foam floating close to your head will have nothing on the rest of your life. And if you are sweating it? Hold your breath. Th
ings are only as complicated as people make them.

 

[IMIM2]

If i may add, you can flip the tip of the solder, so instead of having a pointy tip, now you tubular, flat tip. Easier to control the depth of the hole you made

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[Mr Echs]

If i may add, you can flip the tip of the solder, so instead of having a pointy tip, now you tubular, flat tip. Easier to control the depth of the hole you made

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Also, you can pick up a cheap wood burning tool (repackaged soldering iron) that comes with interchangeable tips for different shapes and thicknesses.

Sent from my LG-D850 using Tapatalk

 

[George]

Thank you all for your help and information; very much appreciated :thumbsup
May I ask how one makes the opening of the wrist/ankle wide enough to go through without the need of magnets,but without compromising the design and size of the forearm/shin?
Too often the length is off when the opening is wide enough,but I don't want to cut up my design if I don't have to.
Thank you again !

 

[laellee]

Easy answer... You can't. For wrists, proper scale should allow you to push your hand through. Shins are a bit trickier, but honestly if you are of average build you should be able push through barely on the calves; The boot carryover for almost every suit I've ever built has the bottom flare, and worse case scenario you can cut a side 2-3 inches for fitment. It does put a flex on the finish, but it's nothing compared to what walking causes.

 

[Mr Echs]

Pretty much... You can strengthen the foam by gluing fabric (strips cut from an old t-shirt work fine) to the underside so that it doesn't disintegrate with repeated wear and tear. This will also help with the sweat.

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[George]

May I ask how I can remove the dotted lines within a segment of paper for a papercraft build? I assume this is different from joining edges?
And is that the method to convert papercraft models into foam models,or does that require a different approach?
I am looking into making 'pixelated' models look more organic,but I am not sure what is needed to do so.
Thank you all again for your comments.

 

[collinE83]

There's definitely a need for a tutorial on turning paper pep to foam and vice versa.

The first step for changing a paper pep file into a foam pep file starts right here, at removing the flaps



Uncheck "show flaps" and you immediately have a foam pep file.



But you don't get a 124 page thread by leaving the file as is. Most foam unfolders like to have the duplicate mirror pieces removed and only have one side of a model to print out. When tracing onto foam, you just flip the template over to trace out pieces for the opposite side, of course. So you'll want to move all the pieces from one half of the model off the paper entirely.



Or like some unfolders do...



The next step for optimizing your foam pep (like JFcustoms has become awesome at) is joining the pieces together. You normally have a ton of smaller pieces for paper pep so that single pieces will fit on a single sheet of paper. With foam, you can tape multiple sheets of paper together and it just has to fit on a roll of foam. So you join the pieces together into shapes that make sense. This was done quickly and I'll admit could have been done better.



Less pieces mean less gluing and faster building.

Lastly, you can pretty up the template by removing fold and cut lines that aren't needed. You can affect the whole model at once by lowering the angle threshold for showing edges, but if you want to be specific about where your mountain and valley folds are on the template, then you can use the Set Edge Color tool.



I ignored this tool for a while because who cares about edge color? But it actually has a better use. When unfolding you'll have these cut lines where the faces of the model don't line up perfectly, but aren't significant enough when working with foam. Foam is forgiving enough that you don't need millimeter cuts and stuff.



So you'll want to take a look at the "Hide Clicked Edge" tool. From here, you can just get lost for hours clicking and clicking to your heart's content.



This makes it so you don't accidentally create a valley or mountain where you just wanted a nice smooth bend, or cut into the foam where it should just be nice and flat.

So there you go. Hopefully that answers your question, and other people's as well.

 

[stigmorgan]

There's definitely a need for a tutorial on turning paper pep to foam and vice versa.

The first step for changing a paper pep file into a foam pep file starts right here, at removing the flaps

View attachment 561135

Uncheck "show flaps" and you immediately have a foam pep file.

View attachment 561136View attachment 561132

But you don't get a 124 page thread by leaving the file as is. Most foam unfolders like to have the duplicate mirror pieces removed and only have one side of a model to print out. When tracing onto foam, you just flip the template over to trace out pieces for the opposite side, of course. So you'll want to move all the pieces from one half of the model off the paper entirely.

View attachment 561131

Or like some unfolders do...

View attachment 561128

The next step for optimizing your foam pep (like JFcustoms has become awesome at) is joining the pieces together. You normally have a ton of smaller pieces for paper pep so that single pieces will fit on a single sheet of paper. With foam, you can tape multiple sheets of paper together and it just has to fit on a roll of foam. So you join the pieces together into shapes that make sense. This was done quickly and I'll admit could have been done better.

View attachment 561133

Less pieces mean less gluing and faster building.

Lastly, you can pretty up the template by removing fold and cut lines that aren't needed. You can affect the whole model at once by lowering the angle threshold for showing edges, but if you want to be specific about where your mountain and valley folds are on the template, then you can use the Set Edge Color tool.

View attachment 561134

I ignored this tool for a while because who cares about edge color? But it actually has a better use. When unfolding you'll have these cut lines where the faces of the model don't line up perfectly, but aren't significant enough when working with foam. Foam is forgiving enough that you don't need millimeter cuts and stuff.

View attachment 561129

So you'll want to take a look at the "Hide Clicked Edge" tool. From here, you can just get lost for hours clicking and clicking to your heart's content.

View attachment 561130

This makes it so you don't accidentally create a valley or mountain where you just wanted a nice smooth bend, or cut into the foam where it should just be nice and flat.

So there you go. Hopefully that answers your question, and other people's as well.

Thanks man thats really helpful, I can turn out a paper pep quite easily but hadnt managed to woork out how to unfold for foam yet, this is a great headstart.

 

[George]

Thank you,Collin :thumbsup I've learned a lot from this

 

[collinE83]

Thanks man thats really helpful, I can turn out a paper pep quite easily but hadnt managed to woork out how to unfold for foam yet, this is a great headstart.

It must be a mental shift from paper to foam or foam to paper, because I can't do paper unfolding. I don't know how to organize the flaps or how the pieces need to be broken up.

Thank you,Collin :thumbsup I've learned a lot from this

It makes me want to start a new thread with some in depth how to, multiple scenarios and stuff. I just have too many projects on my plate. Thanks for asking, though. I know if you have a question, then there are probably at least 50 other people with the same.

 

[laellee]

...Might help for foam to paper conversions. A lot of files, especially Jfcustom unfolds, take extra steps to switch the unfold method over.

Depends on who did the unfold, but you may need to have the model reunfolded for paper properly. On most of the better foam files (JFcustom's is a great example), a lot of settings have been changed specifically in Pepakura to unfold properly for foam, and will not work well at all for a paper unfold unless those settings are reset.

If you do choose to try converting the foam unfold to paper, open the foam unfold file in Pepakura and do the following:

1) 2D MENU>JOIN ADJACENT EDGES and set this value to .05
2) Hit CNTRL+E to bring up the Set Edge Color menu. Make sure hide edges almost flat is checked, and adjust the slider to 175 degrees.
3) 2d MENU>RECALCULATE PARTS LAYOUT, and select OK (note the scale of the model listed if you plan to keep it the same)
4) 2D MENU> check both SHOW FLAPS and SHOW EDGE ID
5) select UNDO UNFOLD and uncheck save text objects for next unfold and apply open edge info to 3d model, then select OK
6) 3D MENU> RESET EDGE PROPERTIES

All these steps will get you back to a clean slate that can now be unfolded for paper. When you select unfold, be sure to enter the scale you were using before to make it match. Sounds like more steps than you'd think you'd need, but there are some adjustments made in foam unfolds that can't be undone without (especially) steps 5 and 6. As for then unfolding for paper, there are tutorials on youtube that can help. :thumbsup