Josh's Captain America Shield

[OhYeahItsJosh]

There are certain sections of mine inside the groove that are painted or not painted, I hate it because the paint job came out perfect everywhere else, you dont see the inconsistencies until you get up close. Wondering if I should just scrap it out to make it look even, I really dont want to strip her down again (did it 3 x already). Your shield looks great, keep it goin.

Thanks man. I'm not sure how to get the grooves just right either, it's actually kind of frustrating. I don't know what I'm going to seal it with yet actually. With the weather being good this week and next, I'm going to hopefully finish this shield within the next two weeks.

 

[OhYeahItsJosh]

Here's a bit of an update. I haven't had time to work on the shield for a while now simply because I've been looking at new jobs and interviewing like crazy. But things have slowed down and now I'm able to work on it. Hopefully I can get it done before the Avengers movie in May.

Due to some of the errors I made when I was painting, I had to strip the shield and start over.

Thankfully the paint came off easier than I hoped. So tonight I'll try and get the scratches out with some rubbing compound and hopefully have it ready to paint for tomorrow.

 

[OhYeahItsJosh]

On a side note, my hands are all red and blue from the paint and it looks like I punched Uncle Sam. :wacko

 

[OhYeahItsJosh]

Need help! Can't remove this scratch!

Hey guys, I'm going to start painting tonight but last night I ran into a bit of a problem.

I was cleaning the shield off and getting rid of all the dirt and dust on the shield. Additionally I was trying to get rid of all the scratches on my shield but for the life of me, I can't get rid of this one scratch/problem area. I tried a rubbing compound that worked fairly well for me before but it had very little to no effect. I'll post pictures of the problem.

I promise it's a lot worse than it appears. I apologize for the crappy quality but my camera isn't very good. I'll try and retake them tonight if I can. Anyway I'm open for suggestions on how to get rid of this. I don't expect my shield to be perfect but that's just a glaring problem. Thanks!

 

[Valor]

I actually built a rig to gently scuff and sand the face of the shield. Picture a piece of thin aluminum about 1" wide and as long as the radius of the shield. I drilled a hole on one end, inserted a nut and bolt through and loosely secured it in place. Should look like a long hand of a clock coming off the center of your shield. Oh, and wrap that piece of aluminum in masking tape to not further scratch your shield. Now, take a scuff pad, like you buy at the hardware store to remove paint and wrap it once around your metal bar and use it to rotate around the shield and gently scuff out the scratch. Make sure to hold tight so that the scuffing you're doing is perfectly in line with the spun pattern of the shield.

You could use a hi-grit sandpaper, but I don't think you need to be that aggessive.

 

[OhYeahItsJosh]

I think in this particular instance the risk vs reward is too high. I can TRY to get the scratch out but I'm not sure if it would work without ruining the finish. So I think I'm just going to have live with it . Hopefully the clear coat will at least hide it (according to another individual who I asked to help me with it). If I really don't like it, I can always battle damage the shield.

Anyway, last night I put the blue paint on for the second (and hopefully last) time. I think it looks a hell of a lot more even than the first one. Sunday I plan on putting on the red coat of paint, so I'll give an update then!

 

[OhYeahItsJosh]

Here's the prep for the red paint.

And here's the result after painting.

Several things I did different here:
Instead of painting along the rings I just painted the whole thing. However, each coat I painted from a different side and only painted half of it each time. This time it came out a lot more even. And as per Valor's suggestion, I ditched the painter's tape and used Masking tape. Everything came out a lot better.


I should note that I'm in no way shape or form great at this. I'm used to working with lumber and a lot of my inspiration came from Valor's work.

 

[OhYeahItsJosh]

And here's everything assembled together (yes pun intended).

Now I know the lighting is different but just looking at my first attempt compared to my second attempt, the latter is definitely better. Everything looks better.

This week I should have brackets from Valor coming in as well as getting the clear coat applied.

If anyone's interested in buying the brackets from Valor, here's the link to his sale. He's really great to work with.

http://www.therpf.com/f13/captain-america-movie-shield-bracket-systems-second-145954/

 

[Valor]

Looks great! You're almost there

 

[OhYeahItsJosh]

Looks great! You're almost there

Thanks man!

 

[OhYeahItsJosh]

I also thought I'd share this.

I bought a couple posters a while ago and I wanted to see what they looked like next to the shield. If anyone is interested where you can buy these, I can give you the link to it.

 

[drakeprimeone]

Why is the poster text backwards?

 

[OhYeahItsJosh]

Honestly, it's because of the crappy iPhone 4 camera lol. I'll see if I can take a better photo.

 

[drakeprimeone]

Neat, I am digging the bucky rescue silloutte poster.

 

[CJ 617]

Yeah, I love those posters!!

 

[OhYeahItsJosh]

Here I'll post the link to the posters. I've bought from this guy multiple times, he's friendly and ships very fast.

Captain America Film Poster by sap41387 on Etsy

He's making a new Avengers poster if you're interested, although I have no idea when he'll post it up there.

 

[steamshovel]

Man, this shield is absolutely amazing! So glad you stripped it and reworked it. It is beautiful!

 

[OhYeahItsJosh]

Man, this shield is absolutely amazing! So glad you stripped it and reworked it. It is beautiful!

Thanks! It looks even better after the clear coat I had put on it. I'll post pictures of that soon after I'm done putting all of it together. I just finished the handles/brackets today and everything should be done by tomorrow

 

[Roc74]

Awesome work on the shield so far. Just a question, the grooves between the rings, do those get painted or are they left unpainted? Im thinking that the grooves on either side of the Aluminum unpainted ring is left unpainted, but what about the groove in between the Red and Blue? Is painted blue or red? Or Half and half , although I have o idea how that would be possible?

 

[OhYeahItsJosh]

Awesome work on the shield so far. Just a question, the grooves between the rings, do those get painted or are they left unpainted? Im thinking that the grooves on either side of the Aluminum unpainted ring is left unpainted, but what about the groove in between the Red and Blue? Is painted blue or red? Or Half and half , although I have o idea how that would be possible?

Thanks! The grooves do indeed get painted. They're kinda tricky and even I didn't do 'em 100% perfect. You are correct though; the unpainted ring is left alone on both sides but on the inner most ring the grooves are painted red and blue. So picture it like this:

Red\/White White\/Red Red\/Blue

There's two ways to do this. If you look back on my thread you'll see a picture I posted where I covered up the shield in masking tape. I covered the grooves in masking tape so they were entirely covered. Then I took my fingernail and gently pressed the tape to form alongside both sides of the groove. Lastly, I used an exacto knife to cut the tape in half slowly running the knife in the direct center of the groove for each ring. Then I simply peeled away and painted.

The other way to do this (albeit harder) is to use a very thin painter's brush to paint the respective side of the groove. Although I didn't use this method for the whole area, I did use it for touch ups before the catalyzed clear coat was put on.