"Laminating" Cloth

[monkeyracing]

Hi guys, new guy here with a new guy question. I'm just starting out with prop building and I'm most interested in building masks/helmets. I've read about foam construction and vacuum forming. One thing I've not seen yet is layering or laminating fabric. What I'm after is sort of like paper mache, but with cotton or canvas type fabrics.

Any thoughts as to what sort of glues or resins I might use that are relatively low odour/volatility/vapour?

Since we're here...What are people using for vacuum systems while sanding down foam indoors? I'm hoping to find a quiet-ish solution.

Thanks in advance.

jim

 

[exoray]

You can use plaster based products for cloth laminations, and you could even use traditional resins...

Aquaresin might be what you are after, not exactly cheap though it's pretty much a gypsum/resin combo product...

As for sanding indoors you can build a negative pressure box pretty cheap with a box, a cheap fan and furnace filters... Basically the fan is mounted behind the box drawing air from the box through the furnace filter creating a negative pressure in the box so dust escape should be minimal... It can be expanded upon by using say pegboard for the bottom and installing a second fan and filter to draw dust into a lower chamber... It's one of those things that you can start simple and basic and expand upon as needed using the same supplies...

I guess the real question is what are you planning to make?

 

[monkeyracing]

Hi, thanks for the advice. I suppose I'm going to start off easy and build up on an existing form, like a blank mask. My initial focus will be building a robot head or two. I'll work from there. Whatever I construct will likely be shot with spray bombs for overall colour and hand painted for detail. I suppose getting them shiny will be the trick. I'm not sure if I've seen glossy plaster, so a resin will likely be involved.

I'm used to working in a garage and making a mess with all kinds of nasty chemicals, dust and such, but I developed some health issues this year and I'm stuck working indoors for now. I'm setting up a hobby room and can't make as much of a mess or as much of a racket.

I figure I can do sort of an adapted fume hood for the dust and even vent it out the window while the weather's good. I'm just not sure how to get the volume of air moving quietly for dust collection. I think your fan idea might be a good start, though. I've got an old window mount double fan kicking around here someplace.

Thanks again. Please keep the good advice coming!

 

[exoray]

I'm just not sure how to get the volume of air moving quietly for dust collection. I think your fan idea might be a good start, though.

If you want a boat load of 'suck' get a whole house attic exhaust fan...

We used to use one of the above when I remodeled basements, mount a sheet of plywood on the bottom and put it over a window well to the basement, open the window and turn it on... The whole basement went negative so no dust went up to the main living area... Mind you we had to turn off the furnace and gas water heater and what not as the basement actually goes so negative it reverses chimney flow :lol But even on sand out of the plaster very little dust was able to migrate up to the living area of the house...

 

[monkeyracing]

Yup, that would pretty much do it. I'm going to start a little smaller, though.

When I'm ready to scale up, I know where there's a millwork shop that went under and they had this 40' tall dust removal system with a silo. I wonder how my neighbours would feel about that being attached to my little bungalow.