Need Material Advice: castable Foam Rubber

[Sean Bradley]

I was wondering if anyone could help me with a material suggestion. I'm starting work on new costumes that I need to cast some foam rubber parts for. The parts are bodysuit/armor items, not prosthetics. I'm looking for a castable foam rubber that is fairly stiff, but maintains a modicum of flexibility, approximating the density of EVA foam but in a castable form. Ideally the foam should be 'skinned', to not have an open porous surface on the cast parts. I'd also need to be able to color the batches and/or paint the material after casting.

I've looked into Smooth-On Flex Foam, which was very promising, but I wasn't entirely happy with the firmness of the cast parts. The surface seemed a little too soft and floppy, and didn't seem to take abrasion well. Also paint had a tendency to flex and crack because the material was this soft and stretchy.

Could anyone recommend a material that they've worked with that has the properties listed here?

 

[STEALTH]

I'd really like to know this as well. It has been on my mind.

 

[Vermithrax 4]

Sean,

Did you talk to the tech people at Smooth-On and tell them what you were needing? I've often found they have a solution to any problem like this that I've encountered. Also, here's an idea as far as painting your foam pieces, but run this by the tech guys first and see what they say:

1. Plasti-Dip comes in black, white, clear, yellow & blue. You could try getting a can of each and mix your colors into white until you get what you want then apply that as paint onto your pieces. But as I say, check with the tech guys first. Plasti-Dip contains Naptha, Xylene, Hexane & Toluene and I don't know if whatever foam you settle on would be susceptible to those solvents or not. Some foams dissolve under them, some don't.

2. Use some sort of regular paint first then simply apply several layers of thinned CLEAR Plasti-Dip over it. These clear layers would act as a fixative that would possibly prevent the cracking and help hold the paint on. You can thin Plasti-Dip with simple mineral spirits.

Hope this helps in some small way.

Dale.

 

[Vermithrax 4]

Gosh, I forgot to give you the source for the colored Plasti-Dips: DX Engineering has all those colors and the clear in spray and dipping forms. They're at DX Engineering - Antennas, Antenna Systems and High Quality Antenna Components! .

D.

 

[darthchiro]

which number of flex foam did you try? 17 and 25 are pretty dense.

 

[Sean Bradley]

I'm not sure which Flex-Foam I observed. It came is pre-cast from another artist I just had to finish and paint for a event costume. Y'know it crossed my mind after I posted this that Flex-Foam is available in a range of densities.. I should absolutely get on the phone with Smooth-On with my wish list of properties. I'm sure they have test samples they might be able to send. I guess I was just wondering if there were other materials anyone here has used that approximate what I'm looking for.

I have seen this type of foam used in behind the scenes featurettes, but this is a little outside my area of expertise so I thought I should ask for help. I'll gladly share my experience with the materials in photos and reviews once I have them in hand for trial tests.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm now interested in trying out some plasti-dip overtop of materials just to see how the interaction changes the properties and surface. Cool idea Vermithrax!

 

[Surreal Studios]

yes flex-foam 17 and 25 are nice and dense also they are self skining so it will reproduce the details from the mold very nice and have a good tough skin