The "I'm painting a Captain America Shield" thread

[WicKeDM6]

The star is actually pretty easy. Just bend it a little at a time and GENTLY so you don't put a kink in it. And bend it so it's bent beyond the curvature of the shield so it doesn't have tips that stick up.

I was thinking of bending it over a ball or something, just gotta go slow I guess

 

[GeneralFROSTY]

Hey guys, I've been out of the loop on this for a while as I've been focusing on my Tardis build - but I wanted to chime in and let you guys know I found an anodized red paint made by Rustoleum and tried it out - not worth the money or time, it does not come even close to the look and color of the Dupli-color paint.

 

[Chris Fields]

has anybody have problems with the clear coat being foggy in some spots. I just cant get that high gloss shine on the whole shield. I'm using testors clear coat.

Which testors's clear? They have tons of them

 

[disposablepal]

started painting today with Metalcast. thinking i went a bit too heavy on the first coat. how long should i wait between coats?

 

[Kerr Avon]

Can't see your picture.

 

[disposablepal]

The link didn't work, try this one. Cap Shield First Coat | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

[Kerr Avon]

If that's your first coat, then you might have gone on a bit heavy. It seems a little spotty and uneven too. I can't give a lot of advice on whether or not you'll want to strip and repaint, but you may want to consider it. The layers should be pretty thin, in my opinion, and the first coat should be a 'tack coat' which helps give the next layers an opportunity to adhere to paint on the shield.

I'll hold off showing the front of my shield until I get the final clear coat, because right now after the wet sanding it's dulled the clear coat. Throw some water on it though and the colors POP out. But I did finish up the back of my shield and will post that. Right now the clear coat on the back was with a rattle can, so it's got some roughness here and there. I may take some 2000 grit sandpaper and try to knock the roughness down and see if that eliminates the texture too. Maybe come back with the professional clear coating later.

What has everyone done with those center holes though? I'm considering cutting a small aluminum disc and JB Welding it over the hole but haven't decided.

 

[disposablepal]

It's been drying for a few hours, it's looking a lot nicer but I think I'm still going to scrap it and start over. How long do you wait between layers?

 

[Kerr Avon]

The others using Duplicolor say about 10-15 minutes. I'm sure the humidity and temperature factors in though.

 

[disposablepal]

yep, i gave it some time and wasn't happy. so i broke out the acetone and started over, i'll spray it again in the morning. clean shield | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

[disposablepal]

so i stripped and started painting again. sadly, i live in an apartment and dont have a backyard or a garage so i paint on my balcony and i put on the first layer (which came out amazing this time) then i went to get a drink. i came back barely 5 mins later and a sudden downpour soaked my half dried shield all the spots where rain hit hard are a little spotty so i'm debating if i should start over or try to cover it with my second layer. suggestions?

 

[disposablepal]

this is after my second spray with 2 layers. much better this time, but i still think the Metalcast looks a little too dark. this picture is with the flash on. i'm gonna give it a day then decide if i want to move forward or scrap it again. Also, i hate the nozzle on the Duplicolor cans.

 

[Kerr Avon]

Overall I think it looks pretty good. You can see some roughness in the red on the shield in the pic, but that's similar to what I experienced. I found a few layers of using a rattle can clear coat, followed by 2000 grit wet sanding, clear coat, sand, clear coat, sand, has taken out all the roughness. Due to the wet sanding it's dulled the clearcut but if I splash water or rubbing alcohol on it the color looks perfect though. I've got my shield prepped for it's final clear coat this weekend and hopefully will have a picture on Sunday night of it complete.

 

[disposablepal]

thanks, i ended up doing the blue last night and man did it come out fantastic. the blue Metalcast just pops! sadly, i did it outside and over sprayed a bit and screwed up the red, so i'm starting over (third times the charm, right?). it was my own fault, i was lazy and didnt tape the entire shield again. My biggest hassle has been the bleeding paint over the ring lips, it makes a great paint job look shotty (you can see it in the pic) any suggestions? Anyway, thats my plan for the weekend, i cant wait to see how yours turned out

 

[Kerr Avon]

I literally covered the entire shield with the green Frog Tape to mask it off and used a new Exacto knife to trim it.

 

[disposablepal]

i did that for the red rings, next time i wont be so lazy and i'll do the blue section the same. this time i only taped off most of the inner red ring and you can see how well that turned out.

 

[Kerr Avon]

Got my shield Chroma clear coated today!!!!

And the back with Valor's kick ass kit with some modifications of adding carpentry nail heads as rivets:

Sadly, the JB weld didn't hold because it didn't make enough contact with the metal so those popped off while testing some hanging in a safe place, so I'm going to slather it on thicker now that I have a better idea of gap between the brackets and shield.

 

[TK9120]

That came out very nice. Good to see the frog tape worked.

 

[Kerr Avon]

Thanks! That stuff is great!

 

[Magison]

Very nice.