Painting foam armour with Plasti-Dip

[Kingpixels]

Hi guys,

I'm working on a foam War Machine costume for a con at the end of October, and I'm looking for a relatively quick, easy way to seal and paint it. I've heard that I can use Plasti-Dip to do both of these things at the same time. I have a couple of questions.

1) Will I only need one coat, or multiple coats?

1) How many cans will I need?

Thanks in advance.

 

[keelanmasterson]

What foam do you use and where do you get it? im new to this but I want to make foam iron man armor for our robotics club mascot, we are the iron patriots. also, in response to you, in Xrobots videos he uses pva glue, white elmers glue, then uses plasti dip or another plastic coating

 

[Kingpixels]

What foam do you use and where do you get it? im new to this but I want to make foam iron man armor for our robotics club mascot, we are the iron patriots. also, in response to you, in Xrobots videos he uses pva glue, white elmers glue, then uses plasti dip or another plastic coating

EVA foam, I use 5mm thick stuff. I'm in New Zealand so I don't know where you'd get it.

 

[Kingpixels]

EVA foam, I use 5mm thick stuff. I'm in New Zealand so I don't know where you'd get it.

Correction, I actually use 1cm thick.

 

[keelanmasterson]

Thanks so much for sharing, I live in the U.S. so I will just google it.

 

[laxman09]

1) when in doubt, use multiple coats. the more you use the smoother the surface will be. you may only need one, but it really depends on personal satisfaction
2)when i used plasti-dip spray, one can got me about 1 light coat over my iron man costume, and i think i used 3 cans.. so i would say you'll need a minimum of 2-3, if its not enough then you can easily get more, right?

for war machine, it may be a good color match so you may be able to get by with using the plasti-dip as the black base coat for color

 

[Kingpixels]

1) when in doubt, use multiple coats. the more you use the smoother the surface will be. you may only need one, but it really depends on personal satisfaction
2)when i used plasti-dip spray, one can got me about 1 light coat over my iron man costume, and i think i used 3 cans.. so i would say you'll need a minimum of 2-3, if its not enough then you can easily get more, right?

for war machine, it may be a good color match so you may be able to get by with using the plasti-dip as the black base coat for color

Unfortunately Plasti-Dip is really expensive in NZ ($30 a can), so I'm looking for an alternative. Could I just seal with 5-10 coats of PVA and paint straight away with regular acrylic spray paint?

 

[laxman09]

whoa. now that really sucks. i've never used pva, is it a flexible glue or rigid? if its flexible then i would imagine that you would be able to use it

 

[Han Polo]

For pva glue, you want to dilute it with water, 1:1, for the first 3 or 4 coats, then do pure pva for the last 2 or 3. A 220 grit wet sand on your 2nd to last coat and a 400 grit wet sand on your finish coat should take care of the brush strokes. You new to wait about a day after applying before wet sanding to ensure that the water doesn't thin the apied glue coat. The advantage of Plasti dip is its speed of application, but PVA can yield equally good results if you put the time in.

 

[Han Polo]

Damn Autotext correction. Prior post should have read "You need to wait about a day after applying the glue coat before you wet sand." This is to make sure the water doesn't react with the glue and ruin your buildup.

 

[Drack]

If you do go for plastidip you can use the paint on rather than the spray. It's much cheaper than the spray. I just used 1 coat on all my stuff and a 2.5 litre tin has lasted 2 years. It did thicken a little in the end but thats just due to it not being properly closed for about 6 months, still I was surprised it lasted that long. I would say a 750ml tin should be enough for a whole suit. It is costly but well worth it as PVA sealing can peel away and isn't as strong as the plastidip.

 

[Bob McCormick]

Whatever you do, TEST IT FIRST on some scrap pieces of the same material your armour is made of! If possible, allow your test piece to dry/cure for a week or so. Different types of foam, different brands of glue, different paints, etc. can all react a little differently. Much better to discover any problems on a small piece of scrap material rather than ruining an armor piece you've spent many hours on. You wouldn't think that'd need said, but it seems like every other thread on this board has someone bemoaning a ruined helmet, etc. because they went straight to painting, coating, etc. without ever testing on a small piece first. :-(

 

[Mig407]

whatever method you decide on you will need multiple coats. im always experimenting with different coating methods.

this is what has worked best for me...
-pva or modge podge
-plastidip
-primer
2 to 3 coats of each

 

[HaNDiCaPZaCH]

When I painted my mk 6 I did two very generous coats (sometimes 3) of Plastidip and it gave me a smooth texture. Looks like plastic, feels like rubber. I agree with Bob McCormick in testing multiple pieces to see what you like. Make sure you flex the pieces around to look at how they react to movement. I had planned to use adhesion promoter but when I tested it, it turned out to give the red a darker look and it left more wrinkles when flexed. Good Luck!

 

[Mig407]

latex paint w/ primer mixed in sealed foam pretty good but not as nice as other methods but its cheap if price is major factor

 

[Pyrotechx]

Epoxy Resin works wonders in my opinion, and gives it a nice shine.

 

[Bob McCormick]

latex paint w/ primer mixed in sealed foam pretty good but not as nice as other methods but its cheap if price is major factor

I've been really curious to try plain old latex paint for sealing foam. What kind of problems did you end up having? Wrinkling? Durability?

I've used diluted PVA glue and really like the way it ended up looking. It was very smooth and spray-paint adhered well and looked very nice, but the PVA is pretty bad about wrinkling and/or cracking if the foam is flexed very far.

 

[PenalAffliction]

Definitely test it out...On my first build, I used EVA foam. However when I ordered a second large roll, the second roll was much more porous than the first. The things I had made using the first, less porous foam turned out great with the plastidip method, but the things I had made using the more porous foam did not seal well with plastidip, even with 5+ coats. This caused me to have to spend a lot more money on paint.

I'm getting ready to seal my latest build, a war machine, and I'm using the floor mat foam this time. I tested out PVA glue last night and it worked fantastically just applying the glue right out of the bottle (3 coats, waited about half an hour between applications). Way cheaper than plastidip and seals much better, in my opinion.