This is the damage caused by the bit running away from you at the end of an edge. Heat Sealing is done by simply using a heat gun or Hairdryer to gently heat up the foam. LIGHTLY cut the lines with your X-Acto knife. Keep heating until … This gives you a much smoother surface when you get to painting the armor. Use a heat gun Dec 22, 2010 at 4:35 pm #1676888. As long as the foam is hot, you can shape it into rounded or curved shapes. If you release pressure from the trigger the heat gun will turn off immediately. I used the sharpie tick marks that I made earlier as a guide. Your main tool here is the heat gun, they come in many different shapes and sizes but you really only need a small basic one. Craft foam can be heated with a hairdryer or heat gun and once it cools it will mostly hold it’s shape (though I’ve found the shape to be more flimsy). Jun 6, 2017 - Bending, Shaping and Strengthening Foam Armor (Cheap and Easy Method): *** If you enjoyed this instructable, please consider voting for me in the contests it is entered in! Use a couple pieces of double sided tape to hold the template on the foam while you trace the pattern pice with a Sharpie. This easy-to-use gun comes with a 70" cable. Without adequate safety features, your heat gun experience could turn into a total disaster. Just make sure to turn the piece of armor around & clean up the rest of the edge, working left to right. Spread the glue into a thin layer using a wooden coffee stirrer, then allow it to dry for 10–20 minutes. You'll be heating both the front & back sides of the foam, but really pay attention to the outer side for the stretch/form. This means your projects will have a professional final appearance. The fundamentals of creating something out of those crafting materials primarily consist of heating the piece and holding it in place until it cools down to retain the shape that you want. Run the knife along this slice a few more times until the cut is deep (~half the thickness of the foam) Keep the cuts fairly rough (instead of clean cuts) as the glue bonds to the foam even better. I usually grind the new drum along the side of the disc on my bench grinder, but I'm sure you can use a grinding stone, concrete floor, etc. Here are the pieces for the Garron Paduk boots. Heating EVA foam gives off toxic fumes. So using this method, I took the traced foam pieces, heated them, and folded them against my ankles. This sets the foam … Upper Right Photo: This is the shoulder paudron pieces after they've been cut out, heated to remove the texture, and the edges dremeled to give them a smooth rounded edge. Run the X-acto knife along the interior of the armor part to make a slice. It's a piece of junk. *** Putting complex bends and curves in EVA Foam armor can be tricky, since the foam is very elastic and flexible. You'll start the process by cutting out your paper template. Then use the side of a Dremel 85422 Silicon Carbide Grinding Stone Thanks in advance. Trace the base pattern onto your foam with either a marker or a sharp object, like an awl or a seam ripper that makes a small groove in the foam. Thanks for reading! The next step for them will be to flatten the texture by heating the surface with a heat gun. It'll grind off material too quickly, and leaves a striped texture from the grit on the drum. To find out more about simulating the stitching visit THIS PAGE. Our standard EVA foam comes in a density of 38kg/m3. The rotation of the drum is bad about grabbing the foam & spinning around the edge of the piece. Resin won't actually stick directly to EVA foam. After reading a good bit about using eva foam for various cosplay costumes, I went out and got a few sheets of the puzzle piece EVA from home depot and a heat gun. to cut the panel line. You can make panel/surface detail lines by first tracing the pattern with a ball point pen. A new sanding drum is too abrasive for working with the eva foam. This will tighten & seal the foam texture. To use a heat gun to seal EVA foam, simply let it heat for a few seconds, and then blow hot air onto your foam from a distance of about 20 centimeters. Steven Evans. I don't think you could get away with just gluing the edges of the vinyl. Heat molding foam/neoprene. Note: These pieces are made from two layers of foam that are glued together. It’s actually possible to burn your foam by keeping it focused on a single area for too long, so keep it moving! Your best bet is several coats of PVA Glue (Mod Podge, Elmer's White Glue etc). (and could throw off the shape of the piece). BPL Member. Now you'll need to remove the texture from the front of the piece. ;^). A smooth dense surface means your flex paints and glues will adhere with ease. I dremeled the texture from the backside to minimize the seam between the two layers. Because of the rotation of the sanding drum, you'll want to grind from left to right. As you can see, the damage isn't bad, but makes a little more work to clean up. Can i warp EVA foam with a hair dryer? After the texture has been removed, you can start to heat the EVA foam for shaping. That usually seals most of the pores. It's just another thing to clean up. The same method applies to heating a synthetic wig that can take heat. You'll start the process by cutting out your paper template. You don't want to heat it up too much. Having helped a friend with shaping the armor and doing foam work myself, I have found the best thing to do after getting it heated up and shaped is to throw it in the freezer. I did not cut the slots into the kneepad inset until after I had glued the piece down. You can lay the flex shaft along the foam so just the edge of the dremel stone cuts into the face of the foam. ... Is there a material that I could heat with a heat gun or in an oven for a little while that would render it flexible and stretchy enough to stretch over a die without losing its shape when it cooled? In short, there are a lot of different ways to seal EVA Foam the two most well known and widely used methods are using either Plasti Dip or White Crafts glue (wood glue) to Seal EVA Foam. You'll need to change blades fairly often...the foam dulls the blades very quickly. These are the boot tops on my Marcus Fenix boots. One of the most important features is the delicately named ‘dead man’ switch. When you're removing the texture (or when heating the foam for shaping), make sure to keep the tip of the heatgun about 2" from the foam. Alone or combined with thermoplastics, it will address your needs.Foams that you will find in the cosplay world are usually foam you find as exercise mat or ground sh… I did a plunge cut with the end of a dremel chainsaw sharpening stone to drill each end of the slot, then went back with the same bit to connect the two holes. You (generally) don't want to point your heat gun right at one spot without moving it, always keep it waving back and forth on the piece of foam you will be bending. I've also found that you can rough cut foam (especially on EPP) and skip sanding it, just heat it with a heat gun and as the suface particles melt the foam suface smooths out nicely. ), a mason jar; or you can just shape it with your hands. This is where having the flex shaft attachment is very handy. Again, like the slots in the kneepads, I did plunge cuts with the dremel AFTER I applied the fun foam to the pauldrons. I attached an elastic strap to the pull loop of the boot & velcroed it up high inside the boot top. Vinyl graphics were printed and glued to the foam with 3m 77 and it held up to a fair amount of abuse. This shows the addition of the kneepads to the boot. I couldn't say it any better, so instead of trying, here's his video. If you were to work from right to left, the drum will dig down into the foam & not float across the surface. That will create ripples as the costume flexes. The sharpie tick marks are to help me match up the pieces and to mark locations for seam lines, center line, etc. I placed them on the MF boots because I hadn't completed Garron's boots yet. This is important to know since many times of armor cannot have seam lines. The next step for them will be to flatten the texture by heating the surface with a heat gun. Be sure to wear a respirator and do this in a room with good ventilation.-----Using a heat gun on medium heat and low blower (if available), heat the flowers. You do this by heating the face of the foam with the heatgun. You heat the foam up using the heat gun. They are ready for paint. Here's the boots just about done. Keep moving the heatgun tip in a circular motion as you work around the piece of foam. If you heat up one spot too much, it'll blister. I used the same process for the slots cut into the face of the boot top just below the kneepads. You don't want to heat it up too much. Ask Question. I created human sized DVD costumes a few years ago out of EVA foam. I had to stretch the fun foam template by almost 2" due to the stretching caused by the heat forming. If your Prop is not moving and does not bend (for example a solid armor) then you can seal your Foam with simple white crafts glue. Once the foam is heated up enough, you'll pull/stretch the foam down over the hitch ball. Move the heat around constantly as the EVA foam does burn rather easily. That keeps you from seeing the back texture on the finished piece of armor. When you heat up the foam pieces and fold it over you ankle as it cools, it will retain the shape that you hold it in. Bill Doran of Punished Props did a video on his YouTube channel about the various super glues he uses for his props. I haven't ever come close to melting or burning the foam. The large pieces are cut & then applied to the boot using superglue. Cutting and Shaping the EVA Foam. This will create a sharp edge later. The damage from the runaway bit isn't generally very bad. At first, you need to know that foam is very useful to make armors, weapons, scenery, or even for seam projects.Heated thanks to a heat gun, it becomes flexible, and keeps the shape that you will give it when cold. The White Crafts glue can simply be applied to the Foam in multiple Layers, if necessary, and it will Seal EVA Foam enough to be painted . My big concern though is with the actual heat gun itself, in all the videos, people are bringing it near their hands and touching the foam as they heat it. If you do, you'll end up with a burned/scorched spot. After you've finished shaping/grinding the piece, go back over the shaped areas with the heat gun. I just didn't take a photo of that, so the glove free pic will have to do! This was achieved by grinding out 1/4" deep channel in the back side of the foam. Using your heat gun go from one end of the foam to the other. It still need keepers to hide the seam between the kneepad & straps, but it's just about ready for Plastidip. The elastic was able to stretch when I walked, and pulled the boot top back down when I wasn't walking. Upper Left Photo: The pauldrons have been heat formed. Use a couple pieces of double sided tape to hold the template on the foam while you trace the pattern pice with a Sharpie. 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