Revolutionary New Way To Finish Pep Pieces

MUD GLASSING TUTORIAL:



So when i was making my Mk VI helmet, all was going well and when it came time to bondo the entire exterior, i did. However that was two weeks ago and i am very discouraged at the amount of sanding needeed and all the HD details the bondo covered so I thought there must be another way! and let me tell you cousin, there is!



It goes Like this:

Once the piece is pepped you cover it in a coat of resin. Pretty normal i know, but this is where the normality ends. What you do next is mix up some nice soupy rondo mud (1:1 or 4:5 bondo to resin i find best) and pour it inside of your pep piece, keeping it always moving so as to cover many ares and seal seams. Before The mud begins to coagulate, lay down some soft white fiberglass mat on top for extra extra strength. Do this in small sections inside your piece until it is completely covered. As we all know, many pep pieces are sharp where the should be smooth. NOT a Problem! All you now need is to take your fancy 320 grit sandpaper and smooth it to perfection and follow it with 600 grit to make it like glass and ready to be painted. I did an entire HD shin piece like this in one day and i could not be happier with the results. The piece is rock hard, water proof, and has all its original datail.



Side note: Many pep pieces do lack detail that is generally added in the original bondo-ing process. Again, not a problem. Simply bondo these parts directly atop your resin exterior and sand the small portion to perfection.





The Gist: If you want beautiful high detail armor in 1/3 of the time i would highly suggest using my method of MUD GLASSING. i really suggest anyone who puts the time and effort into building HD pep pieces to this method. the old bondo method was great for the old pep files that were extremely polygonal and had little detail, but now that we have great new files, we have great new methods. The evolution of armor building



Here's the tutorial I made for you guys. Sorry, it is just one take and doesn't have any fancy editing, but i think it answers all of your questions. If it doesn't just post 'em up and I'll be glad to answer



[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HuYb50tsGo[/media]

Here are the pics of my beautiful, solid shin that went from right out of the printer this morning, to being ready for primer and paint as we speak----



UGH beautiful beautiful detail achieved!



The smooth mud glass also ceases to create the jagged interior than normal resin+mat is famous for





Feel free to critique this method or ask any questions you might have. I have done the old way and i will never go back- mud glassing is the way for me now



p.s. this shin model is the smooth HD model redone by MrOreo123- a good man

Interesting... I may try this for some of my pieces. How is the strength compared to a normal piece? Were there any problems with the "rondo" mixture?



Cheers!

The strength is incredible because it combines all three so well. I could (and did) toss the piece a couple feet over my head and let it hit the cement with no problem. Becuase of the bondo in the mixture, it is far less brittle than resin alone and when under extreme pressure or blunt force it gives a little rather than shattering.

And no, the rondo is incredible. It pours like melted chocolate would and basically slushcasts onto every single part of the inside of a pep piece. You know how small areas are impossible to get fiberglass mat into? Well now they just fill with rondo to form a solid rock hard piece

I never thought about using rondo and fiberglass,

You may be on to something buddy

Yeh it came to me during one of my hour long helmet sanding sessions. I racked my brain for a way to eliminate saning and this is the product of that. Plus, because the rondo is directly behind the paper and not hard fiberglass mat, if/when you sand through the paper, you can just keep on sanding smooth like you would on the outside bondo way

thats funny i was just going to try this later on an old pep helm i had to see the effects, so would you feel confident sanding away the paper like smoothcast.

eh idk if i'd go the far. i mean presumably it would work, but that kind of defeats the purpose (to reduce hours of sanding) if you still have to sand off a whole other surface. I think i'm going to leave it as is. the resined paper folds will give it much more crisp edges than the rondo underneath would

Hey how well does the rondo soak up the fiberglass?

SoullessSin said:

Hey how well does the rondo soak up the fiberglass?

Click to expand...

beautifully, it lays down and wherever you touch the rondo just foams through the tiny holes, getting a tight grip on it. I love this because the fiberglass mat doesnt get hard and jagged it just makes a nice soft side interior of the armor while adding a ton of support

Hmm I may have to try this on a diff piece. Maybe after I get my suit done.

haha sounds good. i cant wait to see ur finished suit. i <3 ur armor

I think i'll try it on one of my secret projects

damn this seems like a great idea! too bad i already glassed all my marine pieces i'll have to do this on my next armor...or maybe my recon helmet.

i feel that because of mud glassing, people will reconsider doing whole new suits! it's now as simple as building the pep and pouring a liquid! because of it i may make an entire ODST suit after my mk VI

so let me get this straight, rondo mud is a mixture of

resin

resin hardener

bondo

bondo hardener



am I right in this respect

Akademee said:

so let me get this straight, rondo mud is a mixture of

resin

resin hardener

bondo

bondo hardener



am I right in this respect

Click to expand...

You can use either Liquid hardener or Bondo hardener

They both do the same thing but a difference in color

EDIT: I retract everything I posted before. Not only is this technique incredibly promising and super sexy, it is explained well at the top. Fantastic work! Because of this, I am definitely doing an entire new suit. Thank you!

Akademee said:

so let me get this straight, rondo mud is a mixture of

resin

resin hardener

bondo

bondo hardener



am I right in this respect

Click to expand...

i use 1:1 resin and bondo then just use double the amount of resin needed based on the amount of resin in the mixture. i did use the red cream in addition one time but it got so hot it melted through the cup it was in and always had a slightly tacky feel- not recommended.

jareyes said:

EDIT: I retract everything I posted before. Not only is this technique incredibly promising and super sexy, it is explained well at the top. Fantastic work! Because of this, I am definitely doing an entire new suit. Thank you!

Click to expand...

lol idk what u posted before, but thanks!

Hey Tandhem I think you were either using the 3 oz cups or the 16.

I had both melted on my before

This one time when I was mixing, the pencil i was using, when straight through and just poured all over the place :eek

wow, this stuff melts plastic huh?



so use the resin hardener, how much should be used, does it cure faster than bondo and resin if they are stand alone?