SO my helmet is about 60% fiberglassed. A note I'm abbreviating
Aqua Resin to A.R., it's late here and I'm exauhsted *thud*
Some notes on Aqua resin Fiberglass:
You can wet the Fiberglass Viel before you use it so it "drapes" better. If you let it fully dry, with water only it dries rigid. Also it loosens the fiberglass strangs, I was foolish nough to pick it up with out gloves and I got a small splinter in my thumb, and this crap hurts when ya yank it out of your fingers and I may even have some tiny strands still in my thumb.
I recommend NOT soaking the Veil in water it prior to use. Why? When you wet it, it becomes like a spider web, it's very easy to stretch and pull and it's hard to handle when wet. This can be a good thing when it's wet with AR, but not when you're trying to cut it into small strips, so leave it as it is.
For those asking who haven't made it this far, you ONLY fiberglass the inside of the helmet. You'll loose detail and maybe add unnecessary extra weight to your helmet if you fiberglass the outside and inside. It adds a good amount of weight since you need to thorough coat the fiberglass as you affix it to the inside of your helmet. When you get this stuff heavily coated with the A.R. it's very pliable and a bit stretchy, it's almost like plaster strips.
This stuff SUCKS UP A.R. FAST! I used 3 parts of the liquid to 6 parts of the powder to make enough A.R. so I could thoroughly coat the FG strips to get the jaw, sides, strip on the crown, and a supprt strip in th back, I still have to do the brim, crown and back of the helmet. This also cured FAST, it's smooth it took about an hour and that was it and it's SOLID as a rock.
This is where it gets extremely messy (for me anyhow). Now what I did to ensure my fiberglass was heavily coated,(and this is what I tried, it may no be the best way, and there are probably easier ways, I couldn't think of anything else that could have worked for me). First, I quickly did a light coating of A.R.the area I was about to fiberglass, I then quickly dipped or brushed A.R. to both side of the Veil, got rid of most of the excess ,and I then pressed it to the area I had previously glazed to make sure it had something to stick to, I have tiny hands so I was able to smooth it out with my fingers, and this stuff can get stringy and want to stick to the brush as you try to dab it down with my brush or fingers and made sure there were no air pockets as I smoothed down the veil. It was very easy to shape it in the helmet, it was seriously like a spider-web once it was wetted with A.R. I also made sure to cut the strips to the sizes I needed, and this is why you don't wet the veil before you use it. My brush I used was covered in A.R. it washed right off the brush but the handle got owned. I also have some tiny strands to cut off, but they aren't like death spikes of resin doom, just like little hairs and as flimsy as hair.
A.R. cleans up very very well and easily. Now good old stupid me, if it had been normal resin, aside from killing everyone else in my building, I would have ruined my jeans, but with some water and some light scrubbing, the A.R. came right out, no stains or color loss and I did it with in 30 minutes. So it had cured, but if you get to it before 24 hours the A.R. should come right out. I also wish I had snaded my helmet a bit since the extra unsanded A.R. was coming off... kinda stinks getting tiny little A.R. bits into my curing fiberglass, you can see afew of the little chunks in the pics. My scissors were also covered in A.R. and it also came right off with some scrubbing and water.
Yes those are my Chuck Taylors
Yes my helmet is unsanded and lookin' busted, it'll be pretty and sanded when I can open a window... this is for science or something
Happy glassing, I'm going to go nighty night *thud*zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
