Carbon Fiber Resin Time

Now read that title again, but to the tune of 'Peanut Butter Jelly Time'.  If I just ruined your day, well, that's what you get for doing what people on the internet tell you.

Moving on to carbon fiber... I was pleasantly suprised to find that the resin is about 10 times easier to use than fiberglass resin and, thus far, hasn't shown any signs of attacking me viciously every time I try to use it.

For the boot heel braces, I made the basic forms I wanted out of aluminum wreath hangers, then propped them up over a piece of PVC pipe that I'll be cutting up later for use on the portal gun.  I covered the whole thing in a sheet of clear vinyl.

Note the gloves.

I mixed up the resin and painted it over the vinyl-covered forms, then centered the carbon fiber strips and folded them over with more layers of resin.

Once the resin strips dry and cure, I'll be peeling them off the vinyl and adding more layers.  LOTS more layers.  I do have to stand on these things for quite a while pretty soon.  More on all that later.

Also accomplished--pieces for the gun barrel have been made and painted and are ready for assembly, the insides of the boots have been cleaned up a bit, and I dyed my hair from lightish black to darker black to match my Chell wig.  Yes, there is a difference, and if you're wondering how much more black my hair can be at this point, the answer is none... none more black.

Tomorrow--building a portal gun!  Maybe.  We'll see.  Goodnight, moon.

Fiberglass and First Aggressions--er, Impressions

Let me begin by saying that--while quite familiar with these and similar products--I have never actually worked with fiberglass, carbon fiber, Bondo, etc.  That little disclaimer should segue neatly into DEAR SWEET GLOB, WHAT HAVE I GOT ON MY HANDS?!?

See, when I read the instructions for mixing and applying the fiberglass resin, it didn't actually mention anything about gloves.  That's going to come up a bit later in the story, so hold onto that for just a minute.

I started with a pair of cheap, cheap thrift store boots in my size, then patterned and cut some 1/4" white craft foam for the raised areas in the design.

Ideally, I would have just epoxied the foam to the boots and fiberglassed my little heart out, but I figured--since I'm being awesome and building carbon fiber braces to replace the sawed off heels--it wouldn't hurt to have extra support under the foam.  

I cut some strips of fiberglass fabric to wrap under the boots and up the backs, where the heel braces are supposed to attach.

Now, this is where things got messy.  As I said before, the instructions did not mention gloves.  What they did mention was dipping the fabric strips into the resin and soaking them thoroughly before applying them to the desired surface.  Also worth noting is the fact that I had worked 60+ hours in the week leading up to this step, had eaten very little that day, and was on my third or fourth pot of coffee, so while I did fleetingly wonder if gloves would be a good idea, my mind was in no state to think that particular thought through.  

To make a long story short--kids, if you take nothing else away from this blog, at least take this:

(1) You should always wear gloves when working with fiberglass resin.  Otherwise... it'll stay with you a while.

(2) Fiberglass resin is a thing which was never meant to touch human hands.  If your hands are human and fiberglass resin touches them, they will let you know very quickly that you have made a mistake.

(3) Your fiberglassing efforts will come out looking like something that a small, incapable child fingerpainted on an uneven surface, because... well, it's not really that different from what you did.

Luckily, my first attempt was purely meant for understructure, so it didn't have to be pretty.

Which is good, because it's NOT.

Anyhoo, once all the stupid rain and humidity around here clear up, I'll be moving on to adding the foam pieces and fiberglassing the final surface (while wearing gloves), and then no one will have to see the chunky mess that is that first layer of fiberglass.

Unless, of course, you keep looking at that picture.

Stop it.