Hi welcome to Chris's tips, tricks and
things. Today's tip, trick or thing is a
super high-tech technique that I just
invented called Big Ball, Hot Sun.
I use it to shape sheets of flat foam into
beautiful, beautiful domes perfect for a
shield. Want to see how I did it? Let's go.
Grab some foam tiles from your stash in
the roof of your garage. They come in
different thicknesses but the ones I
used are the thinner ones shown here
which are about one centimeter thick.
Measure diagonally both ways to find the
center point in the foam sheet. Make a
mark in the middle of your ruler and
place that over the center point with
your ruler sitting horizontal across the
foam. Then make another mark just inside
where your ruler hits the edge of the
foam. Now drill a hole right through the
ruler in those two places. I know it
sounds crazy but hey, it's your ruler. Cut
off all the puzzle piece bits on the
edge of the foam mat because they're
just going to get in the way, stick a
sharp pointy object through one of the
holes right in the center, stick a pen in
one of the other holes and then draw a
big circle. How fun is this? And now that
you have your circle you can cut it out.
Now go find that exercise ball that you
thought you were going to use all the
time but never do. Inflate it as big as
you can without it exploding. Grab some
cling wrap from the kitchen and start
wrapping it around the foam circle and
the ball at the same time. Slowly but
surely the foam will start to take the
shape of the ball. Don't worry if there's
some lumps and bumps in the foam still
at this point we basically just want to
get the plastic wrap as tight as we can
and cover the whole ball with it. Once
the ball is totally wrapped in cling wrap
get out your clear packing tape and
tape down some of the bigger lumps and
bumps.
The last thing you want to do is take
all the way around the outside edge of
the foam disk using short strips of tape.
This really evens out the pressure on
that outside edge and flattens
everything down really nicely.
Now that it looks all beautiful and smooth
take it out to your car and shove it
inside. I should point out that this
needs to be done on a hot day as the
foam needs heat to convince it that it
doesn't want to stay flat anymore. If it
doesn't fit in your car or you don't
have a car you can also just set it out
in the sun. Just be aware it's going to
take longer and need to be hotter
outside. Let it sit outside for a day or
in your car for a few hours and then
bring it inside and let it cool down. Cut
off the tape being careful not to pop
your ball and pull out your new shield.
Now if you want a quick shield you could
call that good and be done but if you
want a super awesome shield keep
watching. Cut a second piece of foam but
this time make your mark two centimetres
smaller than the original and slant
your knife at an outward angle while
you're cutting. Bend this piece of foam
the same way but this time bend it with
the contour facing outward. This will
give you a second piece of foam that
will fit beautifully inside the first.
Old leather belts work great for handles.
Figure out where you want them to be
placed and then cut slits for them
through the inside foam layer. Feed the
leather through the slots and then glue
the ends down to the back of the inside
foam disc. It's a good idea to sand the
foam before you glue onto it for a good
bond. For gluing the two halves together
I used a water-based contact cement. I
normally don't use this on my projects
because it's not quite strong enough,
however since there's so much surface
area that'll be no problem on this one.
Completely cover both surfaces and once
the glue is dried according to the
specifications on your bottle it's time
to put them together. With contact cement
as soon as it touches it sticks so you
want to be able to position things
properly before you start sticking them
down so cut some strips of cardboard and
lay them on like a star on the outside
shield piece. That way you can place the
backside on, center it in the middle
and then press down in the center firmly
once you're happy. Then go around and
slide each cardboard piece out a few
inches and press down the next section
keep doing this until all the cardboard
pieces are pulled out. I do apologize for
the blurriness of this clip
my camera decided not to focus. Once all
the cardboard pieces are out give
everything one last nice firm press and
you're done.
Well that's today's foam doming tip. I am
super super happy with how this shield
turned out because of this new technique
and because it has double layers to hold
it. This is my old Captain America shield
which I did differently. I did dome it a
little bit but it is not nearly as tough
as this one is. So I'm really excited
about this new technique and I think you
should be too.
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Thanks for watching. See ya.
