A setback

     Since most of the weekend was horribly rainy, I put cosplay on the back burner and did a full house clean. I was pleased to discover that I have a complete winter wardrobe ready, and only had 2 plastic grocery bags full of stuff to donate - mostly stuff I hadn't worn all summer or all last winter. The weather finally cleared up this weekend, but Saturday was taken up with a convention (no cosplay - we got off to a late start), which meant Sunday was occupied with domestics. I did get to put a final coat of clearcoat on Mjolnir in the morning, thinking that was the end of painting, and I could finish off the handle and at least check that off my to do list...

     It got a little breezy when we were out; when we got home, Mjolnir had fallen over and messed up the paint on two corners. I sanded them down, put a new coat of paint on, then a new clearcoat. Propped it up carefully so it could dry, and left it alone for an hour or two. Brought it in, went to hand it to my gentleman for his opinion, and it dropped, hit the floor. Three more sides messed up, and the painful realization that this is not going to work. The clearcoat is stiff, and there are too many angles on it to try to be careful and ensure it doesn't hit things (I know I will not be able to prevent it dropping, falling, running into things, bumping other people, etc etc at a con). So... I guess back to the drawing board.

     Update: I sanded all the paint off and tried to grind down the edges where the plast-dip had started coming up. Something happened (not sure what) and the coat of plasti-dip ended up wound around the Dremel head, and ripped off over half of the hammer head. So now it's back to being a naked set of yoga blocks. :(

More Thermoplastics!

Exciting, what?

To summarize:

    1) The first stab at Mjolnir was a horrible, horrible failure. I read an article about building the exterior, then filling it with expanding foam to make it solid. I can do that, right? Well, yes and no. I cut it out, glued it together, and planned on filling it a bit, waiting for that to dry, filling it more, letting that dry, etc. Surprise! Most expanding foam cans are single-use only, because there's no way to stop the applicator from, you know, getting dried, expanded foam in it. So I quickly grabbed a length of pvc pipe, shoved it in there, mostly straight, and filled the whole thing up. 

     Three hours later, it had muffin topped out the end, and seemed pretty stable. I cut off the excess, glued on the end, and left it sitting on the treadmill (don't ask why the treadmill, I have no idea). I wasn't too keen about all the gaps at the joins, though, so I stalled for a bit, trying to think of how to fill them. Three days later, I heard an odd noise, went downstairs, and found the foam had not set up on the inside, and had exploded out one of the seams, forming the most bizarre stalagmite formation around 3"-9" tall on the treadmill. I apparently did not take a picture of it, which makes me sad because it looked hilarious, but alas. I cleaned up as best I could, threw the whole thing out, and went back to the drawing board.

     2) In the meantime, a couple of the guys at Kenpo Karate class had destroyed two of the practice knives I made, so I went back and tried again. The second batch is half rubber cement, half hot glue, to see if either of those held up longer. I also decided to try spraying them with plasti-dip, a rubbery

coating material that made them less harsh against the skin, and (hopefully) less likely to pull apart at the seams. Class has been on hiatus for a bit, so I haven't had a chance to test them yet, but they look much better.

     3) Back to Mjolnir! If I couldn't fill a hollow form, the next idea was to make it out of a solid block of foam. Surprise, surprise, there aren't many calls for solid blocks of EVA foam 9"x9"x6"... but... yoga blocks are roughly 9"x9"x3" soooooo... I got two blocks, hollowed out the handle area, then cut a hole in the pvc pipe and shoved another butter knife blade (from the Kenpo stock) through

it, to prevent the head and the handle separating in case of use. Scuffed up the edges, and glued the two blocks, handle, and knife blade together. After it all set, I spent a hour or so bonking absolutely

everything I could see (it's very therapeutic and giggle-inducing), just to ensure it was secure (it is).
     Next step, fill in the gaps and cut it to size. I use regular bathroom caulk (I can't remember my logic here, but I'm sure there was some) and extra bits of foam from the mats to fill in the center gap, measured out the sides, and discovered that a saw works amazingly well on EVA foam for major shaping. Went outside and used a mouse sander to even it out, and voila! Mjolnir shape!
     Once the shape was right, next step is decorating, and apparently life hated me, because it proceeded to rain, be stupidly high humidity, or some combination of the two for literally a month and a half. I set Mjolnir aside and worked on the next piece for a while (see below), but finally got a break today when the weather was gorgeous, and humidity was "only" 59%. I set up an assembly line and got two kenpo knives and Mjolnir painted, and the next project glued together all in 3 hours' time. I was slightly delayed by the fact that the textured spray paint I found for Mjolnir would run no matter how thinly you sprayed it,
so I had to paint one facet at a time, and hold it level for ~60 seconds so it didn't run. There are 18 faces to Mjolnir. It took some time.
     The first time I painted it, when the humidity was too high and I was putting it on too thickly, I had sanded it down, and gotten a nice brushed metal look. I debated doing that again, but I'll be honest, I like how it looks without it. So now I need to find another decent day to put the final gloss coat on, then work on the handle and the strap and Mjolnir will be DONE!