TUTORIALS

(Note: I used to do it this way but do not any more. There are better ways but this is simple and doable with regular materials and little skill) 

Finishing Latex Pieces

This tutorial pertains to finishing the raw latex items whatever they may be and where ever you may find them. The quality latex product that you will be starting out with should last for many many years and many many uses. You will want to invest some of serious time and effort into the completion of any latex piece. Most latex pieces contains every single flaw inherent in the existing mold plus ones that are created in every pour. The ones in the mold increase tend to increase little by little with each time a casting is made. Each piece also has its own individual problems that are added to which include bubbles in the latex, bubbles that get trapped in areas that are troublesome to pour and so on. All these things and more can be fixed using the same techniques that I am going to explain to you here. It is easy and once you learn the process you can do it in your sleep. Latex items can be absolutely perfect if they start out thick enough to hold their original shape. It all depends on the amount of time you are willing to spend.

What I am going to instruct you to do is very simple. It just takes time and effort and a few simple materials. You will need the following items: a Dremmel with sanding wheel and polishing wheel, Plasti-Dip Black Spray Paint From Lowes, or professional casting latex that you use a spray gun to spray on (this is what I use), dish soap scrub brush and water, and expert pair of Fiskars Sewing Scissors, lacquer thinner, rag, and Q-tips. You will need a styrofoam head and stand if you are finishing a cowl. If you are working on a cowl also useful are rubber bands or garbage twist ties to hold the years in place while spraying around tips of ears and for storing which keeps them in the right position forever. A rotary sander or vibrating sander is also very useful. I Believe that is about all of you will need for this simple process.

OK. Let's start by trimming. Do a very neat job in trimming your latex piece. This is very important. Do not have any cuts that do not end on a cut. What I mean is do not cut into any area of the latex piece and leave the cut pointing in there. It will tear eventually and we do not want that when it is so easy to stop. You must round out all your ends of all your cuts with a dremel tool or with the scissors making a continuous cut until the trim is complete. This will save your latex from tearing at stress points near your careless cuts. Do all your trims in one continuous cut if possible. You'll get the smoothest results by doing it right the first time so be careful. The dremmel can eat past your bad cut and smooth it out but let's try to avoid that. When you have finished trimming your latex peace as carefully as possible the sanding process begins. You will sand all your cuts until they're completely smooth with a dremmel and sanding wheel. Making it perfect at this point will help insure perfection through out so be careful and take your time. Sand it down little by little.

Now take the polishing wheel and cover the areas you just sanded as needed. Now take a rag and douse it with lacquer thinner and rub briskly on all the areas you just polished. Do not soak the latex especially near holes imperfections or bubbles or you will make it deteriorate further and it will be more difficult to fix. You do not want to use all lot of lacquer thinner on your latex. If you are coating it in latex you may use as much as you want when you get to this stage since there are no air bubbles in the spray on latex application process. If you are using Plasti-dip to finish, laquer thinner is not required, in fact don't use it.

Now that your piece is trimmed and polished go over it with your dremmel and sand off and then polish any raised areas and noogies. Then go over what is left of the seams and sand them down smooth to the latex surface. Be careful not to sand into the smooth finish below the seams, if there are any. Take your dremmel polishing wheel and follow up what you have done with the sanding wheel on the seams. Now take lacquer thinner and rag and rub briskly until your seams are as smooth as the rest of the latex surface.

When all this has been done you are ready to wash the latex peace briskly and very well with dish soap water and scrub brush. Use your hands also so you can feel all the latex bits and dust coming off completely and rinsing away. Rub briskly inside and out. Using a strong pressured garden hose, to insure the rinsing goes well, would be a good idea. When you have completed washing, let it dry thoroughly. When it is dry you are ready to apply your first coat of Plasti-Dip Black Spray Paint. You want to load up every area of the piece one area at a time with as thick as the spray paint will go on without pooling or running. If you go too thin the little not covered fully Plasti-dip bubble holes will form. Avoid these. There is no sense adding to your flaws. This is a technique you will develop. Try to fill small bubbles and holes now with the spray if you can with out causing drips. Loading it on thick around a bubble and then touching the bubble with a nail tip will usually fill the bubble hole. Fill what you can in this way. It will make work easier later. Don't worry if you mess up. It can be corrected but don't keep messing up further. Stop as soon as you see a drip. Do not work on different sections at one time. Finish entire sections and then move on. Be aware of the overspray that may accumulate on unwanted areas. Too much on a dry area will make it grainy which is difficult to cover and smooth out later. Too much on a wet area will make it run.

You want to complete each section and move on until you are finished spraying the whole piece. If you are finishing a cowl in Plasti-Dip don't spray too much on the neck area. You want that to stretch so you an get it on when you are finished and have some flexibility while wearing it. When you are done, the whole piece should look wet and smooth when you stop spraying. If not, you are spraying too slowly. One can of Plasti-dip will cover one cowl. A body piece will take a can and a half. You might think you are done at this point except for the holes and bubbles but you would be wrong. You are ready to wear it right now but you cannot. Ha Ha, how far from done are you! When the Plasti-Dip Black Spray Paint dries it shrinks and all the flaws that you have not fixed well enough are once again revealed. So sad, but don't worry you can go on. Once more through the process if you are finishing a cowl and many more times for other items if desired.

Phase two: Take your Plasti-Dip Black Spray Paint and spray onto the counter beside your work area. Take a Q-tip or nail or something and swirl it around in the Plasti-Dip Black Spray Paint pool you have there on your work bench. Soak it up good and apply Plasti-Dip Black Spray Paint with Q-tip or nail to your recessed areas and bubble holes as well as other holes in your latex peace. A palette knife is helpful here but shave it too close and it will shrink back and there is you hole again. Put it on thick because it will shrink and you will be sanding it later. If you don't put it on thick you will have it shrink below the hole and you will have to apply it again. So each one of your holes and recessed areas on your latex peace will now look like a raised little noogie of Plasti-Dip Black Spray Paint that will be sanded off flush with the surface later. Don't worry this ugly stage will render a perfect piece later. Allowing this to dry over night is preferable. If you start sanding too soon it will just peal off. It is a good idea at the time to fill in any weak sections on the inside of the piece as well. This is usually caused by an exceptionally large bubble or two occurring in a troublesome area. Fill these well on the inside which does not get sanded and also on the outside which does.

Sand down all your raised areas and polish them. I use a flat sander for this part. Use a rough paper. The sand marks are easily covered by the paint if they are not that bad. A Dremmel can gouge creating more problem areas so use a flat sander if you can. Perhaps use lacquer thinner if you feel it helps but be careful now. Lacquer thinner breaks this Plasti-dip down faster than latex and can even crack it. I woouldn't even use it at all if you can avoid it. Wash and rinse your mask again. Allow to dry thoroughly and spray another thick coat of Plasti-Dip Black Spray Paint. Allow to dry thoroughly over night.

Now all you need to do is continue to repeat this entire process until the entire piece is absolutely flawless or meets with your acceptance which ever comes first. Later touch ups from this point on will be a breeze. Do not go too thick on something that goes over the head like cowls around the neck area or you will not be able to get them on. If you do go a little thick here is a trick. You can sand down the neck again if you like and spray it again or you can step inside your cowl while it is on the floor and pull with all your might in every direction to stretch out the neck. Both of these will work on making the neck opening accommodate your head sliding through better but try to avoid this need.

You must now make a choice. Do you want to use the Plasti-Dip Black Spray Paint from Lowes as your final finish or not. If you do, it will be very easy to touch it up in the future and repainting the entire piece any time you like will be easy.

There are two other finishes that I would recommend one would be to use Armor All it will look great but it is actually shinier than Batman in the movies is. Also with that stuff on there if you ever painted again you better make darn sure it's completely off with soap and water and rubbing alcohol and maybe even lacquer thinner or your Plasti-Dip Black Spray Paint will not stick well the second time and you will have a mess.

A word about items like boot spats, besure to cast them thick, do not use too heavy of a coat of Plasti-Dip though on areas that will need to flex or you will get cracking. Latex Flexes well. Plasti-Dip does not. If this happens it can be corrected by thinning the area and repainting but try to avoid it if you can. At any time, if you are unhappy and a disaster happens you can usually remove your finish with lacquer thinner and go back several steps and start again. Wash pieces well with soap and water after using lacquer thinner.

If you are finishing something like, let's say a cowl, make sure to wash all paint off the symbol attachment flap area and use Superglue. Sometimes it is better to just cut the attachment flap off. Superglue to latex works great. Zap a Gap with kicker is the best. Use the green bottle available at hobby stores.

If you take your time and think out what your doing you should create a beautiful finished piece on your first shot if you start with a nice casting. I will answer questions about anything that is not covered here if you email me at artsee1@earthlink.net. This is not brain surgery is basic stuff and you all should do very well at it. This is just busywork. Care and patience are virtues. No special skills are required. That's all I can think of for this process. Thank you and have fun.