Moulding and casting

Moulding the Iron Man suit with Silicone RTV rubber

This page is about moulding the foam pieces, check out the main project index for the rest.

I made moulds from my foam suit, so that I could cast a rigid suit that could be sanded, filled, and generally made better.

Here’s some YouTube video showing the complete process for the toe pieces, from foam to fiberglass. Also a video on fiberglassing the thighs. There is further explanation with pictures below:

I made silicone moulds from the foam suit with rigid mother moulds made from modroc plaster bandages, and Jesmonite.

A thin (as it comes) coat of Silicone RTV was put all over the item, followed by a couple more thickened coats:

Then modroc and Jesmonite were used to make a multi-part mother mould. Here is the rubber piece removed from the mould, and then placed back in the rigid mother mould. The mould has a seam line that bolts together to make it easy to remove from the rigid cast:

I used Smooth-on Smooth-Cast 65D Polyurethane resin to make the cast by tilting the mould around as the resin set to make a hollow cast. You could also use this mould to make a fiberglass piece:

Here’s the original foam piece, and the plastic cast side by side. I then did the same for all the pieces, here are helmet pictures: