Graphite Powder - Mandalorian Armor

hey guys uh since i started posting my build in the various uh andorian pages i got a lot of questions about the graphite powder process that i use the clear coat dry times how i apply things how it affects the effect of the powder so i figured i should probably put together a video on my process show you the things that i learned the hard way and hopefully this can help some people out i'll link the products that i use below and any questions from there you can ask and i'll try to answer them in the comments so these are the products i used this is just graphite powder from amazon i'll put the links for all these below makeup sponges some people like to use cotton rounds for applying they work okay the only problem with these is they are fibrous so if your paint is still a little tacky which is part of my process that i'll explain you could get pieces stuck in it or it'll leave marks and lines in the paint things like that so you don't want that to happen and then the final product for clear is a spray max 2k clear glamour it's actually a two-part rattle can spray so what ends up happening is this red plunger assist comes out the top you insert into the bottom press down and what that does is there's an internal can on the inside of this can it punctures it and that allows the material from the inner can and the outer can to mix and it catalyzes just like you would in a spray gun you shake it up and it's good for i believe it says 24 hours so after 24 hours whatever is left in the can is no good so that's why i like to kind of have everything ready to go all at once so i can knock it out and you always want to make sure you have at least one extra can because you don't want to run out the middle of a project and end up with half a clear coat because by the time you run to get another can and come back it's dry on that half and ruined good okay so because you can see these are already painted um i just wanted to knock that out before the video because that's not really relevant um something i forgot to mention before is if you've got an air compressor that's good because you want to blow these off before you do before you apply the powder and then again before you spray the clear coat that's obviously to get off any dust or debris that happens to be sticking to it so the first part of the process involves the makeup sponges um i again i prefer these for applying the powder over the the uh the what are the cotton rounds um just because they go on smoother and they're reusable so you don't have to keep buying them so you get your makeup sponge you dip in the powder you really want to wear gloves because this stuff gets all over the place and you just start rubbing it on and you'll see after the first pass that it's you know it's got a metallic shine to it but it's not as glossy as what you have seen online probably and that's part of the other makeup sponge there you're gonna use that one to buff this to a shine so make sure you get the back sides all the edges um if you're using the grade 8 files i would recommend not doing anything here in this groove or the magnets go that's just going to add thickness to this and it's going to make the magnets protrude more it might not fit next step blow the excess off grab your cleaner sponge and then you start rubbing on it with a heavier hand and you'll see that it starts to become shiny you can see your reflection all these little scratches and stuff those aren't a big deal if you're using the 2k clear glamour because it's a relatively thick clear coat that tends to self-level all of these tiny little scratches and pinholes and stuff will actually get filled in by the clear coat if you're going for a finish that doesn't involve that clear coat you're going to have a lot more work ahead of you in terms of getting everything perfectly smooth and all that kind of thing have to worry too much about this first coat because when we spray the clear on you're going to let it dry for the recommended 15 minutes and then you're going to put graphite powder over the first coat of clear and then clear it again so that's going to hide a lot of these mistakes and you're going to end up with multiple layers of clear coat and graphite powder so i know that you can see probably there's still the hint of print lines on here not worried about that because the dial pads going there some scratches things like that all of that will be filled in by the first coat of clear and then when we go to do another layer of powder on top of that and then another clear you won't see any of that so once you've got everything pretty much covered in your graphite you can go straight to clear coat i would recommend again still blowing it off trying to get the excess powder off things like that and then once i go to spray the clear i'm gonna have a mask on a respirator so it's gonna be hard for me to talk but what's gonna happen is i'm gonna spray these and then i have a little makeshift paint booth i made out of a cardboard box so i'm going to do my coat of clear and i'm going to sit them in there and tape that up and let it dry for 15 minutes that way while it's drying i don't get any flakes of dust or you know whatever that might settle on it and get stuck in the layer of paint okay so you take the plunger assist off the top you see it fits on this pin here that goes on there either you can press it in or if it's too hard you can put it on the desk and do it and then i believe it calls for a shaking for two minutes so two minutes of shaking the can you don't need to record me doing that so generally speaking when you're applying paint or clear coat or whatever the case may be everyone recommends doing a light thin coats and many applications of them i found that that doesn't work all that well with this personally i tend to lay on thicker coats because the thinner coats can leave texture so i lay it on thick i let it self level uh and that tends to work the best for me um also when you're spraying this it's a basic technique of painting um well it is for me anyway instead of moving the can around the object and trying to get a straight on spray i recommend rotating the object to meet the spray pattern of the can because again if you hit this on an angle you're going to get texture on the farther part of the spray and so you're better off just going like this making sure that you get an even thick coat everywhere you spray all right so now we've done our first round of clear coat you can see there's some little lines and some imperfections and what you're going to see here is when you let this dry i would say maybe about 30 minutes or so you take your graphite powder again and go over it and it's gonna hide most of those imperfections and the more often you do this the better off you're going to be because each layer of clear coat is going to fill whatever imperfections are in that surface so the more you do this the better off you're going to be i usually do at least three and it seems to work well for me uh

Channel: Nick Braun

Views: 40,897

Keywords: #cosplay #mandalorian #armor #beskar #starwars #crafting #hobby #diy #build

Id: asceI4Uc47s

Length: 9min 54sec (594 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 24 2020