# Coating Papier-mâché with fiberglass resin.



## typoagain (Feb 27, 2012)

The cold hard fact is that I am a lousy papier-mache artist. It does not help a bit that I am also a bit of a perfectionist.
I have been attempting to build, of all things, a Mickey Mouse head. This head will be part of a pair of 7'tall nutcrackers. for my outdoor Christmas decorations
The head is about 22" wide and I do not know how tall-(cause I have never gotten as far as the ears.) I keep getting as far as making the mouth and nose. Then I do not like what I have so I work and work on it. Then I get pissed off about how it looks, I trash it and then I start over!
I am starting on attempt number 4. This attempt has just gone on the shelf until after Christmas. But I can't get it off my mind.

So I have a few questions and hopefully someone can help me actually _finish _this one

*Paper-clay.* 
How thick of a coating can you make it? 
I have tried to avoid using it very thick. But if I could use thick layers of it, it might make this whole process easier. 

And . . . I am looking to find some kind of very hard, durable coating for the finished papier-meche project.

I was wondering, has anyone tried fiberglass resin? 
Can you but a fiberglass finish on a papier-mache object?

If no one has tried it, I just might. But epoxy and resin are not all that cheap, and if someone can give me some advice and save me $100, a few headaches and a _huge mess_ all the better!

I am talking about mixing up the resin and just brushing a smooth coating over the whole finished project. I do not have any detail to worry about. In fact, the smother the coating is, the better it will work for me. I do not plan on using any cloth unless someone tells me I have too (Please tell me I don't! I always make a big mess with the cloth.) 
I would just mix up the resin, brush it on and leave it to dry. After it dries I would sand it smooth, mask it off and then spray paint it.

I am looking to get a finished project that I can stand up in the back of my truck and take with me on a trip. We're talking driving 550 miles, in pouring rain, at 60 MPH. Then I will bang it around pretty good, load it up again and bring it home. In storage odds are that something will get piled on top of it. (Maybe I do need to put in some fiberglass cloth after all.) I do not care if I have to repaint it, but I do not ever want to have to build a replacement head. 

Heck, I might even try making a mold so that I can just make more out of fiberglass in the future.

And here is the biggest question of all! Does anyone know of some good tutorials on working with fiberglass! lol Fact is, all I have ever done with it is to do some repair work. For example, I use it to fix some rusted out ironwork on my front porch. (Some idiot actually poured the concrete _around_ the ironwork) I have never used it for building anything from scratch. I have also never used in with a mold, but would love to learn how too.

If this project works out well, I was thinking about making some life-size . . . I don't\'t know what you call them . . . the little yellow guys from the movie "Dispiciable Me" and doing a little-kid friendly display next year for my church's get together.

As always, thanks for having the patience to answer my weird and off-the-wall questions.


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## fontgeek (Jul 24, 2006)

First off, please don't set your text in Red or other colors for that matter, it makes it much harder to read, and because of that many will avoid the post or thread.

You could use polyester resin on paper mache, but the resin, on it's own will only give you limited strength, and even that would depend upon the type of resin (Casting or laminating), and what you have beneath it for support.

As to the "how thick can I go with the paperclay" goes, you can use it fairly thick, but the more handling the item or surface will get, the harder it will be to keep that surface shape stable. Think of it like a sticky gravel, you can stack it or pile it deep if it's only going to be seen, but if you need to climb over it, it will start shifting around. You may find that alternating layers of paperclay and paper-mache will give you the strength and stability you want, without the fumes and expense of the resin. Casting resin dries harder, but it's more brittle, laminating resin is more durable, but it's also a bit more expensive too. It's real "strength" is in laminating layers of fibreglass, carbon fibre, etc.

There are lots of great tutorials on fiberglass, though you may have an easier time finding them by looking for it under auto body and boat hull repair and modification. You might look at someplace like smartflix.com, they rent out educational DVD videos at a fairly low price. You can probably find some stuff on auto forums, youtube, etc.


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