Thread: Repairing styrofoam head tutorial

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This is the head to go along with the body I'm repairing in the costume section.
This what the head looked like before I started. Been sitting in storage for a while it was pretty beat up.

Here are a few more before pics.

I started out with 60 grit sandpaper but hand but that was taking way too long. I switched to my 10,000 RPM dremel tool with a fine wire wheel, also a shaped stone and some various shaped diamond carbide tips for the tight areas, especially the teeth, wrinkles and ears. Make sure to wear eye protection and a particle mask. When you use the dremel remember to keep moving. It won't take long to punch an extra hole you'll need to fill or lose some on the fine details that are engraved into the surface.

Some more details of the cleaning process.

After removing as much of the old paint as possible. Use some wall spackle and a sharpened popsicle stick. Fill in the dents and smooth the sharp stick. Use an X-acto knife to remove the wet spackle from the fine character lines and grooves. I use a spackle that goes on purple and dries white. Try to keep the coats thin to reduce the amount of drying time and decrease the amount of sanding.

Helpful hint when it comes time to paint. Was talking with my boss, he made some styrofoam tombstones for Halloween. Make sure you paint with a latex based paint, anything else will melt your styrofoam.

New pics, coming soon. Got it in paint.

looking good!

Now that the spackle has dried overnight it's time to sand. 80 grit works great. Remember to sand just enough to where you can see the shape of the hole you filled but don't go beyond that. Use an x-acto knive blade or other fine pointed tool and gently remove spackle from that character lines.

Here's some more pics of the cleanup process.