Captain America Shield from used satellite dish

Step 8 Prime shield

With the bolt holes filled and smoothed over, the shield was ready to be primed.

It received three coats of primer, and was sanded with 220 grit sandpaper between each coat, along with a final sanding after the last.

The backside of the shield received a coating of flat black paint at this point.

Comments

[gmurray2]

That's an excellent job, especially the paint. If I may ask, specifically what kind of Krylon primer did you use? I've made Cap's shield myself, although I used a milled dish shield blank made for a local historical recreation group to use in melee combat.

My biggest problem was painting it. It's made from an aluminum which generally didn't take paint very well (the fighters in the group cover their shields with cloth, lace it in place, then paint the cloth) and I had some trouble finding primer that would work. As a result, the paint job on my shield is something I'd love to redo, if I thought it could be improved. I'm guessing that the satellite dish you used is an aluminum too, since most other metals would be tougher to reshape and the shield would be uncomfortably heavy.

[seamster]

On this original shield I used Krylon Indoor/Outdoor Gray Primer. I had some problems with the paint sticking when I would remove the masking tape. Some spots would pull right up with the tape, especially where there happened to be bare metal underneath. From what I could tell, the metal looked like galvanized steel.

Funny thing is, I just finished another one of these yesterday (7/16/11). There were a few things I did differently, and the whole process seemed to run a lot smoother. When I ground off the little nubs, I was careful to not remove any more of the shield's original coating than was necessary, so as to avoid having to paint directly onto the metal. Also, I skipped the primer entirely, and put down a few heavy coats of gloss white Krylon Epoxy Enamel. It's a special purpose paint, and I actually have no idea where to buy it. I won a Krylon contest on here a while ago, and got to order 6 cans of whatever they sell, so I went after the exotic stuff. (Interestingly, the new Krylon contest indicates what specific products you get. Hmmm. Makes me think I might have ruined that for everybody!)

The epoxy enamel is advertised on the label as extremely durable and chip-resistant. So this made a great base coat, and all the other coats took to it perfectly fine. Each coat was applied about 30 minutes after the one before it. When I removed the masking tape, no chips or flakes from the base coat came up. So I definitely think epoxy enamel is a great way to go if you can find it.

Here's my latest version, which was also made with adjustable webbing straps.

[MandalorianWannaBe]

.....Amazing

[gmurray2]

Your painting skills are far superior to mine. Thanks for the info. I'll have to start looking for the gray primer, but your initial experience sounds very similar to mine. A couple of times I had both the red and white paint on before big chunks started to fall off, with the primer stuck to the back of the paint.

I painted my shield five times before deciding that it was as good as I could get it, and I never had to work to get the previous application of paint off, it just fell away. The one paint that worked really well was on the inside, but it's not really paint-local auto repair shops sell a repair spray for truck bed liners, which is what I ended up using. I've thought about trying to prime the outside using it but the black seems to bleed through layers of colored paint pretty bad.

Here are photos of my shield. You can see the detail where the lines are pretty rough, and where the paint is chipping away from the edge despite hardly ever being handled. It usually hangs on the wall in my office.

I also took one of the back. When I couldn't figure out straps that I could both use to hold the shield and to wear it on the back, I made a different system. A lot of the fighters here use a handle/ strap combination instead of two straps, so that's how I hang onto it, then the longer straps are adjustable for wear on the back. The handle is long enough for two handed use, plus when on the back the handle sits across the hips to help distribute the weight more evenly and keep it from digging into my butt.

[seamster]

I like the handle set-up. It's very clever!

I like to spray paint things because I love the clean, smooth finish. But the bleed-under on tape lines can be a real pain. I've gotten better at avoiding it, but if I need to touch something up, I buy the little sample cans of latex house paint at home depot in colors that are as close a match as possible to the spray paints I'm using. I use a toothpick to very precisely cover up blemishes, and most people don't even notice. (I actually painted one entirely with house paints to try it, and it didn't look very good at all.)

[Schmittler]

What specific color of paint did you use? I'm in the process of acquiring all of the items to make this, and the correct shades of blue/red seems like the most important and easily mistakable step.

Is there any page that has all of the requirements in a list? I feel like that would be really helpful.

I've been intending to get started on this project for awhile now and I'm excited to finally work on it. Awesome work.

[dbarrett7]

If u want movie sty
E u cn use silver red and dark blue

[TwistedJack]

queston? would'nt sanding the disk between each coat of primer remove the coat before it? it seems pointless to prime it just to sand it off again.

[seamster]

You only sand very lightly between coats, which removes high spots and minor imperfections. After a few coats of primer applied and sanded in between, you will have an incredibly smooth, blemish-free surface.