After a lot of questions asking about various bits of my Captain America shield build, I’ve built a dedicated parts page.
Paint for Captain America shield
The best paint without question (I’ve used a few cheaper types) is the Duplicolor Metalcast in red and blue. For a clear coat finish, and again I used many types, the best clear coat is Rustoleum 2X although the Duplicolor clear topcoat also worked well. Always test for a reaction between paints on a scrap of wood before spraying onto the shield. Sometimes a change of propellant between brands can cause a reaction.
Satellite dish / Shield mould
What you’re looking for is the roundest possible satellite dish, try to be no more than 20 to 30mm (about an inch) out of perfectly round.
- For the full size version I used an almost round 85cm dish purchased from eBay UK.
- If you live in the USA things can be a bit trickier, it’s still just a matter of searching Google, eBay and Amazon.
- A very good alternative if you live in the USA is to use a Flexible Flyer steel saucer as a mould. While it only allows for a 24″ shield build as against the 29″ full size version in my first video, they are easy to get on Amazon or eBay and you can sell them when your done on eBay to get some of your money back. They also only need 3-4 layers of fiberglass and resin making them cheaper to make and still awesome. The shield produced is also a more practical size, and what’s more the handle holes can be cut out of the saucer as waste so they do not require filling.
Just remember when selling your old satellite dish or saucer on eBay, place a link to my YouTube video in your description, this will help us both out 😉
Fiberglass supplies
A complete fiberglass kits
can be found on Google, eBay and Amazon. You will need polyester resin and fiberglass matt.
Here are some fiberglass amounts for you as a guide…
- A full size shield (76cm) using 5 layers of 450g CSM (chopped strand matt) will use 3.8 metres of CSM and 3-4 litres of Standard polyester resin. Although you could easily just use 4 layers and it would still be firm and strong.
- A 60cm Flexible Flyer shield using 4 layers requires 2.7 metres of CSM and 2.5 litres of resin. 5 layers is not required at this size.
- A 60cm Flexible Flyer shield using 3 layers needs 2.1 metres of CSM and 1.8 litres of resin. Still a great shield with only 3 layers.
All other information on painting and the templates for the aluminium start can be found back on the how to make a Captain America shield page.