Crack repair

[afreeman]

Hey guys, I have been having trouble with cracks around the knee area of my current Batman sculpt and I have not had any luck with several types of glue until I did some exploratory surgery on his knee's.
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So, this will be a kind of tutorial on how I am fixing the problem and a "What not to do" when starting a sculpt.
As I said, I have tried several types of glue, super glue at first signs of cracks, did not hold, then went to epoxy putty, the clay cracked away from the putty, then I tried two part epoxy which is more liquid which I thought would flow into the clay better and hold, it did not work either.
So I dremeled out the cracks to find that the clay at the knee area was too thin, I used too much alum foil on my armature and the clay just did not have the bulk too hold the statues weight.
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So I decided to go in and cut out some of the alum foil up into the thigh area and down into the knee, I also drilled some small holes into the clay that was thick enough so the epoxy would pack into them and hold better,
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Now I packed epoxy putty up into the area above and below the crack in the knee,
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I kept filling in these areas to add strength to the clay so hopefully it would not crack again!
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Filling in layers until I started filling in the crack, make sure the top and bottom parts of the leg are lined up correctly!
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I overfilled the cracks somewhat so I could sand down the epoxy and blend it in,
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So next I will be sanding this down, I will post the pics soon as I am done!

[afreeman]

Here's the areas dremeled out, I'll throw some body putty on next.
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[Darkeye]

this may interest you....I never used to use foil. No Probs. Then I decided not to 'waste clay' and went to foil; hey presto! CRACKS!

Now, I don't use it and the cracks have gone. Also, I find the plastic coated garden wire which has a 2mm steel core works wonders.
The sculpey if left for a few hours on the wire will bond in to the plastic. I baked my Chaos Chick leg set and no cracks at all. I also wrapped a little of the smaller plastic coated wire with a 1mm core around it. A smearing of vasilene and it bonds well.

Might be useful to you.........

atb --tim

[afreeman]

Thanks Darkeye! It seems if I get the clay to stay adhered to the foil with no air space it does not crack, any airspace and crack, clay is so expensive, this last time on the MK Batman I have tried epoxy on the armature with some foil on the main body, hope this works, I'll be baking him soon.