smoothing minicell

[sbroam]

I debated whether this belonged in the off-topic forum because the application in question is not actually in a boat. My son has a school project where he has to make a model of an animal - his chosen animal is a narwhal. He wanted to carve it from wood, but I thought minicell would be much, much better - after 30 minutes with his Swiss Army knife and my Surform (tm) he has a passable narwhal body! Now he wants to paint it the appropriate colors (apparently purple and white is involved), but before that we have to smooth it down. Currently it has the typical, Surformed finish approximating suede. Sandpaper did little, regardless the grit. What else? Flame?

Then to paint it...

Of course this has outfitting application for the full custom job...

[gumpy]

never tried it but i've heard a heat gun will smooth it out. hope this helps!

good luck

[Cheeks]

Heat gun and a metal butter knife? That's where I'd start.

And I'd definitely sacrifice some scrap til I know what works.

[markzak]

If its not smooth enough using just sandpaper, why not just epoxy over the foam, sand that smooth and paint over that.

[Todhunter]

I had excellent results smoothing on a belt sander with a worn down 80 grit belt. Maybe because the belt was pretty worn it smoothed it out?

[RodeoClown]

try the sandpaper again, work increasing finer grits, and don't use much pressure. I've had good results that way, the paint will cover up the 'suede' pretty well. Flame will also work, but if it's at all uneven from the sureform, it'll end up kind of lumpy. I'd say sand it, then flame it.

[sbroam]

The heat gun alone did pretty good - good enough to paint, which should even smooth it out some more.