With the work I have been doing on the painting of the Captain America ball chair I am within inches of getting ready to do the final assembly. I know... I know.... You've been hearing about this project for months and probably been saying "What's taking so long?" Well like anyone else I am not an expert in everything that I try. This has been the case with the ball chair as the painting of the parts for the chair have been a real challenge to say the least but I am finally getting a handle on that part of this project and am very near to calling it done and happy to say so.
With the help of my temporary paint booth that I put together in my garage it has made this part of that project go that much smoother. Worth the effort and time just to get it set up and working. So to the point of my ramblings here? I realized that when I finish the ball chair project that I will tear the paint booth down and store it away for another day when the painting is done. But before I do that I thought it best to start working on the small foot stool I have designed for the chair, paint it in the booth and then tear everything down. It would make the most sense don't you agree?
So this is the posting for today. The start of the Captain America ball chair foot stool. In the photos above are a good portion of the parts that are drawn out onto Styrofoam panels and then fiber glassed on both sides. Lots of parts to be sure.
Once the fiber glassed panels had cured I cut the parts out using my band saw. This gives me good solid parts with fiber glass on both sides of each part.
Along with the foam pieces for the stool I need the plywood disks that you see in this photo. The top disk that is a double that was glued together for easier assembly in the project. The four holes in each part will mount the threaded rods that will hold the three finished assemblies together once they have been fully fiber glassed and painted.
Here the first pieces of fiber glassed Styrofoam are hot glued onto the double circular disks that make up the top section of the stool.
Once all of the foam pieces had been hot glued in place I was able to turn the assembly right side up as shown in the photo above.
In this photo you can see all three of the sub-assemblies that will make up the stool. The upper portion of the stool is shown in the upper left of the photo. The mid section is on the right of the photo and the base of the stool in on the lower left. All fiber glassed foam pieces have been hot glued into place at this point.
This is how the stool will look before the outer skin has been applied to the project. To finish out the stool once it has been painted there will be a padded cushion that will sit within the recessed area at the top of the stool.
To fill in the voids between the first fiber glassed foam parts I inserted additional foam spacers. This will make it easier to fiber glass the assembly when the time comes. You have to fill in these voids otherwise it get to be a real pain in order to get a good strong part and a nice smooth finish when you want to prep for priming and paint.
Here's a good shot of where the stool project is at this moment. All of the sections of the stool have been completely covered with 1/4" foam strips to close up each section. Then after assembly any voids or gaps between these strips are filled in using a micro-balloon and fiber glass resin mixture to seal everything up. Once each section has had a day or so to cure I can sand all of the assemblies smooth and start laying down fiber glass cloth to get everything sealed up. I will let this cure for at least another day and then putty the outer surfaces and prep the parts for primer and paint as I did with the ball chair itself. Then back to the paint booth once again. After all of the painting is completed then I can assembly the stool using threaded rods, nuts and washers and then get the cushion put together. To give you a little preview of how the painting is going with the Captain America ball chair itself check out the photos below.
This is what I call the dome section of the ball chair this is the center back of the chair where the star for the Captain America shield will be. In the photo above I had to figure out how to lay out this star. I put together an oversized divider. This is just a couple of pieces of wood that are bolted together with points cut into the ends. I measured the diameter of the dome and then figured out that the divider tips had to be 17-5/8" apart to get the five pointed star marked on to the dome that I needed.
I put painters tape down first to mark out where each point of the star will end up. Then I laid down automotive pin striping tape to create the star. I looked at this photo after I had done this and had to chuckle as nothing looks straight on the star with this shot except maybe one or two lines. This is due to the curvature of the dome itself. Actually all of the tape you see in the photo is as straight as I could possible get it. You just have to be looking straight down at the dome to see it correctly.
Having a need for a white star I then used painters tape and craft paper to cover up the taped off star that I did not want to paint over. The pin striping tape gives me nice crisp lines and makes laying out the blue painters tape and paper an easy task.
I spray the dome with Navy blue paint and presto.... I have a white star on a field of blue. I am very pleased with my efforts at this point in the painting of this part and called it good. This is one of the reasons this portion of the Captain America ball chair project is taking as long as it has. Fine details.....fine details..... and more fine details.
To get a really good sneak peak at the paint scheme for the Captain America ball chair I had to shoot this photo this afternoon. Looks pretty impressive and I still have the last red piece of the ball to dial in yet and I will be ready for final assembly! Hopefully next week will be the big day. I'll be sure to post all about it as soon as I can. Enjoy the photos and have a good day in you workshop!
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