Adam Savage from tested here in my cave with a really fun process video regular
watches have tested know that I dressed as star-lord from guardians of the
galaxy vol 1 for Silicon Valley Comic Con in 2019 and as part of that I
replicated star Lords guns from some 3d prints from my friend Joe a trash now
one of the most iconic parts of star Lords guns is the texture patterning on
the handle and grip and Jen Schecter here did all the problem-solving to do
what's called hydro dipping and we're gonna walk you through the hydro dipping
process Jen just as a top-level thing how complex and difficult of a process
is this it's not terribly complex it requires a lot of practice I did maybe
seven or eight really bad dips before I got to this one which is like it's still
not great but it was passable okay so it's it's not there's not a lot of steps
involved but you have to do it enough to get the technique just right awesome so
you're gonna walk us through the main steps and where you found the
efficiencies and ways to make it sing yes okay good I'm gonna put this down
and I can't wait to find out first and foremost I see chefsteps jewel
here immersion heater I'm assuming it is keeping this water bath at a constant
temperature yes that's exactly what it's doing so if you have this is the
sous-vide device to keep your water warm that's fantastic the temperature of the
water depends on what manufacturer makes your actual hydro dip oh so each
hydrogen you mean a sheet that is to be dipped yes that system yes each one
requires a different kind of temperature each different brand yeah they have
their suggested temperature range for whoever makes it and the properties of
that particular dip that film so this one is calling for 95 degrees so I have
this Fahrenheit 95 Fahrenheit so I have the
water temperature running in a consistent 95 degrees it doesn't have to
be exact like I've found that a window of even like 10 degrees is is okay okay
and if you don't have a sous-vide machine you can just use a regular
thermometer I found the hot water just coming in at
the top was pretty darn close and that's just fine but we've got the fancy the
fancy equipment so one of course we do okay so what is that what's the first
step so so the film comes our film comes in a roll like this and we've got the
carbon fiber but they have like wood grain and other different patterns
there's a shiny side and there's sort of a matte side I'm assuming I don't know
which side is that which side goes in which leg goes that so the shiny side is
gonna be the outer facing that's on the outside of your material so this is the
adhesive side so basically you you get your tub of water going you get your hot
water in there I put enough in there so that I can fully dip the object through
through the film and still have some room to go below it that's an aspect of
this yes so I picked a tub that will give us enough room to do two dips next
to each other right and we'll cut the film to a size that will fit roughly
around our object so around both sides or just one side so I've watched a lot
of videos of professionals doing this because obviously there's a lot of Hydra
dipping on like motorcycle is an automotive custom stuff they have a
really sweet setup with a huge temperature controlled bath and they
have a partition and they have a fancy sprayer hose we're not quite that fancy
so I figured out a technique where I dip one side I let it dry clear coat it and
then dip the other side okay and that means I would assume that there are
small artifacts sometimes at the edge between the two games yeah you can see
here it's not super perfect and you can even see actually on the on the
star-lord finish ones that there's a little bit of overlap you could if you
had a less complex object you could try to do it in one in one dip on like at an
angle right but what I found is that once the film when will see this once
the film starts to wrap over the top of the object it starts to separate and get
gooey and it's not it's not pretty okay so yeah so the cheat that I figured out
to do two-sided hydro dipping is actually a single dip dry it clear coat
it and then dip the reverse let's do it awesome
so I've got a sheet here that should be enough for us to do two depth
side-by-side so I'm going to this and then we're gonna create a mask
around the edges like a frame once the film is heated it starts to kind of
expand and become really it's basically just a film floating on the surface of
the water okay so there's like a carrier and then
there's the thing you're transferring and when you get it hot they start to
separate yeah and the pattern will actually if you don't mask it the
pattern will start to diffuse and like float away from itself oh wow yeah so
this frame basically that the pros have these partitions in the bath that keep
the film and the correct orientation and size all right we're just gonna mask the
frame and that'll keep it keep the pattern from floating out and expanding
yeah I just um I did like a half of the tape so I placed it like that right and
then fold it over in itself ah fold it over on itself yeah all right and this
is enough to be super precise it's literally just to hold its shape so it
doesn't float away and one thing that was super important with star-lord is
the direction of the pattern oh I had to do a little bit of thinking in Reverse
of like okay we want it to be in this direction if I'm dipping it then when I
flip it it's gonna look this way and it's like a diagonal across the part
it's not lined up with it right oh yeah so a little extra tricky if you're doing
something organic like woodgrain obviously much easier
fancy frame almost ready okay so put some gloves on unless you want to hydro
dip your hands - oh yeah gets on yes oh yeah once it's got the adhesive
activator on it it'll just morph around would it be a good way to do like
tattoos I would take a chair it would be kind of cool I don't know how long it
would last yeah all right so the the placement of these in the water in the
water is actually a little bit tricky yeah it goes the shiny side and shiny
side down okay and you want to place it so that it doesn't water doesn't like
come over the top of it so I actually kind of folded it just a little bit
uh-huh and then you can even like I may haven't
actually do it like a little bit like this
really yeah just basically so that you can get a good a good position on it so
that you can place it in the water and then sort of gently I don't know maybe
want you to roll so I'm gonna go like this
oopsie and I already got a little bit of water on there I'm also gonna take the
jewel out of the water so you don't all right so no agitation yes I guess it's
gonna stay it yeah it'll it'll stay hot enough for us great there we go
nice oh okay okay all right so you can see on mine the the patterns starting to
like almost like gel a little yeah yeah I do have some bubbles here which are
not ideal but they'll be okay mine seems really wrinkly but it yeah it's it sort
of puckers up first and then once the heat reaches enough
level for the film it'll start to spread out yeah and this is um this is the
activator that was recommended for this particular film when you combine them
together oh this looks nice and tight now yeah okay so now you spray with the
activator yep so we'll spray the activator in link a crosshatch pattern
an overlapping the last layer okay like a standard spray paint yeah okay oh wow
okay okay so I'm holding it kind of at the corner edges that I'm not gonna get
my fingers in the in the dip anywhere and then I want to go in kind of at an
angle and you'll see the film start to wrap around it so mine's already
dissolving so I'm gonna try to go in the corner so I'm gonna go in this way oh
wow crazy and then you want to go through
the film all the way down underneath of the water alright here I go
that's why I try it here we go wow that was far out man and so now I can just
kind of turn it over yeah just kind of pull it through yeah oh nice
that looks awesome wow that's a really good first try but this is one well -
positive feedback I don't know I'm surprised that you
picked it up on the first driver so yeah you can get better at the technique and
kind of like depending on how your object is shaped figure out what angle
to dip so that you'll get it to wrap the way you want right right you see I'm not
actually really good that's amazing yeah that's um it's like science fiction and
we actually both got a pretty good angle on her and our pattern yeah I was just
guessing in the last minute cause I was like I don't know anymore just do it
awesome so let's put these down for a moment and little do is um we have to
wash all this slimy activate okay and we do that in a sink not in our bath right
this is all got dissolved activator and okay film warm water is fine warm water
and then just really gently because you don't want to wipe the film up ah okay I
might three go with normal yeah and then yeah
just very very gently no and you'll feel it's kind of like slimy yeah oh yeah
it's really funny and then the other trick that I figured out for for doing
the two-sided if I just use a slightly abrasive sponge yeah to wipe off where I
want the skin to be ah so you can can you be pretty precise about that you
could you could just kind of remove where the best overlap so to your second
side right right right grab that sponge over there oh yeah
scrub away oh look at that and just comes right off so you can
actually clean up artifacts that may that would might mess up the other side
when you dip it
all right this feels really cool I mean I can see some spots for me touching a
little too vigorously there but yeah it does um like yeah my little coupon is
very volatile doesn't it yeah yeah so we'll let these dry okay and we can
clear coat them and then do the other side yay Jenny's are so beautiful
before we dip them in I forgot to ask you how did you prepare the surface the
blank surface for receiving the hydro tip that's a great question so we
started with 3d printed parts so they obviously a lot of layer lines we hit it
with a ton of this sandable primer oh great lots of sanding lots of primer so
we got a nice smooth finish here cleaned up all the little artifacts from 3d
printing then I hit it with a metallic paint and that can be any color that you
want underneath of your hydro dip so we did a light sort of a like chrome almost
a pearlescent kind of yeah you could do gunmetal or if you're doing a woodgrain
you could do like a yellow undercoat and then and then it just goes into the dip
now after the first layer that we put on yeah that's so after we did our dip you
then did another bit of preparation so we we'd washed off all the all the slime
kind of sponged out to get the seam nice and I let them dry yeah and then I hit
it with some clear coat okay like a like a krylon gloss coat yeah just a nice
clear gloss and what that lets me do is when I do the other side and I get those
little gooey overhang pieces I can then scrub those off without damaging the
first layer brilliant oh okay now I see I mean within this what is the most
difficult part you encountered within this process getting the film to behave
the way that you want and definitely the technique of dipping like depending on
the shape of your object and where the undercuts are and figuring out the best
angle to sort of plunge into the film so that it'll wrap the way you want around
your shape so it sounds like I mean when we embark on trying to learn
a new technique like this we go and watch youtube videos we read articles
about it and none of it ever quite answers all the questions that we have
so even though we're trying to do somewhat of a comprehensive look at this
what would your recommendation be to someone who wanted to try this for the
first time how many iterations should they allow in order to get to know it I
would say at least five or six so I made some little dummy some little dummy
would prototype it so these were like you know low pressure just tests on the
shape also make sure to change the water between dips I made the mistake of being
lazy and not dumping out all the water and refilling and the activator you can
kind of see there's a film yeah it's in the water so if you put a new piece of
film on there it'll start to dissolve in a way that's not pretty so you want
reproducible results it requires a very clean working environment yes okay yeah
and so after five or six tries I started to get the dipping technique and if you
can't even get the actual shape that you're gonna dip I think that would be a
great way to practice because then you'll know how the film interacts with
that shape so if you're making something that's 3d printed you think a person
should actually print like five or six ahead of time before the hero one to get
to know it I not everyone has that kind of luxury but I agree like you've got to
iterate just to know what you don't know sometimes I'll do something just to
screw up at it so that I can watch a video and be like oh there's where I
screwed up yeah yeah and I watched a bunch of the pros dipping like they'll
do huge you know panels for the interior of a car in this carbon fiber and it's
like nerve-wracking to watch because they have to get it right but they have
the technique master where they dip and then they kind of roll the shape through
the film and it's just like okay he knows what he's doing so it they end up
having imbued in them what you were learning which is like the right boat
cuz it's not just like dropping it in and stop plunging it's this whole it's a
relationship between the object and the Hydra death yeah and it's an interesting
material cuz it's like floating on the surface of the water and you have to
yeah kind of swim through it in a way that that wraps the way like I noticed
we got a little bit of double crossover here but what you're saying is because
we go to the first side we can scrape some
of that away yes yeah you could kind of sponge that off and then I think on the
final hero prep we actually did a little bit of I think I remember going in with
a sharpie not a Sharpie cuz Sharpie tends to have a purple yeah I went in
with a different marker and just sort of hand drew some of that pattern yeah that
kind of stipple in where where your carbon fiber it wears away it rubs away
in little sections yeah but you can kind of fudge that in and it all just blends
ones together full disclosure we actually plan to
shoot this video last summer or this summer and for various reasons we didn't
get around to it till now but Jen I just I wanted to thank you for putting this
all together for such a complicated difficult and confounding process the
end result is really beautiful and I hope people try it so thank you thanks
so much yeah it was a lot of fun oh