Despite never having worked with any form of foam latex in my life, I have found myself in the main studio, instead of the archives, working on something that’s actually going to be used for a television show. Once again, this was the fall of 2000, and they were working on these suits for a new TV show, based on a comic book and cartoon, that were supposed to be worn by the dude who played “Puddy” on the series, Seinfeld. Yep, somehow, I got drafted to make blue suits for The Tick.
The work wasn’t too difficult, from what I remember. They were concerned about me ripping the foam (hey, I’d never worked with it before, remember?) so they had me helping out with prepping the mods. This involved cleaning previously baked foam latex off the mold, hitting all crevices with a brush, applying a fresh coat of mold release, and helping seal the mold back up. The suits had spandex pieces for the foam to adhere to, but I wasn’t entrusted in putting those in there, and making sure everything was lined up.
Once the molds were prepped, and the foam was ready to be injected, I would help with this part, as well. My main job was to plug bleeder holes, which allowed air to escape as the foam was being injected into the mold (using a “gun” that looked like a giant syringe), and then plug the injection hole once the mold is full, so the foam wouldn’t just leak out. Once all the molds were full, I helped carry them into racks on a giant oven, where they would bake until solid. Once baked, they would get de-molded (normally, not something I would do), and I would wash them out in a big tub of water, run them through a dryer cycle, and then hang them to dry, so they could be finished and sent off to production. This was all kind of interesting, but it was also kind of boring, in retrospect. One thing that made it all exciting was learning about the concept of “back pressure”…
The gentleman I worked with had been a foam runner for a number of years. If I remember correctly, one of his first films was Robocop 2. So, I guess that would have been around ten or eleven years. Anyway, I’m helping him run a suit one night, getting ready to plug the injection hole as he pulls the foam gun out of the pipe. As I am standing right above it, I immediately get a face full of blue foam latex! See, as you’re forcing the liquid latex into the mold, physics/science-something happens, and there is a lot of pressure that builds up, and if you don’t go ahead and pull back a bit on the injection handle, that pressure has to release somehow. So, here I am, plugging up a fountain of blue foam latex, as the seasoned technician is freaking out (he thought I was going to get made, thinking it was a “hazing” style practical joke), and apologizing profusely. All I could really do was take off my glasses, grin, shrug, and ask for a towel. Believe it or not, that was a good memory.
After working on a few suits for The Tick, I was rolled over to the Battlestar Galactica blaster project. We had people that recreated the prop, mostly using the same model kits used for the piece in the series, and scratch building the parts that couldn’t be sourced. Then, a bunch of molds were made, and they started casting guns out of black resin. I was part of a team of 5 that took the raw resin castings, cleaned off about 100 little tabs that allowed air to escape, filled in small holes left by air bubbles, and cleaned them to prep for painting. I wish I had something exciting to speak to on this, but seriously, it was just us all shooting the bull about music and movies, while sitting in the back of the archives, trimming bits off resin with xacto knives.
The shop shut down for the holidays, and then I was back to work in the archives. As I was building stands for Bicentennial Man suits, I was approached by someone in the main studio, asking if they were correct in remembering that they had taught me how to be a foam tech assistant…
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