I finally realized my worbla warps because I was heating both sides
Been building armor for like 3 years and always fought with warping until a guy at a con in Austin pointed out I was torching the back side too. Soon as I stopped hitting the reverse face, my chest plate sat flat on the first try. Anyone else torch both sides out of habit?
Heating both sides" hit me right in the gut because that's exactly what I did for two years with my first set of pauldrons. I watched every tutorial, read the forums, and still couldn't figure out why my edges kept curling like a bad lasagna. Turns out I was also torching the back while trying to smooth out the front seams, and the heat was pulling the worbla in two directions at once. Once I stopped and just worked one face at a time, it was like a whole new material. I ended up making a little cardboard shield for the back side so I wouldn't accidentally hit it, and that stupid shield solved everything. Now I tell every newbie at my local shop about it and they look at me like I'm nuts until they try it themselves.