One of the most common questions we’re asked is: “How can I attach my resin/3D Printed pieces to my costume?”
While it’s always an option to simply slather some glue on the back of a piece and slap it down on your fabric, we like to make pieces removable using hardware. When pieces are removable, it becomes easier to launder, clean, and transport your costume without the accessories attached. You can also replace pieces if you happen to lose them, upgrade pieces later on, repaint small accessories, and don't risk damaging the costume with a glue mishap.
Psst, if you have a silicone kit, you'll want our Gluing Silicone to Fabric Tutorial.
There are many different kinds of hardware, so today we'll cover the basic options and how to use them.
What do you mean, "hardware"?
By “hardware”, we mean items such as pin backs, snaps, hooks, jump rings, jewelry bails, or even earring posts. These are also called "findings." These are all typically metal, but they don’t necessarily have to be. Plastic snaps and jump rings exist and are totally serviceable.
Each one of these options has its own pros and cons, of course, so picking the best one for your situation is just as important as using the right techniques. If you’re only interested in the how-to, feel free to skip ahead, but let’s take a moment to cover some of these options and their strengths:
- Snaps and hooks are two-part solutions, with one piece being attached to the accessory and the other to the costume. Both are semi-permanently placed, as they're usually sewn-on. These are best for pieces that will always be on the costume when you’re wearing it, because if when the piece is removed, you'll usually still see the orphaned half of the snap or hook still on your fabric.
- Pin backs are one-part solutions only attached to the rigid piece, which are then pierced through the fabric with a pin. They’re good for pieces that might need to be re-positioned or are only worn sometimes. However, they can be easy to miss when getting dressed because there's no visual indication on your costume that something is missing. You can mitigate this with a colourful stitch or small design in thread/heat transfer vinyl that will be hidden under the piece when it’s installed, but it does make it ideal for pieces that need to "leave no trace" when removed.
- Jump rings, jewelry bails, and earring posts are specific to jewelry making. The previous two are used primarily for necklaces, and the latter for, obviously, earrings. However, they are an excellent way to add rings to an accessory piece that can then be sewn onto the fabric of your costume, or linked together with chain.
Above is an example of a spade bail. Once glued to a resin piece. you can easily sew the piece to fabric, or rig with jump rings.
Attaching Your Hardware
The basic method is the same regardless of whether your piece is made of resin or 3D printing filament, or what hardware you're using.
Tip: This tutorial contains a lot of gluing and scoring. If you're unsure which glue or epoxy to use, check out the Basic Supplies for Bodyshopping Guide.
First, score or roughly sand the surface where you’re going to adhere your hardware. This gives the glue more of a textured surface to hold onto, and will make your joint more secure. Since most hardware is metal, it will be difficult to get a deep score, but rough sandpaper will still break up the surface and make it adhere better. However, depending on the metal, this may be quite difficult, so if you can't do it, don't worry! Whatever you can do is good.
Scuffing the surface with a craft knife held at a 45 degree angle puts great grooves in resin and 3D prints.
Next, apply the glue. I’m using superglue here, but if your piece is particularly heavy or in a high-stress area consider using two-part epoxy instead for some extra hold. Two-part epoxy also has a longer working time if you're worried about being able to position things very precisely.
You also want to use enough glue to cover the whole surface area of the hardware. If necessary, use a small disposable paintbrush or toothpick to position the glue.
Next it's time to attach the other side to the fabric. Your method will vary slightly depending on what it is that you’re attaching. Snaps and hooks are sewn down by hand through provided holes.
If you don't know how to sew a snap, here's a video tutorial!
If you want to learn how to sew a hook and eye, you'll want this video.
In the case of using pin backs, you may still want to prepare your fabric for the pin, either by leaving a permanent mark there that will remind you a pin goes there (in the case of costumes with a lot of removable parts, this is especially handy), or by putting some form of reinforcement where the pin will go.
This could be a patch that will be covered by the final piece, which serves as a pad for the pin to go through.
Left: a large patch that would be installed on the back of the fabric; Right: a small patch that
could be on the front or back.
This could also be a reinforcement on the garment to help distribute the weight of the attached piece. Typically, this kind of reinforcement is of a similar size as or larger than the final piece, hidden on the inside of the garment, and made of non-stretch, often thicker stabilizer fabric. What kind of fabric this is, again, will depend on your purposes, but most often we use a patch of a non-woven like leather or vinyl, and use fabric glue (that is, glue which is made to adhere fabric to fabric, such as our favourite: fabri-tac) to attach the piece, which may be reinforced with stitching where possible around any edges. This will keep fabric from stretching, and prevent fraying in any raw edges.
We recommend reinforcing any woven fabric that you’re putting holes in, or expecting to support the weight of larger resin or print pieces.
Do note that putting a single pin through a single hole in the fabric will allow your piece to spin 360 degrees freely, which may or may not be what you’re looking for. (In this case, I enjoyed it very much.)
Note: you may find fusible interfacing is enough for this. Fusible interfacing can be purchased at fabric and hobby stores, and is made for stabilizing fabrics, and stopping them from stretching or fraying.
Directly Gluing Pieces to your Cosplay
Sometimes there truly is no space for any hardware, or the piece is so tiny and light that anything other than gluing it down seems silly. These are also often pieces that are cleaned by wiping gently with a damp cloth, and not submerged or put in a washing machine. An example above: this tiny end to a belt from our Jinx (Arcane) kit.
In these cases, you’ll need a glue that works with both flexible fabric and a rigid print or resin. This can be done one of two ways:
First, with a flexible superglue, such as our favourites above from Bob Smith Industries –– Insta-flex++ is clear and uses a rubber formula, and IC-2000 is black and is even stronger. The glue being flexible keeps the edges of the accessory from pulling up when the fabric flexes and pulls away under it, which is especially important in the cases of fabrics with some stretch.
In these cases, score or otherwise rough up the surface of your print. If you’re gluing to a non-stretch, non-woven fabric such as vinyl or leather, you may also want to gently score the surface of that, or sew a few lines of stitches on your sewing machine so the glue can grab onto the stitches
In this case I also very gently scored around the edge of the piece, so I would know the boundary of my scoring lines.
You will need to watch out for glue leaking through your fabric as you don't want to accidentally glue your belt to the table, or glue the front of your shirt to the back. Try putting a piece of cardboard lined with wax paper down under the piece to protect your surface or other layers of the costume, as it can be peeled off after.
Second, with an intermediary fabric layer. If you don't have flexible superglue or can't source it locally, you can try this method instead. Using regular super glue, or another adhesive which is rated for both plastics/resins and fabrics, put a vinyl patch on the back of your piece, with the plastic side against your resin or print. (You may wish to score this for better adhesion, especially if your vinyl has a shiny coating on it, as these are hard to adhere to!)
Once that’s dry, use fabric glue on the more fabric-like remaining face of the vinyl, and adhere it to your fabric surface. Again, be careful your glue doesn’t leak through and stick to anything else!
This method is also useful for fabric backing pieces! This will make pieces that sit against bare skin sit more comfortably both by providing cushioning, and by keeping non breathable plastic from sitting straight on your skin and making you sweat. This method can also cover jagged or just ugly backs of prints or casts. We usually use felt for this because it’s soft, you can stretch it gently over curves, and it doesn’t fray.
This is the inside of one of our ponytail gaskets.
Why not just use Velcro?
There are many situations where Velcro (or "hook and loop tape") may be the most logical choice, especially for very large pieces that need a lot of surface area coverage. However, it can be very high profile/thick-looking, and velcro can snag on both fabric and wigs, damaging the surface of the fabric and often tangling or matting wigs. We suggest it for big pieces only.
To adhere velcro, we suggest sewing the loop (soft) side to your fabric, as this way, the hook sides don't risk touching the garment when it's folded or packed. The hook (rough) side should be sewn to a strip of fabric (around all the edges and then through the middle in an X or concentric lines) and then glued to the back of your armour or accessory piece.
What about magnets?
Magnets also have many useful situations, however, for pieces that don't need to be removed often or easily, they can be very easy to lose. Sideways impacts can slide your printed piece free and send it falling! This might cause your piece to get lost or damaged.
If you would like to use magnets, we suggest using epoxy to glue one half to the rigid piece, and then make a fabric pocket for the other, which is then sewn to your garment. This is so that there’s a layer of fabric between the magnets when they’re together for cushioning.
Why epoxy over superglue? Magnets are very strong, so we like to the strongest glue possible. Epoxy has a high volume that allows it to have a lot of surface contact with the magnet. We suggest putting the magnet onto the piece with glue, and then putting a piece of painter's tape over the magnet until the glue is fully set to prevent it from getting accidentally pulled off by attraction to nearby metal.
