August anticipation

'Allo folks! Another month, another set of news. Also I've really slipped to the end of the month with updates now, will have to work my way backwards later. I blame the excessive business travel of august - which may tbh be surpassed by September as it's looking right now. Urgh. We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, updates!

Suit rig:

A decent amount of progress if I may say so myself.

• Assembled and mounted the top half of the mold. Minor tolerance jank, but should be okay enough as a starting point.

• Did a slew of Dremel-cutting and re-sealing for modelling mistakes where I missed an overcutting angle etc. Couple of them around the hips and feet that made it very tricky to remove the mannequin without edges touching it.

• Experimented with outer edge sealing techniques, assembly processes and such. This is where it gets a bit tricky. Should probably have made a recessed trough along the edge to get the silicone lining to fit better. Currently it adds at least 1-2mm at maximum compression, and a shitload of friction when attempting to slide chamber pieces in place. There's at least one tight corner slot near the middle where it is a showstopping problem.

• Tried the current silicone liner option, and kinda' concluded it'll be troublesome. Can get small leaks in corners and occasional tricky spots that are very hard to plug with putty. Plus, the whole friction issue mentioned above.

• Figured out another, working edge sealing method. It's a bit more work per sealing than I'd like, but there's a workable combo here:

  • No liner, so the clamps give a nice flow-minimizing tight slot and the pieces fit together easily.

  • seal edge with hot glue all around. Colored, so any fuckups are visible.

  • apply plumber's putty to any fuckups when discovered during casting. Need to verify it with latex later, but the water testing was fine.

• Managed to properly test and verify the sealing method. Picture evidence of water surface omg! That said, did have one screw-up - forgot to anchor the mannequin feet properly. De-socketed, floated up and put a shitload of pressure on the outer wall. Emergency drainage ensued :)

Barring any further unforeseen problems, we're more or less on the home stretch for actual latex filling here.

• Improve the emptying pipework somehow. A bit tricky to tap the water out atm, no proper valve.

• Verify that tiny latex leaks are fixable

• Clean up, throw in a fresh floor sheeting

• Conduct a full fill test with water

• Prepare the mannequin, final assembly plus surface treatments

• Do a full-scale latex cast

I'm reasonably sure I'll have trouble with latex remnants on the chamber wall getting stuck on the cast suit upon opening since the tolerances are so damn small, but yeah... Tricky scenario.

I'm equally sure that I'll need to do another version of the chamber sometime in the near future. The current one should be enough to prove the concept, get a few slightly wonky suits out and learn a slew of lessons. Next one will (hopefully) be the actual production grade thing.

Current notes for future design stuff:

• Increase chamber hollowing scale from 15mm to 20mm. Will up the liquid amount from 35 to 45L or so, but probably worth it. I'd go all the way to 25 if I wasn't so nervous about the weight and forces involved.

• Add the trough/recession around the edges so a silicone edge liner might work. If it doesn't, no biggie, edge-gluing still works fine.

• Try to make it a 2-pieces mold, e.g. by handling the awkward foot angles. Fewer edge seals equals fewer potential failure points.

• Add some sort of shape-retaining thicker bands or reinforcements around the circumference if I 2-piece it. Looks like there may be issues with the water pressure bending the plastic walls slightly out of shape. Maybe do a hybrid solution wooden outer-wall with insulation foam filler towards the printed plastic pieces? Could work...

• Some sort of guide-rods for getting the lid piece(s) in place. Right now I can tell it'll be a bit challenging to remove the lid pieces without accidentally touching lid-coating on the inside to suit-coating from a cast, which could potentially ruin a whole suit.

• Try to avoid the 90-degree corners the chamber currently has around the head. Very difficult to seal properly. Not that easy to model e.g. rounded edges for this with my current techniques, so idk idk.

• Obvious: ensure no fuckuppy negative angles and a perfect edge thickness on the outside.

Other stuff:

Webshop / hoods:

The shop's ticked along nicely over the summer, but mostly out of stock on the fancier things. I'll drop a season opener post in September and kick off the restocking soon after I hope.

Besides the points from the July post though, one additional thing sprang to mind. Swapping zippers with lacing (and a back-panel) should be worth the effort as a default option. Would allow for a lot more fit flexibility, which has been one of the main issues so far. Never done it before though, so will need a bit of effort/time to develop the solution.

Life in general:

I mentioned possible great-for-the-workshop news in last post too. Annoyingly that's still pending and taking longer than expected. Still positive though, so I just need to survive the angst of the wait and hope for the best. Will drop details and declare story time if/when it goes through!

Also, ~7kg dropped over the summer. Another 7kg and back to rubbery suiting we go, woo!

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Yet again, thank you all for the support throughout all of this! You know the drill - anything I glossed over? Unclear? Something to write more about? All feedback's welcome!

I'm guessing the next update will have at least a full-fill test, and hopefully even the first latex cast attempt. Feels like the finish line is in sight!