October optimism

'Eyo folks!

I'm guessing most of you saw the Facebook post about me taking a bit of a break from some stuff, e.g. weekly post and most shop stuff. It's a long story with a bunch of day job drama. On the upside it's all heading towards the "best case scenario" that'll have me coming out ahead with a good long-term solution, but it still takes a toll on the stress levels. By march next year I should have everything settled properly, and then I'll also spill (some) of the beans on what all of this stuff has been about. More importantly, get back into the rubbery fun.

Until then though, I still plan on working on the 'big rig' and keeping y'all updated. It's a lot less stressful than the full 'public presence' stuff with the FB page/shop/weeklyposting, and the huge scale of everything keeps the work pace at a nice zen level. Plus, need to finish the damn thing so I can make suits again omg.

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Suit rig, what's new?

• Finished the fiberglass clay shell and got it peeled. Minor crack in one of the back pieces from inexperience, really gotta' do all the clay in one batch instead of interrupting work and having parts of it harden before attaching more. Easy fix though, nice material to work with for this kind of prototype/proof of concept work.
• Got the simple 'mold slots in/out' method of a head-socket and two feet-sockets validated. Big whoop and all that, but it's always a nervous situation when I've eyeballed tolerances. Not the diameters, mind you, that's easy enough. The eyeballing is more on the plug length/socket depth and extra diameter needed for the angled insertion. Anyway, works fine, should do the trick for primetime when a surface-prepped mold needs to be inserted. Tricky bit then: can only touch the plugs. We'll see how it goes when we get there!
• Built a simple support stand for the mold. Not really space-optimized, but it'll do the trick. I'm loving the stupid simple method of making attachment struts too - screw in a screw into the wood stand, wrap fiberglass clay from screw to mold, and voila. Attaches and holds up well, movable via the screw, etc. The somewhat "shallow" front bit on the 3-part shell should also result in the mold being mostly accessible and visible when working on things, so another point scored there.

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What's up next?

• Get the mold in place, ensure inserting/removing works perfectly, and figure out how I'll be moving the shells around in the casting area when sealing things up. Sounds like a non-issue, but it's a small space and a big mold.
• Add plumbing. I'm thinking of simply drilling out a 35mm connector down by the head socket and using standard household plumbing parts. The actual plumbing should be simple on this one - a drain valve at floor level, and a filler-tube going up past the top of the shell. I'll rely on simply pouring in liquid to start with, can work on flow velocity and other trickier bits once the concept is proven to work.
• Seal the shell. Well, rather, make sure it can be sealed. As you can tell from photos the edges are a bit janky, and no surprise there whatwith me using clear tape and cardboard for the edge bases. Coulda' done it with nice clay if I'd remodeled the workshop a bit, but eh, judgement call. I'm reasonably certain that with the relatively low volumes of liquid it'll be okay enough with a clay/wax/siliconeCaulk seal, if I don't solve it via simply adding a strip or two of window insulation foam along the side. 
• Test the shell+mold liquid functionality. I'll need to seal it up, fill with water and make sure the basics work.
• Finish the mold. Haven't sanded and prepped the surface fully yet, as y'all can probably tell from pictures. I'll do that once I'm sure the heavy lifting and carpentry is done with, so I don't accidentally ruin the fresh surface.
• Cast~~

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Sidenote, lessons:

• Definitely going to look into casting a regular fiberglass shell for future molds. The clay stuff is great for PoC'ing, but it's a lot of labour and can shatter. I genuinely don't have the space for casting normal fiberglass though, so we'll have to get the concept proven before I put effort towards figuring that bit out.
• Alternatively, could probably do an acrylic sheet melt for the outer shell. Might be a bit more expensive, but would be both useful and neat with a transparent shell. It'd be a big heavy sheet and a lot of heat required to get it properly fitted. Might not be viable in my small workshop right now. Eh. We'll see.

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That's all for now folks. I'm leaving for a job trip to Lodz in an hour. Next weekend it's back to the workshop grind again. Stay alive y'all, and I'll see you for the next round. As per usual - thank you all for the support, and don't hesitate to ping/comment!