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Skin and Bones

A project log for Pandelphi

MorningStar's Walking, Talking, Flying and Swimming Oracle

morningstarMorning.Star 05/23/2018 at 00:000 Comments

Body Templates

Having got the frame all in one piece I turned my attention to the skin. I've templated it out in this awful check pattern cloth I've had for years. Its been around since I was a kid, we had a table-cloth the same when I was a toddler, I remember it clearly. Then when the girls were little school uniforms were a total pain to buy, the schools formed alliances with local businesses to supply things like little summer dresses, trousers for winter and of course overpriced jumpers with the school logo embroidered in. Bea fell and tore her trousers and the elbows out of her jumpers, and Molly just grew out of everything as fast as I bought it.

I learned to repair first, then got bolder and bought fabric to make a set of dresses and trousers copied from the bought ones. After that I only needed to buy enough fabric for another one or two each time, because as they scaled up, I reused the panels for smaller parts on the new ones and saved a fortune.

I also cut off the jumper logos and stitched them to cheap plain blue sweatshirts. ;-)

I would have got away with it too, if it werent for those pesky kids... Cloth comes in multiples of a metre, and eventually it wasnt worth the hassle for the price any more as they outgrew it.

The cloth is folded in half to make it symmetrical and reduce the cutting. All identical parts and mirrored parts should be cut this way to preserve the pattern and bias of the weave where possible. Plus its a lot faster...

Headhunted by corporate industry.

Right to Bear Arms (Thank you @Thomas Shaddack lol).

A crown fit for a head.

After much scratching of mine, I managed to approximate the shape I needed by darting in the top edge. 

Cub is designed for the entire family...

Robot Overlords need cuddles too.

Cub is filled with polystyrene beads, so needs an inner membrane to keep them all in place. After scaling all the parts correctly with the template, they are transferred to the target material and cut out.

Then sewn together with a zigzag stitch to accommodate the stretch fabric. Shown fitted with a template skull, thats now complete. Its basically an odd-shaped bag that lays over the frame like a saddle, stuffed with beads, and provides the flesh under the outer skin.

Well it will do. Right now it looks more like Eeyore than Pooh XD.

The skull took several attempts trying to smooth out a PVC version of the cardboard one. That didnt work out so well, and in the end I decided framework would work better.

It did, but even with foam rubber on it, the fabric looked angular over it. Then I remembered a trick I used before on Decal to make polystyrene laminate. It just stretches over the fame and screws down.

It's also monumentally tough. It has been tested to resist multiple blows with a hammer, water, oil, chemicals, and crushing, as has the frame. PVC doesnt shatter or deform, it just springs back into shape so the only real danger to the contents is punctures by a sharp object which would have to be deliberate.

Bear Metal

So while I was thinking defensively, I added a layer of EM and radiation shielding to harden it beyond anything it will encounter in the home.

The shielding extends to the waterproof servo boots and works both ways, removing interference from the servos as well as to them so Cub can cope in all environments inside and out.

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