Flying Universe Helmet or Steampunk Diving Helmet

I had this dream in which the people of a town would take take turns putting on a suit and flying around the universe. The only problem was, when they returned they had grown all sorts of tumors and their bodies would fall apart when the suit was opened. I woke up in the middle and wrote down "Tumor flying universe suit/Animal characteristics chamber" on a piece of paper and went back to sleep. Unfortunately, I do not remember what animal characteristics chamber means but I did remember the suit. It was basically an an old diving suit with way too many attachments. So...

To start, I needed a wooden ball. I really wanted to get started on this project while the memory was still fresh in my mind so I decided to make one myself. I glued together 4 1x4 of pine and cut out a basic ball shape with my band saw. I then used a belt sander to smooth down the edges.

From there, I tapered one side of the ball.

Then, I sketched out where to drill the holes for the various ports and hoses etc.

Drilled the holes...

Base coat...

Metallic paint...

Then I looked a picture of an old diving helmet. I had forgot to make the neck and shoulders. So, I cut a couple of pieces out with my band saw to make the neck/shoulder piece

Two coats of paint with light sanding in between later and it totally started to look like a diving helmet.

The next step was to dent the surface of the wood to make it look like it was hammered. I took a pachinko ball and put it in the round indentation by the wire cutters on a pair of needle nose pliers. I probably should have used a ball peen hammer, but I did not have one.

I pounded, and pounded.

And more pounding.

I wanted the the pieces for the port holes and such to be made of metal so I went shopping. I spent a good hour at the hardware store picking out randoms pieces from every department to put on my helmet.

I glued random pieces together to make the port holes, and filled the other holes with whatever I could find.

Now I just need a suit.

Lamp

To celebrate the one year anniversary of this blog I decided to do something special. Special like lamp. My initial concept involved a working lamp with a led, but I quickly abandoned this because the led was too bright. It really messed up the lighting in my tiny apartment. So... I decided to make a non working lamp and light it in post with After Effects.

Wood.

Sexy wood.

Shiny.

Sexy shiny wood.

Paint it black with Instagram.

This is literally trash that drilled holes in to put my sexy wood in. The piece on the left is left over from some super magnets. The piece on the right is from a spray bottle. I used to spray my cat with it when he was bad, but he has been especially good lately.

More trash (tagboard from the recycling and an old pillow case).

Trash glued to other trash.

More glue.

Trash + trash...

= 0

Sexy wood + trash...

= :/

Put it all together... Lamp.

Leather Bag

I have found that, at least when working in small scale, leather is very easy to work with. It is flexible enough to get almost any shape you want, yet stiff enough to hold that shape. It also takes to super glue very well. Anyway, I needed a few vintage leather bags for a scene and did not want to spend any money on them.

To do this, I cut up an old laptop case for the body, and an old belt for the sides. The belt leather is quite a bit thicker and will help the bag to stand on it's own. I then ironed folds in the leather to define the edges of the bag.

Using super glue, I glued the first piece of the belt leather to the bottom of the bag.

I then glued the sides in place...

and glued the sides to the front...

and finally back of the bag. Very simple.

I wanted to add straps to give it a little more character so I cut some thin strips of leather out of the old laptop case.

I took a paper clip and bent it around the rounded edge of a pair of needle nose pliers to make...

tiny metal loops for the straps.

I then glued the rings into the small straps...

and glued them to the front of the bag. I glued the long straps to the backside of the bag and threaded them through the metal loops on the front. Finally, I added a metal button to the front flap.

Using sand paper, I roughed up the leather to make it look well used. And that's it!

Tiny Books!

It turns out that making a tiny book is almost exactly the same as a making a regular size one. The only difference is that when making a real book you want to use acid free everything (ie. paper, ink, glue, fabric etc...) so it will not degrade over time. But I don't need this to last forever, so I am just using whatever I have around.

I started by cutting out a cover out of cardboard, a stack of pages out of newsprint and an endsheet out of 80# paper. The endsheet needs to be sturdier than the rest of the pages because it will be holding the pages to the cover.

I cut the endsheet slightly smaller than the cover then folded it to match.

I then glued the pages into the endsheet starting with the spine and then the front and back pages. I then trimmed the excess on the face, head and foot.

Next, I cut a piece of fabric for the outside cover.

I trimmed the fabric so I could fold it around the cover without too much of it overlapping.

If this where a regular sized book, you would want to use glue for this part, but it's not so.... I used double stick tape to attach the fabric to the cover. You can see the tape is a little bit shiney on the cardboard.

I did use glue to attach the endsheet and pages to the inside of the cover. I did not want the tape to be visible around the seams.

And that's it!

I should mention that this book was made to be seen. It will in the foreground for most of the animation. I made several other books to sit on the shelves in the background. Because the background books are not meant to be seen close up, I did not put nearly as much work into them as I did this one. Most of those books are just a cardboard shell with foam inside to give them volume. And that is a pun.

Tiny Furniture (Book Shelves)

Basically, I needed some furniture to occupy an office set I was building for an upcoming animation. In the past I haven't spent a lot of time on the furniture (and you can tell) so this time I decided to step it up a bit. I started with some 1/4" plywood and cut out the various pieces I needed.

I wanted to make these shelves "Fancy" so I added a bevel to the front edge of the top and bottom pieces.

I used my my homemade Dremel router table to make the bevel.

Router tables for the Dremel are fairly easy to make and it do a very good job. Here's a shot of the underside.

The bevel is a little grainy but with a little sanding...

I started assembling the pieces one by one.

I added a little wood glue on the edge. When working on something this small, It really helps to blot the glue with a rag before putting the pieces together. This helps to rid the piece of excess glue.

I used 1/4" braid nails to secure the pieces together. The nails a so small that I needed to start them with a pair of needle nose pliers.

I picked up this tiny hammer in the wood craft section at Menards. It works really well on the braid nails.

Using a punch, I inset the nails so they won't be visible.

I filled the tiny holes with wood putty and sanded the whole piece.

To continue with the "Fancy" theme I stained the wood with a dark reddish stain. I got quite a bit on my workbench so I decided to stain that too. Well, maybe decided isn't the right word.

I wanted the final piece to look like it had been used so I only added two coats of polyurethane. This should make it look shinier in some spots than others.

Finally, I drilled a hole in the bottom of the piece to secure it to the floor.

After a little "roughing up" the finished shelf is ready for action.