Edwin's Projects update

July has begun and, while I've been fiddling with vampire teeth, dental acrylic, and ... well, that's about it... since March... I've turned the Activity Knob up to 11 the last couple of weeks. I'll be posting status updates here as the season progresses, so tune in and keep up!

Last weekend I worked on some teeth on Saturday (added the pics to this Flickr set: http://tinyurl.com/dbdx6q ) and ended up roughing out a half-dozen sets, including a new experimental one on my (new) duplicate that goes over the gums, to give me more control over the tooth. I ordered an expensive (crazy expensive!) set of acrylic stains so I can take better control over the color of my product than I get with plain dental or fingernail acrylics.

Sunday I built up some sculpting turntables and head armatures and generally fiddled around, and then did some actual sculpting (with Beth, whose work isn't online yet)... pics of the little guy I call Elmo, who has an hour of work or so in him, here: http://tinyurl.com/njsbpc He looks kind of ragged because he is... an hour doesn't give much time to clean up the clay! Also, working in the 100 degree Lab makes the clay a bit softer than normal, and stickier too (and this is heat-tolerant clay even).

Then, later in the week, I worked up a fairly comprehensive project list for Scare 2009 (which will kick BUTT) -- it clocks in at 148 entries right now... not ALL of which are tasks for me to do, but still, the core group is about a dozen of us, we are going to be BUSY.

Working off of the task list, I worked up a shopping list and then went shopping!

I bought a metric boatload of materials from Smooth-On (one of my favorite suppliers), then scattered more of my cash across another half dozen or so local stores (Armadillo Clay, Harbor Freight, Lowes, Hobby Town, Westbrook Metal, and maybe others).

Used the shiny new tubing bender (three-roller variety from Harbor Freight, model #99736) to do trial bends on some 1/2" square pipe, 1" EMT (metal electrical conduit, which is actually an inch and an eight OD), and 3/4" EMT. Got some excellent results, some iffy results, one bad result. Overall, an excellent tool, and for $160 it's a HECK of a lot cheaper than the next cheapest which clocks in at $1,200 (or did I see one for $800? The overpriced stuff all runs together after a while).

An interesting result of crushing the 1.25" OD pipe into the 1" dies is that it forces it into an oval shape that is strong in the direction of curvature. I don't know if I care or not, but there it is. It also requires slow adjustments or the tube will squirrel out of plane, which is bad. To get a full quarter circle uses a lot of effort! And I have sixteen of these to make! Well, 15 now.

I'm also testing a variety of (cheap-ish) wheels and casters to use as supports for the pipes, which are destined to become a middle-sized vortex tunnel.

Worked up a design for a vacuum table with companion radiant oven; bought the supplies to build it of course. Got the heater wire online last week, not to bad on price, hope it behaves. Also, have a query in to Regal Plastics about cheap thermoform plastic.

Worked up a design for chunk-tolerant blood pumps, using 4" PVC schedule 40 pipe, some miscellaneous other PVC fittings, weather stripping as an O-Ring seal, and racket balls for check valves. So far, the O-Ring test has been VERY promising, I'm quite encouraged. May get some leakage at the junction of the ring, but overall I expect the backing material to keep most stress off the seal, and with a 4" ID pipe I'm moving a LOT of blood. I'm going to use some 6" stroke pneumatic cylinders I have laying around to drive dual 4" PVC blood pumps with alternate cycles to get nearly continuous flow.

Did some research and found a company selling water-soluble skull caps... and then did some MORE research because their prices hurt my sensibilities and I decided that they were using PVA to make these caps; and also using PVA to make prosthetic appliances for cuts and stuff. Which is AWESOME, because I'm about to order a HUGE amount of both PVA and Methylcellulose for my fancy-shmancy slime needs (via Chemistry Store Online). Very neat; if this works, I'll be a happy camper. Oh, had to run out to Sally Beauty to get a few foam heads, to try to make skull caps on. May have to build those up some so they are big enough.

Almost forgot; bought and reviewed relevant chapters in "Clinical Aspects of Dental Materials: Theory, Practice, and Cases"... good book! Though not as good as the one we found at Half Price books, whose name escapes me.

Okay, have to do more shopping. Then, coming up; tooth work, sculpting, and more experiments. Next weekend, life-casting! With any luck.