Updateness though a bit Lateness

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Elmo on Nathan, work in progress


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Monstrous fangs, top set painted and modeled


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Skulls test

Yeah, I think my blog titles are terrible, too. We'll get over it.

Looking at the calendar it seems that a LONG TIME has passed since the last blog update, but really just a weekend and a half... and the two weeks in between.

Okay, a long time.

Last weekend, I don't even remember exactly what happened, but a new FX volunteer, Matt, came out and did diligent work on the vacuum former's oven—drilled a zillion holes in a very difficult material, and tested out a couple different configurations of heater coil with me. Initial testing gave us way too high a resistance, so we went with a bunch of shorter coils in parallel—but then we found that a coil or two had lower resistances, giving us uneven heating. A good set of experiments, and tedious, but that's science for you. He then went on to help with the shifting of materials for a bit before escaping the greater oven that is the Lab.

Yesterday I normalized the coil resistances, but that's about it on the oven so far.

Phil and Yvonne have continued their explorations in dentistry, and are getting better and going deeper into new territory every visit, I'm quite pleased. Brad (right? Darn these names) and Kyle also got to see the results of their previous tooth casting, and do a bit more in the sculpting department.

I've spent a couple of weekday sessions working on Nathan's Elmo, and have pics online now (link at the bottom). He'll be ready to mold and cast soon, which is good, because time is short! One catch is, the horns need to be roto-molded, and we haven't built the roto-molder yet. Also, I need to hook Crystal in and talk about costuming and the horn-hat (otherwise, it's a gimmee-cap with the bill cut off, and nobody really wants that).

Last weekend I spun up the remaining ring sections for the vortex and today I drilled and assembled these into rings for the vortex tunnel's outer layer. Last weekend Debra (not Deborah, as it turns out) helped with that some (if I recall correctly). Events kept her away today, but I suspect we'll see her tomorrow again and I'll put her to work drilling holes for the eye-bolts for the guy wires (unless she reads this and sensibly decides to hide).

Robert and Henry have been continuing in their Blood Pump work and I believe it's ready for mounting and powering now—though I need to buy another package of my ad-hoc O-Ring material to seal them. The original stuff has apparently been sequestered away by mice, or goblins, or something.

I'm hoping Jean brings the new burner to the Lab soon—she sent pictures, and the work in progress is lovely—so I can cook up some water and begin the color work for our custom blood formulation.

While I was waiting for Tall Matt to wrap up his work at the Lab today, so I could carpool him home, I threw together some concept skulls just to see if I could—I guess I can, so I'll be making a variety of skulls to decorate furniture and fireplaces. I'm thinking vacuum molding forms, so I can make a bunch of 'em cheap.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something or someone... I'll fill in on the next post if I remember!