So, that was a thing

Wired up all 200 feet of LED strip (it only took 3-4 hours). The hard part was calculating it all, spec'ing it all, making sure everything was actually going to work. So that's done and delivered.

Also finished the costume for my friend's kid. We didn't get to work on it on the weekend so that was a big push yesterday and today. That and being so tired yesterday I gave up around five and basically went to bed (woke up for dinner then went right back to sleep).

The best I can say for the costume is during the last push I finally started to remember what I was doing. It takes a while to blow the dust off skills you haven't used in a while. It all more-or-less worked but I'm sorry the version #2 (version #5 if you count the muslins) of the hood is a little too small. All the others were too big but somehow we overcompensated. Pity, because that medium canvass really drapes well, and I lined it and everything.

(In case you are wondering, that's a simplified Arrow Season One as a vest instead of a long-sleeve body suit. The hood-and-shoulders is detachable, strapping under the arms and velcro'd to either side of the zipper in front. The raw un-hemmed edge at the shoulders is one of the "tells" of that outfit, like the contrasting lining and the chevrons on the angled twill tape (done with iron-on patch material...I am not one to be afraid of expedient construction methods).



Means I am basically clear of favors and designs and other projects with deadlines and can go back to practicing violin and repairing my bass. And possibly shaping a bronze sword; there's a couple of people who offer a raw stone-cast bronze blade for reasonable bucks.

Grading on a curve

Dracula is open. The LEDs are calculated and now it is up to the theater company to actually get around to purchasing them in time to install them. And I took most of today off to work on my friend's costume (I was really sleepy after being in rehearsal until almost midnight two nights running anyhow).

Vinyl (that's the generic term; you can call the embossed stuff pleather if you like and I usually do), is a real pain to sew. It alternately grabs and slips in the machine, bunching up at the slightest excuse. I sprayed the presser foot with silicone lubricant and that helps a little. A trick I just read about is to smear vaseline on the fabric just in front of the foot.

It also doesn't heal. You need to use a wide stitch or risk weakening the fabric so much it tears like a page from a memo pad. And you really don't want to cut open a seam and re-do it. You also don't want to pin anywhere but the selvage, which makes pinning even that much more pleasant.

Flattening the seams is almost worse. Because you can't press it. Only way is to glue. The one nice part is that if you glue a hem first, you can actually topstitch it for strength and looks without it going crazy on you.

But I also found out close to the end of the day that because it doesn't rebound the stitches end up loose, and you can't backstitch for strength because you'll just make a hole. Which means my seams were weak. Because my friend needed it for pictures I temporarily protected the seams with a few drops of fabric tack, but when I get it back I'm going to back all of them up with seam tape. Or bias tape and more glue (top stitching would be even nicer but I think it would look cluttered at this stage.

Interestingly enough, the actual show-used costume this is based on did no hems and all of the seams were "open," instead of stitching leather to leather they topstitched the leather to a black jersey knit. That gave the seams a little give for movement.

If I do another personal project with this material, I'll either use a similar trick or I'll do lapped seams. Or if I am lucky enough to have garment weight instead of the current upholstery weight, something like a flat-felled seam.




In any case, that's one more fixed-date deliverable off the table. Aside from lingering tasks with this LED thing I'm able to relax again. Just in time. My recovery from the last bout with the unknown illness was in danger of hitting a relapse if I had to keep up this week's crazy schedule.

Sorta...

Sometimes you have to take success where it comes. I've been feeling better this week (possibly due to change in diet). "Repaired" my comforter cover once again by hemming it short over the tear. Done this so many times I've already had to add a strip of fabric to extend it again. Well, this time it got so short I was "short-sheeted" all night -- and it was a cold night, too. So enough of that. Checked out a few websites and there was a Japanese bedding store convenient from my work with a good deal.

Which as it turned out I'd read wrong, and I spent more than I expected -- combination of having already had the thing brought back to the counter, not wanting to waste the drive (or go through another cold night) and not a little impostor syndrome. And sure I was thinking about sewing my own but to get one this good I'd spend close to a hundred on fabric and at least six hours on sewing. Which if you counted as opportunity cost would be more than what I spent (but you can't really do that -- it isn't as if there's six hours of hourly work at the same base rate just waiting around for me to fit it in).

So when all is said and done...mission accomplished. Just not in the way I set out to do it.



Which is often the way it goes. Take my latest prop project. The vacuum former machine is broke, and won't be fixed this year. Why am I paying membership to this place, again? So a re-think. I'm still flirting with either laser engraving or CNC wood routing, but right now the idea that offers the best in capture of surface detail, lightweight yet sufficiently robust/rigid, and ease of duplication (I might be making as many as twelve bridge segments) is casting in Smooth-Cast 300 plastic. Might cast around some styrene or aluminium stiffeners, or even metal if I chose to go with magnets to hold all the parts together.

I haven't figured out yet how best to interlock the pieces, and how to mold the resultant. I'm okay with slush-cast molds but still inexperienced at block molds (which might make it good reason to do it this way). And one other detail I'm fairly sure of; I'm going to do the actual casting at work instead of smelling up my kitchen with it.

So I've got a pile of basswood and similar now, and once I've solved the dimensional adjustments the foam-core mock-up showed me I needed, it is off with the traditional tools (aka x-acto and sandpaper) and try to put some nice detail into the masters. Need to seal the surface of the wood pretty good -- might just skin everything with Bondo so I can put a basic texture on the surface. And oh, yes -- I'm pretty much out of Apoxie Sculpt as well.

At least as of the moment, the only part TechShop will play in this prop now is potentially 3d-printing some fluted columns.

Raygun XV.I

Raygun is shipped. Fatigue is already hitting.

I was on schedule enough to try for some of the stretch goals. Made two out of three, more or less, of the revised stretch goals. The original stretch goal was to hand it over early enough so "friends" would see it and order their own. When the CAD went long, there was no longer any way of achieving that window (I didn't have any techniques fast enough to make dupes in the time that would remain).

An idea that came at the last minute was to add pouches and stuff to the belt, Science Patrol style. Not enough time. It was that close to the wire; I could make those up in one morning.

But I did have the leisure to make the belt itself -- aka it was a stretch goal to make a belt for the holster -- and I even dared to make the alternate buckle design, the "Radio Box" buckle.




I have no progress pics for the latter. Not a single one. This was sort of the ultimate in micro-fab. I finished the holster at 11:15 this morning, discovered there was a one-hour slot available on the otherwise totally reserved out laser cutters, jogged down to BART, and did the Inkscape files on my laptop on the train. Ran the vacuum former and raced back home.

What was the build? Took an Altoids tin and pulled (aka vacuum formed) a duplicate out of PETG. Laser-cut an acrylic plug for the back, glued that up, and spray-painted it chrome silver.  (Ride Eternal, Shiny and Chrome!) Laser-cut a faceplate from 1/8" white acrylic including all the component mounting holes and a speaker grill, screwed some random indicator lights and switches into the holes and hot-glued a bit of interesting metallic fabric behind the speaker grill. Glued the face-plate on with Loctite Plastic Bond and stuffed small wood screws into the corner holes, each held in with a dab of wood glue.

The reason for the vacuum-form step was to avoid having to cut holes in the Altoids tin (which is sharp and metal and not fun to be poking around inside. The screws in the corner are dual-purpose; both decorative, and if I'd had time they would have actually held the faceplate, so I could cram some basic electronics inside the box.



The belt, I also didn't take pictures of. The buckle is a chunk of CNC'd aluminum, with a decorative "button" in laser-cut acrylic. Unfortunately file transfer between Fusion 360 (stl files) and Illustrator (for the laser cutter) is difficult. I roughed in the button by eye but it doesn't look quite right.

Incidentally, that shape...large gentle curves in profile, and rounded corners, turned out to be a bit of a pain. So many of these methods and sources, they want to add more. Extend the curves, smooth everything, add details. It is tough to get the very clean lines of cartoons and certain design periods (like Atomic Age, for instance).

I ran short of time to find bolts that were short enough, so instead of tapping the holes I just rammed sheet metal screws in. I can always drill out and tap some day in the future, right? The "ears" were also just undersized; they hold the belt exactly as designed, but they are too tight to allow the velcro end to pass.

But I'm getting a little ahead. I came very close to just hemming two sides, but at last did the belt the traditional fabric belt way; stitched a tube, turned it inside-out, then ran a line of stitching on both sides a half-presser foot from the edge to help it maintain its shape (since you can't iron pleather, at least not well).

And oh yeah. Turning a 2" wide, 40" long pleather tube inside-out? Not fun. It took me about forty-five minutes to finally wriggle the thing through. (Not helped by the fact that I'd stitched the velcro before making the tube, so that the stitching for the latter wouldn't show).



And thus we come back to the holster. Remember the problem? The gun has this 2" dish on the front, meaning if you make the holster big enough to clear the dish without difficulty, the gun ends up rattling around once in.

So I added padding. I had a big hank of white cotton-linen I'd purchased for pants pockets. No batting, and the fabric stores didn't open until 10 am. So I used cotton balls.

I literally shredded cotton balls until they didn't wad up, then carefully stuffed those into the "coffin liner" shape I'd made. I'd pretty much had it with fabric glues and epoxies, so I hot-glued it inside.

And, yes, this was largely to cover the visible (and ugly) inside. I also tore out the previous glue job and wrapped the pleather around the PETG frame instead of where it had been. So now everything is properly hidden; all that is exposed are all my gaping hems and ripped-out mistakes.

The thing that really keeps the gun snug is thicker padding right around the opening. Since it is flexible, and the gun can be angled to clear the dish, it can be made tight enough to grip the gun decently. So that was yet another fabric tube, with quilting passes done by eye (as an aside, I've always loved that look of ribbed quilting in certain sorts of science fiction costume. In this case, it was strongly functional; it kept the stuffed fabric tube from buckling in an unsightly fashion.)

That, too, was hot-glued in place. And there was no more time or the inclination to tear out more stitches in order to work in a keeper strap, despite the 3d printed Element Tikium snap covers I'd made up.

And maybe it's just me, but it looks so much like some sort of Apollo hardware I immediately dubbed it the "A7L Raygun Holster." 

But here it is in full function (the last pics I managed to take before everything went out the door);

Raygun XV

Raygun is assembled. For all the effort I went through to make it loud and bright, it is a severe under-performer -- as weak as a typical toy. Not sure all the reasons why, but a big part can be traced to the undersized battery.

Today was pretty much all spent (as was yesterday) trying to make a holster. And basically, this thing doesn't holster well. That big fancy dish at the front end means the holster has to be big at the top end, and that means it rattles around.

I started my experiments with soft holsters. I had purchased some clear vinyl for that (as seen on trial #3 above). But soft-side holsters had two fatal flaws; it was difficult to get the dish in, and it was difficult to get the dish out. Even with two hands it tended to hang up.

So I moved to a hard-shell holster. Built out a shape in cardboard and duct tape around my prototype gun, checking frequently to see that it moved correctly. Then slathered up the form with Bondo.

This was a very fast way to rough up the form, and I knew it would stand up to the rigors of the vacuum forming machine. The downside to this sort of additive layering is the dimensions are increasing; if you want a snug fit, you need to reinforce on the inside of the form, then strip away the skin. If I'd had a bunch of plaster, and the time to let it cure, I would have gone that way instead.

A coat of primer for luck, and my new secret weapon; baby powder. I was able to get three clean pulls and got the buck back in one piece, too.

But then the nightmare ensued. I spent hour upon hour trying to fit white pleather around the shell I'd made. On the pleather side, you can't iron the seams to make them lie flat, every stitch leaves a permanent hole (so you can't baste and rip out), and it seems indifferent to many adhesives.

Worse for the PETG. But fortunately I had an epoxy that seems to get a decent bond on it.

While various glues were setting I took a quick file and sandpaper to the CNC'd buckle. I will probably be using that. I had a fun idea to dress up an Altoids tin with some of the various odd indicator lamps and knobs I have lying around, but I got far too hooked on the idea of using a laser-cut faceplate; that would save me from having to punch through the Altoids tin (which never goes well) and also would let me do a cute speaker grill.

But, alas, the lasers are booked solid. And that's too many cuts to want to by hand. So at least the glues finally dried:

Pity the holster is just too loose. Oh, and another smallish problem; the prototype had a shorter emitter. But the way it rattles around in the bucket, it hardly matters. Well -- tomorrow (we've moved final delivery to 5:00 tomorrow) I'll make another run to the fabric store for some batting, and do a quick quilt on the inside of the holster.

And maybe there will be enough time to finish the buckle, and stitch a length of belt. And if I for some reason had more time than that...I thought of putting gear pouches on the belt as well for that full Space Patrol look. Which would be simple boxes stitched up out of the remaining pleather.

With Atomic Tiki buttons -- because I did waste the time running a half-dozen of those off on Sunday night when the 3d printer become mysteriously available despite all expectations.

Oh, yeah. And here's a silly video with the various behaviors illustrated. Perhaps one day I'll make a proper recording of the sounds themselves...

Patch Pockets

Going into tech, no time or money for laundry. Needed to haul that sewing machine out to make more mic belts anyhow, so did some haphazard repairs on a couple pairs of torn pants. One had rear patch pockets. Which meant there was matching material I could salvage to cover a nasty hole.

Short two primers or my latest grenade order would be done. I hinted I'd make a ninth as a special gift to the customer by asking him to pick a number between M38 and M230. He picked M56, which doesn't help me at all -- is not one of the ones identified in the Aliens universe. Ah, well. Means I can do whichever one seems more interesting -- or least annoying.

Got up early and spent a long day repairing mic elements. Every time I dig into the bag full of broken elements, I find a couple more repairable ones trapped in the lining or under something else. I should be okay for the current show, then.

And the raygun got approved for metal. Metal, but still towards the Barbarella end. Which means is time to drop the whole "plywood cutout" idea and see what I can do if I free myself to imagine any kind of intersection I can machine (or CNC) between aluminium, brass, and acrylics.

Oh, like I needed another project!

I've finally managed to get two or three TechShop classes under my belt. Which gives me access to new tools and methods. And also gives me yet more skills to try to develop and maintain.

I'm really tempted as a practice project on the metal lathe to run off an M40 grenade; that's the distinctive one from the James Cameron action/SF film Aliens.

I've found a nicely dimensioned drawing. Most of the cuts are straight-forward. There are a few exceptions of course.

The best option I've found for the plastic cap is 8 pounds worth (sterling, not avoirdupois.) A stick of aluminium rod stock (7/8", 2011 alloy) is under six bucks. There is however a bit of knurling (in the original, it was a crimp) that could be interesting to fabricate. And then since I'm crazy, the dimensioned drawing I have includes how to do the spring-loaded button and a "primer cap" with press-fit inserts. Which could task my current ability to cut accurate holes.

For that matter, I'm not even sure exactly how you best approach a wide internal cut. I only learned how to start off an edge! So the first stop might be to purchase the recommended book on machining and read up a little...



I have two other TechShop projects in the wings already. I'm pretty set now on laser-cutting a third panel of tinted acrylic to give the "Jedi" Holocron a nice depth when I light it from within. Maybe tonight I'll throw some of the electronics together and see how they work. I need to schedule extra time when I go in to cut, because I have yet to go through importing vector art into Illustrator and prepping it to cut. TechShop has lots of licensed copies and a bank of machines you can walk in and use...oh, but they are all PCs, which isn't a show-stopper with me but does mean I might need just a little more time.  And then there's a long waiting list on the lasers, up to a week to be able to reserve a slot on them.

At least for my other project -- a small repair to my rack-mount Sennies -- I won't have to wait in line for the machines. It's just a quick bit of cold saw and drilling, and I already have the steel stock here.



All of these may have to hold a little, though, because those same Sennies are going out for rental soon. Or not. I wouldn't mind the money at all, but I also wouldn't mind having them for my next show, which is going into tech in a week. I've been working the last few days doing inventory and cleaning and testing and I'm going to be pushing to have enough of their mics working again by the time the show starts.



And even more on the long list of projects; I almost wore my new pants last night (they were clean, and they are black, which is more than I can say for anything else I own). But at the last minute I decided the zipper really needs to be reset, and I might as well fix the waistline while I'm at it -- so I threw them back on top of the sewing box.

Ah, so many things to do, so little energy in which to do them! I have no decent clothes, and I'm doing all these period shows anyhow, and I have dreams of making a complete "period" outfit (aka, about as authentic to any specific period Victorian through 1920 as one of the Doctor's outfits). But at the current state of my sewing, the idea of a frock coat is nothing but frightening.

"Simplicity," riiiiight.

Finished my first pair of pants. I took them in by eye and that shifted the waist; it feels comfortable and the line is good, but it doesn't lie straight on the hanger. Same comment for the legs; they don't quite press flat -- more so than I am used to for even jeans with a generous ease in them. I also left off a bunch of the decorative stitching (want to wait on stuff like that until my new presser foot and guide shows up, anyhow). But since they are black, can probably get away with wearing them to work.

Picked up three yards of a very nice looking heathered cotton-poly at just five bucks a yard for my next endeavor. It is a speckled grey that should be dark enough for work. I think I might need to look at a McCall's pattern next, though. I don't like either of the Simplicity trousers I have.

Also cleaned and oiled the Bernina today, and it is purring. Berninas are described by many as a noisier machine, but it like it. It sounds like Industry.



Isn't it the way, though? We humans are hard-wired to want to learn things. If we can't learn where the water hole is or a better way to hunt, we learn the names of all the actors who have played The Doctor, in chronological order (your discretion on whether to include Roland Atkinson and/or Peter Cushing!)

Trouble is, although "life" is not necessarily more complex today as compared to any previous century, there are a great many more specialities you can indulge in. And fields keep evolving. I know how to build mods for games that no-one plays anymore, and I have hard-won skills in software that I'll never run again. And skills with hardware and work-arounds that are mostly replaced by easier solutions.

In theater alone, I know how to construct an old-style canvass flat with glue and tack hammer, how to run an old carbon-arc follow-spot, and even how to lash flats and use stage braces.  Do I really expect to need those skills again?

And, yeah, is is kinda fun to walk down the tool aisles of the local OSH going, "I know what that is, and that, and that, used to own one of those, still own one of those..."

Oh yeah. In true good-money-after-bad tradition, once you've learned a skill, you feel driven to keep it up. Heck, you feel this way even if it turns out you never were any good at it in the first place.  You feel this compulsion anyhow to develop a completely useless and extraneous skill, because it is part of your self-image that you had that skill in the first place.

Which is why this week I've been trying to schedule classes in machining skills I've never had, reading up to improve and extend mixing skills I have, and running a ton of fabric through the Bernina developing sewing skills I thought I had (and turn out to, largely, not have had.) And bemoaning the lack of time to program, play ukelele, draw, write, and do any of the other hundreds of random skills I've picked up over the years.

If you ain't picking seams, you ain't learning

I guess that means I'm learning.

This week has been my first serious project on the Bernina. A pair of pants. And, as it turns out, the scale-up is almost perfect here. I would have been over my head with a frock coat, and probably bored with another pillow case. On pants, I'm learning.

Learning, among other things, that when people say Simplicity patterns tend large (and their 1948 very much runs large), they aren't kidding.  Using Simplicity's own mapping of pattern size to measurements, and a fresh set of measurements I took off my own body...I ended up with a waist about 4" too large!

Seriously, the things were clown pants.  And isn't it always the way, that the seam you have to unpick is the seam you made right after you switched from "machine baste" setting to something tighter?

I don't have a good feel yet for whether this is a simpler pattern or a more complicated pattern for what it is. I do know I basically had to just build it end to end; I couldn't make head nor tail out of the instructions and the many, many pieces until I was actually stitching them together. And not always then, either -- pulled apart the pockets two or three times before I figured out how they were supposed to work.

Now that I understand this pattern, there's several things I'd do different.  There's no reason to put interfacing in the fly, for instance, although the overlap could sure use some.  And there's some of the basting and marking steps I could cut now. Biggest lesson so far, though? Measure your seam allowance. Having a clean seam allowance is just too critical to too many other stages to make it worth being sloppy cutting it.

Also discovered black is painful to work with. Finally gave up on the stupid tailor's chalk and switched to white grease pencil, which I could actually see. It is a heavy, relatively coarse-weave "tent canvas" I'm using that frays a lot and is basically a total pain. The bolt of fabric I carried to the front was a yard short, and this was my hasty second choice.

And my little travel iron actually puts out enough for fusible interfacing.  I think I bought the thing back when I was in the Army. It goes back to at least 1986 -- but then, so does my coffee filter.



Since learning one new thing at a time has never been my way, I also took my first class at TechShop this week.  I'm now permitted to use the cold saw...and more powerful versions of tools I have myself. Many more classes before I'll be able to mill any metal..especially if I want to CNC it.

Carpet-Bagging

Finished my first sewing project.

(A few weeks ago, but this is the first chance I've had to take a picture).

 I figured a tool roll would be a simple project to get used to using the new machine.

And it would allow me to get as intricate as I cared for with different kinds of edge treatments and so forth.

I thought about camo, steampunk-style canvas, even custom-printed fabric, but then I found this cute upholstery fabric at Discount Fabrics and decided to make it carpet-bag style.

There were supposed to be two straps but I only bought one buckle (was hoping to find something nice in brass).

 Lined it with a tighter-weave khaki I found at Stonemountain.  Stitched both pieces together and zig-zagged to protect the hem from fraying.  No, I'm not running out to buy my own serger!

Tried bias tape, flat-felled seam, and self-bias, but then found some fake leather stuff at the fabric store that was simple to stitch in place even with a standard foot.  Held it in place with binder clips while working.

Seamed the pocket parts, attached them to one edge, and worked my way down; pulling them around each tool to form the pocket and stitching the excess in.  If I did it again, I'd run a pulling thread for a neater gather.  That's a piece of soft plastic rescued from an over-the-door shower bag over the VOM, allowing me to use it without removing it from the bag.

The original plan was a fold-over.  I actually worked out all the dimensions on a piece of drafting paper first, which was the pattern I cut the shell from.

But the rounded corners looked funny if you folded it in half.   And the number of tools made it too fat to roll well.

So now it rolls without any folding, and the major downside to that is it flops a bit in the middle.  Ah, well.




Next project will be a 4th Doctor frock coat.  Either that or a new pair of work pants.  Depends on how insane I feel that day.  I learned a lot on this project, including how long it takes to sew even something simple.  Even if it had been a total failure as a tool roll, it would have been a success as a learning project; I played with all sorts of tapes and interfaces and different stitches and seams.

But it works as a tool roll, too.  I am using it every day.


 

Rust and Steel, Cotton and Code

You never quite forget skills, but boy howdy...they can get rusty.  I've been looking over my new Bernina and contemplating projects with it (as it is far too good a machine not to be actively used.)

And I see I've forgotten so, so much.  Either that, or where I got when I was studying costume design and construction was a lot less far than I thought it was.

I was just looking up how the Overlock setting works, and that led me to Overlock Feet, and that led me to the bewildering variety of presser feet available, including the seemingly very useful zipper foot, which also has something to do with Invisible Zippers...

And I don't remember this from when I constructed the Emerald City Chorus back in High School.  I vaguely remember seam tape and maybe a French Seam somewhere, and I know I never did learn the Serger, but the rest of this feels like unknown territory to me.

I remember taking measurements off cast members.  I remember adapting patterns.  I remember working in muslin and doing fitting, I remember stitching in armsceye or pinning breast darts.  But I can't quite remember the details.

And it is obvious, on only a cursory read, that there is so much about fabric types and machine techniques and varieties of seam treatment and so on and so on that I never ever learned.

The only totally for-me thing I have sewn in the past several decades is a pillow slip I just created from a cute Japanese-import cotton print.  And, yeah, my confidence is unshattered; I still think I could make a jacket if I chose.  And my general realism is intact; I know it would be a project of a week or more.  What I'm starting to realize is why it would take that long, and how much of that time would involve learning basic techniques and discovering common pitfalls.  Oh, and also seeing some of the ways sewing can turn into an expensive hobby.



And of course, at nearly the same moment I found an overlock foot on eBay and was sorely tempted, I also discovered I am eligible for a free one-year membership at Tech Shop.

Which would be a chance to finally get some time on milling machine and metal lathe.  As well as access to various metal, wood, plastic, and so forth machines -- restricted mostly by the waiting list, and the need to take the safety and familiarization classes for each machine in turn.

Except, as with the sewing machine, where I've been is in a place where every now and then a project would go better if I had access to so-and-so.  I'm not really in a place where I have a project (or series of projects) that demand frequent access to specific technologies.

Sewing included.  I made a new set of mic bags, and repaired some items around the house, and that basically finishes up the outstanding projects.



My current external task list is to clean up some vacuuform drum magazines, create a 3d-printable model of a Cadillac-Gauge V150, and create a mock-up receiver for a de-militarized Suomi.

On my personal tasks, I want to put more 3d models in my online store (which is now earning about twenty bucks a month but could do much better), and create the (mostly software) infrastructure to make my Duck Node concept a viable theatrical tool.

None of these actually require a lathe.  Or a sewing machine.

Almost Perfect

The WIZ jacket finally failed in performance.

I'd been making a repair about once a weekend.  Each of the ballast resistors came loose once, and several of the solder joints to the flexible LED strip on the collars broke, but until Sunday matinee it had a flawless run.

I am still deeply satisfied, because I am not a little surprised.  It was thrown together so quickly, and I never had the in-depth testing cycle I wanted.  I didn't honestly expect it to make it through Opening Weekend without flaws.  And it failed in a good way; it didn't turn on.  If it had failed to turn off, or if the lights had gone dead along one side, the audience would have realized something was broken.  As it was, the scene was merely a little less magical than we had intended.

I'm not 100% sure of what went wrong, and this is because my procedure was diagnostic, not forensic.  When I looked at the coat, the 9V style battery jack had pulled entirely off the battery pack.  Presumably the dangling length of battery cable had gotten snagged when he was dressing for the scene.  I've taped that now, and tacked up the dangling cable as well.

But when I plugged it back in, the coat still didn't answer the controller.  The picture above was taken by a co-worker after I'd pulled all the equipment boxes out of their pockets in the back of the coat and was probing at them. 

Blinkenlights on the Arduino and the XBee Shield showed they were getting power -- so battery cable, that part of the wiring harness, and the power regulators all checked out.  When I opened up the power switch box (the Altoids tin) I confirmed power at the busses there as well.

I plugged in a USB cable and via the Arduino IDE looked to see if I was getting a serial response out (there are several serial print commands written into the coat's software for debugging purposes.)  Nothing came out.  I reloaded the Arduino software.  Still nothing.

Rebooted the control software on the laptop (a Processing application that talks to the XBee transmitter on a Sparkfun USB breakout).  At that point, the Assoc Light lit up on the coat's XBee module, the coat confirmed reception of controller commands by echoing them back through the Arduino IDE...and the lights lit.

So my best guess is that simultaneously, the Processing ap borked (possibly because someone had jiggled the USB connection and it didn't restore it properly), and the plug pulled off the battery pack in the coat.  But I can't rule out that the software on the Arduino went bad (this does happen) and it needed to be reloaded before it would work again.

Wasn't a waste of my lunch break, though.  I took the opportunity to tack down the bags holding the equipment boxes, and tack down more of the wiring.  I've been tempted to take the whole thing home and re-stitch the equipment bags and add proper velcro closures...but it works, and it made it this far, and we've only got two weekends to go.

Tools

With the arrival of the sewing machine, my tool collection has grown once again.

Problem is, I have no space to deploy what I have.  I'm trying to put a small workbench together to hold the Dremel Scrollsaw, the Central Machinery (bah!) Drill Press, and the woefully underpowered Ace Bench Grinder.  At the moment, I'm using the Bernina 830 (the 57 Cadillac of sewing machines) on my drafting table, which also holds computer, the Krytronic Soldering Station, and serves as dinner table as well.  Oh, yes, and sometimes I draft there as well.

I dream of a lathe.  Doesn't everyone?  Not that a CNC mill would be a bad thing either.  Or a laser cutter/engraver.  I'm happy enough with sending out for 3d prints, though!  Some day when I'm feeling flush I mean to pick up a membership at the local Tech Shop, where I can finally get some lathe, mill, and shop-bot time in.  Welding, too, is something I'm unlikely to do much more of at home.  I reserve the right to braze some more brass and copper, though.  After all, I have the gas, and a box of fire bricks...


So here's a couple of other tools that have caught my eye of late;

Cordless soldering iron.  The last show was informative about how much of a fuss it can be sometimes to get power to a soldering iron out to where the work is.  I'm not sure this is quite recurring enough to carry a cordless iron with me everywhere, though.

Router attachment for the Dremel (the rotary tool, not the scrollsaw).  I have been itching to make a replica prop with the MDF technique, and slots and panel lines of those really call for a mini-router.  The router attachment Dremel makes is horrible.  Stew-Mac has a much better one but the base kit is $54.  Another tool I may have to wait a while on.

Wood/mini lathe.  When I say it is smarter to save metal working for Tech Shop, that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of useful stuff I could do with a lightweight lathe with a mere four inches between centers.  There are however very few in this category, and most of them are seriously underbuilt; you are better off constructing your own.  Which ends up being a few hundred bucks in parts.  Also, the thought of dust control, in my small space, is a nightmare.

I keep meaning to have a duplicate set of electronics repair tools so I don't have to pack and unpack my gig bag.  And now that I have a machine of my own, I could make a nice little tool roll for them as well.  Of course me being me, the temptation is far too high to spend the money on some silly fabric for it like a Sailor Moon print...

Especially because I have two different resources now for custom-printed fabric.

Ah, that's the problem with tools.  When you have a hammer, you start finding nails everywhere just longing to be hit.  Right now, everything looks like small flexible squares of woven material.  I've already loaded up a second bobbin, and I'm reading up on embroidery stitches...