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lorenzo

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Posts posted by lorenzo

  5. Posted · Report reply

    I've actually used a 500 watt version of the jewelry welder, it doesn't have nearly enough power to do the job either. You're looking at 1000W+ and/or a higher duty cycle. I find it's best to use a welder that can draw 1800W from a standard 120 Volt 15 Amp outlet, it gives a lot of flexibility when fine tuning weld parameters.

     

    It's my understanding that a suitable welder will be available from TRL again soon so keep an eye out for that.

  6. Posted · Report reply

    Looks good overall.  Very nice looking work on the spine, fitting on the torso is excellent.

     

    The sleeves could use a bit of work, looks like you had to make them overly large to get enough mobility. I'd get rid of those scales bunched up in the underarm, they aren't doing you any favours, better to just use straight rings for that area.

    Veilfras reacted to this

  7. Posted · Report reply

    Hi Jamie, pretty ambitious for a first project.

     

    As a general rule; the smaller the rings are the more seamless looking you can make your costume but the more work it takes overall. The shoulders and sleeves are the trickiest part, you generally need a lot of experience/talent to pull them off seamlessly and form fitting.

     

    -Small scales are always better unless you really want the look of large scales.

    -Stick to simple geometric shapes to keep the seams tidy looking, let the natural stretch of the material handle the form fitting part.

    -For the areas that you want to cover it would be simpler to do the entire thing as a one piece dress sort of arrangement, separate legs & crotch makes it much harder.

    -Metal costumes are relatively heavy, you'll likely want a cloth bodysuit to wear under it anyways to keep it from chafing.

    -The amount of hours involved in this for an amateur is likely to be huge, count on the better part of a year working in your spare time. it might be better to hire a professional for something like this.

  8. Posted · Report reply

    First of all it's only a design patent, it's meant to cover ornamental features and is not the same as a normal utility patent. As long as your design is substantially different, which shouldn't be difficult, you won't have a problem.

     

    With that said it's very doubtful that the design patent is valid, it seems strictly utilitarian to my way of thinking.

     

    Here's US court opinion for a similar design patent challenge, just FYI.

     

    http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/images/stories/opinions-orders/06-1562.pdf

     

    And here are some links to utility patents for various types of chainmail pot scrubbers. All of them indicate that the basic design was already quite well known at the time.

     

    https://www.google.com/patents/US422214

     

    https://www.google.com/patents/US442436

     

    https://www.google.com/patents/US717004

     

    https://www.google.com/patents/US2139175

     

    https://www.google.com/patents/US3241171

     

    If you'd like more assistance with this please feel free to contact me with the details and I'll see what I can do.

    calyx reacted to this

  11. Posted · Report reply

    Thanks. The gloves work great but they don't have as good a grip as cloth or leather so keep that in mind if the parts are very heavy.

     

    I weld rings with usually just a clear face shield and safety glasses, a welding mask isn't necessary, as long as they're a material that absorbs UV and you blink during the weld it's just fine. Use sunscreen if you're doing a lot of welding. You can also cover the weld area just before you weld with the thumb of your glove since there's no need to see a split second long weld. All the normal rules and procedures for welding need to be re-thought for this type of application.

     

    Rings exploding in your face is par for the course, it happened to me a couple of dozen times today alone. It's not really a big deal, anything 22g or smaller doesn't even have enough retained heat to be dangerous. I've had singed hair and 1st degree burns a couple times but usually the spatter is cool by the time it reaches you.

    Undrcvredneck reacted to this

  15. Posted · Report reply

    That depends on the capability of the rig that you have and the size of the rings that you want to weld.

     

    In my experience most non-inverter models don't have the current stability at low amperages to do a good job consistently from ring to ring. If you have an inverter TIG with a starting amperage of 10A or less then it should be okay for 16g or larger rings. I wouldn't try smaller jewelry rings unless you can get down to 2A and have a 2T function as well as either a timer or a very long pulse function(~.2-.5Hz).

     

    In general a rig like that will cost you a lot more than the jewelry welder and you'll never get the same fine control on very tiny welds, but if you already have one you should be able to make it work for most things.

    Undrcvredneck reacted to this

  19. Posted · Report reply

    The contractions on the scale bra are used to contour around the breasts for cosmetic or comfort issues and serve the same purpose in a shirt. Triangles vs. squares is irrelevant.

     

    You can use contractions on the shoulders of a raglan sleeve, they're helpful with getting a good fit using the tight AR rings that you have. I've tried it a couple times, it looks okay for costume but it's too restrictive for armour. I no longer use the raglan sleeve design since I can make seamless shoulders now.

     

    I use 4 expansion seams for hips; one on each side and one over each buttock. As far as I know Casquivana's shirt has only contractions, no expansions. As you can see it doesn't cover the hips and avoids most issues that way.

     

    There are likely contractions under the arms but they're entirely unrelated to covering the side of the breast or the armpit.

  20. Posted · Report reply

    As a general rule take your rings per hour with similar size and material  of rings while making e4-1 and then multiply that number by 1/3. That should be pretty close to your number of scales woven per hour but it varies with each person from 1/2 to 1/4 usually.

     

    For example: If you weave at about 300 rings per hours with stainless split rings then you'll likely run about 100 scales per hour with the same rings once you're practiced.

    Redbeard reacted to this

  22. Posted · Report reply

    Contractions for ladies shirts work exactly the same way as for men's you just need more or less of them based on the bust to waist ratio and the size of the scales. Keep them relatively evenly spaced and place them below natural contraction points such as breasts, shoulder blades and rib cage. You'll need to use larger AR rings than usual to maintain fit and flexibility with a seamless shirt, welded rings are highly recommended for this type of project and it would be more or less impossible with the rings that you're using. As I recall Kaz used the standard TRL split rings which are also too thick for a perfect form fit, they're more for munitions grade armour. As a result she didn't get enough flexibility out of the weave to make it seamless and had to lace the shirt up the back as a compromise.

     

    Here's a detail of proper placement for contractions in a shirt of this type. This shirt is my original prototype and had approx. 15cm difference between chest and waist.

     

    gallery_15_50779.jpg

     

    And here's one in a similar pattern with large scales that's been very well fitted to the lady who made it. This one was made by a member of who went by Casquivana, she may be available to comment on it's construction but hasn't been active for quite some time.

    gallery_15_13038.jpg

     

    gallery_15_28459.jpg

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