the finished thing

These are the photos of the almost finished jetpack, there are a few things that I rushed towards the end of the day, I will re make these parts and finish it for the presentation and for a photo for my portolio.

the last few things

A gold and brass paint job, the paint I used was plasticote, this may be ok for doing RC car models or painting model railways, but I regretusing it on my model, especially the gold, the paint has a very shiny finish and because of this it needs hours and hours to dry properly, I didnt have hours and hour so the paint has been dulled by fingerprints, cloth imprints etc etc.

I was looking through some of the drawings I had done earlier in the project and had realised that some of them had swirls and filigree on the birds to indicate feathers but not realistically. I really liked the idea of this and set about drilling the designs out, In this photo, the lines in white are unpainted and the brown lines are the finished lines. I really like this improvement as it gives more detail to them and also makes them look more feminine.

The next things to go on were the wings, I hade made these from the same material as the harness, not only beause I had lots left but It would tie the jetpack in nicely with the harness. I used contact adhesive to attach the wings.

the jetpack is comeplete, now to attach it to the harness, im just going to screw through the harness into the jetpack, and i've made a small wedge at the base of the jetpack to point the exhaust away from the wearer.

Lathing the gauges

the start if the largest gauge, the chest gauge, made from a large bar of alluminium

after facing off the exess material, I set about making the angled im around the egde

next I bored out a large hole, this will help when it comes to boring out the whole cavity of the gauge

I used this boring tool to work from the inside if the hole that I just drilled, working from the inside to the outside of the gauge

 Finished shaping the gaug now, just parting off to do, I repeated the steps to make this gauge for the next one also

attaching the birds to the rocket

I've almost finished the jet pack now, I'm going to screw the rocket to a back plate and then the birds to the back plate.

going to surform the birds sides so that they fit snuggly onto the rocket

using a curved surform I made the profile of the rocket

I then set out to making the backplate

I've design the shape of this to give enough strength but to minimise weight and space. I also gave it a stylish flair so it doesnt stick out from the jet pack design

just placed the back plate over the rocket and birds to see where to attach it

I first screwed the rocket to the backplate as that is the center piece and the birds would attach to that

screwed the birds on with some long screws, I used three to optimise strength as the foam and plaster isnt really a strong material to screw into.

view from the top of the jetpack, this is looking pretty good now

because the foam and plaster isn't ideal to screw into im applying a few layers of fibreglass to strengthen the part im screwing into

im going to leave it over night to set then i'll sand it and re drill the holes tomorrow

I probably should have taken a few more pictures to explain what this is, the fire extinguisher is on a wall mount like this

image 170

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=fire+extinguisher+mounting+bracket&view=detail&id=AB2DB8DB95EC90D15C57847FB9310F4B17DBFF9F&first=1&FORM=IDFRIR the bracket I have has three holes for screws to mount it to a wall or inside the rocket, but I couldnt get a screw driver in the tube to screw it in, so I drill holes in line with the mounting bracket, then I screwed the bracket on and filled the drilled holes back in with car body filler, i'll sand it back to the surface of the rocket to hide to holes.

The day my camera batteries were flat

I didnt realise untill I came to take a picture that my camera batteries had run out of juice, this was very annoying.
What I got done today:

• sanded the additional filler I applied the night before
• Screwed the birds on again, throught the fibreglass that I applied yesturday
• drilled a hole in the rocket for the pressure gauge pipe 
• drilled and cut a hole for the pressure gauge housing to sit in
• pirimed the jetpack and most of the smaller items that I'll be attaching to the hand control
• sprayed the jetpack and fittings with gold and brass paint
• made milliput wing bones to later tonight attach the leather feathers to

I will get some more batteries later tonight and upload an image or two of the jetpack as it is now, and some more images of the progress I make tonight also.

The wings that I'm going to make will be made from the same leather that I made the harness from so that they fit the colour scheme of the jetpack and because I still have quite a bit of it left over.

The wings will be made up of individual feathers and then sewn into a sheet of feathers that I will attach to the wing bones, making these wings was going to be left out but I'm not keen on the look of the jetpack as it is now as it seems very plain and boring so these wings will make it seem much better.

testing the trigger mechanism

Ive decided that tonight I'm going to go ahead and finish the trigger so i'm going to test the trigger mech to see if and how well it works,

I think it worked really well, only took one test so I'm pleased with that, I also liked the sound that the extinguisher makes when firing the powder out, it almost sounds like a thruster, The width of the jet is good and the amount of powder in the extinguisher is enough to take a few photos.

Im going to attach the trigger and cable to the finished jetpack by drilling a hole through the jetpack and making loops inside the harness for the cable to go through

the hand control

so I've started to collect things to make the control, including this old bicycle break leverm im using this as it is vintage and simple so that there isnt much that can go wrong with the mechanism.

I've attached it to this piece of pipe just to show how it will work, im going to use a thicker handle on the final one though as the space between the handle and trigger is uncomfortable.

Im using a handle from a small paint roller as the base for my handle, Ive stuck the lever to the handle with milliput, im going to sand thge milliput smooth when it sets, then make a leather handle grip to cover the majority of the plastoc handle and some of the lever body,

to make the trigger work im using a number of components from a bike break system, this is a cable grip bolt, the cable goes through that small hole, then a washer goes on then a nut to clamp the cable in place, but since this bolt isnt going to be on a break arm, im having to make the section with the hole thinner so the nut can screw all the way upthe bolt,

using a grinding disk on my dremel tool I grinded away some of the bulk material.

once I had it the right  thickness the nut was able to fasten all the way up to the wire making it secure to attach to the fire extinguisher,

The harness

Since I've made the maquette harness and now ave my fabric I'm gonna get started with the harness.

drawing out the pattern with tailors chalk, adding a border round it to allow for seams.

once I cut them out I layed them all out , this is what it looked like

after sewing all the pieces together I added the belt straps, I sewed them like this so that it not only gave the harness structure but I really like the look of this.

the inside looked like this below

I had to be really careful when sewing throught the belt, I snapped 4 machine needles in total for the harness, and one almost went in my eye. Might be a good idea to wear goggles next time I sew through belts or other thick stubborn materials.

this is a view from the back of the harness, this is only the outside ply, im also going to sew an inner ply in anoter colour material, see howthe belts add detail to the harness, im going to use more belt on te fron parts to also make the front as riggid as the back but also to add detail to the front.

the harness is almost done, it has taken quite a lot of work to get it to this stage and am quite pleased with it so far

luckily I was able to disassemble the belts to individual pieces, this would make the straps neater and would be easier to atachthem to the harness.

maquette for the harness

I had michaela round so i could get started on making the harness, made this paper maquette first using an image from google

image 169

http://www.softcom.net/users/unicorn/cont.htm

 to sketch out the basic shape of the parts

this was the first stp to getting the right size and making adjustments, it was quite fiddely and time consuming, but as soon as i got this made i was able to make another maquette from fabric, i just used an old pillowcase,

The paper templates on the fabric ready to draw round and cut out, these shapes are the size of the final shape, im going to add about a centimeter onto all the edges to allow for sewing pieces together and to hem the edges,

after the shapes have been drawn out with the extra material on the edges, I cut them out and made adjustments to the corners so they could be folded and sewn neatly,

the boarders on these are about 1cm all the way round, I cut the corners off because they're not needed and would just get in the way and make the sewing messy.

to make sure that the sewing machine stayed on corse and that the curve was sewn as designed I used pins to keep the material in place

this is all the parts sewn together, when I made this one, I sewed two peices together at a time, I will sew all the pieces together at once on the leather one so that the stitching will flow smoother.

harness joints

image 168

http://www.totalgamingnetwork.com/showthread.php?192093-More-Duke-Nukem-Forever-Content-Released

this harness is pretty simple but it gives me a rough idea of the shape of the harness im making.

jetpack control

thinking about which side to have the control, i would instinctively put it on the left as that is the most common and logical,

image 167

http://gta.wikia.com/Jetpack
this jetpack is from GTA san andreas and as you can see the control is on the left,

small detail

since some of the items im making the jetpack with are 'found items' im going to make small details for them to make them look more original, like screw covers or decorative jewelery etc
an idea for he pressure gauge on the jetpack would be to make something to cover the elbow joint pipe tat connects it to he jetpack, something like this would look great,

hand control design

to make the fire extinguisher fire on demand im going to make a control that the wearer can opporate and activate with out setting timers or having any remote control electronic server stuff, im going to use a break sytem from a bike to pull the trigger on the fire extinguisher, so im going to design and make a control which the user either holds or has on the wrist etc...
few images that inspire me,

image 166

http://en.akihabaranews.com/13585/misc/steampunk-watches-will-you-dare this watch is amazing, i love how it has a really comlex wrist support strap and the vintage clock on the front is sprung in place, the leather is also a really nice touch,
the following watches are from the same site,

image 165

this one has less machanism and more leather, this one would probably be more comfortable and wouldn't catch on things unlike the one above,

image 164

i like the smaller clock on this one, it has that rugid look again, and the simple clock face also lends to the solid look, almost looks like its just a circular block of brass with a clock face on it,

image 163

this is another one with lots of mechanisms going on, the aged finish of these watches make them look much better than if they were polished till they were spotless, i like the aged look, and think it would make it more beliveable as a prop.

image 162

http://hacknmod.com/hack/diy-incredible-steampunk-watches/

these are homemade watches made in a steampunk manor, they all have alternate straps so they fit differently to normal ones.

image 161

http://cncntrc.tumblr.com/page/2

this watch is much like something i want for the hand control, something thats designed to be worn as a wrist/hand combo, i like the clock face being on the thumb holster part of this watch too, and also the cannister thing on the wrist strap.

image 160

image 159

http://macabre151.deviantart.com/art/Functional-Steampunk-Wrist-Gun-156871608
this wrist device looks pretty cool, and the cable running up the arm is similar to whatim going to make, im going to make mine more descreet though

here are some sketches i've put together regarding the bike break lever and a gauge or dial of some kind, i would like to make or buy a speed gauge for this control as it would be more practical to have the speed gauge in an easiely viewed place.

i thouht of this design when i saw 'Ray Steam' from the film 'Steamboy' and just alteredit to what i need,

this deisgn is similar to the above but has slightly more ergonomic shape to it, i also added a whistle, im not keen on this design so ill say clear of shapes like these.

this design is somethin that would work really well, practically, the glove allows the user to hold other things aswell as the contol to the jetpack, the speed gauge is on the inside of the wrist because when in flight the inside of thewrist wold be more comfortable facing inwards towards the persons body, therefore making it easier and more comfortable to look at the speed etc.

these drawings basically show a number of different lever/trigger design, some with finger holes, some shortened so that only two or one finger is need to pull the lever back.

 the first of these designs were inspired by an object in the film 'Steamboy'

(a screen shot taken from the film 'Steamboy')
and the other designs were adaptations of that.

image 159

http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=45560&start=75
this is the 'big sister' from 'bioshock 2' i like the double gauge glove on the left hand, and the style of this costume is similar to what I'm making,