I gave my skeleton a hard assessment today, noting all the things I want to be better. And I only have two complaints:
1. The stand is awful. It won’t hold position unless the bolts on the hinges are super-duper tight. Redesign the stand hinges.
2. The spine doesn’t operate well. Redesign the spine.
So overall not too bad. I redesigned the hinges so that they hopefully will lock together with minimal effort. I’m hoping to use knobs so no tools will be needed to adjust the stand. And I have an idea for the spine that will utilize gooseneck tube, which can be bent into any position and still sustain the weight of the rest of the skeleton. Gooseneck tube (if you don’t know) is that bendy tube part you see on a lot of desk lamps. If I can find some gooseneck tube that’s thin enough but still strong, I can maybe create vertebrae bones that can slip over the tubing. Not sure yet if that will work but I hope it will. That would make the skeleton super awesome as an artist mannequin.
The muscles still trouble me. I’m thinking some just stretch too far and tear regardless of if I have a good adhesive. I’m wondering if maybe I should have just built them all in their relaxed state rather than their contracted state. No…I think I made a good choice. I hadn’t tried the new gel adhesive yet so tonight I put a little POP primer on a silicone muscle and then applied the gel adhesive and attached it to the skeleton. I’ll test it out over the next few days and see if it holds up any better than the last stuff.
