Sunday, November 1, 2009

Dressform progress

I have made progress on the dressform. Last night I ripped off (most) of the plaster to reveal the formy goodnesss ...


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Well, something like goodness, it's not exactly done. :-)

Starting from where I left off, the first step was to wipe down the inside with green soap, to help get the plaster off after the foam was poured ...

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Then came the wrapping with tape, to keep the form from splitting when the foam went in. I don't think it mattered for me, but I did it. I set the thing upside down in a box and took a deep breath ...

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The foam comes in tin cans. I mixed it up in Nancy's yogurt containers, of which I have an almost infinite supply. It's a 2 part mixture, take some amount from can A, mix with the same amount from can B & then it turns into foam. The instructions said to mix up 2 cups, but I was so freaked about the idea of splitting the form that I only mixed up one cup of each to start. It turns out that fewer, larger batches are a better idea, because the mixing container can only be used about twice before it gets to gunked up with foam.

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When it was done, I left it to cure for a week (the week part being the time between Sun afternoon, when I finished & the next Sat afternoon, when I had time to work on it).

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Then came the sawing off of the bottom. This is where the posture part comes in. I discovered that we had missed a step, which was the leveling marks while I was wearing the form. We were supposed to put on marks on the hips, front & back, which could be used to level the bottom. I had done a kind of leveling marks, by hanging the form from a coat hanger & marking around it before I sewed it up, so I used that. I'm sure it would have been better to have marked it while it was on me, but it is way too late now, so I just eye-balled it.

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My shoulders really aren't level, and one side really is more compressed than the others, so I just made the hips more or less level & the tilt front to back such that it seems kinda reasonable.

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Next is getting off the rest of the plaster & gluing the plywood on the bottom. Then comes covering it with fabric & putting it on the stand. Almost done!





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