This Month's Project: Reclining Chair Mechanism

This month's project is a reclining chair. Was going to originally make a wingback chair, but that wouldn't have been fun at all. To start the program, I needed a mechanism. A bit of digging, and I found this auto-reclining mechanism on a european supplier site:

Unfortunately, this was the only image I could find that was workable: semi-profile view and a clear view of all the components. It's simple but also a good start. Time to draft schematics!

I started off by attempting to draw the mechanism in workable views to get an idea of how the parts worked. Since I was using Magic cards to build this, I decided to build all struts and members with 3mm wide cards and 1/16" holes to fasten them to each other.

With the preliminary drawings done, I drafted some mockup parts to test out movement.

Leg rest mechanism folded. The initial build didn't fold neatly as I'd like, so I changed one of the angles on the curved arm to better fold the assembly.

Here is the mechanism extended. Worked out fine, except I didn't know what the round disc element did early on. Turns out, that piece allows the back rest to recline further. I learned that this mechanism lets you extend the leg rest by reclining back, without the use of a switch or lever.

With the main mechanism finalized, I proceeded to cut out two sets of parts out of 4-card thick stacks of Magic.

To fasten the parts, I bent paper clips into U shaped staples. To lock the parts, I threaded the paper clips through 1/16" holes drilled with a manual hobby drill, and bent the ends like the ends of a staple.

Paper clips worked well in holding the struts in place, but there's a noticeable lack of support along the axial direction of rotation due to the small area. To rectify this, the two sets of parts will need to be linked with a cross bar to keep the parts centered.

This diagram served to plan out how the parts would overlap. Since there's quite an amount of parts, I needed to sort out how they'd overlap and how they'd be joined to the main frame parts. After some gluing and shimming, we get the following result:

Well, that worked out way better than I hoped. I didn't expect this thing to actually work out at all, structurally with Magic cards. Time to draft schematics for the sides of the chair!

From here, it's all "wing it". I modeled the chair off the actual chair's finished appearance, with the exception that mine's a lot more crappy. And I've also designed zero other reclining chairs ever in my life. Won't stop me from continuing on with this project.

Next time: we make large slabs of cards and sew some cushions!

Weekend Roundup: ACEN and Ribbons That Make UPS Proud

Last weekend was ACEN, Anime Central's convention up in Rosemont, Illinois. Apparently the midwest's anime and manga convention. I prefer to consider that event a one stop shopping center that lasts three days.

My main goal for any store that sells Japanese import toys is to find interesting and unique specimens. I'm very particular in not buying two of anything in the same product line, since that provides no new information for developing new structures. That thereby excluded purchasing a Revoltech, Kaiyodo's Trigun: the Planet Gunsmoke figures (I already have three anyways since I loved the series and build quality), a masterpiece Transformer, a BBI doll, and some random Halo figure. That said, I was left with some possible targets:

• Max Factory's Figma line
• A ball jointed doll (such as Obitsu or Volks)
• Wildcard figure I discover (my favorite option)

After a $35 admission fee, $5 parking, 3-4 hours of browsing, I came home with my single find:

A Book.

A book I have a scanned copy of. A book I can't read. A book that cost me $110. (Technically $150 after all costs.)

To be fair, it's two books, out of print, and the only artbook from the Valkyrie Profile series worth buying since Silmeria's artist Shunya Yamashita doesn't do a good job with armor. I can't find this book anywhere for any price; only the combo Lenneth-Silmeria Artbook for $87. And that book is apparently hardcover too. This one's paperback with a sleeve.

So much for buying figures. I passed on a Master Grade Sinanju ($95 of potential gundam building fail, at some random stall), every single Figma I saw (small, and very unappealing selection), and there were only 1/3 scale ball jointed dolls. As for the wildcard, some mildly exciting Full Metal Panic blindboxed figures were tempting, but not for $13 apiece. At least the artbook stores nicely on my cramped shelf.

After that midly disappointing haul, I finished off the last few annoyances on Aelia. I finally bought some brown ribbon. That means belts. Having belts made means I can prime the armor plating soon. Time to showcase what ribboned belts can do. Certainly better than masking tape.

Generic test pose. I like to use this as a comparison to the artbook so I know what's missing.


I finally have the straps holding her skirt plates together. Two paper clips had to die in order to make this. Their sacrifice will be remembered.

A back shot of the skirt plates. A bit of undesired overlap.

Having working belts for holding the greaves together is really nice. Masking tape really doesn't work.

Now, having obtained my brown ribbon, I need to find some brown cloth for the gloves.

J.Norad's Tool Rack

Finally decided to organize my tools. I spent a few minutes trying to find my hand drill, which was buried underneath a pile of markers and my scissors. However, the local Target was less than cooperative in supplying me with a desk organizer that wasn't utterly useless or made of pastel Easter colors. Well, considering I have on me several large boxes of the world's greatest building resource, that's not a problem! Time to bust out those LEGO.

I've now sorted my tools by shape and function. The back row has my cutting and scoring tools and markers. The middle row has all the odd elements: tweezers, screwdrivers, scissors and my special set of tube making rods. On the far right is my drying rack for stuff that I'm painting, held up by a set of bamboo sticks. Lastly, I've added a small section to hold all my heavily used Dremel bits. No more hunting down things for five minutes.

The local Target was more than cooperative in assisting me with obtaining a set of pliers. These were the Stanley 6 pack of assorted pliers. Unfortunately, one came with a defective spring that I had to replace. Got to love quality American tools. I rarely work with wire, but when I do, it's rather delicate. I've been cutting my paper clips and wire with regular scissors, which is a really bad idea. Diagonal cutters to the rescue!

I already own a set of beadmaking jewelry pliers for shaping those rounded elements. However, for the next task of making belt buckles, I needed a better, square shaped tool: needle nosed pliers. These aren't too bad, but I could have probably gone for a finer tip.

Making belt buckles is like making miniature paper clips. You sure don't want to have to make a lot of them. These buckles will be used to hold the skirt flaps in place for Aelia. I won't be putting them together until everything's been painted unfortunately.

This (Last) Weekend(day)'s Project: Meltina (Mystina)

About those buttons I mentioned last time...

I was working on a Mystina outfit for Miranda. Despite her not having the right hair color or me having the right shade of light purple (or "Light urple" for you Celebrity jeopardy fans), I went for it. Who's this Mystina character you speak of and why is she also called "Meltina", you ask.

Valkyrie Profile, Tri-Ace, 1999. Perhaps now one of the most interesting cases of "supply and demand" for a video game. No demand when it came out, and therefore not a lot of supply now when the demand rose. This game was notable for the amount of voice acting and cut scenes, and notorious for even the tiniest of scratches on the CD rendering the game worthless. Sealed copies can be swindled for $130 at your local gaming pawn shop, while the re-release can be had for a modest $30 or so.

Anyways, Mystina is one of the mages you can recruit in the game. Meltina is her Japanese name, which sounds really weird regardless of which language you're native to. Sounds like she has something to do with converting solid states of mass to a liquid form. My search for a blue mage costume went sour after flipping through several Magic: the Gathering card visual spoilers, and I decided to mess with this fabric I picked up cheap. No idea what it is, but it's silky, uncontrollable, and a pain to stencil patterns onto without it rolling/stretching out.

Yep. Brunette and with maroon shirt. It actually looks like the colors her in-game sprite has in the Playstation version in combat. I'm not going to go for full accuracy, since I have no idea how to make the frilly doily looking things on her sleeves and collar. Best I can do is this quasi-silk shirt thing. Might as well now highlight the main purpose of the previous post: the irregular buttons.
Blue triangular buttons. I didn't want to cheapen her costume with velcro, because that's the way of dollar bin costuming (Yes, I used Velcro for the TF2 characters, but I went for in-game appearance than functionality. They don't seem to have any visible means of fastening their clothes together.). It would diminish her uniqueness more, as she's not a unique head sculpt by any means, and velcro would make her clothing reminiscent of Barbie and the rest of the sluttier knock-offs that have surfaced.

There's not a lot I can do with her costume, aside from give her something that doesn't scream "slut dressed in vinyl with an uzi". Her lack of willing-dismemberment forces me to actually start manufacturing buttons and such to overcome the barrier of using velcro to secure everything. You can't tell due to her shirt covering it up, but she's using the belt buckle technique I used on the Kris Mage.

I'll have to get around to making boots for her and "completing" her outfit fully. Problem is that I have no idea how to make decent small boots...yet.

This Weekend's Project: Button Making

Sometimes, you need to sew on some buttons. Hopefully, you won't need to sew on doll buttons for 1:6 scale clothes. When you do, you have to end up buying these for 5 for $1.30 at a clothing/fabric store.

Unfortunately, they only sell 5mm diameter buttons of this color. What if you need something that's not... a clear plastic circle?

Being the general nature of how things are made here, you can guess what we're gonna use! Magic! The button thickness is roughly 4 layers thick. Five or six layers can also work, but I don't need the extra thickness. If you wish to try to waterproof these, you can consider covering them in a layer of Loc-tite glue or varnish/epoxy. If you were smarter, you would have some spare plastic lying around to make these with. The only plastic I have handy is a lot of CD jewel cases and some VHS tapes. Not quite ideal to work with.

For the shape, you're gonna need to work on your X-acto skills. Or find a nice hole punch that is the right size. Conveniently, a 1/4" hole punch is about the same diameter for these buttons, but they might be a bit large. I'm making triangular shaped buttons, so I'm going to have to use lots of imprecise cutting and eyeballing. I could have measured these out, but that's too late.

The holes for the buttons can be drilled out with a 1/8" drill bit. Magic cards don't have a lot of strength to them against drilling, so go slow. Or if you used a real stock material like PLASTIC, you'll be fine using a hand drill. Dremel users will want to make the holes first before cutting their final shape. Nothing like drilling a hole and suddenly finding out that the buttonhole is bleeding. Space your button holes 1mm apart.

Ideally at this point, I'd have something to show for my task. I'll highlight the results in the next post, even though the result will be very small.

Construction Techniques: Belt Buckles Out of Paper Clips

Sometimes, you need something now and can't be bothered buying something to gut and harvest for parts. Today, I'll highlight making belt buckles out of regular paper clips. First, you'll need the following items:

• Any paper clip (This was done with regular uncoated non-hex clip paper clips)
• Jeweler's needle nose pliers (rounded tips for bending coils and stuff)
• Small regular pliers (flattened gripping surfaces)
  
• Lots of determination and a steady hand

First, you'll need to straighten out the paper clip. Don't worry about accuracy, as long as it's bent straight. Try to minimize cold working the paper clip (bending it back and forth). The more you bend the paper clip, the weaker the clip will get as you will easily get to the state of fatiguing the metal.

The above image shows roughly the belt buckle shape. You want to take your jeweler's pliers to do the bending, by holding the region where you want the bend to be with the tips, then bending the paper clip around it. You want to form a shape that looks like a window, as illustrated by the top drawing. It should look like a window, or a blocky "8". To cut off the excess material, you simply need to score or notch where you want it to break off, then simply cold work that region. The notch will grow as you cold work it, eventually leading to a fracture.

The trick to getting the buckle to work is to bend the two halves at an angle, illustrated by the bottom part of the drawing shown above. With the buckle bent this way, the belt strap or whatnot will have to overcome more friction to become undone. This will allow you to put belts around curved objects without needing the little pin and notches used to hold a belt in place.

Here's a demonstration of the paper clip belts in use on the Kris Mage.

I've used paper clips to do the loops on the dress where I fed the ribbon through. Below that, there are two belt buckles that hold pretty well by themselves. You'll need to sew or attach your belt to the middle section to complete your belt.

I'll be experimenting with more belt buckles as I upgrade my TF2 dolls with better belt materials. Cardboard isn't cutting it, nor are they up to standards.