Re: WIP Ironman Costume for 5yr old - Arms Finished!
HANDPLATE REPULSOR TRIGGER
Sorry for yet another long post, but here's a photo-heavy post regarding my attempt to build a repulsor trigger within the handplate piece.
First off, I'll show you my first attempt... and total failure! This is a picture of a sloppy, limp, card-stock pep of the handplate I tried to harden with fiberglass.
After this I decided to create a foam version, and then harden it with epoxy (which I have used before in sections of the arm where extra strength was needed or wear-and-tear will happen).
Here is a picture of the foam handplate build using 3mm EVA closed-cell foam. It will fit 60% on the wrist piece with the overlapping 30% hanging over the back of the glove.
My plan is to have the two sections hinged with the back section mounted on the wrist piece (in my case this is a hardened fiberglass piece). The front section of the handplate will then be spring-loaded to stay close to the back of the glove. As the hand is bent backward in a motion that reveals the palm repulsor, the spring-loaded front section of the handplate will move a lever inside the piece which will depress an electric switch -- which triggers the sound and light effects.
Here is that bad sketch I did of the planned switch...
Once built, the foam handplate pieces needed to be hardened... but at the same time, they needed to remain 'lined up' so they fit together nicely.
My solution for this was to insert 1/16" shims between the pieces and then tape down the sections from the opposite side I was going to harden with epoxy.
Here is what the piece looked like with the spacers and tape on the the top/finished side before I epoxied the underside of the piece.
And here is the same pre-epoxy piece from the underside...
After epoxy...
And then after removing the spacers, cleaning up any overflowing/connecting epoxy, I taped the spacers back into position from the underside so I could epoxy the top/finished side.
And, after both side were done, I pierced the piece with a narrow-gauge wire as my hinge.
Here is a video demonstrating the range of motion of the epoxied foam piece...
I just received my 2-pin connectors today (which I plan to use to connect the handplate electronics to the glove light). I will be playing around with wiring this puppy in the next couple days... and I'll post my results!
Thanks for putting up with my ridiculously long posts! :rolleyes